Day 406 - San Francisco, CA

 Today's post is about stress.  Over the last few months, I've had a lot of stressful things happen.  I had someone I was quite in love with break up with me, then I got just about the sickest I've ever been, then I went through dental hell, and as I write this, I'm standing at a cubbyhole in the Hall of Justice waiting to find out whether I will have to serve on a jury.  Ive been called, and a few minutes from now some attorneys are going to ask me a bunch of hard questions that I'm not looking forward to.  A lot of change is in the works in my life, and a lot of things have been happening to good friends of mine as well.  The point here is not to make anyone feel sorry for me; the point is, I've had a lot of what my old meditation teacher called "opportunities"; specifically, opportunities to see how I've managed to  progress in terms of my ability to handle stress.  And the verdict is mixed.  It's clear that I'm definitely better at handling stress than I used to be.  Any one of the things I've gone through in the last couple of months might have been enough to set me on edge in the old days.  So hooray for that.  But it's just as clear that stress still has a really profound effect on me.  No surprise there, I suppose: stress has a profound effect on all of us.  But it's still interesting, maybe even disappointing, how much of an effect it has.  It's like, even if you see it coming, and even if you've trained yourself to try to deal with it, it still just hits you like a mack truck.  It sneaks up on you, too; you find yourself being snippy with someone at work, or not being able to pay attention to a conversation with a good friend.  In particular, I find myself really wanting to be alone, to curl up in a ball and just hide from the world.  Which sucks, because the world is awesome and there's a lot of really great stuff out there.  Most of the bad things that have happened to me are a) not as bad as they seem and b) over with already, so it's crappy that they still linger and keep me from enjoying what's to come.  I think the only thing I can honestly do is be kind to myself, to acknowledge that, to some extent, stress and the stress response are just biological facts, things I can't control any more than I can change my height, or women can get rid of their period.  It's just part of the human condition.

The question becomes, though, to what extent to live life in such a way as to avoid stress.  That is, I could organize my life in a way where avoiding stress is a priority.  I haven't really done that; I've been willing to do things like move and change jobs.  And in my personal life, I've picked people to date and be friends with, without really making lack of stress a big part of that decision making process.  It's not that I seek out stress, it's just that I've been willing to trade stress for other things I want in life.  And, in general, I'm happy with that trade.  It feels like that's the right answer.  But I do find myself continually re-examining that set of priorities.  I can see how, as people get older, they get more risk averse, if only because you become so aware of how awful it is to be stressed out.  It's bad in the obvious ways, sure, but it's bad in so many little ways too; you don't eat right, you don't sleep well, you make poor life choices, etc., etc.

Sometimes it does make you wonder if it's worth it!

Day 406 - San Francisco, CA

 Today's post is about stress.  Over the last few months, I've had a lot of stressful things happen.  I had someone I was quite in love with break up with me, then I got just about the sickest I've ever been, then I went through dental hell, and as I write this, I'm standing at a cubbyhole in the Hall of Justice waiting to find out whether I will have to serve on a jury.  Ive been called, and a few minutes from now some attorneys are going to ask me a bunch of hard questions that I'm not looking forward to.  A lot of change is in the works in my life, and a lot of things have been happening to good friends of mine as well.  The point here is not to make anyone feel sorry for me; the point is, I've had a lot of what my old meditation teacher called "opportunities"; specifically, opportunities to see how I've managed to  progress in terms of my ability to handle stress.  And the verdict is mixed.  It's clear that I'm definitely better at handling stress than I used to be.  Any one of the things I've gone through in the last couple of months might have been enough to set me on edge in the old days.  So hooray for that.  But it's just as clear that stress still has a really profound effect on me.  No surprise there, I suppose: stress has a profound effect on all of us.  But it's still interesting, maybe even disappointing, how much of an effect it has.  It's like, even if you see it coming, and even if you've trained yourself to try to deal with it, it still just hits you like a mack truck.  It sneaks up on you, too; you find yourself being snippy with someone at work, or not being able to pay attention to a conversation with a good friend.  In particular, I find myself really wanting to be alone, to curl up in a ball and just hide from the world.  Which sucks, because the world is awesome and there's a lot of really great stuff out there.  Most of the bad things that have happened to me are a) not as bad as they seem and b) over with already, so it's crappy that they still linger and keep me from enjoying what's to come.  I think the only thing I can honestly do is be kind to myself, to acknowledge that, to some extent, stress and the stress response are just biological facts, things I can't control any more than I can change my height, or women can get rid of their period.  It's just part of the human condition.

The question becomes, though, to what extent to live life in such a way as to avoid stress.  That is, I could organize my life in a way where avoiding stress is a priority.  I haven't really done that; I've been willing to do things like move and change jobs.  And in my personal life, I've picked people to date and be friends with, without really making lack of stress a big part of that decision making process.  It's not that I seek out stress, it's just that I've been willing to trade stress for other things I want in life.  And, in general, I'm happy with that trade.  It feels like that's the right answer.  But I do find myself continually re-examining that set of priorities.  I can see how, as people get older, they get more risk averse, if only because you become so aware of how awful it is to be stressed out.  It's bad in the obvious ways, sure, but it's bad in so many little ways too; you don't eat right, you don't sleep well, you make poor life choices, etc., etc.

Sometimes it does make you wonder if it's worth it!

Day 405 - San Francisco, CA

Today I want to write a little about my parents.  Continuing on the theme of positivity, my parents have definitely been a positive influence in my life, and I'd like to talk a little bit about who they are.  There's no question that we've had our difficulties, but as I've come to understand them as people, not just as parents, I've learned a lot about life and developed a lot of respect.  

