Ornoth

Now that I’m 18 months removed from it, I’d like to reflect on my seven years in Pittsburgh.

Let me apologize in advance; this’ll be more negative than positive, because I want to talk about why I left. My intention isn’t to shit on anyone’s chosen hometown. There really is a lot to like about Pittsburgh and Western PA, many good reasons to live there, and lots of genuinely awesome people. But I also want to be forthright about why I was eager to leave.

By far the biggest reason actually had nothing to do with Pittsburgh itself; it’s just that I never intended to stay. When I left Boston in 2015, my #1 desire was to finally move somewhere warm, after enduring 50+ New England winters. Pittsburgh’s weather wasn’t much of an improvement, so I always knew Pittsburgh was a temporary stop on my way to something else. Even before I arrived, moving away was a foregone conclusion, though it did become more urgent as the years ticked by and my patience ebbed.

Before I moved to Pittsburgh, my impressions of Western PA were informed by two or three trips to the SCA’s Pennsic War, one DargonZine Summit, several trips to visit Inna, plus some trips to do database work with the local hospitals. Based on that, my pre-move image of Pennsylvania was of beautifully scenic wooded rolling hills and farmland, with Pittsburgh as a leading center of medical excellence.

After living there for seven years, I left with a very different impression: that of an exploited and poisoned environment, with more openly mean-spirited people than I was used to.

But let’s start with what I thought were some of Pittsburgh’s best features:

• The countryside really is strikingly beautiful, when seen from a safe distance.
• Pittsburgh has a compact, attractive downtown with a beautiful skyline that’s shown off well from its dramatic gateway entrance and numerous surrounding hilltop overlooks.
• There’s lots of noteworthy architecture and cultural institutions, thanks largely to the philanthropic legacy of Pittsburgh’s oil, steel, and industrial magnates.
• There is an easily-accessible and uncrowded casino whose state-stipulated blackjack rules are more advantageous for the player than nearly anywhere else.
• The airport pipes in music from local classical radio station WQED.

Yes, citing a casino and crowd control music as top features is an instance of damning with faint praise, and I have a lot more negative things to say. But before I dig into those, I’d like to mention a few things about Pittsburgh that were both good… and bad. Let me show you what I mean:

• Land and housing are extremely affordable. That would be delightful, except it’s due to the fact that Pittsburgh’s population has not grown in any 10-year census period since 1950, shrinking by 55% in that span, leaving a lot of underutilized, vacant, and/or abandoned properties.
• The winters are slightly better than Boston, with considerably less cold and snow than Maine. Being further south, winter days have more daylight hours, and should have more sunshine and less oppressive darkness. But you actually see less sun during the winter. Although thankfully not inside the Great Lakes snow belt, Pittsburgh is close enough that there’s perpetual overcast skies and sporadic light flurries all winter long, and that lack of sun can be just as depressing as the shortened days up in Maine.
• Pittsburgh’s airport is spacious and quick to get through… But that’s because it was built as a major USAir hub just before that airline’s insolvency. Today PIT handles a minuscule fraction of the volume it was designed for. You can’t escape the cognitive dissonance when the loudspeakers proudly announce “Welcome to Pittsburgh!” and it echoes down the vast corridors of an empty airport.
• Pittsburgh is arguably the hilliest city in the US. As a cyclist, the upsides are intense physical workouts and memorable events like the infamous Dirty Dozen hillclimb; while the downside is a dearth of calm, relaxing routes, because all the flat land has been claimed by highways, railroads, warehouses, and industry. And if you’re a driver, those hills can be treacherous in winter.
• There’s a very friendly cycling community and loads of interesting cycling events. On the other hand, it can be difficult to get around on a bike, as there aren’t many good options heading east or south or west of the city.

And now we get to the heart of the matter: the things about Pittsburgh that turned me off. I tried to whittle this down to major points while still making myself clear.

It’s dirty.

