The Vacationer's Rulebook. vol. 1

Under normal circumstances, I'd say I probably vacation as often as the average person... once every 18 months or so. (By vacation I mean dip out for more than 3 days for the expressed purpose of doing absolutely nothing.) But recently, family, friends, and fate have conspired to get me away more often than usual. In the process, I've developed a few vacationing principles, Best Practices if you will, that I'd like to share.

1. When deciding whether or not to take a vacation, there are two questions (only two) that one must ask. First, "Can I go?" If the answer is No, as it sometimes will be, you're done. If the answer is Yes, ask yourself "Is there a good reason not to go?" The key here is goodness. Unless you are a genuine baller, there is always a reason not to go. You could put the money toward retirement or pay down a credit card or some other responsible nonsense. But unless you're putting away so much money in lieu of vacationing that you'll actually be able to retire early, or you're paying a credit card off, you don't have a very "good" reason not to go. So bounce.

2. In packing, I've found that the appropriate number of outfits to take for N days is approximately 1.5 x N. Now this varies depending on the environment. For instance, if you're chillin pool/ocean-side, you could probably get a away with N outfits, plus one or two extras (N + 2)... since there will be some days when all you rock is a bathing suit or trunks. On the other hand, if you're kickin it every night, you wanna take at least 2 outfits per day, with a few spares (2N + 3).

Also, the number of pants/bottoms (P) should not exceed .8 x N for trips longer than 4 days. This means for a 5-day trip, you gotta rock the jeans twice. Tops (T) are a little more sensitive. You should prolly take a new shirt for every day up to about 10 days. After that, it's time to recycle. Maybe .5T for each day over 10. Or 10+.5(N-10) for trips longer than 10 days.

3. Location. Sometimes this one takes care of itself. A homie calls and says "let's go to so-and-so." When it's up to you though, you wanna consider a few things. First, cost. Everywhere is cheaper in the off season. Maybe you'll get caught in a hurricane, maybe you won't. Yours truly has had fantastic luck with off season travel. Others might prefer a sure thing.

Second, weather. The summertime temperatures are great. But you wanna minimize the temptation to sit up under somebody's air conditioning all day. If you can keep your daytime highs under about 90, you can do just about anything during the daytime. Also, don't sleep on fall for your travels. 50 degrees and sunshine in a new and interesting place makes for a lovely day.

Finally, language. I wish this one wasn't an issue. Unfortunately... trying to explain to a taxi driver where you need to go when he so clearly hates your English-speaking guts is not a good look. I'm not saying stick to Anglo places. But maybe lean toward Anglo-speaking parts of non-Anglo places.

4. Picking your team. I'm a firm believer that you shouldn't vacation for any amount of time with someone you wouldn't welcome to come stay at your spot for the same about of time. This goes for your traveling companions as well. If X and Y are both cool with the group but not necessarily in love with each other, leave one of them fools at home. Nothing ruins a vacation like having the group split down the middle halfway through. Of course, this is a difficult rule to follow. Who wants to tell one of the homies they're not invited? Still, if you can finesse it... I'm just saying.

All Things Political, vol. 7

In this issue: The machine that is Hillary Clinton

So folks are starting to talk (and write) about Barack Obama's stagnating presidential campaign. Even in states where Obama once led, Clinton has slowly but surely eaten up his leads among black voters. This is interesting for about half a dozen reasons, but mostly because I don't think anyone in America would have believed an attractive black candidate could lose the black vote to a white woman.

If you ask my mother, it's because "she was married to the first black president." True enough. Then there's always the "he's not really black" line of thought. That's a separate post (that I'll probably never write). My theory: It's a combo. The name gets her in the door with black voters (when most white women would be left standing on the porch). Questions about Obama's blackness don't lose him votes, but they keep him from being able to take the black vote for granted, further opening the door for Hillary. His complete aversion of race politics exacerbates the effect, since he's essentially a black candidate who wants not to be thought of as a "black candidate," which black voters seem happy to oblige.

The instinct is understandable. Minority candidates are almost assumed to be race candidates until proven otherwise, something Hillary doesn't need to worry about, which is why she can explicity call out the American justice system for discriminating against blacks, while Barack is stuck trudging through his own rhetoric of We-ness, and racial problems that aren't about race.

So we have a white woman who parades her husband in front of black audiences like a walking "I Love Black People" sign, and a black man who does everything in his power to keep race out of his public politics. To cap it off, the former consistently gives performances like this one, which even her haters admit are damn near flawless. And the end result is that black voters, like other voters, judge the two not on race, but on apparent merit.

Even then, one might say, and Barack does all the time, that Hillary got the Iraq vote tragically wrong, while as we all know, he got it right. And that would matter except that A) We're already there; B) People don't primarily blame the Senate for Iraq. That hate is mostly reserved for the President; and C) Hillary almost always comes off as the older, wiser candidate in the "Where do we go from here?" debate. At times, it's just because she gives more nuanced answers. Other times, it's because Barack is trying to bolster his foreign policy credentials by publicly sh*tting on the presidents of allied nations in critical parts of the world, albeit not intentionally.

