Been working hard on my new design portfolio. The portfolio itself required leveling up on my PHPs and my jQuerys. I included a sticky footer (the footer is always on the bottom of the page, regardless of how much content), a bunch of lovely CSS3 to animate the color change on the links, and a nice lightbox on the screenshots. Also have some jQuery to style the nav.

But I’m most proud of the adaptive design and the PHP scripting for the web section. If you’re on a computer, try visiting the portfolio and changing your browser width. Fun, right? :)

For people who are interested in what I do, I’ll say, “I don’t design the house, and I don’t build the house. I paint the house. I make the house look beautiful.” But mostly, the joy of doing front-end web development is that when people meet me and ask what I do and I say “web design,” there are rarely any follow up questions. Which frees us up to talk about anything in the world besides work. Ugh. Work. Ask a person about work and watch the person go dead behind the eyes.

The point of this story is that I neutralized a bad jalapeno-induced burn with a shower and salicylic acid. The point of this story is also a warning to Dear Readers to exercise caution w/r/t skin and hot peppers.

On Saturday I went to a tamale party and helped out early with some prep.

“Take these roasted jalapenos and scrape off the burned parts,” said host Josh. “Then slice, remove the seeds, and chop ‘em up.”

Fearlessly, I scraped and sliced the dozen or so jalapenos with bare hands. I massaged and extruded the seeds from the peppers’ centers, then duly chopped up. I was wrist-deep in slimy denuded jalapeno, not unlike the condition of my hands had there been a jalapeno cow and I had just helped birth a jalapeno calf.

About an hour later, my hands tingled. An hour after that, they burned with pain which grew stronger into the night. I cursed my feckless bravery and culinary generosity.

Here are some things I tried:

• washing my hands with dish detergent
• washing my hands with milk
• applying a lydocaine-based salve purchased from CVS
• eating gummy worms purchased concurrently with the salve
• washing my hands with Fast Orange ™
• washing my brain with Tylenol, and later, half a Vicodin

None of these worked except for the gummy worms, which succeeded in their intended purpose of building morale.

I fell asleep soothed by the Vicodin, but woke up in roaring burning pain before dawn. In the dark came sad scared memories about having gone to the hospital twice in the last ten years due to bad accidents with my left index finger (the first: inoculating the tendon with bacteria when I grabbed a sewing needle; the second: a deep cut from a recently sharpened knife).

Also thought of my dad’s accident last April*. Also thought of Ed Norton in Fight Club beating back the chemical burn with his mind and heart. Also (because anxiety, knocking, found no one guarding the gate) thought of possible potential double amputation. Fell asleep again only after I’d rigged up a tub of cold water where I could immerse my hands.

The dreams that followed were fitful and strange.

In the morning light the pain had not broken. But there are fewer tigers in the day, and I was optimistic that there would indeed be a dextrous future for me. And then I did something new, which worked:

• showering
• and washing with a scrub containing salicylic acid

And after that, the burn was gone. The data may be strictly correlative and anecdotal, but I put it in my mind’s pocket and save for future need.

* PS my dad’s hand is doing wonderfully. 95% recovery. Still doing his full slate of surgery and woodworking but now he wears thick arm-or when tooling.

Years ago, Sanche told me about a study on luck: self-identified lucky and unlucky people were asked to go to a coffeeshop. The researchers had planted money outside, and a mole inside who would offer the participant a job but if and only if the participant initiated a conversation. The self-identified lucky participants found the money and struck up the conversation; the unlucky ones did not.

So the research is by an Englishman: Richard Wiseman. When you think about this study, hear it in your head as told with a British accent. In researching this post I saw that Richard had a lot of articles in the Skeptical Inquirer, which also has articles about UFOs and stuff, and I was thus skeptical in my inquiry. You can read Richard Wiseman’s work here. Notice: LOTS of papers about ESP. Like Fox Mulder, it seems our boy Rich is fascinated by the paranormal, but like Dana Scully, approaches phenomena with a scientific mind. That said, he doesn’t seem to have Dana’s appreciation for rigor. The study Sanche quoted in particular, had only two participants. Hardly hard science.

Still. Richard seems to be on to something resonant, and at least anecdotally true. This paper from 2003 has a good summary:

… lucky people generate their own good fortune via four basic principles. They are skilled at creating and noticing chance opportunities, make lucky decisions by listening to their intuition, create self-fulfilling prophesies via positive expectations, and adopt a resilient attitude that transforms bad luck into good.

So we all (reluctantly) know that reality is a function of perception. Positive people experience a positive reality. Negative people experience a negative reality. Positive people are like Pete Best, eagerly telling you that getting kicked out of the Beatles was the best thing that could have happened to them. Negative people are sad sacks, rewriting memory into the darkest possible counterfactual interpretation, humorless, inconsolable.

Ok, reality is perception, ho hum, we say. Ho and hum.

But what if instead, it’s not that positive people perceive that they’re having a better time; they’re actually having a better time. They’re findin’ the money. They’re meetin’ the people. They’re livin’ in a magical world of wonder and experience.

It’s something I’m thinking about.