To be fair, there’s been a ton of progress in the 150 years since Atlantic Monthly described Pittsburgh at the height of its industrial output as “hell with the lid taken off.” But a lot of damage done to the land, water, and air by the coal, oil, gas, iron, and steel industries still remains. Western PA is the only area outside California that consistently receives all ‘F’ grades in the American Lung Association’s air quality reports, and often records the worst air quality in the US. Even today, the culture of fouling the environment still lingers, as can be seen in the preponderance of roadside litter and illegal garbage dumping. Having grown up in the Maine woods, the lack of respect for the natural environment disturbed me.

It’s blighted.

I’ve already mentioned the population decline and abundance of abandoned and condemned buildings, so I won’t belabor it, save to say that the amount of urban decay and blight is off-putting. I’m sure it didn’t help that Pittsburgh was in receivership for 14 years (from 2004-2018), despite residents paying an extra 1.5% city income tax!

Collapsing infrastructure.

Pittsburgh has some unique challenges that other cities don’t. The steep topography means that parts of the city get flash floods (Washington Blvd, Mon Wharf, the Bathtub, Millvale, Glass Run). And there are seasonal landslides that can close roads for months (Greenleaf, Commercial, Pittview, Route 30). But then there’s also numerous avoidable, man-made infrastructure failures. For example, during my brief years in Pittburgh:

• The Fern Hollow Bridge carrying Forbes Ave over Frick Park collapsed.
• Concrete slabs from the Swindell Bridge fell onto the Parkway North, forcing closures on I-279.
• More concrete fell from the Greenfield Bridge over the Parkway East (I-376) , so the state built a semipermanent “bridge” underneath the main bridge just to catch the falling debris.
• Several building facades collapsed in the Southside, Lawrenceville, and the Strip, including Kraynick’s bike shop.
• A Pittsburgh city transit bus was driving along Liberty Ave in the heart of downtown when a huge sinkhole opened up and swallowed it whole.
• An entire parking deck collapsed in the Penn Hills.
• Repeated train derailments in the South Side, Harmar, and a dramatic moving conflagration as a burning train rolled on obliviously for twenty miles through Freedom and Harmony, PA.

So much anger.

I don’t want to overemphasize this, because I made a lot of wonderful friendships in Pittsburgh. But in comparison to New England, many Western PA locals seemed eager to take opportunities to be rude or mean toward one another, while hiding behind the anonymity of the internet or ensconced in their self-propelled rolling fortresses. Pittsburgh has a lot of schadenfreude, which was unpleasant.

A culture of unlawfulness.

A lot of cities found themselves at odds with their own police forces following the Black Lives Matter protests and de-funding rumors, but Pittsburgh already had a head start. Speeding has historically never been enforced; in fact, it’s still illegal today for county and local law enforcement to use radar guns to enforce speed limits! In seven years living (and riding) there, I don’t think I ever saw a state trooper, and saw only one or two traffic stops by local police.

The Covid pandemic provided another disincentive to conduct minor traffic stops. And the police reacted hostilely to BLM and de-funding protests. Then both the city council and even bike advocates asked the cops to stop traffic enforcement! All this made it much more dangerous to be a pedestrian, cyclist, or motor vehicle operator in Pittsburgh. Tho sadly, I now realize this is a much broader problem than just Western PA.

Monopolies in healthcare and groceries.

Healthcare in Pittsburgh is dominated by UPMC. Because it’s loosely affiliated with the University of Pittsburgh, this immense hospital chain does everything it can to take full advantage of its categorization as a non-profit. No one I talked to had a positive experience with them, whether as a patient or an employee.

Pittsburgh also suffers from a near-monopoly in grocery stores. You would think that when I lived in downtown Boston’s tony Back Bay, my groceries would have been extremely costly; but my food bill actually jumped 25% higher after I moved to Pittsburgh.

Misplaced regional pride.