Supposedly this leaves Barack with two options: wait for Hillary to mess up, which seems less inevitable as time goes on, or go after her, calling into question his own commitment to civility and change. Then there's always John Edwards, one-state candidate that he is. Were he to lose his lead in Iowa he could always take Hillary out with him, the way Wesley Clark did Howard Dean in '04.

Very interesting stuff.

I Know What You Did This Summer

At least I do if you graduated from WU between 2002 and 2004. Cuz I've seen you every two weeks like clockwork. Ah, the wedding season. I figure every summer from now til about 2009 will be like a 3-month WU reunion. That is, so long as folks stick to the greater St. Louis and Chicagoland areas to exchange the nuptials.

And even if you weren't at a wedding, you were almost certainly on Stalkerbook. I was at a club (after a wedding) and ran into a chic I hadn't talked to since high school. But somehow I knew she has a 5-year daughter and works for a consulting firm downtown. Oh Facebook... how you make everyone's business everyone else's business. On the other hand, I have effortless connects with virtually unlimited homies. Because everyone who's anyone eventually pops up on Facebook. Just ask Sharla.

The Article I (Almost) Could've Written...

... but didn't, because Black people would be mad at me.

Now I do have to add the caveat that I find the "maybe"s and the "possibly"s on the racism question quite ridiculous. And I'm at least half sure the author was just being overly cautious. Still, the article raises some interesting points, most notably that the defendants actually did what they're charged with doing. Then there's Mike Nifong's trading the lives of three young white men for black votes in Durham County, and Black people being more than a little okay with it.

Supposedly, when the organizers of the original Civil Rights Movement were looking for a cause, they intentionally ignored quite a few injustices as rallying points because the particular circumstances weren't ideal to serve as the basis of a movement. So they waited for the unimpeachable Miss Parks to sit down on a bus and there was the spark. Not that I don't completely understand why those young people did what they did; I just think the circumstances raise a lot of interesting questions.

One of my favorite authors wrote that what worried him most about white racism wasn't its effects on black people's property, but on their integrity. He was afraid that when Black people got to heaven and God asked them why they had become so vengeful on earth, He wouldn't think "They started it" was a good excuse. I don't doubt that six black teenagers fifty years ago might have reacted exactly as they did in this case. But I doubt that it would have been universally condoned. I believe that somebody in the black community would've at least suggested that they could've reacted differently, and that they should have. I believe that somebody would've said that out loud and that even if they were wrong, we would've had the conversation, and we would've been better for it.

As it is...

The Wrong Poster Children

It's Like Writing a Blog

Yes. Summer vacation is officially over. For those of you that had it, I hope it was good times. For those that didn't, so sorry. Me... I am officially back on the grind as of this morning, which includes, apparently, writing the blog.

It seemed for a minute we were on indefinite hiatus. Turns out, we were just on summer break. Like Oprah. And like Oprah, we're back with all new material. Now, unlike Oprah, I have no grand announcement* to kick off the new season. Nor can I promise continual heat* on the blog posts. But... If writing a blog is anything like riding a bike, I figure I can be back to mid-season form in the next few weeks. Give me a couple months to recruit a tri-con out of retirement, and the rest pretty much takes care of itself.

For the premier episode... What else? A love story.

Enjoy.
--------------------------------------------------------

One of my homies shows me a picture of him at a game with some friends. Chic to his left is pretty cute.

Me: She's really pretty.

Homie: That's Jane*. She went to WashU.

Me: Ohhhhhhhh! (Word?) She's must be really cool huh? Does she talk about how cool it was?

Homie: Actually, she didn't think much of WashU.

Me: (confused face)

Homie: She wanted to go to Duke.

Me: (annoyed face)

Homie: And she hated St. Louis.

Me: (disgusted face)

Homie: WashU was her safety school.

Me: Yeah... She was one of those wack (expletives) that spent four years hating cuz she didn't go to Harvard. Like 'Oh... I really wanted to go to So-and-So.' Well (expletive), you shoulda went to So-and-So.

Other homie: Yeah. Those people are really annoying.

Me: Thank you! Like she had some list of Special Schools in her head, and ended up at a school that was somehow beneath her. Clearly, the Special Schools thought homechic was beneath them or she woulda gone there. Instead she spent four years hatin and taking up space.

Homie: Well maybe Jane didn't have the same experience you had.

Me: Yeah. Jane can suck a fat one.

Homie: Wow! You are really clowning this person for talking sh*t about WashU. If someone insulted (Blank) University, I wouldn't care.

Me: Obviously (Blank) University didn't show you the love WashU showed me. I'm saying... if someone talked sh*t about your parents, you'd clown them.

Homie: (in disbelief) Are you really equating WashU with your parents???

Me: Not equating. But in the order of entities that have shown me love (and to which I am eternally loyal) ... GOD, family & friends, The WU.

Which got me to thinking. I can imagine that some loyal alums (of whatever schools) have longer lists. For instance, #s 3 and 4 might be a favorite city or maybe a summer program. But if your alma mater isn't at least in your top 5, you either A) are a hater (see above), B) picked the wrong school, an entirely forgivable mistake, or C) tragically wasted your time on things like classes and problem sets, as opposed to more love-building activities like lounging at Information Desks and outside libraries.

Sad, sad.
-------------------------------------

References:

* Verbatim, 2007