31, a prime number

The invitation to my birthday party last weekend began: 

One-and-a-half score and one years ago, my parents brought forth on this planet a new birth of person, conceived in Tennessee, and dedicated to the proposition that punning on the Gettysburg address is the best way to announce a birthday party.

 Come to think of it, I've never checked about the Tennessee bit, just assumed it based on timeline.

At any rate, it turned out to be the party of the night last Saturday for the smallish scene here, especially once the Marine Ball ended at 11:30. (American embassy parties are the lamest.) That made me happy. There were only a few crashers, most of whom were welcome. The two who weren't ended up being the hardest people to kick out, surprise surprise, but I finally managed to around 4:00.

SRB had gone to bed earlier and Linc was still in town so he and I went back to my place and slept until past noon on Sunday. After going out for a big brunch we headed over to the party house and commenced to cleaning. SRB was in a terrible mood for reasons that she would not disclose, which happens sometimes and is always a treat. Also the floors were in rough shape -- college party rough. Much trash, much sweeping, two passes with the mop. Then Linc and I went on our merry way, to watch a terrific kung fu movie (Iron Monkey) and eat popcorn and, eventually, dinner.

After that I went back over to pick SRB up and take a few minutes to talk about why she'd been upset earlier. Was good to do that. Back at my house we watched Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, to complete the kung fu theme of the day.

On my actual birthday, I just had a couple of friends over to SRB and AF's place, along with Lincoln. We ordered some food and drank some wine, including a bottle that I'd been lusting after since Santiago days, which I bought earlier this year after finding it by chance in some duty free. It's called Montes Folly, and it made a big global splash when it debuted 10+ years ago. Needless to say, it was much too expensive for study-abroad-me to afford. But by golly I can afford it now. It was delicious, thankfully. Then we played a lovely round of Dixit, in which I finished last and Linc won. AF gave Linc a high-five afterward, reminding us that on his birthday a little while ago we played Scrabble and I whipped him. Karma, I suppose.

Home stretch to the holidays commences now. I won't have a Thanksgiving dinner again this year: don't hang out with many Americans, so I'm not invited to any, and it goes without saying that Thursday's not a day off for us. But that's okay. SRB and I can have a Jewish-Christmas Thanksgiving, ordering Chinese and watching a movie.

She's in Peshawar tonight, so I'll take the opportunity to run some errands and perhaps do a bit of Christmas shopping. Been makin' a list.

running

After hurting my shoulder in August I dropped off on the gymnastics training that I'd started in April. Managed to achieve a few things in the few months I dedicated to it, as SRB pointed out to me yesterday: decent cartwheels, inconsistent but achievable handstands, front levers. Failed at kip-ups, which I think is likely to stay that way because of shoulder mobility and a mental block. Eventually I'd like to get those, a standing backflip, and a human flag. 

In the meantime, though, she encouraged me to start running again. And to start getting up early to exercise. After easing very gradually into that, I've been seized by the desire for new goals. Running goals. So I've set my sights on the following:

1. A sub-23:00 5k by end of 2017
2. A sub-21:00 5k by spring 2018
3. A sub-20:00 5k by summer 2018, which would beat my PR from the one season of cross country I ran in high school. Don't think I ever ran faster than 20:30.
4. Completing the 10k at the Khunjerab Pass Marathon next July, which finishes at 15,400 feet.

SRB said she'd be down to join for the latter. Will require a few weekend trips for trekking/running at altitude next spring, so that we're not completely unprepared. When we drove up there last August even walking around made me slightly lightheaded.

It's also time to start taking shoulder rehab seriously, and then doing overhead work and pull ups and such again. Too fun, I miss it.

sexual harassment and male privilege

Many of my woman friends have been posting "me too" on social media, as part of a push to make people aware of how common sexual harassment and abuse are. This brought to mind an experience I've had of sexual abuse. (Trigger warning: this story is, obviously, about sexual abuse. Skip the bit between the asterisks if you'd rather not read it.)

