Твою мать, как же я устал. До чего жадность пробирает – просто нет слов. Ощущение что ну, как-же, сейчас самые низкие цены на жилье, еще там даже какой-то налоговый кредит дают, оооо! Надо немедля хватать быка за рога и что-нибудь покупать.

Да побольше, побольше.

А то, говорит моя замечательная мотивация по имени Fear and Greed (term coined by one of my business advisors) – а то проспишь. Проспать не хочется. А еще больше не хочется ошибиться на очень много бабла.

Проблема, конечно, стара как мир. До фига придурков до меня покупали жилье; тряслись, подписывая кипы бумаг. Да чего тут скрывать, и я трясусь. Как некто со странной фамилией Раскольников давеча сказал, тварь я дрожащая. Ну и, конечно, от дрожания немедленно становится стыдно – как же, такой крутой, а дрожишь.

Дрожу.

Дрожу, и это естественно. Все дрожат.

“Но ты то блин вечно думал что ты такой рациональный! Все холодным разумом объемлешь! Ну такой крутой как пятьдесят два яйца сразу!”

Тьфу, Родитель у меня (в плане системы Родитель-Взрослый-Дитя) попался какой-то подъебанутый, простите. Иначе не скажешь. Разрушительный какой-то. А не пошлем ли мы его, друзья мои, благополучно нафиг. Примем свои недостатки как часть себя.

В системе правления США тоже есть всяческие “Checks and Balances” – системы, ограничивающие власть – и уверенность – даже самых сильных президентов. Потому как шибко умным быть очень вредно. Потому как только в сомнениях рождается истина. Но почему, мать его за ногу, почему тяжелые такие сомнения всегда? Живой вроде-бы, тьфу-тьфу со здоровьем все в порядке. Даже если я ошибусь немного, ничего не отвалится.

Ничего, конечно, кроме ну страшно гипертрофированного ощущения собственной крутизны.

Может, это полезно? Может, я мало ошибался, и в результате не умею быть скромным? Не могу быть в мире с идеей собственной не-идеальности? Вон кто-то там наркотиками увлекался, пил пол жизни, потом протрезвел, и чувствует – да, я грешен. Глупый очень. Много всего идиотского понатворил. Знает, что может ошибаться сильно, и наверное не пугается ужасно шансу того, что он может совершить ошибку. Потому как это ему привычно.

А может, это совсем не так. Может, он так радуется своему шансу – последнему, как ему кажется – прыгает на одной ножке, что смог себя перебороть, и боиться, дико боиться еще раз спрыгнуть в бездну. Уж он-то знает, что такое бездна. И опять туда не хочет.

А у меня все весьма теоретическое. Совершу какую-нибудь ошибку – ну, дом хреновый куплю, например – и на макароны переходить. Что это значит? Насколько это плохо? Страшнее ли страх смерти самой смерти?..

I was a good kid in school. I never hung out with a bad crowd; got straight A’s in school; went into a good university and got a great job afterwards.

Man, I was a model citizen all my life.

(Mid-life crisis, you come too early)

Why the heck didn’t I do bad things?

Why did I never take drugs? Yeah, there’s some stuff that will screw you up for life, but there’s other less-bad stuff that can make you stop feeling like such a preppy-good-boy.

Why did I never get so freaking drunk to pass out and puke all over someone’s floor? I barely have embarrassing stories to tell. Why didn’t I join a fraternity, participate in a wild orgy, finding myself in a low-grade porn movie?

What kind of dirt are journalists gonna be able to find on me when I go and apply for that Senate seat? LOL.

No, more specifically, what am I going to tell MYSELF when I look back and see all this boring nonsense in my 20’s?

Little boxes, on the hillside,

Little boxes made of ticky-tacky,

Little boxes, on the hillside,

Little boxes, all the same…

So, there is one word that describes my mood of the past few weeks. That word is RECKLESS. That’s exactly what I want to be.

RECKLESS to a point – I’m not planning on jumping out of the window or driving 120mph on a city highway. See, to a normal person, that’s the kind of stuff they’d consider RECKLESS.

To me, RECKLESS means “done without planning it 53 times”.

Let me tell you a story how we bought our TV. It took me 4 months (seriously!) to research the subject; find a good deal; and then finally jump on one. By that point, Irina lost all hope that we’ll ever own a normal television set. All excitement from the idea was already gone. The only thing that was left was thing nagging feeling: “did I check the deals websites today”.

One might argue that this kind of meticulous research is useful. I’ll say “yes, to the point”. It is useful with engagement rings; it is useful with houses. With stupid TV sets and cameras and MP3 players and the vast majority of everything you will ever own in your life, it is a total drag on your existence.

Just do it.

Think for a little while, maybe an hour or two, research the subject area, find 3-4 vendors, compare the reviews, and just fucking buy it. That’s the kind of RECKLESS I’m going to be from now on.

P.S. Oh wait… there is one memorable embarrassing story: me drinking 2 bottles of vodka with Irina’s dad, then sleeping in her little cousin’s room, waking up in the middle of the night to puke, finding a big TOY TRUCK and using it as a.. ahem… container. Fun times.

I grew up in environment where everything has to be repeated five times before the transaction finally happens.

Heck yes I’m pissed. I can’t believe that I’m carrying that legacy  around; that cultural legacy has been dragging me down for most of my life, and writing about it is one way I acknowledge the evil. Shrinks love to think that affirming the existince of a vice is the way of healing, so what the heck.

So yeah, I’m a total victim of an environment where…Uhh, how sorry-for-myself does that sound. Let’s try that again.

There’s a classical pattern in relationships between people. Person A offers something; person B declines. Person A thinks that trying again will yield better results, so they do. After 5 more times, person B decides to give in – they are so irritated by the situation, they just want it to be over. And giving in after this many times teaches person A to keep asking again and again in the future – because person B will eventually give in.

