are we there safe yet?

It's official: toothpaste is a threat to national security.

Count it among other frightening gel and liquid products such as soda, makeup, shampoo and sunscreen that are now prohibited in carry-on luggage. Nothing says security like a major inconvenience.

It all happened after a flight headed to Boston's Logan Airport was sent back to London's Heathrow Airport midflight on Monday, when it was discovered that a passenger on the ever-so-trusty "no-fly" list was on the plane. I was hoping that passenger would turn out to be a Kennedy, or maybe Cat Stevens again. But to maintain a good-old-fashioned culture of fear, you can't have too many of such embarrassments, so I knew it was unlikely.

So, a bomb plot was of course discovered and thwarted, many people with brown skin were arrested, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and U.S. President George W. Bush enjoyed their vacations, and their respective governments were quick to create new restrictions on what's allowed in carry-on luggage.

The Brits have it worse than American airline passengers, as mobile phones and iPods are among the items banned. Actually, people in the U.K. basically can't take anything onboard except a few essential items, such as identification and those pesky boarding passes. How thoughtful of British officials to at least include tampons in that list.

But I think my favorite example of how absurd and pointless these new restrictions are comes from an article in the San Jose Mercury News:

Julie Hayes of Armdore, scheduled to fly to Chicago, didn't want to check her carry-on, or dump cosmetics worth $100 or more, but got help from another waiting woman, who was flying to Kansas City.

That woman agreed to put Hayes' beauty aids - lotion, hair spray, makeup, shampoo and more - into the bag she planned to check in. Then after getting to K.C., she'd mail the products back to Hayes.

Security officials, it should be noted, often warn passengers never to carry items given to them by strangers.

Absolutely brilliant.

FURTHER THOUGHTS (2:45 PM): What of all the perfume, makeup and alcoholic beverages travelers might purchase at a duty-free shop in the airport or inflight? Does this render the duty-free industry dead? Either way, I'm still going to be angry when the airlines lose my luggage and I can't brush my teeth or call my mom.

no exit (or: observations on the mbta's handicaps)

Say you were in a wheelchair. You're riding the subway, get off at your stop and see a stick-figure-in-a-wheelchair sign posted by the sliding exit doors. Is your first thought, "This sign clearly means there's no elevator on the other side of these doors, so I should roll right through them so I have to turn around and pay to get back into the station to get to the actual handicapped-accessible exit"?

If not, the MBTA really needs to work on its communication skills.

As the T has moved from turnstiles to the sliding-door model for its entrances/exits, it seems to be making more of an effort to be accessible for the disabled. But not really.

I noticed today while riding the T that these handicapped-accessible doors are being installed at Central and Kendall Square exits that only have stairs. Oops.

It's no surprise, really. I've come to expect handicapped service from the T, certainly not adequate service for the handicapped. But the least the T could do is remove the misleading signage.

new and unfare service!

Now you citizens of Boston, Don't you think it's a scandal that the people have to pay and pay. ... Fight the fare increase! ... Get poor Charlie off the MTA. - from the song "Charlie on the MTA"

Poor Charlie's never getting off the train. Hell, with the MBTA's proposed fare increase, he'd be lucky if he could get on the the train in the first place.

You see, Charlie paid cash for his T ride. And if the T has its way, paying cash means you will pay a premium - 55 cents extra per subway ride and 40 cents extra per local bus ride, to be exact.

Here's the rub: Under the current proposal, if you buy a Charlie Card, the subway will cost $1.70 per ride and the bus will cost $1.25, with free transfers between the two. But if you come bearing cash or a Charlie Ticket, you'll pay $2.25 for the subway and $1.65 for the bus - and you get no free transfers between the two. That's $3.90 if you need to take the bus and the train somewhere - more than double the $1.70 you'd pay with a Charlie Card!