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A few years ago, on a bus in DC, a woman groped me off and on for about 15 minutes, while repeatedly telling me that she wanted to "fuck the shit out of" me, talking about her sex life with her boyfriend, and speculating about the size of my penis. The friend I was with and the other people on the bus laughed the whole time, and I've told that story for laughs in the years since. She was so over the top, it was hard to believe it was happening. Even I was laughing, although not as hard as my friend or the high school girls nearby. I outweighed her by at least 50 pounds, but, more than that, because I'm a man I haven't had to live my life in fear that an unwelcome advance might lead to something worse. So I was free to let the situation play out without worry. I wouldn't say it was a comfortable experience, but she would have had to have a knife or a gun to make me afraid. Eventually, we got off at the same stop she did, walked to our destination, and went about our evening.

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It goes without saying that if I were a woman, and my harasser a man, that story would be horrifying.

I've told it with that moral appended many times, and always get a sage nod in return about male privilege. But on thinking about it again today, it occurs to me that the only gender role that needs to flip for it to be scary is hers. If a man did that to me I would be terrified. The essence of patriarchy is an imbalance of power at a societal level, in which men as a group enjoy a dominant position over women. But it also plays out every day in personal interactions in which individual men, informed by the social expectation that they should dominate, impose themselves violently on other individual people.

The violence of men like Harvey Weinstein, Donald Trump, and Clarence Thomas can't be divorced from the violence of men like Dylann Roof, George Zimmerman, and Stephen Paddock. Male violence is the greatest threat to human security everywhere in the world. I'm reminded of the adage that many men's fear of equality reveals their subconscious knowledge of how shittily they treat women: calls for "equality" would mean women get to act more like men and they'd make men act more like women and wouldn't that be awful. The poverty of imagination of people like this is sad.

That, in turn, reminds me of another phrase with the ring of an adage, coined by recent MacArthur awardee Nikole Hannah-Jones: "True equality requires a surrendering of advantage." Words to live by.

A final aside: If the woman had been visibly larger and stronger than I am, I'd have been scared, too, although not as much as if she'd been a man. But I'm a pretty fit 31-year-old; the number of women who fit that description is small enough to ignore, let alone the minuscule share of that group who are disposed toward sexual abuse. Physical strength is part of the power imbalance between women and men. But it's not as important as the psychosocial part. 

independence day

Some disorganized thoughts on Pakistan's 70th anniversary of independence, framed by the ongoing events in Charlottesville:

Pakistan is still deeply shaped by its history as a British colony. The government is modeled on a parliamentary system. The legal framework often still includes laws that were enacted under the Raj, including the constitution, which is based in part on the Government of India Act of 1935. And white supremacy, in the form that the writer Sara'o Maozac called "white idolatry" in an essay that should be more widely read than it is, is a daily fact of life here. When SRB and I were at the Khunjerab Pass last week, around a dozen young men asked if I would take a selfie with them over the course of 20 minutes. They don't know me or who I am, I am (obviously) not a famous person. But I'm white, and so, as SRB put it, they "spotted one!" Seeing a white person is exciting. My foreign friends of color here do not have that experience. This jibes with Maozac's description of going to Ghana as a young African-American man and being bewildered at the attitude of young Ghanaians, who were thrilled to be around his white classmates but didn't have the time of day for him.

White idolatry is present in the US, too, although in a different way. For example, white people getting cast to play characters of color in movies. Tilda Swinton as the Tibetan teacher of Doctor Strange comes to mind, or Emma Stone playing a quarter-Chinese, quarter-Hawaiian person from that movie "Aloha." But no black or Chinese or American Indian stranger has ever asked me to take a selfie with them in the States. It's an uncomfortable experience, especially when the person reacts negatively when refused (I almost always refuse selfies). And I wonder if it's akin, in some way, to the experience people of color have in the West when they're the only one in a room full of white people. Slight tangent: it occurred to me that we had a moment like that with Linc at the beach this summer, when we were talking about anarchism. He said, Listen, I'm not an expert on anarchist theory. But we were all expecting him to be a representative of this group we don't know much about or have much experience of. Interesting parallel.