I get it: every place needs to have a sense of regional pride. But it’s kind of lame that the “Paris of Appalachia” bases its sense of identity on things that are ubiquitous throughout urban America, such as putting a chair out to reserve a parking space, or trying to jump the green when turning left at a traffic light. Or rabid loyalty to a company like Heinz, which left Pittsburgh 20 years ago. Or mindlessly hating all the other cities in the region (Philadelphia, Cleveland, Buffalo, Detroit). Sure, take pride in your city, but make some effort to identify the things that genuinely make Pittsburgh special; the “Pittsburgh Left” ain’t it.

The food.

I just don’t know how Pittsburgh gained its reputation as a city for foodies.

Let’s consider the foods Pittsburghers take pride in: Beer. Ketchup. Pickles. Lenten fish frys. Pierogies. And sticking french fries into literally everything. None of these qualify as “cuisine”. If I were a Pittsburgher, I’d be ashamed.

And while I’m admittedly a culinary philistine myself, I didn’t find any places that impressed me in my preferred food zones, like burgers, Indian, and Mexican food. Thai was a wasteland except for Thai & Noodle Outlet. Pizza wasn’t “all that” but Aiello’s was tolerable… tho they (and their arch-rival Mineo’s) still refuse to deliver and require payment in cash. And the best Pittsburgh could offer for ice cream was Bruster’s (no, don’t talk to me about Page’s or Dave and Andy’s).

Toxic redneck culture.

I grew up among rednecks. A lot of my family were rednecks. Almost everywhere I’ve lived, there have been a lot of rednecks. And outside of Pittsburgh’s city limits, Western PA is infested with rednecks.

I just don’t fit into – or get along well with – that culture anymore. The rabid devotion to the local sportball teams (The Stillers, The Pens). The preoccupation with beer and alcohol. The gun fetish (open and concealed carry are both legal). The mindless nationalism. The constant othering and barefaced xenophobia. The utter absence of compassion or open-mindedness.

Several Western-PA wing-nuts played leading roles in the 2021 Trump-inspired attempt to overthrow the United States government. And in 2018, less than a mile from our apartment, the deadliest massacre of Jews in United States history took place. I hope I don’t need to tell you how offensive those are.

In closing:

Pittsburgh was a city of contradictions and trade-offs. Western PA was beautiful, if you looked past the pollution and decay. The cycling was great, but also quite challenging. It was inexpensive (housing), except where it wasn’t (groceries). I met plenty of wonderful people (undoubtedly including the Pittsburghers who are reading this), and about as many that were truly hateful.

Although the winters, as the natives say, “weren’t all that”, it was a fine place to spend a half-dozen years. I have a lot of very fond memories of Pittsburgh. Those include the many valued friends I made; the heart-warming meditation communities that welcomed me and nurtured my growth as a teacher; plus the people and landscapes and rides that I enjoyed while cycling. These will stay with me forever.

But from the very beginning, I always planned to move farther south, beyond the clutches of the Snow Miser. And as the years passed, I needed to move on to a warmer, sunnier place.

It goes without saying that Austin, our new home, came with its own set of pleasures and challenges… But that’s a story for another post.

Patriots’ Day is a state holiday, which my employer honored until this year, having been purchased by a company in Las Vegas that doesn’t think particularly much of Massachusetts’ Revolutionary War history.

The Boston Marathon, which takes place on that day, finishes a block—150 yards—from my condo. Between setup, tear-down, and cleanup, it royally screws up transportation for most of a week. Street closures bring most of the neighborhood to a standstill. They close my MBTA station (Copley) and you physically cannot cross Boylston Street without going a mile out of your way.

Since I would be unable to get to work (or back), I chose to work from home on this year’s Patriots’ Day. In the evening, I also had an appointment to pick up my new bike and do a full fitting, although I didn’t know whether I’d be able to get through the crowds to get to the bike shop!

For most of the day, I ignored the race. Public events are common where I live, whether it’s the Walk for Hunger or a pride parade or a Critical Mass ride or a sports team celebrating a championship or a free concert or a political rally or the Santa Speedo Run or whatever. I mostly tuned out the race’s PA announcer, the shouting vendors, and the partying revelers. Once or twice I looked out my window to see the crowds of exhausted runners walking down Boylston Street, having just crossed the finish line.