Of course, you won't be able to get a Charlie Card from the new self-serve machines that are being installed in every train station (though theoretically you will be able to refill the cards there). This means unsuspecting, unprepared locals will inevitably pay the higher fare, as will tourists. Granted, tourists already get ripped off with the Visitor's Pass (a seven-day Visitor's pass is $35, more than double the $16.50 it costs for a Weekly Combo Pass). And I'll be honest: I couldn't care less about the tourists.

But given the privacy concerns, why would you want to buy a Charlie Card? Right, you only want it because you don't want to fork over more money to a public transportation system that's more concerned with implementing a crappy new fare collection system rather than improving services people have been asking about for years.

Forget about the fact that everyone wants the trains to run as late as the nightlife. Forget that Roxbury residents wanted train service again - not a 10-years-later, too-little-too-late bus replacement. Forget that most everyone would simply love for the existing services to work well and run relatively on time. No, the T just had to figure out a way to get rid of the tokens that no one had a problem with - and do it in a way to penalize customers who would prefer to use good, old-fashioned cash or retain some bit of anonymity.

Charlie, it might be time to buy a bike. Or start making an RFID blocking wallet to hold that Charlie Card.

liberation through loss

I make lists. Lots of them. Lists of things I need to do someday. Lists of things I need to do today. Lists of things to get at the grocery store. Lists of books and films and music I want to check out. Lists of people to call. List of things I want to write about. Lists of lists of lists.

It's an endless parade of scraps of paper and tiny post-it notes that clutter my table, my calendar, my bookshelf, my pocket. Half of this compulsion is driven by a certain satisfaction in being able to cross things off, crumple a little sticky note and throw it in the recycling bin and feel like I've accomplished something. Of course, half of the lists are composed of such obvious, routine tasks it's silly. But I fear I might forget them, or neglect to do such obvious things as laundry or grocery shopping or even eating.

But when I reached in my pocket to pull out my well-worn, crumpled to-do list, it wasn't there. I was momentarily panic-stricken, until it hit me: I'd been liberated. If I couldn't remember what was on the list, then it must not be that bloody important in the first place. It just wouldn't get done.

I better go make a list of the things I remember.

none of my biz-ness

You should probably be worried about job security when your boss tells you the company can't afford to give you business cards.

Unless you work in my office. Then it's just standard operating procedure.

Instead of providing new employees with basic tools for communication, the company makes workers beg for such bare necessities as voicemail, email, and those all-important business cards. It's like the bosses think we're going to use these things for nefarious purposes.

So the trouble, of course, is that employees feel like they aren't valued or trusted. Nevermind that it doesn't reflect well on the company when employees have to scribble a Yahoo address on a napkin, explaining that the company is too cheap and bureaucratic to provide lowly workers with such simple things.

It took over six months to get my boss to sign the paperwork so I could have voicemail. It took over a year to get another boss to sign the paperwork so I could have a company email address. I'm still working on the business cards.

One of the biggest hurdles has been the condescending questioning, including this classic: "Well, why do you need that?"

Um, so other people can recognize me as a legitimate employee of this company? So I can represent the company in a positive and professional manner? Because I don't live in a bubble and I might actually meet people who, say, want to do business with the company?

Or at least they did before I scrawled my personal email address on the back of an ATM receipt for them.

ch-ch-ch-changes

Somehow, impending change is almost always worse than the change itself. It's the anticipation, speculation, the thinking too much about circumstances beyond your control. But life goes on. We roll with it. Out of sight, out of mind. Then it's easier to be open to the most outlandish possibilities. Hey, it never hurts to dream, and anything is possible when you're unconcious, uninhibited, unrestrained. Because when you wake up it's the work-sleep-eat-meetings-bullshit-work-work-work-burnout routine. You need the job to make the money to pursue the dreams. But to pursue the dreams you need the time and the energy that the job sucks away. And then you know: It's time for a change.