My mother is kind of an amazing person.  She was born in the Buffalo area to a very ethnically Polish and German mom and dad, one of 4 kids; not the youngest, not the oldest.  Her dad was a carpenter of sorts and her mom - my Grandma, who would turn out to be one of the most influential people in my life - did all sorts of things, including at one point running her own lunch counter.  My mom was very smart, and she ended up going to college, which was a big deal back in those days.  She got into lots of different schools but her mom forbid her from going to far from home so she ended up at UB (University of Buffalo), not a bad school, not a great school.  I think she majored in Economics.  She's got a great story about how the only class she ever failed was Bowling, because they made her get up at 8 in the morning to go to the bowling alley and she just kind of didn't see the point.  Her senior year, not knowing what the heck to do with herself, she was strongly considering joining the Peace Corps when she saw a listing for a class on campus in this weird thing called Programming.  She took it, mostly just for fun.  At the end of the semester, a bunch of recruiters from companies she'd never heard from, like RCA and IBM, came on campus and basically - in a desperate need to hire - offered good full-time jobs to anybody who had taken that class and gotten anything remotely passable.  So my Mom became one of the very first female professional programmers.  It's important to note that my mom is very attractive; tall, blonde, etc.  So, yeah, you can just imagine.  She never talked about it much, but I know she was subject to all kinds of harassment.  I do remember, when I was older, that she talked about this one guy she worked for - Ned - who was a total sleaze.  It's funny the way my parents met, because my Dad met my mom at work and kinda stalked her for almost half a year, asking her out repeatedly until she finally said yes.  What's funny about that story is that my Mom doesn't even really remember all that; she was oblivious.  Growing up, what I remember about my Mom was that she was always, always right, which was deeply infuriating, especially when I was a teenager.  My Mom is a perfectionist; she can walk into a room and immediately tell you which fork on the table is in the wrong place.  I learned a lot of things from her, mostly good things like work ethic, and the power of doing the right thing, and the joy of math and engineering.  I also learned, though, that people are only good if they are right, and that your worth is dependent on how good of a job you do, and a lot of other unhelpful things.  My mom - by her own admission - didn't have much of a maternal instinct.  I never really got a surplus of hugs.  Her way of showing she cared was to set me up for success in life, which is how I wound up taking the SAT 4 times, or applying to 13 of the top 25 colleges.  

My Dad, on the other hand, actually comes across as kind of jokey and lazy at first (which couldn't be further from the truth).  He's a Dad's Dad, full of bad Dad jokes.  He was the son of a troubled family; his Mom was cool, but she was kind of weak, and she died when he was 12.  His Dad was an absolute jerk; the kind of 1950s era male jerk that hopefully you don't see too much of anymore.  He didn't care at all about the kids.  I know this because he was still alive when I was born and didn't pass away until I was about 20 or so, but I only met him once or twice.  He used to drive with his new wife straight down I-95 twice a year, coming within 10 miles of our house, and never stopped.  He sent me a pencil set for my graduation - the only thing he ever bought me - and he engraved them with his own name.  When my Mom died, he sent the kids off to live god knows where.  For a while my Dad lived with his grandma, and then his Dad was forced to take the kids back.  What my Dad remembers most about growing up is being on his own; leaving the house, sometimes, at the age of 13, and not coming home for days.  He learned about life the hard way, and his whole life I think he's secretly felt that people largely don't give a crap about each other (because nobody gave much of a crap about him).  Which hasn't stopped him from being an awesome person.  He left to join the Navy, served 3 years - hated every minute - then got out and put some of his new Navy electronics skills to work sorting checks at a bank.  Despite not having a college degree, he worked his way from the mail room all the way up to VP of the bank.  My Dad has always worked really hard; whether that be with raising us, remodeling houses, at the bank; he never shies away from a difficult problem, and he generally has a pretty good attitude.

My parents did a good job of raising me and my younger brother.  We never wanted for anything.  They paid for us to go to college; education was super important to both of them.  We learned about how to be good people.  They sent us to church until we were old enough to decide if we wanted to go on our own (answer: no).  I fought with my parents, especially my Mom.  Mostly, the problem I had as a child was that I felt like I never really got to *be* a child.  My parents treated us like young adults.  That worked out OK for my younger brother, but it didn't work out so well for me.  I definitely had an inner goofball, an inner child, that felt out of place in my family.  My parents don't really goof around.

As an adult, my parents have become helpful friends.  Sometimes I wish they were more obvious about how much they loved me; more affectionate.  They don't call very often, and I wish they would.  But, they're always there for me if I need them.  There are very few people I can call anytime of the day or night, but my parents will always pick up the phone.  They deserve the awesome twilight years they are having now; I get the sense that they're having a lot of fun in Florida, and I think that's awesome because they deserve it.  I respect their hard work and attitude towards life.  I also think it's great that they're in such great health because it bodes well for me as I get older.  My Dad just picked up going to the gym, even though he's in his 70s.

One of the things I've learned from meeting so many people in San Francisco, and doing so much dating, is how *terrible* a lot of parents are.  I used to complain a lot more about mine, until I started to realize how bad it could have been!  I'd say my parents are at least in the 90th percentile!  Anyway, that's a bit of insight into my folks, Bob and Camille.

Day 403 - San Francisco, CA

Tonight I went and watched the movie “Inside Out”.  A lot of people had told me this was a great movie, and those people were right.  But it was more than just a great movie.  It was permission to feel sad.

A warning: this post is a bit of a spoiler.  If you haven’t seen the movie, and you think you want to (and you should, because it’s great), *and* you feel like the narrative is going to be a big part of your enjoyment, then don’t read the rest of this.  This movie operates on two levels.  On the one level, it’s just a really good Pixar action-adventure movie that strikes their usual balance between being kid-friendly and still being very much on an adult level.  There are fun dramatic action sequences, interesting characters, a plot, a good guy, some evil forces (no real bad guy, which is one of the interesting things which we’ll get to), etc., etc.  It works as a pure hollywood movie, if that’s all you want to see it as.

But on another level, it’s a pretty deep philosophical commentary.  Which is noteworthy in and of itself.  This is the first movie they’ve made that I honestly think everyone in the entire world should see, because it speaks to a really core part of the human experience.  I guess the opening sequence of Up, dealing with aging and loss, is the closest equivalent; but this time they made that into the whole movie.  What Inside Out really is, is permission to feel sad.  And that’s something I needed to hear right now.

It’s hard, right now, for me to be sad.  There’s a lot of reasons for this.  Some of them are purely in my head, and some are not.  First of all, I’m male, and men just societally are not rewarded for their emotions.  Second, I’m 38, and people who are 38 are supposed to have their shit together.  Third, I’m single, and as a single person, you feel like you’re constantly on stage.  Nobody wants to date someone who’s depressed.  Fourth, I’m a software engineer, and the child of two software engineers.  I was not raised to have emotions.  My emotions frightened and confused my parents.  In our family, I’m basically the drama queen.  Watching how sad and scared my parents would get when I felt sad, I learned to try very hard not to feel sad.  Fifth, I live in San Francisco.  Loss, and sadness, and regret are just not something we seem to do well in this town.  SF is all about the next shiny new thing.  People try very hard not to age.  They build defenses against loss, primarily by just (pretending to) not give a shit about anything.  We do sarcasm, disgust, fear and anger really well, but *sadness* is just not something that gets talked about a lot.  There’s nothing cool about being depressed.  That wasn’t true, by the way, where I grew up, in Buffalo.  In Buffalo, people understand that sadness is part of a well-balanced way of life.  We spend 3 or 4 months buried under snow and grey skies, so yeah, we get it.  And a funny thing, too: I’ve never seen people happier than Buffalonians during those precious 3 or 4 weeks of pure summer.  Everyone is out having the best time ever, because they know what’s coming.  In SF, we don’t have seasons.  Every day is either perfect or slightly colder then you want it to be, depending on your frame of reference.  But no seasons.