Just before 3pm I heard a loud boom. Yes, it might have sounded like a canon, but the first thing I thought of was that someone had taken a huge dump truck and dropped it from 20 feet up. It was an echoing heavy metal sound, like a big truck carrying steel I-beams hitting a wall. Except the concussion was a lot stronger than that. My building was rocked, and a dozen building and car alarms were going off.

Twelve seconds later, as I wondered what was up, I heard the second blast. It was further away from me, but still didn’t sound normal. I got up and went to the window and saw hundreds of panicked runners, spectators, and volunteers streaming out of Copley Square, running down Dartmouth Street toward me. (That’s my condo in the news photo at right.)

Something very bad had obviously happened in the square. I looked for the smoke that would be the tell-tale sign of an explosion, but there was none that I could see above the single row of five-story brownstones between me and the finish line.

My first instinct was to share the news. I went to Facebook and entered what I knew:

Something bad at the marathon… People running all over. Two huge booms, whole building shook, emergency vehicles all over the place.

My next instinct was that this was going to be national news, and I should reach out to friends and family who might wonder if I was injured, so that was my next task.

After that, there was just a whole lot of news watching, and checking out my window as runners, volunteers, and spectators fled the area, rescue vehicles swarmed in to assist the injured, and law enforcement units sealed off the neighborhood.

As it turned out, the first bomb blast was a block from me (see the map), right near my bank and across the street from the Boston Public Library. The second was a block further up, across from Lord & Taylor and my walking route to my neighborhood grocery store.

Although cell service was initially flooded—and despite persistent reports that the police had intentionally terminated cell phone service city-wide—service freed up as people gradually left the neighborhood. I spent the next couple hours fielding inquiries from friends via cell phone, Facebook, instant messaging, and text messages.

Despite all the chaos, I still thought that I could make my bike fitting appointment across town, and brought my old bike down to the lobby. On the way out the door I heard another muffled boom which apparently was a controlled detonation of an abandoned bag that wound up being completely innocuous.

On the street, thousands of people were milling around aimlessly, and the cops had cordoned Dartmouth street off at Commonwealth Avenue. What that meant is that my building was squarely on the edge of the lockdown zone; We could go in and out the main (north) entry, but the side (east) and rear (south) doors were off limits.

I biked off through streets that were largely empty of cars, but with a large number of pedestrians walking around obliviously. Once I got to the bike shop, I saw the “closed early” sign and turned around and made my way home. Knowing Comm Ave would be a mess due to the marathon, I took my only other alternative: the Charles River bike path.

While crossing the Dartmouth Street footbridge over Storrow Drive, one matronly lady headed in the other direction yelled at me, “Don’t go there! The police are there!” to which I, of course, responded, “I live there.”

A few minutes after I got settled back into my apartment, our fire alarm started going off. I assumed the cops had decided to evacuate us, but I checked the hallway and actually smelled smoke. So I started going through the handy list of evacuation tasks I keep by the door. Grady the cat, who up until now had shown absolutely no evidence of concern, was (justifiably) spooked by the blaring fire alarm and it took me a while to corner him and get him into his carrier.

As it turned out, one of the residents had burned dinner. What an irresponsible thing to do, given all the other stuff going on in the neighborhood that needed the fire department’s attention! After a bit of fresh air, the residents were let back inside to soothe our now doubly-jangled nerves.

As night fell, outside my window Newbury Street—which was within the lockdown zone—was absolutely deserted except for cops and military personnel. Absolutely no one was allowed into or out of most of the Back Bay. Huge situation response trucks took up station as the police began to comb through what they termed a “crime scene” that was several square miles in area.

I had planned to take the next day (Tuesday) off to ride my new bike. Despite not having the bike, with the entire neighborhood sealed off there was very little point in trying to get to work, so I took it as a vacation day. And if I could get out and pick up the bike, then I’d take it for a bit of a shakedown cruise.

That morning, one positive development was that the cops opened up Newbury Street to traffic, reducing the lockdown zone a bit and ensuring that my building, at least, would be accessible.

