“When I was biking down, I went past the katsura and was like ‘yeah, fall’s coming.'”
“They’re changing color?”
“No, they smells like fall.”
Katsura tees smell like fall, a dark smell of honey, cinnamon, and dust. As their leaves prepare to die, they produce an excess of maltose in one last push. It catches on the air and carries down wind, following me down the path.
I put the shaded grey glasses on over my own. They hand me a piece of plastic that looks and feels like my nook. It has a large outlined fly on it, depicted in two layers. It’s a test for stereovision.
I look at the image. It’s flat.
I cry on the T ride home.
It’s 12:30am.
“You fucked my cousin, you bitch. You fucked my cousin. I’m going to fuck you in the ass because you fucked my cousin, you bitch.”
Twenty, thirty feet above them, I’m awake.
She says something, I can’t hear her.
“The wedding’s off because you fucked my cousin. I am going to call my mom. I’m going to call your mom. I’m going to call anyone who will listen and tell them the wedding’s off because you fucked my cousin.”
She says something again. I still can’t hear her, but I hear a whimper.
I find my phone and dial 911. I don’t hit send. I don’t know what I’m waiting for. Maybe he’ll calm down. Maybe she’ll leave. Maybe they’ll both go away. Maybe too much time has passed and if I call the cops, they’ll show up too late. Maybe I’m waiting just a few more seconds to make sure I need to call 911 before I do so.
I’m waiting to see if he hits her.
A few days in, I am going crazy again. Taking the T makes me feel listless all day. I wake up early, run every morning. I struggle to stay awake and wear sunglasses. I take breaks every five to ten minutes, closing my eyes as the world spins and blurrs in and out and the headaches make me want to cry–not from pain, but over how helpless I feel.
My boss and I sit down and we work out a schedule where I am only in the office for part of the day. I’ll go home, and then work more after taking a nap.
At work. I align things on my desk, so I can practice looking at them. They’re positioned so that if I focus with my right eye, things look one way, the object in the front covers the objects and lines behind it in a way different than when i focus with my left eye. I try to get the objects to align in neither way, to find the space in between.
Edges are blurry. NN tells me that babies have trouble identifying edges when they’re learning to see. This is a good sign, she says.
I didn’t want to have to need more dispensations for work. When I leave the office, with everyone else hunched over their desks, I feel like I am cheating. I am doing something I am not supposed to be. I sneak out. I don’t say goodbye or even acknowledge that I am leaving.
When I get home, I take a nap and then pace around the house like a ghost. I work in the stretches I can focus for. I pace. After it’s dark, I go running. It’s the thing I have. It’s the thing I can do. Every day I wait until the end of it, finding comfort in the knowledge that I’ll be able to close my eyes and sleep.
There’s a This American Life has an episode, for Valentine’s Day, that opens with a Harvard educated physicist relaying a story about doing the math to figure out his dating pool in Boston.
So you start with 600,000. Which sounds great, except that half of them are guys, right? And I’m only interested in girls.
He’s wrong.
So, let’s be honest, a Harvard physics student or post-doc is probably not going to date someone who lives in Boston (population 645,000). He’s more likely to date someone in Camberville (pop. 105,000 and 75,000, respectively). He might go to Medford (pop. 56,000), where Tufts calls home. Arlington (pop. 42,800) is also a possibility (in as much, maybe less, than I would say Boston is), but I add it for the sake of being thorough.
Now, let’s talk about his claim that half of his 600k people are women. He’s wrong.
M.’s Table of Wikipedia Data
| City | Total Population | Men (per 100 women)* |
| Arlington | 42,800 | 83.9 |
| Boston | 645,000 | 89.9 |
| Cambridge | 105,000 | 94.7 |
| Medford | 56,000 | 85.2 |
| Somerville | 75,700 | 93 |
*among people over the age of 18.
This general statistic (more women than men in the Boston area), has come up recently in conversation. Someone’s girlfriend moved to Boston. They broke up. “At least the dating scene here has to be better for her than [the Midwest].” Someone else considered that the last three men they had sex with were all from outside the area.
Because I like pushing numbers, let’s see some more. I’ve rounded to the nearest integer because you can’t date .428ths of a person.
M.’s Estimates on Number of Vaguely Age Appropriate Dating Pool For A Random Adult Assuming No One Is Married, They Do Not Mind May-December Relationships or Heterosexual Relationships
| City | Total population | % Over 18 | # of Men | # of Women |
| Arlington | 42,800 | 35.6 | 6,951 | 8,285 |
| Boston | 645,000 | 47.5 | 145,040 | 161,335 |
| Cambridge | 105,000 | 59.8 | 30,540 | 32,250 |
| Medford | 56,000 | 42.6 | 10,974 | 12,881 |
| Somerville | 75,700 | 58.5 | 21,339 | 22,945 |
| Totals | 924,500 | N/A | 214,844 | 237,696 |
Conclusions
Reviewing assumptions:
Based on these assumptions, 22,852 women are unable to couple. That’s approximately the population of Lincolnia, Virginia.