So, yeah - sadness is not supposed to be on the menu.  But here’s the thing: I’m fucking sad.  No, I’m not depressed.  I used to be depressed, but I’m really not anymore.  I’m looking forward to the good things in my life that are hopefully on the horizon, and I’m energized by the things that I have in the works.  But that does not mean that I am not sad.  Because I am.  Sometimes, I’m really sad.  Some days are hard.  Sometimes I feel like I don’t want to get out of bed.

I’ve spent the last 7 years bouncing from short-term relationship to short-term relationship.  I’ve told 4 or 5 people that I loved them, only to have that loved rejected or ignored.  When I look back at Christmases and New Years, I’m mostly in the frame alone.  Almost every fun thing I’ve done over the last 7 years, I did with someone who’s no longer here to talk about it with.  And that makes me sad.  Really sad.  I’m someone who likes to form deep relationships, but the people around me have mostly rejected that.  I’m 38 years old, and my best friends are still those I made a long time ago, people I never get to see.  When I wake up in the morning, I have nobody there with me, and yeah, that makes me really sad.  And the more I push that down, the more I pretend it doesn’t bother me, well, the worse it gets.  I need permission to be sad - usefully sad - about that.  Because, like the movie shows us, every emotion has a purpose.  Fear keeps us safe.  Disgust keeps us from getting poisoned.  Anger gives us the strength to confront injustice.  And sadness is important too.  First, it’s important as a foil to happiness.  Things that are bittersweet are often the sweetest things of all.  There is no doubt in my mind that, when I finally do make a long life partner, I will treasure that person, and the happiness they bring.  The sadness deepens my resolve to enjoy the good moments in life.  It’s taught me to slow down, take things one at a time, and really embody them.  I used to race from thing to thing because I never valued the happiness that was right in front of me.  Now I do, because I know what loss feels like.

But also, just like fear, I think sadness motivates us.  I need to not live in San Francisco.  I need to not have shallow people in my life.  I need to spend my time outdoors, staying fit, smelling the fresh air, enjoying the world around me.  Not trapped at a computer, or drinking at bars.  I have a really good grasp now on what makes me happy and what makes me sad, and I need to move my life towards those things I enjoy.  Not the things that make me money, or that other people tell me I should do, but the stuff that really is *me*.  And it’s sadness that taught me that.

But make no mistake about it: being sad fucking sucks.  And I’ve had enough for now.  I’ve had enough in the last 7 years.  My sadness meter is full.  It serves a useful purpose, but it’s time to move on.  Letting the sad flow through me ensures that I don’t wallow in it, or relive it over and over.  And I won’t; I’ll fix this.  And when I do, it will be all the sweeter.

Day 402 - San Francisco, CA

Continuing on the week of positivity, today I want to highlight something which has become incredibly important in my life - Mazamas, a Mountaineering organization based out of Portland.  For a long time now, I've been looking for a way to turn my passion for fitness and the outdoors into something with a community.  As my relationships with people become more and more a central part of my life, and as my hobbies lean more and more towards the outdoors and staying fit, I've been searching for an organization that breeds community and also has roots in the outdoors, and I finally found it!  A few of you know the story about how I was looking for a place to stay up near Mt. Hood when heading for Snowboarding lessons.  Well, the lessons ended up being a mixed bag, but what was incredibly important turned out to be the place I stayed that night - the Mazamas Lodge.  What I really like about Mazamas is that, in this era of digital things and transient whims, it's an organization that has its roots in things that feel real.  They have a mountaineering center in Portland, they have a lodge at Mt Hood.  They feel real and solid.  They run camps, and training seminars, and have frequent climbs.  And they don't rely on Facebook or Twitter to attract new people, but rather the old school combination of doing an awesome job of what they do and relying on word of mouth.  One of my favorite aspects of the organization is the climb schedule.  Every April - as they have for over 100 years - they release a list of the official mountain climbs they have scheduled for that season.  Of course, there are many unofficial, or "private", climbs, but these are officially sanctioned by the organization and intended for members (and non-members) to apply to.  They are categorized for difficulty and technique.  There's an aura of amateur professionalism about them which has its roots in the amateur climbing clubs going back to the 19th century in England.  And the way you apply to these climbs?  No, it's not online.  You order "climb cards", physical pieces of card stock where you list your resume for climbing and personal details.  Then you mail this card off to the leader of the climb - yes, mail it, as in go to the post office.  They then get all the cards, decides who gets to go and who is on the wait list, and physically detach the bottom section of the card and mail it back to you!  It's really awesome because it feels like Christmas, or maybe the day you got into college.  Getting those response cards in the mail is really fun.

And, of course, the climbs themselves are amazing.  I've been on 3 official climbs now, and hiked with some members unofficially a few times, and everyone I've met has been unequivocally awesome. 

I wish I had more things like Mazamas in my life.  Groups of people united in a common goal, with a grounding in reality and an old-school sensibility that I find comforting.  Because I am sort of a "wind" person, floating around, groups like this really ground me and comfort me.  And, of course, mountaineering is awesome!  So, Mazamas, here's to many years of fun, and many peaks to come. 

Day 401 - San Francisco, CA

Today I want to write about sleep.  Now, sleep seems like a pretty simple topic.  Just get some.  Done.  But, of course, life is all about priorities.  I'm sure we all want sleep.  I want sleep.  But then an opportunity comes up, and you end up doing something like driving all over Oregon, and suddenly, you're not sleeping too much for 4 or 5 days in a row, and then, things start to happen.

I think, for me, sleeping - how much to sleep, lack of sleep - is remarkably similar to alcohol.  I still drink; just last night I had a couple with some friends.  But there's three things I've learned about drinking: one, don't drink so much.  Two, drinking is kind of like a mood enhancer; when I'm happy, it makes me happier, but when I'm down, it makes it worse.  And three, and most importantly - when I'm drunk, I can't trust myself.  I just can't do anything important when I'm drunk.  8 of the top 10 worst days in my life are easily traced to just drinking too much, and then trying to do something important when I'm drunk.  By important I mean something like having a discussion with my girlfriend, or thinking about major decisions in my life.  That seems obvious, right?  Don't drink and text.  Any decisions you make while drunk are basically worthless.  If your job seems crappy, or you think you should move to Iceland, it's important to have the self-awareness to say "this is just drunk me thinking".  

Well, it turns out that, for me anyway, the same thing is true about lack of sleep.  In my life, I've had a lot of days where things just didn't seem to be going very well.  I felt stuck in whatever I was doing, nervous that I was doing it poorly, worried that I was forgetting something important.  I would often have this vague sense that I should change everything, that I should quit my job, or my relationship, or change my apartment, or whatever.  And, looking back on it, it seems clear now that a lot of that was just due to lack of sleep.  Instead of rearranging everything in my apartment, what I really needed to do was take a nap.  Much cheaper.