I wasn’t home for much of the day, tho. It was an amazingly stressful and hectic day, made worse by the continuing closure of the Copley MBTA station. At a high level, it went like this…

Walk half a mile to Hynes station. Get past National Guard troops. Take the trolley to the bike shop in Brighton. Take the new bike for a 16-mile test ride outside of the city. Take the trolley back to Boston. Walk half a mile home from Arlington station. Have a Pop-Tart and a glass of juice. Ride the old bike two miles back out to the bike shop. Have an abbreviated fitting done. Ride the old bike two miles back home. Walk half a mile to Arlington station. Take the trolley back out to the bike shop (don’t forget all the National Guard watching this). Ride the new bike two miles home. Turn around and walk half a mile back to Hynes. Hop an MBTA bus to Central Square in Cambridge. Inhale a burrito. Walk to my meditation center for my Tuesday night practice group. Meditate for an hour, then socialize a bit. Walk back to Central and hop the MBTA bus back to Hynes. Walk down to the Fenway Whole Foods, since the two grocery stores that are nearer to me are in the lockdown zone. Too late; they’re closed, so buy milk and OJ at a nearby CVS. Shlep those another mile back home. Collapse.

After just five hours’ sleep, Wednesday I went back to work. The lockdown zone shrank a bit more—down from 17 blocks to 12—freeing up Hereford, Berkeley, and Clarendon. Investigators concluded that the bombs had been constructed of pressure cookers, nails, and metal pellets, and announced that they had obtained surveillance video evidence showing a suspect.

Thursday President Obama (and many others) came to town for an inter-faith ceremony. That night the FBI released photographs of the two suspects.

Friday I was going to bike to work, because it was going to be the warmest day in more than six months, but that plan came to a crashing halt when I learned that shortly after the photos had been released, the bombers had engaged the police in firefights in Cambridge and Watertown, and one of them had been killed. The police had most of eastern Massachusetts completely locked down: no Amtrak, no MBTA, no commuter rail, no cabs, all businesses closed, and residents were told to stay indoors all day.

Despite live news broadcasts all day long, literally nothing happened in the 18 hours after the firefight. After a fruitless search of the neighborhood in Watertown where the surviving suspect was last seen, the police gave a press conference wherein they lifted the stay-put order. On the good side, that meant that the Amtrak would be running Saturday morning, when I had plans to travel to Maine.

But going outside sounded like the height of folly to me, because the second suspect was still armed and on the run. I guess the cops were probably hoping that he’d just turn up somewhere.

Which, as it turns out, was exactly what happened. A man just outside the cordoned-off part of Watertown found the remaining fugitive injured and semi-conscious, hidden in a shrink-wrapped yacht in his backyard, and the police came and took him into custody.

With the second suspect on the way to the hospital, the whole area burst out in celebrations. Of course, even despite the all-clear and the police high-fiving one another and the T being opened, Copley Square MBTA station remained closed, and the entire 12-block area around my apartment was still off-limits to the public.

That pretty much killed the day Friday.

On Saturday I did manage to get out of town on the Downeaster, and returned again on Sunday night. Copley and my neighborhood still off limits.

Monday. Still off limits. On the way home from work, I stopped at the grocery store, then lugged my provisions a mile and a half home. But the FBI turned the site back over to the city of Boston.

Tuesday. Still off limits. CIMC had a special evening gathering, led by the three guiding teachers.

Finally, on Wednesday morning they opened things up. After nine days of being unable to use my MBTA station or cross my neighborhood, the marathon (in both senses of that word) was finally over!

So that’s what happened. Now for a few thoughts…

One oddity is that I remember having the thought—sometime in the week leading up to the marathon—that we hadn’t had any major national emergencies in a long time, and that we were probably due. I don’t recall what prompted that thought, but I am certain it happened.

Although thinking back on it, Back Bay has been through a lot lately. We just got through a region-wide road closure due to a massive blizzard, but before that we spent 48 hours without power after a substation failure, and a week without drinking water when a 10-foot water main broke out in Weston. And then there were hurricanes Sandy and Irene.