Exempt Parties
This doesn’t take into account things like married couples In Somerville, 32.3% of the 31,555 households (10,192) were married couples. This is where things are going to get kind of weird. Most of my friends live in shared apartments. SW and LR are married, but have two (unmarried) housemates. I also don’t know how many households are over the age of 44 (or under the age of 18).
M.’s List of Households
| City | Total Households | % Married | # of Married Households |
| Arlington | 19,007 | 45.1 | 8,572 |
| Boston | 252,699 | 25.5 | 64,438 |
| Cambridge | 44,032 | 28.9 | 12,725 |
| Medford | 22,067 | 45.6 | 10,063 |
| Somerville | 31,555 | 32.3 | 10,161 |
Gallup estimates that 4.4% of adults in Massachusetts are gay. This does not take into any account how many of these people are men or women. There are people who are asexual. There seems to be a decent turnover rate in the population, due to the universities and growing startup culture, though that may just be a reflection of my social circles.
Personal Conclusions
It’s no wonder my female friends keep getting together with dudes who don’t live here.
Edit: 2,2945 > 22,945. Thanks, TR.
I return to work on a Monday. It’s been a little over a week since the surgery. The concept of work, the pervasive culture of being an employee, of defining myself by my employer, has consumed me.
When I go to parties, people ask what I do and I in turn ask what they do. It’s small talk, in a form where we hope someone will say something we can latch on to. It’s something we can be genuinely interested in–in the Camberville world where social connections are key to success or in an honest sense of curiosity. Regardless, I have bought into it and I feel bad, deeply, critically bad, for missing out on a week of work.
Missing out.
I return to the office, with eyes still marked from the red blotches of blood and painful black stitches. The sunlight is too bright, and I wear a hat pulled down low over my face. I take the T and I want to sit down, but I don’t, because it is crowded and I look healthy. To someone who doesn’t know how much the world sways and blurs when I try to look at it, I appear healthy.
Everyone greets me in the office and my discomfort is caused not just by the green florescent lights–which I never liked in the first place–but their concern. I warned them, in a short e-mail before my return, explaining that I had surgery, was fine, happy to talk about it, but I’d really like to be able to focus on getting back to work and catching up on everything I missed.
Catching up.
Work doesn’t slow down when you’re injured. Things pile up and wait for you to take them back on and over and over again in my head, over the dizziness, nausea, and headaches, I tell myself that this is what I need to do.
I sit down at my computer and power it up. The text is unreadable.
The air is sticky and the sharp scent of salt is in the air. For me, it’s heady and I am dizzy, wrapped up in a visceral understanding: I am home. Home smells like the ocean, feels like humidity, and tastes like early morning.
“Portland bikes! Portland cyclists!” A girl comes out of the bar, screaming, singing, to herself and her friends.
“What was that?” he asks.
“Fucking tourists,” she says. “We’re a tourist attraction now.”
This is going to be a rather long rant about my recent experiences with Dell customer service.
Background
I have a Dell laptop. My parents and I split the cost for my birthday, after the lemon of a Zenbook R gave me back in 2012 died for the last time with a disconnection between the power plug and anything useful. The Dell, a refurbished Latitude e5440, is “heavy” according to my friends. It’s pretty light on the visual branding, which I appreciate. It’s not the best laptop–there are some weird things with the wireless (there is no unique wireless switch–it’s tied to the bluetooth and this is not obvious). The total cost for it was about $700, including the Gold Service Warranty, including Accidental Damage.
Skybax and I hadn’t had many adventures together until, earlier this month, it was time for the PFF. Skybax and I were going to travel southward: Debian was running great, my ssh keys were in the proper places, I remembered all the appropriate passphrases, and the wireless was spot on.
Outside of Philadelphia,Skybax shut off mid-sentence.
Exciting Adventures in Home Computer Repair
I’m an electrician at the PFF. This means that I hang out with a bunch of electrics, theater, computer, and awesome people for ten days every August. After I tried the standard range of things to get a laptop up and running again–every combination of battery/charger in/out as exists, the force system start key combinations, and blood sacrifice–the team set upon the brick Skybax had become with voltmeters and years of expertise, measuring every potential place of power flow and what is, or could be, moving between them, comparing the results with those from other, more functional machines.
Nothing.