The reason this is so important is that it can waste a ton of time and turn into a vicious circle.  When I'm tired, I sometimes decide that I need to do a bunch of important things, which of course means that I don't sleep, which makes me even more tired, etc.  A lot of my coping mechanisms around lack of sleep make me even more tired, such as drinking caffeine instead of water, or trying to do something entertaining at night before I go to sleep, or having an iPad in bed.  It's, again, similar to drinking: when you start getting drunk, there comes a point where it feels like the best idea ever is to have another drink, and you start heading down the drain.  The thing is, though, even at my absolute worst, I've never gotten hammered more than two nights in a row, whereas I've been chronically unrested for as much as months at a time.  And it makes everything suck: studies show that people who haven't had enough sleep eat poorly, can't drive a car, get anxious and irritable with other people, etc., etc.

So, yes: self-awareness, as always, is the answer.  When I'm feeling anxious or irritable, the first question to ask is: how much sleep have I had?  And if the answer is "not quite enough", then everything - everything - has to wait until I can take a nap!

Day 400 - Hidden Lake Peak, North Cascades, WA

OK! There are some heavy topics bouncing around in my brain, but for today, we're going to take a break and do a bit of a travelog!  I spent the last four days traveling around the state of Washington, going on two major hikes with the Mazamas Mountaineering organization.  The first was a scenic hike of Goat Rock, located in the central cascades, in Washington.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goat_Rocks_Wilderness.  This hike was billed as one of the most beautiful I'd ever go on, which was a high bar, but it delivered.  I did the hike with the Adventurous Young Mazamas, which is the youth branch of Mazamas.  There were 8 of us all settled in for a 12.8 mile loop hike, with about 2500 feet change in elevation.  The weather was cold and foggy, which turned out to be just perfect.  The night before we camped at the Berrypatch Trailhead.  My car was 3 guys (including me) who had never met before, and we got along excellently (thanks, Kevin and Chris!).  We couldn't find the rest of the group so ended up camping on our own, but we caught up with them in the morning and headed out about 10 am.  I don't have particular memories of the beginning and end of the hike; it's the middle 5-6 miles that were truly spectacular.  Arriving into a caldera, you hike up the broken side of the wall which descends into a long, green valley, strewn with rocks.  With the day being so foggy and cold it was hard not to be reminded of the Irish countryside.  It would be easy to shoot footage in there and use it for Scotland, or Wales.  The hike gets its name from the mountain goats in the area, but by the time we reached the lake about 8 miles in, we hadn't seen any.  The lake itself is magnificent; nestled in the caldera itself, it was a greenish tint, surrounded by a layer of fog.  We camped and ate on rocks along the shore.  It rained on us, briefly, but we soldiered on.  Then, we turned a corner - and there they were!  About 20 goats, all ranged over about 200 metres of land, totally unconcerned with our presence.  They're big!  And very wild, fur flinging this way and that.  Actually pretty majestic, which is not something I think of for goats.  Moving on a little further, we interrupted a marmot camp, and found ourselves surrounded by about 8-10 of them, arranged around us.  They really look like a cross between big cats and ferrets, and they're awesome when they stand on hind legs to eat the flowers.  We also saw pika, and deer.  The hike was great and the company even better.

Two days later, I went on an official Mazamas climb (I was encouraged to note the difference between hikes and climbs), of Hidden Lake Peak.  This was another magnificent climb, although very different.  It was really warm, and brilliantly sunny.  We spent the first few miles hiking up through fields of wildflowers, dense colors along the trail.  Then we emerged abruptly into rocks and clambered up the rest of the way to a view of the lake.  My favorite part was actually a cabin which had been built at the top of the mountain, where I ended up taking a blissful 30 minute nap after the 40+ hours of driving I'd done.  It's the first time I had ever slept on a bed at the top of a mountain.  I sincerely hope it will not be the last.  The cabin was amazing to me because it was a labor of love; a community effort that had lasted all these years.  It wasn't an "official" cabin or camp, and it wasn't run by the Forest Service; they tolerated it, but it was maintained by volunteers.  I want to go back.

The trip was long and exhausting, but it was absolutely 100% worth it.  Enjoy the pictures!

Day 398 - Goat Lake, Central Cascades, WA

Today I'm going to write about love*.  I recently had the good fortune to be able to tell someone that I loved them.  Specifically, I told them that I loved them, and would still love them 20 years from now.  I've been lucky enough to have this happy occasion a couple of times in my life, and this person asked me a question I've been asked before: "How do you know?".  Like I said, I've been asked this question before, and when I'm asked, I always just kind of sit there, stunned and stupid, which of course gives the impression that maybe I don't know, that I'm making it up.  But it's really the opposite.  To me, love is like the color red.  I can get a can of red paint, and when I look at it, I might think various things about it, but one thing I will know is that it is red.  Someone may then use that red paint to paint a sunset, or a butcher knife, and I may say that I like one thing and don't like the other, but what won't change is the fact that they are red, the essential red-ness of the thing.  Love, to me, is like that.  It's not dependent on what might happen any more than red is.  So asking me how I know is like asking me how I can tell something is red.  Which, of course, is hard to explain, because how *do* you know that something is red?  You can change a lot of things about it, it can morph into different things, but it still stays red.  That's not to say that you absolutely can't destroy love ever.  If you work really hard at it, you can scrub an entire can of red paint off a wall; you can flake off every single little piece one at a time.  But you would have to go at it tooth and nail, and even then, some of that red will probably still be sitting, somewhere.  You could paint it over, but it's still red underneath.  You can move away from it, but that won't change anything.

I have a roommate that dyes clothing.  She uses these really intense pigments.  She's pretty good about trying to stay clean, but still, that stuff is messy and it gets everywhere, and it's really hard to clean up once it gets on something.  Love is like that, too.  You can scrub it off one surface only to look up and find that it touched something else.  You can carefully pour it from container to container, but damned if sometimes it doesn't just get on everything anyway.

I'm not sure love works this way for everybody.  I don't have any idea if this is a universal condition or just something that happens to certain people.  Maybe I'm just inclined to love.  If so, I'm happy that I was built that way.  It makes me happy to love.  It's very far from a zero sum game.  When I love people or things, even if they don't love me back, it makes me feel like a better person.  I feel more connected to who I really am.  It's kind of fun, actually.  And thinking positively about one thing makes me think positively about others. 