I’m disappointed that I didn’t do more to help other people over the past week, to put my compassion practice into action. While I was probably right in telling myself that I wasn’t needed at the bomb scene, I probably could have helped stranded runners or traumatized spectators. But I guess there’s something to learn from my inaction, and hopefully I’ll do a better job next time.

On the other hand, one close friend said it was unexpectedly thoughtful of me to let people know that I was okay. And another friend used the word “compassion” as one of the three things that she thought I epitomized. So that was mildly reassuring.

Speaking of compassion and first responders, I saw an interesting reaction to the bombing that spoke eloquently to me about how men’s manifestations of love and compassion go unseen and unacknowledged. Here:

I had an amazing insight about men. This one insight seems life-changing to me: “Acts of heroism are acts of love.”
 
Why is this life changing? Because I don’t think the narrative out there right now is that men are constantly involved in deep, fundamentally good, acts of love. All the time. Men are not talked about, as a group, as being demonstrative of their love. Of being ongoing catalysts for acts of goodness. And yet they do that all the time. I think the narrative is that men take heroic actions because they are told it’s a role they must play, because men are “supposed” to be strong, supposed to be brave. Because they are “manning up” the way they were taught to. If love is talked about with men, it is in the context of sexuality. When men are called “lovers”, it is often code for “womanizers”. But men act in love, and show that love, all the time. For some unfathomable reason, we call it something else.
 
I don’t think men get enough credit for love.

I think my meditation practice really helped me deal with a situation that would otherwise produce a lot of anxiety and emotional discomfort. While I saw and acknowledged my own emotions, I was much more intrigued by the reactions of the people around me.

For several days, the main question on people’s minds was the search for “who”: who did it?

Lots of people either undertook their own search for the culprit based on photographs that had been posted or formulated their own opinions based on little to no data. But realistically, no private citizen was going to identify the bomber; that’s what we pay our law enforcement agencies for. Get out of the way and let them do their job!

As my teacher pointed out, this compulsion comes entirely from mental discomfort, because the identity of the bomber has absolutely no relevance for most of us. In fact, if the bomber had never been found, it would have made absolutely no material difference in most people’s lives. So why did they spend so much mental energy and anguish trying to answer this question? That kind of desperate, undisciplined thought is the symptom of someone with an undeveloped sense of self-awareness.

Then, after it was learned that the suspects were pretty average Cambridge kids, the next question everyone was asking was “why”: why would someone do such a thing? This was prevalent both in my family as well as from other practitioners at CIMC, and it really surprised me.

I think the very question is indicative of cultural bias. While many of us say that we respect and value other cultures—especially in a highly educated, multi-cultural town like Cambridge—very few of us understand what that means in practice. It’s frustrating that I have to spell it out, but people from other cultures will have different values! They won’t be the same as ours.

While a Buddhist might value non-harming above all other things, and your average American Christian might value order and stability, someone from a foreign culture might consider those less important than individual freedom or cultural preservation or economic fairness. Why would someone bomb innocent civilians? Because it’s important to them within the framework of their values.

I don’t understand what is so mysterious about the fact that other people might have different values than yourself. Why is that so incomprehensible? But people really seem to operate on this unspoken assumption that everyone shares their values. That’s not true even within a family, never mind across vast ethnic, religious, geographic, and political divisions!

I heard the phrase “I don’t understand” so many times that I wanted to grab people and shake them. Of course you don’t understand! You’re not *trying* to understand. A criminal’s actions only make sense when viewed through *their* value system; of course it doesn’t make sense if you insist on viewing it through your very different values. That’s like wondering why birds don’t save their energy and just drive south like the rest of us, rather than fly. Of course it doesn’t make sense if you insist on interpreting bird behavior using human norms and values!

But this question of “why” is even broader than that. Sure, any seemingly “inexplicable” act (criminal or otherwise) can be partially explained by understanding the values espoused by the protagonist. But what about acts of nature or acts of “god”? Aren’t people are just as prone to ask “why” in response to a tsunami or a wildfire or a landslide or a cancer diagnosis?