Pakistan is also deeply shaped by Partition, the creation of separate states for Hindus and Muslims out of the Raj that resulted in a massive human tragedy and ultimately the dominance of the military in Pakistani politics. There have been times in the last 70 years when 90% of Pakistan's state budget went to defense. Antipathy toward India drives nationalism here, as I saw first-hand at the Wagah border crossing last November. And much of the violent trouble Pakistan finds itself in is exacerbated by the inability of it and India to make peace with each other. The neocolonialist adventures we've been on in Afghanistan for the last 15 (!) years ran right into the teeth of Pakistan's use of proxies all over the region to counter India's influence. That use goes back to the founding, long before 9/11 or the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

But US involvement in Afghanistan and our bombing of Pakistan mean that many people here are furious with us, and that we make a good boogeyman. And that means there are places here I cannot go because to do so would endanger my life. There are spaces in the US that are closed off to me, and rightly so in many cases, but the worst that would happen to me in them is some social awkwardness. Here my employer prohibits me from driving to or through certain places, for my own safety.

I need to take a break from writing, so in conclusion, Pakistan Zindabad.

low visibility

Bit of an airport adventure this morning. SRB and I woke up bright and early to see if we could get her on the PIA flight to Gilgit. There's a music festival and conference up in Passu this weekend, in the upper Hunza valley, that's being hosted by my colleagues. She's friends with the festival organizers and they invited her to play. But their plan for getting there -- four buses driving through the night, including through some iffy territory security-wise -- made her uncomfortable. Rightly so: I'm not allowed to travel through there by road without a really good reason and plenty of advance notice and clearance from our security.

So our admin manager spent hours yesterday trying to get us both on the PIA flight. Managed to get me a seat but not her, but then it turned out a helicopter mission was going up with plenty of extra seats. She's not allowed on the heli but I'm cleared to go anytime if there's a spot. So we woke up at 5 AM, made some coffee, got to the airport, and went straight to the ticket counter. The flight was booked but we asked if she could buy a standby ticket. The guy said sure, I'd brought enough cash to pay for it (about $100 for a foreigner ticket), and so she ended up taking off. Miraculous.

Unfortunately, the helicopter got up over the Margallas an hour later and turned right back around. Visibility over there was terrible, not more than a couple hundred meters and then everything was lost in the haze. Ordinarily we'd have waited to see if it would clear up but no dice: the haze only gets worse before it gets better and the pilot was worried that by the time it cleared up enough to fly over Abbottabad and into the mountains it'd be dicey in Gilgit. Disappointed!

On the plus side, SRB made it just fine and one of our drivers met her at the airport and took her to the Serena for breakfast before departing for Passu. Not sure if anyone else was riding with her but I wouldn't be surprised if so; apparently it's going to be a big event. She's never been up north before, so even if I have to stew down here for another day I'm glad she's getting to see Gilgit and Hunza. With any luck I'll join her tomorrow.

karachi

Six years after I first visited Karachi, I'm back. Flew in last night with LNT for a 1.5-day workshop, hosted by the Sindh government, on off-grid energy with a special focus on solar. Our colleagues who work on habitat have been doing little trials on solar power for individual households and small communities for 6-7 years, and so we were invited to participate. My colleague RB gave a presentation today and then spoke on a panel in the afternoon and acquitted himself very well, which was a relief. Always nerve-wracking to see someone talking about our work to a room full of people who are not just unfamiliar with us, but who might give us funding or help us out in other ways if they get a good first impression. And public speaking is hard. RB has a weird, slow style, but he comes across as very knowledgeable and he has interesting stuff to say. For example, most of the speakers were from the government or the private sector; RB was one of only two from the nonprofit/civil society sector. And, probably not coincidentally, he was one of the few people who focused on the need to engage communities and addressed the lived experience of poor people who are being approached by this and that outsider trying to get them to adopt (and pay for) a new technology.

Some credit for that goes, if I may so so rather immodestly, to me. We had breakfast this morning as a little team and after hearing RB's thoughts about what he wanted to focus on, I encouraged him to consider that our main difference in a meeting like that is our credibility as a community-centered institution. We're not out to make a buck or get votes. We're out to help poor people's quality of life improve, full stop.

