Welcome to 'proper admin', my bi-monthly cleanup of everything I can't quite work into its own post.
Thanks for reading these past couple of months.
Tim
Blog admin - Spring 2017
Paul Graham once compared computer science to Yugoslavia- "...a grab bag of tenuously related areas thrown together by an accident of history..." - and he went on to suggest that one day the field would get broken up into its component parts. It occurred to me while proofreading how this pattern has applied to these 'proper admin' posts.
The first one was on April 1, 2016. It must have seemed like a joke at the time to my reader(s). Look at this mess- oh, the formatting! But it covered everything I didn't the prior March- the gossip about the blog, the books I read, the posts I thought I might publish in the future.
Some of that stuff I still do. Some of it I don't. To do it back then required the framework of the monthly feature.
But a lot of the rest broke off into its own spaces. The reading reviews became their own block (and then broke up once more), the extended commentaries became their own posts, and the monthly newsletter took over for the intro. I went from doing a 'proper admin' once a month (with the occasional two or three part post) to doing it bimonthly.
Looking back, the hints at the eventual complete breakup of 'proper admin' were there all along.
So reader, today I share good news (or bad news, I suppose, if you enjoyed these 'proper admins')- this is going to be the last 'proper admin' post
Lately, I've started to feel differently. Where I once asked 'why stop?', I now wonder 'why keep going?' There isn't a reason to keep going. So, once again, I'm going to play around with the schedule and see what happens.
Starting the first full week of August, all the little blurbs, comments, and notes I shared every couple of months in 'proper admin' will go up as their own posts. For now, I'll do it on Tuesdays. Nothing huge- just a couple hundred words. If things go well, I might add other days.
The only remaining question: what took so long? I think the answer gets back to an earlier idea. Instead of worrying about whether I should stop, I've started looking for reasons to keep going. When I've applied this mentality to decisions outside the blog, things have gone well. I hope the blog reaps the same rewards.
So, enjoy (or read through tear-filled eyes) the final 'proper admin' post. It was a good enough ride, I suppose. And if it feels a little spare compared to the usual, well, as mentioned above, keep those eyes peeled in August.
The word from the peanut gallery...
'Everybody should probably have their own blog.'Makes sense to me. It seems like some form of expression- whether it be through platforms like Instagram, side projects in arts or crafts, or officially writing like on a blog- is a great idea for just about everybody.
Why are any of them called dog parks?
The South Boston dog park is called a 'bark park'.
Usually, it is not a good sign when a police officer remarks that you are 'seen everywhere'...
One of the funnier moments of May took place with a traffic officer in front of one of Charles Street's (approximately) eleven Starbucks. On most mornings, we exchanged pleasantries as I went on my walk while she conducted traffic (it's a dangerous intersection- all those sleepy folks charging across the street with lattes on the mind, you know?).
One day, we had a quick conversation. She asked what I did and I explained some of the regular trips I made around town.
'That makes sense,' the officer replied. 'I see you everywhere.'
That makes sense...I smell you everywhere!
The Big Event of May, at least for my refrigerator, was a significant amount of steamed broccoli suddenly turning south. I discovered this one morning, the hard way, when I opened the fridge- the smell immediately took over my apartment. I'm surprised I didn't die (or at least faint) from the stench.
This negative result prompted a change in my broccoli shopping. For the past few months, I've noticed my broccoli stretching to its freshness limits in my fridge. I would occasionally toss a piece here or chuck a bunch there to make up the difference. And yet, each week, I would buy the same amount as always. If I was regularly tossing broccoli, why took so long to make an adjustment and buy less?
I think this example highlights the tendency to dismiss small errors as 'bad luck'. This is even more likely to be the case if there is some downside to going too far the other way- in my case, not having enough broccoli. If a little bit of the broccoli goes bad, sure, that's a tough break, but maybe it is explained by an unplanned dinner out that pushed my entire meal schedule back by one.
In these situations, it takes a big error to prove that luck was not the only factor. The overwhelming smell of bad broccoli was the proof that my buying methods, not occasional bad luck, were to blame for my failure to eat all the food I bought.
Hello Ladies Index
A quick update on my reading totals for 2017. As a reminder, I am not counting multiple books from the same author in the year-to-date total. We could call this 'The George Saunders Rule' or 'The Hannah Arendt Exception' to reflect how the sizes of their books are not accurately reflected by a pure 'head-count' of what I've completed in this year of reading.
January: 4 male authors / 6 female authors
February: 9 / 1
March: 9 / 0
April: 2 / 2
May: 4 / 2
June: 4 / 3
2017 year to-date: 23 / 13
I’m running for mayor, remember?
I've written a little bit around here about the basic income idea. The short version of it is that the current standard income tax deduction is expanded to such a size that taxpayers would receive a check from the government for simply existing.
One argument against is that the current system of working for a living
Now, I'm not sure I buy this argument. But in running for mayor, perhaps a compromise solution can be reached. If the issue is simply serving the community, pay people for community service. It doesn't have to be an outright check- in today's tax code, a deduction of some kind would probably fit better.
This brings my current mayor platform to four items:
*Biker crackdown
*No running within one mile of the marathon course on Marathon Monday
*Closing Newbury St to all automobile traffic
*Community service tax break
I don't subscribe to the fiction that ninety degrees and sunny is a 'nice day'
Boston got hit by three ninety-degree days in a row during the second week of June. I marked the occasion by testing a new heat-busting technique; before walking out the front door, I jumped into a cold shower for a minute.