To some of you, this might sound really stupid or naive, like I'm talking in circles.  But it's how I really feel.  I don't love people because they are smart, or pretty, or interesting.  I'm reminded of a thing that Neil DeGrasse Tyson said a while back (I swear he said this, although I can't find any evidence, so take that with a grain of salt).  He was on a Christian talk show (he's an agnostic, sort of) and the woman asked him why, if he didn't believe in the Bible, he didn't just kill people all the time.  And his response was perfect: you're scared of me because you think I might kill someone (he said), but I am way more scared of you because you seem to be telling me that the only reason you don't kill people is because a magic book tells you not to.  I don't kill people (he continues), because I just *don't*.  I don't even *want to*.  It's not a part of me.  Love, to me, is also like that.  If you love someone, or something, just because it is tall, or short, or blue, or because a book tells you to, or whatever, then that is kind of scary; both for you, and for that thing or person.  Because that kind of love could go away anytime!  You'd be constantly worried that person might gain weight, or paint themselves green.  You'd be guarded all the time.  But if you can love something or someone completely, then you can lean into it, not worried that it might go away or change, because that wasn't why you loved them in the first place.  Does that make any sense?  I hope so.

*I went on an amazing hike yesterday, but tomorrow would be a better day for a travelogue post.

Day 397 - Portland, OR

Last night I went on a really fun date.  Near the end of the date we got on the subject of where a person is from.  I had asked her where she was from, and she was saying that she was born in New Mexico, but didn't feel like she was from there because she moved when she was 2.  She had actually lived in a bunch of places, but the place that she *felt* like she was from was New England.  She felt like that best matched her.

She, of course, asked me where I was from.  That's always been a difficult question for me.  What's the right answer?  Is it where you were actually born?  For a lot of people, that doesn't make sense.  Like my date.  Is it where you spent the majority of your childhood?  For me, that's Jacksonville, FL - but of all the places I've ever lived, that's the place I feel like I'm from the *least*.  I kind of recoil at thinking of myself as being from there.  Is it the place you spent your "formative years"?  Well, which are those?  Is it the place you have the most memories from?

Maybe it's the place you like the most?  That seems nice, but it isn't really accurate.  What if your personality is formed by your intense dislike for the place you grew up?  My ex was from a small town in Texas that she felt very much she did not ever want to go back to - but she was clearly, obviously from there.  

At the end of the day, much like we were talking about the other day on this blog in the post on sexuality, I feel like the only honest answer is that the place you're from is the place you *feel* like you're from.  And the odd thing, for me, is that of all places, the place I feel like I'm from the most...is Portland.  But how can that be?  I lived here for one month, a month ago.  I know almost nothing about the place, all told.  And yet...I feel drawn here.  It feels right.  A close second would be Austin, which feels very similar to Portland.  Maybe what I'm really reacting to is a feeling of being from what they call a "tribe"...a mentality...a way of life, that Portland/Austin/Madison/Boulder seem to embody.  

So, the next time someone asks me where I'm from, I'm going to say Portland, and see how that feels.  And confuse everyone.  :)

Day 396 - San Francisco, CA

Today, I want to talk about helping people.  Or maybe, more specifically, not being able to help people.  Lately, one of the themes of my life is having people around me who I care about very much, and are having some sort of serious problem, but I can't help them.  For someone like me who is very empathic and wants to be helpful, this can be a really stressful situation.  One of my friends, for example, was very upset recently and called saying that she desperately needed someone to talk to.  Another friend is extremely nervous about something coming up.  The reasons why I can't help vary all over the place.  Sometimes I can't help because of logistical things; I am not physically with the person, for example.  Sometimes it's just emotional; they don't trust me to help, they aren't willing to accept help, or aren't ready for help.  There's as many reasons as there are friends.  But it's incredibly painful to see them suffer and know that there's just nothing to do.  Maybe that's one of the sad aspects of being human; the knowledge that, at the end of the day, there's really nothing we can do for another person who's suffering.  They have to make their own changes.  And of course, the challenge there is to stay engaged; to remember that there *are* things we can do, sometimes, and stay ready to help when I can.  It's tempting to just close the doors, isolate myself from other people, avoid getting involved with them.  Especially those people with problems.  But of course they are the ones that need the engagement the most.

Day 395 - San Francisco, CA

Today, I got my tooth out.  Tooth #2, specifically.  I have a fear of dentists and of needles, so for me, this was a bit of a nerve-wracking proposition.  But as I sat there, in the dentists chair, meditating to get my heart rate down, it occurred to me:  who, exactly, is afraid?  That may seem like a goofy question to ask, but it comes from my Buddhist training: who is afraid, exactly?  After all, this is something I wanted to do.  I very much wanted that tooth out of my mouth because of all the pain it was causing me.  I started doing an inventory of my mind: scientific mind?  No, he's on board: this is a good idea.  We double checked with multiple doctors, and saw the X-rays; the tooth is dead.  Financial brain?  Nope, great idea: $300 instead of over $4500.  True self?  Nope, he's good with it; in fact, the more I delved into my own psyche, the more I discovered a kind of quiet curiosity about the whole process.  So who is afraid?  Somebody is, clearly, inside there.  My stomach hurts, I'm gripping the armrest.  Whatever that thing is, I visualized it as a small child; my inner child.  It was confused; it didn't have the equipment to understand what was happening.  It was an unfamiliar environment, and it brought to mind unpleasant circumstances from my childhood.  That little 8-year-old me was sad, and scared, and hurt.  

I value that part of me.  It's the part that still loves people.  It's the part that believes in romance, and faith, and love.  It also believes that needles will somehow destroy it, and dentists are terrible people.  So it has to be treated with care.  But in that moment, realizing who it was that was afraid made the rest of me want to comfort it.  My science brain and my logical mind and my true self all wanted to hold its hand; and so they did.  And lo and behold, my blood pressure dropped, my heart rate dropped, and while I was still scared, I knew that, even alone, I was surrounded by friendly faces.

And it didn't even hurt!  (But the dentist forgot to give me a lollipop).

Day 394 - San Francisco, CA

Over the last month, I have had two of the worst medical issues I've possibly ever had in my life.  The first, which resembled a cold, turned into an awful upper respiratory infection that sapped my will to live for 3 weeks.  The second, a toothache, has gotten so bad that tomorrow I am going in to get the tooth removed and am currently taking vicodin because the pain is so unbearable I cannot sleep.