if only

There's something simultaneuously energizing and depressing about the hoards of people that filled my street after Italy won the World Cup semifinals. On the one hand, it's easy to get caught up in the excitement - the singing, the fireworks - and the sardine-can-like confines of Hanover Street. But damn, it's depressing that this many (and this set of) people wouldn't be out in the streets fighting the good fight. Granted, there's something vastly different about celebratory, spontaneous street gatherings and street protests. But still ... I wish people actively cared about their world and their rights as much as they care about a sports team.

which way the wind blows

While most of the sensible world agrees global warming = bad, Lonely Planet (the travel guidebook company) surprised me with its take on the subject matter. From the Iceland book:

There's an old saying: "If you don't like the weather now, wait five minutes - it will probably get worse."

But don't be put off. In recent years, Iceland has benefited from global climate changes, and summers have been relatively pleasant - the summer of 2003 was the warmest on record, and the previous winter was so mild that the ski season was a disaster.

And that's a benefit? Yes, when it gets so warm the gulf stream changes and Iceland is more like its name implies (whatever's still above sea level, anyway), that'll be just wonderful.

Then again, the book later blames a recent recession on fishing quotas, but it apparently didn't occur to the writers that had the overfishing (which is mentioned) continued, there would be no fishing industry left.

Capitalism, of course, isn't concerned with sustainability, and people tend to forget that both supply and demand are, in fact, finite. And I guess I momentarily forgot how Lonely Planet is a corporation trying to survive in a world run by capitalists, despite my perceptions that the company's writers were more in tune with those of ecotourists and travelers who vow to leave no trace behind.

ole!

The snap-pop-bang-pop-pop-pop of fireworks fills the apartment. From the fire escape, where I can usually see the double-parked cars on my street, all I can see are people packed into the street. I can't tell where the fireworks are coming from, because the people seem too dense to be able to have them right there, yet there's smoke rising from the center of the street. It's amazing how the pop-pop-pop continues without pause for ten minutes, and people sing-chant ole! ole, ole, ole! ole, o-le! and chatter in italian. i guess it's clear who won this game of the world cup, so here's to many more days of my neighborhood exploding as the games continue.

dream no. 5,768,542

It's the day of my birthday, and I'm cleaning up the yard of my mom's house. Of course, this is not the house that I grew up in, nor the house she lives in now. But here, it's perfectly clear to me that this is home. The yard is huge, sprawling, with shrubbery acting as a fence. I'm barefoot, zipping about the yard, trimming the shrubs, and brushing the snow off of them and clearing the snow out of the yard so there's space for people to hang out without having to stand in the snow. Wait, yes, I did say I was barefoot. And wearing a tank top. But for some reason I'm warm. Must be all the work. I'm expecting lots of friends over, hoping many people will show up. Despite the fact that this house clearly would be in Colorado, it seems perfectly logical for Boston people to be able to just stop by.

There's someone I've been missing, but who kind of disappeared, and I'm not expecting. [If you know me, this is probably not who you assume it is.] In the back of my mind there's a tiny bit of hope that I'll see him, but I've supressed it; I'm not even thinking about this in the dream. And then he rolls up in a car with a few other people. I drop whatever tools I'm carrying, walking up to him, hesitant at first, but then sort of give in to it and break into a sprint that sort of turns into a leap right into a wrap-myself-around-the-kid hug. There's an overwhelming sense of happiness and fulfillment in the dream, something I haven't necessarily felt in real life lately. I woke up, wanting to hang on to the feeling, sink back into the dream and not have to go to work. Or to just replicate the emotion in real life. Add that to my ever-increasing list of things to do.

nonmarital bliss

I was editing a profile of Sandra Bullock today (sorry, I know, I know), and there was this quote in which she was talking about how there's a real expectation that women get married at 22, start having babies, and that there's a lot of pressure from other people to sort of adhere to this "norm," and what bullshit that all is.