Karachi is enormous, people here think that when the ongoing census is completed it'll claim the title as world's most populous city, with possibly north of 30 million residents. I'm confined to a small part of it on this trip, given that I'm at a conference in the hotel I'm staying in, and that I'm a relatively rich person who basically only knows other relatively rich people. Last night I connected with a friend from Islamabad's brother, who's the marketing director for a big consumer product company. They had a product launch last night and he invited me to come along. It was at a yacht club on the water and there were lots of models and actors and TV presenters and producers and the like there. Chatted with a bunch of them, mainly very nice. And friend's brother was a good host, introducing me to people and checking in on me periodically even though it was a work event for him. Much more relaxed experience than the similar event I went to in Lahore last November, in part I'm sure because I've been here longer now and am a lot more self-assured.

Marketing is, well, let's just say it's not for me. I am, in a way, in sales -- business development and resource mobilization are just jargony ways of saying sales -- but at least I don't have to pretend (or perhaps convince myself to genuinely believe) that my inexpensive retail product is changing lives. Nothing like a room full of people taking a TV ad extremely seriously to remind one that advertising is ludicrous.

family planning

An opportunity that came up right before I left and on which there was some actual movement during the past few weeks has to do with family planning. Had a fascinating meeting yesterday with some colleagues who run health clinics and community health services to talk about what we're going to propose and why. Among other things, I learned that injectable contraceptives are more popular in Pakistan than in most other places -- they're expensive and have to be re-upped every three months, so not exactly a convenient option -- because they're basically undetectable. You get a little pinprick from the shot but otherwise there's no way for a husband or mother-in-law to know that you've chosen to be unable to get pregnant.

Negative attitudes toward family planning and women's choice are the main reason FP in Pakistan sucks so much. Contraceptive use is low, fertility is high, there are around a million illegal abortions in the country each year (holy shit). In snooping around the internet today to learn more, I came across a study that found MTV's teen pregnancy shows contributed to a 5+% drop in the teen pregnancy rate in the US a few years ago. That is amazing. Idea for a show on Pakistani TV: a series on couples including young brides who get pregnant and then have a hard time with it, men and women both. 

back in the saddle

No rest for the weary. Especially when the weary are jet-lagged and have girlfriends who are also jet-lagged but somehow on a different schedule.

Vacation was wonderful, if pretty tiring over the first two weeks. The beach was very relaxing and it's hard to believe that I was in NC just a few days ago. Will leave it at that for now.

Work has been hectic since I got back, mainly because there were a number of things that came up while I was away that turned out to be due or need decisions by this week, and that no one did much on in my absence. Once we get them all out of the way, though, there should be time to deal with a few important longer-term tasks: finishing development of the five-year unit strategy, starting work on a new resource mobilization plan, putting the screws on AI to approve the gender strategy (which I finished a while ago now).

Also, hiring new staff. Got two slots to fill on my team, one of which has already been advertised: a monitoring and evaluation/management information systems person. Hoping to start reviewing candidates the week after next. AI told me to hire one at a time, so the partnerships and communications person will have to wait.

Had a call this morning with my counterpart at our university in Karachi. They are a behemoth and hundreds of miles away, so they're hard to get a grip on and often are off doing their own thing without talking to us. We met earlier this year when he passed through ISB and we'd communicated a bit by email; he made a good impression throughout and the call this morning reinforced that. Seems like a really nice guy, and a pro. Hurray for more decent, competent colleagues.

Looks like I'll be down in Karachi the first week of August, for a workshop hosted by the Sindh government about off-grid energy (i.e. electricity provision for people who are far away from major power sources -- mainly solar). Then LNT and I will stick around for a couple of days so I can finally, finally visit the U. Looking forward to it.

As I mentioned at the top, sleep has been a bit whacked out this week but if history is any indicator I should be back on schedule tonight. Planning to meet some people at the French Club for a drink after work, which should be nice. Many people have been out of town so it'll be fun to catch up on the various adventures. It's supposed to rain a bunch this weekend so perhaps ideal conditions for a game afternoon/evening. Definitely want to play Dixit again, the game Mom got for SRB. 

on the shooting yesterday in alexandria

Murder and attempted murder are wrong, period. Terrorism is wrong. Hodgkinson terrorized people yesterday, some of whom were just walking their fucking dog and minding their own business. Fuck him. I'm glad nobody died apart from him.