The strategy, to a degree (!), worked as planned. What interested me most was how good I felt following the shower. I'm aware of many who tout the therapeutic effects of ice baths; perhaps what I felt was a step in the same direction. Though I do not have much interest in the fully immersed method, perhaps I will experiment in the coming months with partial or entirely cold showers.
In Boston, you can jaywalk without even meaning to...
The finish line for the Boston Marathon, a race that I thought ended about eight weeks ago (at time of writing), is apparently still going because the finish line for the 'race' is still in place. The line comes about halfway up the block between Dartmouth and Clarendon Streets as you travel toward the Boston Common along Boylston.
I did notice this a few weeks ago but I never gave it much thought. One day this week, I noticed several tourists using this as a crosswalk, expecting oncoming traffic to stop. And those drivers did stop, reluctantly, and marked the occasion by confirming the health of their horns...
One last MOYA rant! Oh, what will he do without these admins! Where will he go? Wherever they serve whiskey, I'm sure...
"Moya...Moya- MOYA! Sit, Moya, sit, the race is about to start, the horse race, Moya, look at all these fools, clutching their betting slips, like a baby's fist around a lollipop, waving it at the TV, yelling at the TV, like a horse a thousand miles away could hear it, a horse race, more like who can yell themselves hoarse, a hoarse race, Moya, all this is, and so we sit, our quiet whiskeys disrupted, while we watch these owners and jockeys and big hats suck the little money out of Kentucky that there is, look at them, all ridiculous, Moya, ridiculous, watching their horses run around in a circle, at least the contestants aren't wearing commercials like those car races, buy a car or a pill or a candy, ha, candy, that's what it should be, all candy bars sound like horse names, don't they, Moya, since horse names sound ridiculous, ridiculous names, like candy names, they all are just ridiculous, they all sound like candy bars today, don't they Moya, here comes the favorite, Junior Mint, galloping around the edge, chased hard by Baby Ruth, followed by Snickers and Charleston Chew, right past Milky Way, leaving Caramello in the dust, and KIT KAT FALLS DOWN, down down down the homestretch they come, it's Take 5 on the inside post now, it's a tight finish, 3 Musketeers barreling hard now, but it's too late, on the inside comes Reese's Pieces, he takes it, oh what a race this is, Oh Henry, all for a Payday of 100 Grand..."
Did you leave the apartment at all?
No, I spent most of my time indoors, trying to decide if I should stop doing 'proper admin' or not.
I see. OK, well, this is bittersweet, sort of...anything else?
Intelligent people have wondered since the dawn of sitcom television: how much could a fax cost? In June, I learned.
MassHealth presented me with a challenge during the first week of the month: prove your income or lose your coverage. To add urgency to the situation, they included a deadline date. Excellent!
Unfortunately for me, my current income is literally zero. This has been the case since last October, really, so it was a strange request, but those are the rules I agreed to when I signed up for fully subsidized (read: FREE) coverage back then.
In essence, the question here was to somehow prove zero. Framing the problem like this brought me back to my glory days as an undergraduate math major. You know, stuff like write a proof for '1+1 = 2'. It all seemed rather pointless then (and still does now) but I suppose the task was a building block for something better.
Anyway, despite my difficulty with such proofs in my student days, I was ready to give it the old college try, as they say (or said). It is always nice to see math applied to everyday living!
It turns out, though, that proof of income is really just a proper admin exercise. My 'proof' was to go down to the Health Connector office and tell them that my income was zero. It may or may not have mattered that I did this on a Tuesday afternoon. It was suggested that, in addition to my verbal attestation, I also fax the main office a written note 'just in case' someone pulled my file and wondered why there was no proof of income statement.
My immediate reaction: sounds reasonable.
Next reaction: a fax machine! What year is this?
The solution to all problems, of course, is to go to the library. Unfortunately, the Cambridge branches did not have any public machines.
I next searched the Good Old Interwebs to see if Boston's branches did. The results were unclear.
Perhaps the science museum? No.
I finally learned that I could send a fax from any UPS store. I've never needed an excuse to wander a UPS store, of course, but there it was. The closest one to my apartment was one block away and I went over on a fine Thursday morning.
The staff was extremely helpful. Did I want a cover page? Sure, why not, let's live it up...
Eventually, my first-ever fax was on its way. I walked to the register to pay when I thought- wait, how much could a fax cost? It was one of those situations where I was ready for almost any number to show up on the screen. Finally, the verdict arrived: $3.
Three bucks?
Too high?
Too low?
Who knows.
Who cares.
The health insurance industry in this country has a lot of pros and cons. The time I spent walking, biking, researching, and finally faxing the needed documentation proving a) nothing had changed and therefore b) nothing should change is perhaps not the most important example of either. And yet, as I look back, I can't help thinking what a huge waste of time it all was. I'll never get those minutes back. And if it was someone else, someone who really needed those minutes to take care of their families or go to work or read True On Average, the way our current system asks that they take time out of their day to check boxes, fill out forms, and send out faxes really does seem like a waste.
Thanks for wasting your time here, dear reader. If you like what you read over these past couple of months, fax a post or two to your favorite friends and family. Based on my math, it'll cost around $600...maybe $601 with a cover page...
I promise next month's posts will be shorter.
All the best,
Tim