On the surface, it seems like these are awful things - and they are.  Close friends, and FB, have heard me complain about them.  But under the surface, the Buddhists say that every one of these challenges is an opportunity - and in this case, I see their point.  In my life, I have been very charmed, health-wise.  No serious diseases, no broken bones.  And while I've always considered myself very sympathetic and empathic, these two problems have really opened my eyes to what it's like to be sick.  And it's made me realize two things: one, that nobody should be asked to go through what I'm going through without benefit of the best care they can get, and two, that health is the most important thing.  I've always been a fan of universal health care - but now I am a serious fan.  Even in my extremely privileged scenario, I found myself sitting at the endodontist today on the phone with my dental insurance, while my teeth literally screamed at me.  When I should have been worrying about healing, I was instead thinking about diagnostic codes and yearly limits.  I will readily admit that my current situation is the result of some very poor planning and mistakes.  But at no point do I feel that those mistakes merit this level of pain.  This kind of pain is something nobody should have to go through.  And of course, I will sometime very soon get to stop experiencing that pain.  It will cost me money and time, and I will suffer for a bit, but eventually, I will get to stop suffering because I am lucky and privileged.  Some people in this country are not so lucky - and that's not OK.  It's just not OK.

Day 393 - San Francisco, CA

OK, this might be the dumbest topic I've ever written about in this space, but today, I want to write a little love poem to Subway.  Yes, the chain of sub restaurants that everyone loves to make fun of, with Jared and the eating of fresh and all that crap.  People dump all over Subway.  I remember a while back there was the yoga mat chemical thing.  Some people hate the smell of their bread.  Or they just complain that they're chincy. 

I've eaten literally thousands of meals at Subway in my lifetime.  At least a thousand, anyway.  There's a lot of reasons for that, but I guess the primary one is that Subway is kind of a gateway drug for me.  You see, I have a fascination with filling my face with crap from fast food restaurants.  I used to fantasize about Chick-Fil-A or Wendy's.  I've written elsewhere on this blog about why, but part of it is the regularity, the predictability of it.  Subway has that; anywhere in the country, or really the world, I can get a ham and cheese sub, and it's pretty much delicious.  At least, if you like it once, you'll like it every time.  But the difference is that Subway actually sells you things that look like they saw the ground recently.  The produce is actually always amazingly fresh and crisp-looking.  They have spinach and green peppers and olives.  Most of the green peppers I've eaten in my life probably came from Subway.  And, they tell you how many calories are in everything.  Not because they have to, but because it's part of their shtick.  If I'm in Jacksonville, for example, nobody lists calorie counts - except Subway. 

Subway has been the backdrop to a lot of experiences in my life.  I'm sitting there right now, typing this out.  A surprising number of my blog entries have been written there.  That's especially true in San Francisco, where there just aren't as many options for a quick, predictable and cheap meal that's reasonably healthy. 

So, thank you, Subway.  I am 100% certain that I am a way healthier person because you exist.  Compared to what I would've eaten otherwise, you've probably saved my liver. 

Day 392 - Somewhere Over The United States on a Plane

Today is going to be a bit of a "meta" post...a post about the blog itself.  Specifically, the posting schedule.  When I was on my bike trip - which is how this blog got started - I posted almost every day.  That made sense; it was kind of my personal travelogue, or diary.  I wanted to remember what was going on.  Plus, there was something interesting happening almost every day.  For a while after I got back, I didn't post very often because I was just kind of exhausted and adrift.  Then I got back into posting every day, then I dropped it, and back and forth.

Recently, I made a personal commitment to post every day.  Part of the reason for this is some conversations that I had with my therapist.  I've always had a bit of a "death of a salesman" complex.  That is, I feel - rightly or no - that I don't get as much attention as I'd like to.  It's a fundamentally selfish and almost certainly unhelpful attitude, that I'd like to lose, but it's there nonetheless.  And, quite frankly, posting to the blog helps.  It helps, of course, to think that people are reading what I wrote, and responding.  And so I thank every one of you who takes the time to read, and especially those that read and then respond, either here or on Facebook.  You are part of my conversation and my healing process and I value you more than you know.  But in a strange way, merely writing things down makes me feel heard.  It makes me feel like, at the very least, *I'm* listening to myself.  And of course I'm my own best listener.  I kind of think everyone should have a blog, even if that blog is only for yourself (I guess that's what they call a diary).  Although I'm pretty open and exposed on this blog, I have written a few entries that, after writing them, I threw away (or kept without publishing).  But even those entries felt cathartic and important.  I do go back and read what I've written some times, but even if I never did, these entries feel important to me.  Maybe it's just a way of fooling my psyche into thinking that someone cares.  Maybe it's that part of me feels like taking the time to actual put my thoughts down on paper gives them legitimacy, makes it feel like they matter.  Maybe part of it is that age-old exercise of talking to yourself to work out problems.  One of my old programmer jobs used to have this piñata, that you could talk to, when you had a programming problem to work out.  It sounds silly, but in the act of explaining the problem to the piñata, oftentimes you would realize the solution.  It just had to be spoken out loud.

So, yeah.  I am going to endeavour to make every single post on this blog interesting and worth reading.  But even on those days when I don't feel like I have much to say, I'm going to take my best idea and run with it anyway.  Because it's a practice, like meditation or eating right, that I have to do every day to make it the most effective.

So, today, I'm talking about the blog.  And, about my failure to sometimes witness myself, and to let others witness me.  I feel constantly unheard, but of course it's not true.  My parents hear me, my job hears me, my friends hear me.  And the more I let them hear me, the more they hear me.  It's true that, in some ways, I had a difficult childhood in this respect.  My brother took a lot of the attention in my family.  My parents - bless their hearts - never knew what to do with me.  I should have had tons of friends but instead I hid in computers for way too long.  I got shy in high school, and retreated.  And I developed an overdeveloped sense that I was being ignored.  Which, of course, became a self-fulfilling prophecy.  And now I live in San Francisco, honestly (and I say this with love) one of the most self-absorbed cities in the world, so that isn't helping.

But part of the solution is recognizing that I am my own best friend, and my own witness.  That I don't need to be validated by others, but to serve that purpose for myself.  I'm the only person I can count on 100% of the time.  And if I don't see myself as valuable, others never will.  This blog is just one instrument of that, one way to show myself that I'm worth paying attention to.

Day 390 - Jacksonville, FL

Today we're going to take a break and just do a little fluff - what the news shows would call a "human interest piece".  I'm out in Florida visiting my family, and one member of my family in particular is the subject of today's blog: my family's cat, Oreo.  Oreo is probably, to most people, an unremarkable cat, but to me and my family she is super duper awesome.  First of all, she's incredibly friendly.  I think she's one of those cats that thinks she's a human being.  She loves being picked up and held and she loves it when my Dad rubs her tummy.  If given half a chance she comes right over and sits on a lap and just starts purring.  She's actually really small, so small people think she's a kitten sometimes. 

What's particularly remarkable about her is that I even was able to pick up and hold her.  She's an indoor-outdoor cat.  She spends every night in my parents garage, laundry room or outside.  She loves to go out and hunt animals and run around, and the neighborhood loves her.  As always with outdoor cats, you worry about them.  In this case, about six months ago, my parents gave me the sad news that Oreo had been missing for a few days.  A few days stretched into a week, then into several weeks.  Most of us gave up, although of course I kept saying all the right things: that some family probably was keeping her, thinking she was a stray.  Maybe some kids took her home and begged their parents to keep her.  She was chipped, but that requires going to the vet to discover.  She didn't have a collar. 