In the last eight years I’ve moved … a lot:

• 2004 – Washington Heights, Manhattan, New York
• 2004 – Powderhouse Sq, Somerville, MA
• 2005 – Cleveland Circle, Brookline, MA
• 2006 – Potrero, San Francisco, CA
• 2006 – The Castro, San Francisco, CA
• 2008 – Dogpatch, San Francisco, CA
• 2009 – Ft Green, Brooklyn, NY
• 2010 – Cobble Hill, Brooklyn, NY
• 2010 – West Loop, Chicago, IL
• 2011 – Andersonville, Chicago, IL
• 2012 – Edgewater Pt 1, Chicago, IL
• 2012 – Edgewater Pt 2, Chicago, IL

All-time record dieted-down move was 2009: Escape to New York, when I decamped with just four boxes and the musical instruments. Other lean points include 2006 with nine boxes and a guitar. The most recent in-neighborhood move required two SUV trips. Bleh. Like 5% of that was t-shirts I never wear, another 5% was books I haven’t opened in 5+ years. Room for improvement.

No matter how spare and bare though, every single time I’ve moved I’ve fantasized about shucking off all the stuff entirely. Leaving those well-packed boxes on the curb. Keeping only the barest essentials. Three years ago such essentials would have been the tools of my art: laptop and instruments. Now the fantasy is more like: toothbrush and a bicycle.

The only eight-year veteran of all twelve moves: this piece from Steve Frost, signed on the back “Happy 20th Birthday.” That and a copy of James Thurber’s “The 13 Clocks.” The latter fitting as time-loops are much on my mind these days, even as I mark linear passage of time in cities lived in and left behind. The former fitting as well: art by the hand of my oldest friend, and a web that binds humans.

This morning’s NYTimes headline vext me most mightily. I read it as our paper of record saying,

Everyone, we’re going to code the entire experience as a Bad Time. When we remember it in the future, it will be strictly as a Bad Time. What a shitty year and a dum election. It’s in YOUR hands now. G’head and vote at the polls like a bunchof jerks.

Or maybe just,

Hey, guys! Fuck you, too.

Ate a lot of candy this afternoon (Haribo gummy bears + caramel chocolate), and now questioning whether to get high on caffeine as well. Should make for an interesting writing and editing experience later.

Feeling some relief in advance that it will all be decided soon, but then, my star hero Michael Lutin says to not bet on a swift resolution. Nearly typed “revolution.” Wishful thinking.

Becca wrote a post about the upcoming elections: In which I consider not voting. She said,

Because sometimes the psychic energy of 150 million Americans (probably more!) not liking me makes it difficult to get out of bed, let alone muster the energy to participate in a national pissing match in which my rights and my humanity have become a political plaything.

Because my throat is dry and my voice is drained and – for one single, solitary day – I would like the personal to not be so damned political.

As of this morning Becca’s post had a couple nasty little comments in response, which surprised and amused me. In general, I find the people who get most uptight about voting and direct action are those who lived through or are still immersed in the political paradigm of 50 years ago. “We ended Jim Crow, we put our lives on the line to stop a war,” they tell us. “What have you done? Gone camping in Daley Plaza?”

In January my friend Beth and I were in a hospital waiting room, killing time until our friend P woke up from spinal surgery. We talked politics a bit with P’s mother’s boyfriend, who did not explicitly self-identify as a former 1960s radical but if I were writing a script that included an aging 1960s-era radical I would write exactly this man.

Beth mentioned how difficult it is to talk politics at the family Thanksgiving table, and that thus she often avoids it. “You really are apathetic,” he said.

I was galled. Beth had spent a few months the previous fall trainhopping with hobos (they call themselves “travelers,” she said). She’s an anarchist polyamorous vegan. Her *life* is a radical political act of subversion. Just, not along the lines that this man valued. Thus, he deemed her decision to allow grace at family dinners apathetic. So it goes.

I’d like to post my response to Becca’s blog, which sums up my current political feelings: post-partisan, still participatory.

November 1, 2012 at 8:59am
ericaricardo says:

I’m a weirdo who believes in federalism and a national executive with limited power, the states as laboratories of democracy, etc. The tenor of both Pro-bama and No-bama talk seems to take as a given that the US Prez could and should be a short-term dictator with infinite power and magical management skills. After alla that 18th century fighting, all we really want is another king. Not apologizing for the man. But there’s only so far you can drive a broken car.

Most of my feelings about politics are influenced by growing up in New England where pure democracy still exists. Each year, the town votes on the budget. Every citizen can have his/her say at the mic at town meeting. Then every citizen can vote. Beautiful, right? My hometown has an aging population that doesn’t want to pay taxes to support the school system. Every year it’s an increasingly dirty shitshow to pass a budget.

So I don’t hold a high opinion of democracy in the context of ownership culture.

I had a good time yesterday going through the entire sample ballot, researching and making decisions about all the local elections. And was surprised that, though I’m generally a Dem, a number of local Republicans will get my vote on Tues. Surprised and pleased. Democracy ☺

Anyway, Becca. You should vote. Don’t do it because it’s right, do it because it will feel good.

and on further thought,

November 1, 2012 at 9:11 am
ericaricardo says:

Gonna add, too: I don’t hold a high opinion of blog comments in the context of ownership culture, either.

Geeze, you guys! You do know death is coming, right?