The fact that Hodgkinson was a Sanders supporter just shows that, while the right wing is *much* more violent than the left in its rhetoric and actions, white male violence transcends politics. It comes from the left, right, and center. It comes in many forms, from this attempted murder of other white men to the murder of and assault on the people of Flint by Rick Snyder and company. It is, without a doubt, the greatest threat to the safety of people across the US.

Yesterday, a GOP representative said, without apparent irony, “I can only hope that the Democrats do tone down the rhetoric. The rhetoric has been outrageous – the finger-pointing, just the tone and the angst and the anger directed at Donald Trump, his supporters. Really, then, you know, some people react to things like that. They get angry as well. And then you fuel the fires."

Earlier this year, Steve Scalise said, of the Muslim ban, "It’s very prudent to say, 'Let’s be careful about who comes into our country to make sure that they’re not terrorists.'"

Those two are part of a machine that relies on racist fearmongering and incitement to violence as a core part of its political strategy, and that has the disenfranchisement and impoverishment of many people as policy goals.

And GOP politicians, including Scalise with his A+ NRA rating, deliberately make assaults like this likelier. It's ironic that yesterday's shooting fell just after the one-year anniversary of the Pulse attack. In the aftermath of that horror, Scalise tweeted about his prayers going out to the families of the victims, and I replied that his prayers were as empty as the barrel of a gun that's been unloaded into the bodies of innocent people. Some random person found my tweet and liked it yesterday. It's still true, even now that someone put a bullet in his hip.

So it's hard not to blame these particular victims, in part. Being brought face-to-face with the consequences of their policies seems a bit like comeuppance. Seems like the fear they must have felt was, in some way, well-earned. This is what happens when you steal and steal and steal from people and also make it easier to buy a gun than to get birth control. 

the murder of roger ackroyd

More enjoyable than other Christie I've read. Will still go to bat for Arthur Conan Doyle ten times out of ten. 

foreign aid

Cross-posted from Facebook:

Yes, global poverty is the product of a grossly unequal, exploitative, and violent economic and political system. Yes, foreign aid is itself a product and, to some extent (although to a lesser extent than is sometimes claimed IMHBABO), agent of that system. The world would be a better place if wealth were distributed more equally, and if governments were less corrupt and more able to deliver essential services (not least our own, for that matter). The struggle for systemic change is necessary and good.

But people need light to read by and to not be inhaling smoke all winter right now. I'm glad to work for a foreign-aid-supported organization, born in Pakistan more than 100 years ago, that brings people light that they and the environment around them can afford, that engineers community-owned water infrastructure that lasts for decades, that founds universities, that preserves traditional music-making. In short, an organization that tries (and succeeds!) to improve people's quality of life right now, and next year, and the year after that, and the decade after that.

lynching and the moab

My friend Timmy wrote the other day to ask what Pakistanis were saying about the gigantic bomb that the US just dropped on a few dozen Daesh fighters in eastern Afghanistan. Not an unreasonable question: Pakistan's fate is tied up with Afghanistan's and the target was pretty close to the border. But the answer is, Not much. An article about the hit was on the (online) front page of the big English-language papers, but nobody mentioned it at work except me, to a colleague who hadn't heard about it. By the afternoon, the story had moved down the front page in favor of stories about the lynching, late last week, of a student at a university about two hours from Islamabad.

That, people are talking about.

The attack was shocking: the young man, who had been accused of blasphemy, was attacked by a crowd of fellow-students, beaten, shot, and then beaten some more in death until the police were able to recover his body. The mob demanded the return of his body so they could burn it, but were not successful in getting it back. And there is video. Like the proliferation of videos of police assaults on black people in the US, the video seems to have snapped some otherwise complacent people to attention.

