Anybody Would Be Sleepy

Someone asked me why I'm a sleepy professor.

On first blush, that would officially fall into the “dumb question” category. Professors are well known to be a bunch of arrogant, droning, boring twits. They put everybody else to sleep; why is it surprising that they do the same to themselves?

Of course, that's not the only issue. In fact, it's more my daughter's fault. Well, really we should blame it on my wife. (Anybody but me!) You see, my wife decided my daughter was old enough that she could stay up until 10 PM. This was based on some mysterious reasoning understandable only to mothers who work on the theory that kids learn responsibility by being treated like adults. Huh? My parents thought we should learn responsibility by being whipped. With chains. That's how we used to do it in my day.

So the kid goes to bed at 10. Except that “goes to bed” is defined as “starts moseying in the general direction of the bedroom.” And it's my job to brush her hair, which is about fourteen feet long and which, on a daily basis, turns into a tangle that makes a mangrove swamp look orderly. On a good day, I get done by midnight. And then I usually have some work to get done. And after that, there's the necessary channel surfing personal development. So even if my first class starts at 10 AM, I have a good excuse for being sleepy, right? Especially when your subject is as tedious as mine. I could put a meth freak to sleep.

That's why what happened last week is so shocking. I think I must have eaten something weird, because I suddenly decided to get up before dawn to take pictures of the sunrise. And I did. I dragged myself out of bed, bundled up against the freezing cold, and drove to the top of the mountain in the dark, feeling mighty proud of myself. That is, until I saw the guy walking his dog—in shorts. And then there was the old geezer out for a run, heading uphill. What's with these people? Why do they put so much effort into making me look bad?

To top it off, there were the two bicyclists who appeared at the summit just as the sun rose, wearing helmet lamps bright enough to light a runway and coming from a direction that meant they must have already been out in those temperatures for a couple of hours. Showoffs.

But I had the last laugh. I got a pretty nice picture of the rising sun hitting the mountains, which (almost) made it all worth it (click for a bigger version):

And on the way back, I ran over the geezer.

Cycling

I have a confession to make. It's a shameful secret, one that I've tried to keep hidden for decades, but it's time to finally come clean. Maybe then I can overcome my problem and make a fresh start.

So here it is: I like to get dressed up in slinky skin-tight outfits. Sometimes they're mostly black, sometimes they're colorful. A lot of the time they show skin—lots and lots of skin. And then I go out and display myself to the world.

Yes, it's true. I'm a cyclist.

Those of you who don't share my addiction may wonder exactly why any sane person would dress in clothes that don't look good even on a 20-year-old supermodel, climb on a flimsy hunk of aluminum, and risk his life doing mortal combat with maniacs in SUVs. Well, wonder no more, because the answer is staring you in the face: we're stupid.

You might think, based on your childhood experience with a $30 Stingray that was handed down from your big sister (complete with pink tassels on the handgrips) and eventually stolen by the school bully, that riding a bike is an easy, fun, and inexpensive way to get exercise. Right. The modern cyclist needs a machine that costs at least $2000 (and that's for the cheapskates—the big spenders can drop that much for a single wheel). Then he has to buy those fancy clothes to prove that he is an “experienced cyclist” who is willing to spend tons of money on frivolities.

Of course, he also has to buy an expensive helmet to protect his head in case of accident (remind me again why it's a good idea to engage in a sport that endangers your life?). Even his gloves and socks are special.

And then there are the shoes. Watch a cyclist get off his bike sometime. Look at how he walks. He can't! Because he's wearing “cycling shoes” that cost more than your Grandma Minnie's pacemaker. And what's special about them? Well, they make it impossible to walk, which is critical because it makes him feel special. Plus, when he's on the bike they clamp his feet onto the pedals.

That's right. Serious cyclists can't take their feet off the pedals! So what happens when they get to a traffic light? Simple: they fall over. If you hang out in hotbeds of cycling, like France, you'll often find huge heaps of bike riders by the side of the road, struggling to get up like a bunch of cockroaches. French drivers are used to this; they just toss a few granola bars into the pile of Lycra as they go past. In America, though, we usually shift into four-wheel drive and go straight over.