It occurred to me right then how happy I am to be surrounded by a supportive community of friends and family who would never even think to say something as stupid as, "So, when are you gonna get hitched?" Apart from my grandfather, no one's ever even suggested I need to get on with my life and start a family (as though there's no real direction or point to another type of existence).

Even my nonpolitical friends back home, most of them are single, and those who are paired off have done so in more nontraditional ways. None of my good friends there are married or have kids, but it seems like everyone else we went to high school with has had at least one kid, and half of them are single parents (a recent discovery when I found a whole slew of people on the voyeuristic time-suck that is MySpace).

So, I guess a big up to all the people in my community. Sometimes I'm kinda down on a lot of aspects of it, but then there's these reminders that snap me back into the reality of how much more it sucks out there in the larger world (some guy poked his head under my umbrella today and called me "baby." It caught me so off guard, all I could do to was just scream "fuck you" at him as he walked in the opposite direction. Ugh - do people ever actually respond positively to this sort of behavior?).

So here's to the never-gonna-get-married crowd and all the people who aren't interested in having kids and agree that the world is overpopulated as it is. Cheers!

sticker shock

You know you've lived in Boston too long when ...

You see a flyer for a condo open house. You read it. And when you see it's for a two-bedroom with a roof deck in the North End going for $459,000, your first thought is, "Damn, that's awfully cheap for a two-bedroom in the North End. I wonder what's wrong with it?"

trashed ideas

Today, while I was sitting in a coffee shop trying to be productive and do some writing (my apartment being too distracting a place at the moment), I was sad to see the art on the walls was the very photo project I've had in my mind for a long time but haven't gotten off my ass and done. Right there, on the walls of the cafe, someone beat me to it (and hanging in a place I would consider asking to display my work, nonetheless!). Sigh.

T-ed off

Dear MBTA,

Your proven ability to infuriate customers is commendable. From replacing rail service 10 years too late with a big, slow silver bus to providing our children with the lifelong gift of asthma, it's clear that the customers always come first.

So it should have been no surprise the last two times I tried to board at Government Center and Park Street that you no longer saw fit to actually employ fare collectors to work in the booth and provide change for fresh-from-the-ATM $20s (which, by the way, are conveniently not accepted at the token machines in these stations). No, your fare collectors were dutifully positioned at the turnstiles, telling customers, "exact change only." A noble idea, if only it were feasible to expect customers at two major hubs of transportation to have exact change or be willing to sacrifice a $10 bill in exchange for eight tokens (which aren't even legal tender at area bars or half the other T stations).

I guess it would make too much sense to demand exact change only after you install those new CharlieTicket machines, which take $20s and allow you to actually decide the number of rides you get and amount of cash back (or $1 coins, anyway).

But perhaps this is a brilliant plan, this making customers walk to the next station in frustration and disbelief, hoping to find a real fare collector. Because if you start now, there will be less backlash from how much people hate the new fare collection system and resent the fact that their money is being spent not on service improvements but on crappy, unnecessary turnstile replacements.

Here's to those fare increases you announced - I can't wait. Keep up the amazing work!

Sincerely,
Sabine Strohem

you can't pee here!

File under: odd observations.

I've recently discovered that Boston's pay toilets aren't even open for half the day. That seems odd, given their proximity to bars and given every place shuts down at 2 a.m., leaving drunken revelers to flow out onto the streets and wander home. These are the type of people who might pay a quarter for a place to piss at 3:37 a.m.

But the diplay on the pay toilet at Government Center clearly states that it is closed from "1800PM to 700AM" (yes, indeed, complete with those superflous AM and PM labels). Seriously? What's the point of having pay toilets that shut down at the same time as nearby offices? It's not like you're going to pay a quarter for a toilet when there's one at work that doesn't cost a thing.

I hope somewhere there's a homeless person who's learned to time the toilet closing just right to have a semi-warm, dry place to sleep. Because someone should be able to make use of the thing during its 13 hours of downtime.