This pattern has been plaguing my relationship with my family. It’s a total fucking disaster.

Yes, it’s a classical Jewish-mother relationship: “put on your coat, honey, you’ll be cold” – “No thanks” – “it’s really cold outside” – “NO thanks, I’m OK” – “Just put the coat around your waist, it won’t bother you” – “@#!@#!@#”.

HOW MANY times do you have to say the same fucking thing. Man.

Yeah, understated is not the way of my family. But I want it to be my way.

I want to politely ask, and be heard the first time. I want to have a healthy transaction: offer -> accept or decline, where each person hears the other. Where there’s no automatic declines. Where’s no nagging. Where there’s actual respect in listening to each other.

I want to whisper commands to my dog.

I want every word to be cherished and heard.

I want every moment of my transactions with others to be over-analyzed. I want meaning in little things.

Yours truly just got engaged, so it’s time to deliberate on the rubbed-to-the-point-of-bleh subject of love.

Don’t expect anything particularly original; vastly smarter individuals tried, and still sounded cheesy. Others tried to be explicitly cool-and-not-cheesy – by denying love’s existence – and even that sad-and-lonely point of view is now yawn-inducing.

Heck, why am I even writing about this.

I think I know. Because I finally know what love is.

Love is a very calm feeling. It’s a lasting state. It’s as far as it gets from an adrenaline rush – I’d even say that if you feel an adrenaline rush in someone’s presence, if you are obsessed with them, that’s not love. That’s obsession, hehe.

Obsession might turn into love; obsession is easy to mistake for love. Like a rocket ship, a relationship might get a jump-start through obsession; the sad part, of course, is that if it does, it will always go downhill from there.

Love is calm.

I will say that again, love is calm like an ocean that has seen it all. Love may produce a storm, love may go up in a hurricane, but on average, it’s relaxed. It goes on. It doesn’t have crazy ups and downs every day. It continues in a subtle, understated dance, replacing tidbits of sorrow with a little bit of happiness.

Love is homey. It creates a feeling of this mothership from which anything can happen, and where you will be supported, no matter what. You will be forgiven, no matter what. You will find solace and comfort, even when it’s your fault.

I am so lucky to share my life with such an amazing woman. You are my ocean. You are my home.

Yet another release of the always-in-demand gift registry . This time, video games: Demigod (about to be released) and Starcraft 2 (when, when???)

I am outraged at the utter incompetence of the Chase Bank.

A loyal customer of Washington Mutual of 9 years, it was quite a shock for me when Chase took over. OK, I said, I’ll give them a shot – even after they’ve taken away the excellent rewards program that my WaMu credit card had. Even after they removed the Credit Score Monitoring service that WaMu offered for free with that same card.

Now, however, my patience has come to an end. When Chase was migrating the accounts from WaMu, they lost all the automatic payment information that WaMu had on file for me; when I received a courtesy call from a Chase representative 3 days after the due date, suggesting that the electronic payment did not go through, I was pleased – hey, they care. I, of course, paid the full balance right away, over the phone. The nice representative suggested that all related fees that were posted to the account would also be removed (the late fee, and the finance charge, incurred as a result of this transition).

After a week, I find none of these charges overturned.

I send a polite email to the customer service, asking for a fix-up of this small misunderstanding. A day later, they revert the late fee; I suggest that the finance charge should be refunded, too – as promised by the earlier rep. They refuse. I ask again, suggesting that they are failing to keep their own promises; all I get back is the “sorry we aren’t able to meet your service expectations.”

Damn right, you aren’t. I will be closing all my Chase accounts; I will make sure every single friend of mine knows not to bank with this pathetic institution. WaMu made thousands of dollars on me in the past 9 years by being courteous and respectful. The $20 in finance charges that I will, of course, pay to Chase, will result in thousands lost for Chase.

Don’t deal with Chase. It’s a disgrace of a bank.

I totally want a Grande Tour cheese platter from Williams Sonoma.

Oh, and! And! A totally hot transparent electric kettle from Crate and Barrel.

My friends, we’ve all been so accustomed to login screens. What’s there not to know – every website out there has some form of a user interface that has:

• Login name
• Password
• Remember me checkbox
• Submit button

This stuff has been there for years… And we all have developed our own ways to fill out these simple forms. Read the rest of this entry »

Me: Folks – I am so horribly sorry, I think I’ve gone mad this morning. I totally forgot that we have a conf call. Rather unbelievable, very, very sorry. Hope you didn’t wait too long

T.: We were still waiting until we got this mail. Quite awkward really as we ran out of things to say at 5:03/9:03. And while we waited, my stock in AIG tanked, D. practiced playing bagpipes (badly), my house was flooded, my kid was left waiting at the school gates, N. decided to become a plumber, my car got a parking ticket, and I stood up my wife – for dinner – on her birthday – and now she’s leaving me – for a plumber!

But hey, no problem.

So, not sure from where, but I had an inspiration to learn how to cook poached eggs. Background: my absolutely most favorite breakfast dish are the poached eggs from Cafe Campagne. For posterity, the menu item is:

Oeufs en meurette
Two poached eggs served on garlic croutons with pearl onions, bacon and champignons
in a red wine and foie gras sauce served with pommes frîtes  15.

I might not be able to make the divine sauce they serve with the poached eggs, but heck, I thought this evening, why don’t I learn how to make poached eggs? So I did. YouTube is your friend, and I stumbled upon an awesome video explaining how to do it. The key, of course, was to use white vinegar. Everything else just fell into place afterwards.

Here’s the result:
 

 (yes, it is the Gorgonzola cheese on the sandwich, and yes, the bread is the Graines (multi-grain) bread from Le Panier)