We cyclists will have the last laugh, though. Because we know that cycling is one of the healthiest sports around. If you want proof, just look at Lance Armstrong: he took up cycling and beat cancer. And not just any cancer either; it was testicular cancer. How about that, tough guy? You think your big ol' Hummer is gonna save you from the knife? Uh-uh. You wanna survive, you gotta be tough. You gotta snap yourself into some Spandex, clip your feet onto the pedals, and ride. Ride hundreds of miles every day, up enormous mountains, rain or shine, in the heat and in the cold. Build up those leg muscles, expand those lungs.

But don't expect me to be out there with you, because I figured that one out a long time ago. Nowadays, I dress up in the fancy clothes, tell the wife I'll be back in a few hours, and hide the bike in the garage. Then I drive to the pub.

What, you think I'm dumb or something?

Culture Shock

The other day, somebody asked me what my biggest culture shock was on coming to New Zealand. I was stumped for an answer, because the truth is that there hasn't been a big shock, just a series of little ones.

Some of the different ways of doing things are expected, such as the Kiwi penchant for driving on the left side of the road. I have been trying, without success, to get them to change over to the right side by the simple expedient of driving on the right whenever possible. (It's obvious that they're doing things wrong, because if the left side were the right side, we wouldn't call it the left side, we'd call it the right side, right? It's obviously right that we should drive on the right or the English language wouldn't use “right” to mean right. You don't hear people going around saying things like “You got 23 answers left on that test” or “Left on!” or even “Lefty tighty righty loosey,” which doesn't even rhyme. Really, would we have ever invented rhyming English if “left” meant right? No, of course not.)

Anyway, everybody knows about that whole driving-on-the-wrong-side thing, the goofy spellings, and the incomprehensible accents (“Oil tyke the Oll Blecks at sivin tyo one” apparently means something here, though I haven't quite figured out what). It turns out that it's the little things that really get you.

For example, every single wall outlet in the entire country has a cute little switch on it. When you plug something in, you're supposed to turn the switch on (did I mention that down is on?) and then switch it off when you unplug. Apparently nobody ever figured out that unplugging something disconnects the electricity, so there's no need to turn it off separately. So the New Zealanders spend their lives going around, flipping these little switches that have absolutely no effect whatsoever. I guess it makes them feel safe or something. But try plugging in your run-down laptop to charge it up, only to come back an hour later to find it dead because you left the switch on last night and some helpful soul turned off the danged switch FOR YOU and you didn't notice. I guess they think the electricity is going leak out on the ground if they don't turn it off.

Speaking of electrical things, light bulbs are fun too. There's not just one size, there's regular, mini, extra-mini, and probably super-duper-ultra-teeny-mini (also known as “invisible”). When a bulb burns out, you have to take it to the store and then spend 45 minutes finding the section for the proper size before you can even think about wattage. Then you take it home and find out that you still can't change the bulb because the socket is bayonet style (what the heck is that?) instead of a simple screw. So you go back, get a nice efficient compact fluorescent (have I mentioned the electricity prices?) with the right size, mount, and wattage, only to discover that it still won't go in the stupid fixture because the socket is old and the bulb isn't quite long enough. So, in the dark, you fall off the chair you're using for a ladder and sprain your ankle. But that's OK, because New Zealanders are super-friendly, so you can be sure you'll have somebody to chat with in the ER.

And then there are the spoons. You wouldn't think that something as simple as a spoon could possibly give cultural problems, right?

Wrong.

New Zealand offers spoons in two sizes: too small, and too large. A teaspoon here is just slightly bigger than a swizzle stick. Apparently its purpose is to stir things, not to put sugar in your tea or (heaven forbid) lift cereal to your mouth to eat it. But the only other size in our house is something that can be best described as a serving spoon. For all of New York City. The only way to eat with this spoon is to climb on the edge and dip your face in.

Fine, so we went shopping today and bought some new spoons. The package was labeled “dessert spoons,” so we were sure we had purchased a sensible size. Only when we got home, we discovered that we could pour an entire bottle of beer into one spoon without spilling. That's OK, though, because the next time I get pulled over I can truthfully tell the officer that I only had seven spoonfuls.

Only he won't understand me because I didn't say “sivin.”