Pakistan has a fraught relationship with Islamic extremism. The government has long used extremist militias as a foreign-policy tool in its efforts to maintain power in the region, in particular with respect to Kashmir and to Afghanistan. Blasphemy is not just illegal here, it's punishable by death. But most Pakistanis I interact with -- devout Muslims no more or less than indifferent ones or proud atheists -- are horrified by mob violence and have no patience for extremism. People are cynical about the government's use of religion: an op/ed writer in one of the major papers, Dawn, observed that the initial government reaction to this recent lynching was to promise to root out blasphemers, in addition to arresting some suspects. To the op/ed writer, the message that sends is clear: Yeah, yeah, don't go around murdering each other in broad daylight, we'll make a big show of justice, but [wink, nudge] we all know who the real criminals are.

Now, a few days later, the head of the party that runs KPK, the province where the lynching happened, said, "Whoever planned his murder and whoever participated in it will be punished and made an example of for future generations. Even if the culprits are found to be from PTI [his party], they will be punished. We will not discriminate along party lines in pursuing this case. The entire country saw. Even animals don't behave this way. We will take this as a lesson and make sure no one ever misuses the blasphemy law again to murder people again."

That is a pretty revealing statement, sentence by sentence. It reveals a conceptualization of justice that's "medieval" in the European sense -- punishment as an example to others, rather than the modern concept of rehabilitation and imprisonment away from the public eye (basically the only theorist I've read on that subject is Foucault, so take that observation with a grain of salt). It clearly acknowledges that people believe political parties treat their own members differently when they are in power. It dehumanizes the attackers, drawing a line around them that separates/insulates the speaker from their actions. And it doesn't question the legitimacy of the blasphemy law at all, it accepts that such a thing should exist.

Lynching has become a hot topic in India, as well, with mobs killing mostly Muslim butchers who have been accused of slaughtering and selling cows.

No conclusion here, just observations.

neuromancer

Liked it just fine as a thriller. Made me curious to learn more about his vision and its impact; in the Kindle edition there's a postscript, written by another sci-fi author, about how influential Gibson was on the early development of the internet. Haven't finished that, partly because the author waxes a bit too rhapsodic for my taste. 35 years is long enough to make pretty much any kind of futurism seem quaint, but thinking about his vision of cyberspace as a metaphor is still compelling and relevant. Pretty amazing in that sense.

gymnastics and sleep

Made a pact with SRB last week to go to bed earlier, at least during the work week. We had terrible follow-through the first few days, not least because of working through some difficult conversations with each other about our relationship. But last night and the night before I slept extremely well and awoke feeling ready to get up. This morning I even woke up 25 minutes before my alarm, got back in bed to snooze because I'm so used to doing that, then realized I didn't need or want to lie down anymore. So instead I went downstairs and did my wrist, hip, and shoulder warm ups.

On that note, I think I've found what I want to dedicate myself to training-wise for the medium term. Jumping, sprinting, and dunking are not in the cards here because of lack of access to proper facilities. There is, as far as I know, no running track in Islamabad outside of the national stadium. That is hardly a practical place to train. In any event, I reached my main goal on that front last year, and explosive activities take a toll on my joints. My left hip is still janky from all the left-right planting I did for years and years. It'd be great to go back to it at some point in the future; I'd love to run a 12.0 100m, for example. And to have a 36" vertical jump at age 36!

But for now it's not practical. So I've been going through the motions, dabbling in this and that. Getting back into yoga through SRB's classes has been fun, and a nice challenge in terms of body organization and awareness. Lifting weights will always (knock wood) be satisfying. Jumping rope is great and actually yesterday I did some double under work and it was so smooth, transitions from singles to doubles and back effortless, and that felt amazing. But it all feels aimless.

So, back to those wrist, hip, and shoulder warm ups. They come from a company called GMB, which stands for Gold Medal Bodies. It's an online training resource with a mix of free and paid tutorials for all kinds of bodyweight movements, exercises, and feats. The free materials are terrific and their philosophy is really appealing: considered, deliberate, progressive, awareness- and injury-prevention focused. This morning I bought a set of training packages from them: two focused on progressively more advanced gymnastics exercises, starting with things like crow and 360-degree jumps that I can already do, to cartwheels and tumbling, to handstands and levers and eventually backflips and planches human flags.