I find this baffling, because change is inevitable and life is very fragile. These aren’t just platitudes to make you feel better (in fact, they should make you feel quite insecure). But more importantly, these are the incontrovertible base assumptions and conditions that we live under! There doesn’t need to be a *reason* for something bad to happen, because bad things are a part of life, an indisputable fact. All this breast-beating and asking why they happen is like asking why nitrogen happens or bemoaning the law of gravity. If you are asking why it happened, you really need to reexamine the mistaken assumptions you live by.

In contrast, I suppose I should point out something uplifting, too. With so much focus on the bombers and their actions, consider the correspondingly much greater number of people and acts of kindness and compassion that took place over the past week. We should all be heartened by the vastly larger outpouring of support for those affected.

I want to particularly highlight two tweets that crossed my feed shortly after the bombing. In the midst of the chaos and terror, many people thought of giving blood to help the injured. But still, I was amazed by this:

Red Cross reporting sufficient blood in banks at this time. Some marathoners ran directly to MGH to donate after blasts.

I can’t imagine finishing a marathon, running an extra mile, and then having blood drawn. Simply amazing! Not especially smart, but amazing.

But I really felt a deep pride in my city when I read the next tweet. How does Boston respond to a terrorist attack? Like this:

I have no idea how we are supposed to react to something like this, other than love each other more.

I’ve always loved this city. It’s a wonderful mix of ambition and compassion, competitiveness and brotherhood, pride of place and openness, history and innovation, intelligence and grit, vibrant city culture and outdoor activities for the athletically inclined. Boston isn’t perfect, but it strives mightily to be the best. And contrary to the intentions of these terrorist wannabes, the marathon bombing they undertook did something very special: it provided us with a rare opportunity to demonstrate love for our city and our fellow Bostonians, and it bound this great community together more tightly than ever before.

I love that dirty water. Aw, Boston you’re my home.

Heck, I’m so moved I might even include Cambridge…

Why is it so hard for people to be perfect?

I mean, am I missing something? How hard is it to remember simple things you're supposed to remember? Or actually follow-up on the things you commit to doing? How hard can it be to be aware of your surroundings? Or to have the self-control to respond rationally to life's challenges? Or seek the self-knowledge to avoid being hopelessly fucked up? Don't people learn anything?

All my life, I've aspired to perfection: military precision, and machinelike competence. People who know me think that I have some kind of super-human ability to honor my committments, follow through on what I say I'll do, remember things that most people wouldn't, and provide a completely honest and sincere opinion.

In my days in consulting, I really came into my own, because my employer and peers demanded a preternatural degree of skill, self-control, and presence of mind. I thrived there, having finally found a place where my machinelike precision was appreciated, and where I could actually count on my coworkers to demonstrate the same admirable degree of perfection.

So it surprises me when so many people blatantly parade their humanity where everyone can see it. I look at my friends and I see them suffering for their ignorance, laziness, and inefficiency. And I'm somewhat surprised when they express admiration or surprise when I call up facts that they'd forgotten, or actually do something for them that they forgot they'd asked me to do! Somehow, that has made me "godlike" in their eyes.

Of course, perfection comes at a cost. It does take some degree of effort to actually pay attention to life as it happens. But I find that infinitely more satisfying than stumbling around like one of those toy cars that bounces off one wall before heading off in another random direction. That's hardly the behavior I'd expect from a presumably sentient person, and I have much higher expectations of myself than that.

Of course, one might ask whether all this preoccupation with perfection is a little neurotic. Sure, there's an obsessive component to it, but it's that very obsessiveness that makes it possible for a fallible human to approach perfection. Instead, I'd ask why we should tolerate sloppiness and imperfection and error, when it's so easy to rise above all that and live one's life with honor, dignity, and pride.

It's just not that hard, and it freaks me out that people think integrity and efficiency aren't traits that real humans should strive for.