My mom was the one person who genuinely didn't give up hope.  She always thought the cat was coming back.  And, lo and behold, one day I called, and nonchalantly my mom mentioned that Oreo had just showed up!  A neighbor had called while my parents were out saying that they'd seen Oreo just a couple of doors down from my parents place.  They drove over and sure enough, there she was, just walking around like nothing had happened.  It had been about six weeks.  She was well fed and groomed, so obviously had been living with some family.

There's a few lessons here, which I'm sure you already know but it's always worth remembering: first, love something today because it might not be there tomorrow.  Second, even though things often don't work out in this world, that means that sometimes, they do.  Third, cats are clever creatures. 

Hi, Oreo! 

Day 389 - San Francisco, CA

So, I think I might actually vote for Bernie Sanders.  Don't hold me to that, you know, but there is something kind of refreshing about the guy.  You get the sense that he's the kind of politician we haven't had for a bit.  He reminds me of Dave, when the guy brings in his accountant buddy to fix the books in the White House.  I like that he's a pain in the ass. 

It may sound weird for a guy who makes $150k a year, but I'm pretty ready for socialism, honestly.  Yes, it was quite a shock to see 48% taxes taken out of my signing bonus, but honestly the only reason I really cared was that I had debts to pay off; debts that arose largely from not being able to pay for things like health care and rent.  Point is, I'd rather just not have the debts or the money. 

Someday, my goal is to teach, and when I make that decision, I'd like to not have to think about money as a big part of it.  Twice now I've tried to become a teacher.  Once, I sat through a semester of classes in Early Childhood Education, to get a license to teach preschool.  I discovered to my chagrin that the average salary of a preschool teacher in San Francisco was about $28,000.  You can't live here for that.  Nobody could.  So I asked my fellow students what they were doing there.  Almost every single one said that she (they were all women) had a husband who made enough to support them.  :(  The second time around, I applied to and got into a very prestigious teacher training program at Stanford.  I even went down for the "sell weekend".  As I sat there, I added it up in my head: approximately $100k in lost wages, and $80k to attend the program.  In one year I would spend $180k to become a teacher, and go from being financially solvent to massively in debt for the rest of my life.  And so, I didn't pull the trigger. 

I would love for somebody to just tell me: "hey, be a contributing member of society, and we'll take care of education, health care, and a place to live.  the rest is up to you".  I'd love that.  For someone who specializes in anxiety, that sounds like a dream come true.  I want to be ambitious and successful, yes, but my ambition is to climb mountains, make some woman very happy, get in awesome shape, have a collection of awesome friends, etc., etc.  Not to make a big pile of cash. 

So, yeah, Bernie, let's do this thing.  Maybe land of the free means free to do our own thing, and maybe the best way to do that is to let go of control a little bit.   

P.S. I reserve the right to change my mind.  :) 

Day 388 - San Francisco, CA

The other day, I had an experience that reminded me of something important.  I had been watching a friend of mine's Facebook feed, and it looked like they were having a great day.  I was a bit jealous, actually; they'd been out with their family to a Giants game and to brunch.  The pictures looked really nice, everyone smiling, sunny day.  Later that day, I got together with that friend, and they proceeded to tell me how their day had really gone; they'd gotten in a fight with their sister, the game was overwhelming, and basically the day was a mess. 

I was reminded in particular of a video I watched a while back, which you can see here: 

It's a bit of a depressing video, to be sure (sorry about that), but I think it makes a valid point: too many times, we use Facebook (and other things like that) to put a version of ourselves out there that we want other people to like.  In the old days, it used to be that the only people who knew us were people who cared about us; people who we worked closely with, family members, spouses, good friends.  The only people who really had to worry what others thought of them - random people, that is - were celebrities or politicians.  But these days, everyone is CEO of You, Inc.  We all are minor celebrities, and we all put together clean and slick packaged versions of ourselves for public consumption. 

I am certainly as guilty of this as anyone.  What's the point in posting that I'm having a bad day?  It just brings others down.  Nobody's interested.  Anyone who really is interested is someone I would contact in private, offline.  So Facebook ends up just being a celebration of the best of my life.  And - to a point- I don't think there's anything wrong with that.  But I do think it's important to understand that's what we're looking at.  That what we see on Facebook is not, in any way, representative of who that person really is, any more than an OKCupid profile can really tell us what someone is afraid of before they go to sleep at night.  It's a fun diversion, a cute way to keep in touch.  But it's not real. 

Day 387 - San Francisco, CA

It occured to me, a few days ago, that some people who read this blog might be a bit confused as to why my titles are always so cryptic.  Like, why do I bother to list San Francisco?  Most of my posts are from San Francisco.  I live in San Francisco.  And what is day 387?  Well, that's a simple answer - it's 387 days since I left on my big bike trip last year.  But why list that seemingly random number? 

When I left on my trip last year, I had no idea what to expect.  I thought that I was leaving on a fairly concrete journey, with a beginning and an end.  But what evolved felt a lot more open-ended than that.  I ended up on about 3 different journeys, all in one.  And when I was done, when I snapped that picture at Walt Disney World, I felt a powerful sense that I didn't want it to be over.  That's when I realized: it not only doesn't have to be, it can't be over.  As long as I live and breathe, this is the journey I'm on.  That was true spiritually and figuratively, but I decided then and there that it would also be true literally; that I would one day get on my bike and ride again, someplace, some time.  And even though those plans got put on hold this year, that's still my goal.  Someday you will wake up and the title of this post will be "Day XX - Nice, France" or "Day YY - Canberra, Australia".  Or the Antarctic.  Who knows.  Maybe the Isle of Man.  The point is: life is a highway.  I'm going to ride it.  All night long. 

See you around the next corner. 

Day 386 - San Francisco, CA

An apology to those of you on the "less dorky" side of my blog readership, because today is going to be a bit dorky and math-y.  Well, OK, a lot dorky.

Anyway, this is something that's been on my mind a lot because I play a good bit of this online card game called Hearthstone, made by a big gaming company called Blizzard.  Any time you build an online game that people can play against each other, you end up running up against one of these game design problems that's particularly thorny: how to match people up to play against each other.  Of course, you can always play against your friends, or people you know personally, but generally, at some point you expect the designers of the game to hand you someone fun to play against that you don't know.  A general design principle of fun is to make something challenging, but not too challenging.  And that applies here: it's generally fun to play against people who are about as good as you are; sometimes slightly worse, sometimes slightly better.  The question is how to make that happen, and in an automated way.