Can't wait to get started, tonight after yoga, with a guided self-assessment of my mobility and movement. Followed by another reasonable bedtime.

uprooted

Good, quick, satisfying. Kind of nice to read a book that ends happily. Perhaps I've been reading too much dark or somber stuff, or perhaps the story seemed a little too predictable as I went along, but I expected the Dragon to die and was pleasantly surprised when we get our nod at a happily-ever-after. Would read the sequel if Novik writes one.

whoops-a-daisy

Well, Pakistan's atrocious drivers finally caught up with me. Got into a fender-bender on the way to work this morning when a Prado in front of me first swerved partway into my lane and then braked suddenly to a full stop while straddling the two lanes. For no apparent reason. I hit the brakes hard but bonked into his right rear bumper. Pulled over and got out to look at the damage to our cars. I can't have been going more than 5 mph by the time I bumped him, so apart from the headlight being busted and some warping of the bumper and fender the car's fine. Similar damage to his car. He got some nearby dude to try to interpret, sounded like they were trying to get me to go to a nearby house. Not to put too fine a point on it, but fuck that, I'm not going to some stranger's house to negotiate I don't know what in a language I don't speak. Called my friend AP, who's renting me the car, and he was not fussed at all, just told me to leave and then take pictures once I got to work and send them to him. So that's what I did.

Worried slightly that the guy would follow me after I took off, but he didn't. I'm fine, apart from being irritated. Checked in with myself while I was driving the rest of the way and after I got to the office, my heart rate isn't even elevated.

Glad my first ever car crash was in Pakistan, because in the States the person in back is always at fault and I'd be looking at a hefty rate hike. In this case I truly don't feel at fault. Many don't even use their mirrors. As it is I'm not sure I'll have any liability at all, although if I were AP I'd raise the rate next month. Interested to see how this all shakes out.

goodreads

I made an account on GoodReads years ago but never really used. SRB convinced me to start again. It is a much more efficient way than Blogger to track books read and books to read, and to write down thoughts. I will maintain the 2017 list on here out of inertia but any thoughts and stuff are going over there.

Sundries:

1. I'm now on the two-day break between courses of giardia drugs, so planning to have friends over tonight for white Russians in celebration of the 19th anniversary of the release of The Big Lebowski. It's a very long movie so the festivities will probably not involve a viewing. But the spirit of the Dude will live in us. Now I want to go bowling. No apparent lingering effects of the giardia and had no drug hangover this morning. Inshallah the next course of antibiotics will also not hurt too badly.
2. One of my team members resigned after getting a job on a UN project. He seems kind of ambivalent about it. I recognize the loss but actually that vacancy solves a minor HR issue for me and opens up some possibilities in terms of reshaping the team so that it better fits our mandate. Having two senior-level monitoring and evaluation guys doesn't really make sense.
3. SRB and I had something of a fight, or rather we mutually offended each other unintentionally. My offense worse than hers, in part because I could have headed off the thing that she did easily and quickly but did not, and so let her keep doing it until she put something on FB about it. Then I overreacted. Dumb. However, I bring it up because instead of avoiding it or brushing it off, I apologized completely to her last night and then listened to her explain why her feelings were hurt, which was for the reasons I expected. This is again to draw a contrast with my relationship with CZ, in which we never even really argued and it would have been healthier had we had done so more. Vulnerability is good and, to state the obvious, honesty is good.
4. Have you called or written to your senators and representative today? Today's topic: the ACA.

what the dead know

Eh, not bad. Probably won't remember it very well. 

cure worse than disease

I slept until 11:30 today and woke up feeling badly hung over, despite obviously not having touched alcohol last night. On the plus side, the bloating has diminished and I didn't have diarrhea last night. On the minus side, wouldn't be surprised to find myself quite constipated.

On the super-plus side, had a few friends over last night for a game of celebrity. After several midweek game attempts that flamed out, we actually got six people together at a reasonable hour and went through a full game! So much fun, I love celebrity. And then even got to sleep at a reasonable hour.