Customer Support
I have this fancy warranty, which promises next business day service with all sorts of stipulations and disclosures. I call support, and talk to a lovely man named Trevor. I give him the option of sending the part to where I am and sneaking someone into the festival–because, if we’re honest here, that’d be totally awesome. Instead, it is decided that doing the repair in Boston would be better on their end.
I leave the call feeling pretty good about Trevor (who at this point is the anthropomorphic form of Dell) and where this is going.
Scheduling
I fly home on the 19th and pretty promptly get a call from Unisys, the company doing the actual service. Bob–everyone involved in customer support and end service lives with only one name–tells me his schedule and I tell him mine: I just got back, my flight was super delayed, I need to be at work for a bit, I’ll be home around five. Bob informs me that he only works 9-5, asks what we’ll do, and then–when I say I don’t know–hangs up.
Lame.
Not knowing what else to do, I e-mail Trevor and he asks me if I can make other arrangements. I wonder what busy people who happen to have this warranty do.
Interlude: Privilege
I recognize the expectation of privilege in time that is associated with the privilege of things like fancy warranties. Of course someone with the Gold Pro Star Ultimate Warranty can either have someone come into their office or just take off mid-day to meet the Unisys guy (it’s always a guy).
Scheduling, Again
I ask around and one of my friends who bases himself out of a coworking space offers to manage the laptop fix. I talk with Jenny–the Unisys scheduling lady–and explain the situation with her. I ask if we can schedule the time over e-mail, so SW has the autonomy of giving out his phone number (who knows which one he wants to use), I want to know what’s going on, and I don’t want to mediate a conversation between two people over the phone. Jenny gives me an e-mail addresses, promises she’ll get back to me after her break, and I send a message to her and SW.
And I wait. And wait. And wait.
SW instigates a conversation with Jenny. She does not respond. I don’t actually have a number to call, beyond Bob’s, which proves to be unhelpful.
Sometime between Thursday and Friday (over a week since my first conversation with The-Face-of-Dell (think about this in the way you’d refer to the human voice of a cold, cruel god)) an appointment is scheduled for Friday. Then it’s rescheduled to 4pm. At 5:08, on Friday, I get a text from SW saying that the new Unisys guy is there.
Around 7pm, I get a call saying Unisys Guy (Steve, not Bob), has fixed the bricking issue, but now the screen “has a few issues with red interlacing.”
Thus begins the two hours I spend on the phone with various people around the Dell/Unisys/CS mess.
Unreasonable Requests
Monday, the 25th, I am leaving my beautiful city–again–to go to Portland, OR for an exciting week of tech conferencing. (Did you know that not all serious conferences are as much fun as tech ones?) I need the service request to be changed from Boston to Portland.
The way the service system works is that the parts are shipped overnight/next business day from Dell to a Unisys person. The Unisys person then makes an appointment with you to meet up.
Talking with Steve
Points of the conversation:
Talking With Abraham
Getting your computer fixed requires having a computer in front of you to arrange things. I call the Dell number in my phone. I have my computer’s service number ready because that’s also stores in my phone. The Dell Phone Computer System Lady does not accept my service number and links me through to someone somewhere in the company. She works with Ispiron, she tells me, and shunts me off to a Latitude guy, who hands me over to another person–Abraham.
Abraham has now replaced Trevor as The Voice of Dell. After a few minutes of conversation, I ask him to put the order through before grabbing his supervisor. When I explain to him the change of service location, he says he needs a new serving address.
“I don’t know,” is the truth. I don’t have a computer to look it up, time is ticking away, all my housemates are out of town, and I just want this thing handled so my laptop will be fixed Monday. He doesn’t understand this and I explain that I am going to this conference, don’t know where we’ll be, don’t know the address, and don’t know where any actual servicing will occur. He says he needs an address and says I can look it up (which I can’t, because I don’t have a machine capable of doing so). I suggest using the post office or, frankly, anywhere in Portland because the new Unisys guy and I will have to make a schedule anyway.
He says he needs to go talk to his supervisor. Eventually, he comes back and tells me he can put the order in, we’ll figure out an address thing, but that the deadline for Monday shipping was fifteen minutes ago (it’s half an hour after I hit the call button).
He hands me off to Graham.
Graham, the Supervisor
Graham is a supervisor–Abraham’s supervisor in fact. He has a slightly high pitched voice, and repeats the same business speak I’ve heard from everyone so far.
“Are you a computer person?” I ask him, interrupting something meaningless he’s saying.
“Yeah, I guess. I build my own computers and stuff.”
“Cool. I’m a computer person.” I realize as I say this it’s true. I am a computer person. “I’m going to the Debian Conference on Monday. People are already going to laugh at me because I have a Dell and not a Thinkpad, and now I don’t even have a Dell.”
The conversation shifts a bit at this point.