A lot of smart people have thought about this problem, and since long before computer games.  One of those was a man named Elo, who was a top chess player.  He designed a system which you can read about here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elo_rating_system.  The essence of his system is that every player is assigned a number.  Everyone starts at 1000, and you go up and down based on how you do in matches against other players.  If you beat someone, you get points, and if you lose, you lose points.  How many points you gain or lose is based on how much higher or lower they are than you.  So if you are at 1000 and you beat someone who is at 1500, you get a lot of points, maybe 15 or 20 or even more.  If, on the other hand, you beat someone who is 900, you may only get a half a point - or no points.  There are lots of variations on Elo's scheme, and some of them are in active use in online gaming.  They work reasonably well in some ways, and not as well in others.  And Blizzard decided that wasn't good enough.

A quick note about Blizzard: they are an incredibly successful gaming company.  Along with maybe Valve and Nintendo, they are household names among gamers.  In particular, Blizzard is known for building online multiplayer games.  That's their thing.  Another thing about Blizzard: they consider themselves design geniuses (and with good reason).  And their main design goal is, and always will be, fun.  They want everyone playing their games having fun, all the time.  And one problem with Elo is: it isn't really very fun.  It's very math-y.  It's kind of hard to explain.  When you win or lose it can be really hard to tell what just happened.  And it's kind of relentless; depending on the implementation, you find that you're always playing someone slightly better than you.  This is great if you're a dedicated chess champion who wants to hone their craft; it's less good if you're on your lunch break and just wanted to have a quick fun game.

So, in particular, for Hearthstone, Blizzard implemented a sort of hybrid system.  For really really good players - what they refer to as Legend - they use a system that's close to Elo.  But for everyone else, they use a much simpler system.  Basically, when you lose, you lose a point, and when you win, you get a point.  Then, you are generally matched against players that have about as many points as you do, plus or minus a couple.  That's it.  Simple, right?  And pretty effective, at least on paper.  After all, people who are better win more, and get more points, and so they play against harder players.  And everyone understands what's going on.

Except that it has a few flaws.  And those flaws aren't really obvious until you've been playing for a while.  For myself, I noticed that sometimes, I seemed to go on these long winning or losing streaks.  Even though I always had about 20 points or so, sometimes the players I played against just seemed, well, better than other times.  At first I thought I was being paranoid, but finally I figured it out: I was playing at different times of the day.

One of the things about an Elo system which has always been a theoretical problem is the idea of disjoint sets.  That is, sets of players who never play against each other.  Imagine, for example, that a high school chess club sets up an Elo system and starts to play against each other.  Their Elo scores will rise and fall as they play, and they may begin to accurately reflect their status inside that club, but they will never be meaningful when compared against scores of anyone else.  In the real world of chess, that's a serious problem; serious enough that different systems were designed to combat it, such as only getting points when you play against known chess masters.  But in the world of digital combat, such a scenario seems really unlikely.  Why would any such set of players evolve?  The world is so big, and so heterogenous, that eventually the graph of players that play each other will join up.  And, indeed, if Hearthstone used a true Elo system, that would happen.  But it doesn't; it uses this modified system.  And in this modified system, there is no way to significantly change a person's rank based on one (or a small number) of games.  That means that if I only rarely play anyone outside my own small set, that the effect can't be enough to "join up" the graph.  But - again - why would anyone consistently play other players that only come from a certain set?  Well, one way that could happen is geographically; if I'm paired with players based on geography - and I usually am, for technical reasons such as network speed - then my score is really only safe to compare inside that geographic zone.  Historically, that hasn't been a huge deal because, unless you're a racist, there's no reason to think that players in North America, or California, are better than players in Ireland.  

But time of day is different.  It appears - and this makes sense - that the demographic makeup of players at 10 in the morning PST is meaningfully different than the players at 5 pm.  I'm not sure exactly why this is, although I could speculate.  But there is a sizable and noticeable jump in player quality - for the same rank - at about 5 pm PST.  My guess is that this represents about 8 pm EST, which is when the best players, who are often adults, get home from work and log on to play.  They play for 3 or four hours, then they go to bed.  So if you play any time outside that window, you never play against them.

I have no idea if this is true.  It's merely subjective evidence.  But I can demonstrate, mathematically, that this is at least a theoretical problem with the system.  And I can say that subjectively, this theoretical problem appears to be a real issue.

How to fix this?  Well, they could use a true Elo system, of course.  Failing that, they could use Elo as a backup.  Meaning, when they go to pair two players of rank 20, they could also use their (hidden) true Elo scores to make the best pairings.  This would require a large pool of players, but Hearthstone has a large pool of players.  Perhaps they already do this, although if they did, I suspect I wouldn't be noticing the issue.

Day 385 - San Francisco, CA

A few years back, I started to develop this habit.  I ride my bike a lot, usually in urban settings.  I use it to commute most days.  For some reason, I started stopping to pick up coins when I rode past them on the street.  They're usually pretty easy to spot; they glint up from the road in a way that catches the eye.  Like most people, I used to ride past them.  But one day - and I can't remember where I was or what was on my mind - I guess I felt like it's silly to ride past free money, or something.  I felt a kind of romantic attachment to these little coins.  I know that when I was on my big bike ride last summer I made a point of stopping to pick up just about every coin I rode past.  Sometimes it was nice and gave me a reason to take a break and get off the bike for a second.  Anyway, you learn some things when you start doing this, one of which is that there are an awful lot of coins on the ground.  Once you start looking for them, the roads are littered with coins.  That picture I posted is all just coins that I picked up yesterday, just riding around town.   (If you have a good eye, you'll notice that one of them isn't even American currency).

I can't honestly say there's any rational reason that I pick up these coins.  It certainly isn't worth my time monetarily.  I don't really collect them, per se - I thought about it but I just wasn't really called or motivated to do that.  Most of the time they go in my piggy bank and I probably wind up giving them to the bank.  I do like looking at them.  I like the look they get after getting run over, all scarred and pitted.  I like the sense that I get of cleaning things up, of somehow making things more efficient.  But basically I just do it just because. 

If I were in an 80s movie, maybe being played by River Phoenix, we would call this a "quirk".  I would be quirky.  And we like that sort of thing.  We like quirks in people.  I basically do this coin thing because nobody else does, and because it doesn't make any sense.  I think somehow it's important to us as people to stand out, to be individual.  It makes me happy that people don't understand why I pick up the coins.  Maybe it reminds us of our humanity.  Not to overdo it, but I think it reminds us of the essentially absurd nature of being a human being; that, at some level, nothing we do really makes a ton of sense.  I get strange looks sometimes from people when I stop, pull over, and pick up a penny.  I can see them thinking "did that guy drop that penny?  is it special somehow?".  Well, no, and no.  I'm just quirky like that, I guess.