Interlude: I Don’t Hold It Against You
Throughout the entire conversation, throughout all of these conversations, I make a point to remind the Voices of Dell and Unisys that I know it’s not their fault. They are “tiny cogs in a big corporate machine that doesn’t care about individuals (i.e. me). I mean, after all, only fifty people read my blog on a good day.” I have one of those rare experiences where I regret not being internet famous, and being able to sway the world with my digital opinions. I know they’re wonderful people, just doing their jobs and using scripts someone else wrote. They’re nice guys, I repeat again and again, and they are also the faces of my newest enemy, Dell. Dell is now the force at which I direct every bit of hate and anger I have for The Man. Dell is now The Man and, most regrettably, these people are Dell. I apologize, again and again, that I am angry and frustrated and tired and incredibly let down with their company and that it’s NOT THEIR FAULT. They are wage slaves in a dark, thankless society, needing to toil away for the profit of others in order to survive. I will say “fuck” and I will grit my teeth, and I will try and remain calm, and I do not hold it against them in any way.
“If I’m getting too unreasonable in conversation,” I say “please tell me. We can stop and find new ways to communicate that work better for both of us. Okay?”
“Okay,” they agree.
More with Graham
And the conversation continues. I am an unstoppable force; they are an immovable object. I won’t take no for an answer, they are completely unable to say yes. I demand they fix the problem, they say they can’t. I explain how you can overnight things even on weekends, they explain that they don’t have the abilities to do so. I ask to speak with Graham’s supervisor, who, he informs me, does not speak with the public. I feel hopeless and trapped and frustrated. I cannot move up the chain anymore. Graham, Supervisor of the Phone Tech’s Graham, Graham, the Slightly Nerdy Guy Who Built His Own Computer, is the highest up person at Dell who I can even talk to and then there’s only so much he can do (i.e. nothing more than Abraham).
Flustered, I go back to my previous statements. Now I am an unmovable object and I refuse to budge on how unacceptable this all is and how they need to fix it. I explain my situation again and again. Graham reads the file, says it frustrates him just to see how long this has taken, and then ruins any good grace I have begun to feel towards him by telling me that Unisys has trouble getting in touch with me, when, in my world, I put forth every effort to contact them and to be friendly and helpful until Steve turned on my laptop, saw a red screen, and called and blamed Debian.
Graham, in his favor, attempts to mend his wrong to me (which, I explain, I know isn’t his fault, but now he speaks for Dell and Unisys, Dark Masters of My Fate). He states firmly, and finally, that all he can do is put the order in and wait until Tuesday for it to arrive.
I then ask how he is going to restore my faith in Dell, tech support, and even him.
Interlude: Expecting Free Stuff
I don’t know how it happened, but we now expect things for our trouble. I would have preferred they just Fix My Fucking Computer, but since they cannot, I Expect Them To Give Me Something Nice in Return. We expect companies, especially, to give us presents when We Have Been Wronged. I don’t know why this is. I think it’s because if companies were individuals, we–or I, at least–would understand that sometimes things happen and it’s not a big deal, but companies, large corporations, aren’t apologetic and have so many points in them they shouldn’t mess up.
“What do you want?”
Graham, for his benefit, asks me what I want. We’re not beating around any bushes here, he knows I want something and after all this time, we have learned to be honest and straight forward with one another. Well, he has. I don’t know, not having thought this far ahead past my attempts to be a Hard Negotiator and Not Back Down. I tell him I want my fucking computer fixed last week. He offers a six month extension on the warranty. “But I have to put the request in, they may not approve it,” he warns.
Back to Abraham
I’m handed back to Abraham, after thanking Graham, reminding him he’s not a horrible person and I think he’s been really nice. Abraham looks up the general address to DebConf, with emotional support from me in his Internet Searching. He puts the request in for the parts to be shipped to Portland, OR.
I find that I am in no actual way placated and spend the rest of the night playing with a weather balloon because Somerville.
Things That Really Get Me
It’s Not Over Yet
Remembering that Steve said there were some screen problems, but that it still worked, I turned Skybax on today to see what was up. The screen was nearly completely incomprehensible, flashing between a total, blank red, and then a blank red with sporadic lines of legible pixels breaking up the emergency monotony. I sigh, sit down to write this (after being pretty sure, before that time, I would not write a blog post about this tech support experience) and play some Bad Religion.
“I mean, that sort of wood design is very in right now. How could they even afford that?”
“The wood with bark still on it is hip?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, those are ceders that fell in the hurricane. They just went and picked them up.”
“I wonder how much work it was to take it to the mill and back. Are there even mills around here?”
Someone points to a tattooed, bicycle capped, bearded man without a shirt on. “It’s his. He has a mill.”
We stare.
“Think he wants to be our friend?”
Life On M 