Feeling slightly better now after some coffee and cereal with low-fat milk. Giving up booze won't be hard but cutting back on fat will. Gonna eat a lot of plain rice and pasta with veggies and lean meat for the next couple of weeks. Sigh.

giardia

Note: This post is mostly going to be about my bowels.

Diarrhea started Monday afternoon. Figured it was food poisoning from the day before, or even from that day's lunch. Went home early, took some pepto, felt a little better, went to bed. Tuesday was okay although I was a bit bloated and stools alternated between constipated and very soft but not diarrhea-y. No big deal, went to pub quiz at the Brit Club and had a good time finishing right in the middle of the pack (fourth of eight teams). Wednesday the office was closed because of security -- no threat, just that the hotel was hosting a very high-level conference this week so they weren't letting anyone into the complex -- so I worked mostly from SRB's place while she studied. Felt a bit weak but chalked it up to dehydration despite the care I'd taken to stay hydrated; SRB even picked up some ORS for me on the way home from one of her yoga classes. Oh, one side note: I'd also been intermittently burping a lot, and the burps had a very specific taste that didn't seem associated with anything I'd been eating.

Wednesday night (i.e. last night) was rough. Woke at god knows what hour of the night and spent what felt like at least an hour either on the toilet or lying in bed waiting for the need to build back up again. This morning SRB told me to go to the doctor, that it sounded like I had giardia and it can last for weeks untreated. She has a friend who had it and it laid her up for more than a month. Going to the doctor and taking time off work feels like admitting defeat, especially when most of the time I feel alright: minimal to no headache, not feverish, mentally with it. But I said okay and sent TR a message asking for a recommendation.

After he responded I drove all the way out to E-11, about as far out as you can go and still be in Islamabad, to the office of a lovely British doctor named Jenny. She also started the email listserv where many expats post things like leaving-town furniture sales, recommendations for Urdu tutors, etc. She took a history and confirmed: classic giardia. Rx is two separate courses of targeted (i.e. not broad-spectrum, not Cipro) antibiotics of five days each with a two-day break in between.

She also took my blood pressure and it came out at 135/90, which is normal-ish for me. I've had BP in that range at least since I was 19, although sometimes it tests in the normal range. But it alarmed her a bit, apparently her brother-in-law had a stroke at 35. All three internists I've had as an adult* both told me not to worry about it too much, maybe watch the salt a little. Anyway Jenny prevailed on me to get a cuff and measure once a month just to monitor the situation.

All in all a productive day so far. It'll actually be good not to drink for two weeks. Alcohol intake hasn't been especially high recently but never hurts to take a complete break. Still planning to have some people over tonight for a game of celebrity, which will be a fun last hurrah before I start the drugs and am possibly nauseous for ten of the next 12 days.

*That guy I saw one time when I first moved to DC doesn't count, he was a weirdo and his practice was terrible. 

larose

Pretty good, some beautiful passages. Always nice to read a story where characters redeem themselves and each other through generosity of spirit.

More notably, the subject of my second book club meeting here, at my recommendation in January. Only a few people had read even part of the book -- there were some new faces this month -- but still the conversation was lively. Once again I'm glad that I went with that whim in January to discuss The Remains of the Day.

Also, I am WAY off normal book reading pace. Gotta pick it up. Reading What the Dead Know by Laura Lippman right now, and the book club book this month is Blindness by Jose Saramago.

dubai

The trip down was smooth and uneventful except that I did not sleep until 7:30 AM, and then for just an hour or so after arriving at the hotel. Forced myself out of bed, to breakfast, and to day zero of the proposal workshop. It ended up being really good: we spent most of the day in four small groups (gender; monitoring, evaluation, research, and learning; finance and budgeting; and governance and management), first writing down issues that had come up during implementation of the first phase, then coming up with recommended solutions that we could employ in the new phase, and finally sharing out from the small groups to everyone else. I didn't work on the first project so I participated in both MERL and gender as an observer. Learned a lot. Wish I'd been more awake and less cranky. One which note: I was in a bit of a glass case of emotion today vis-a-vis SRB. Much more so than yesterday. That is attributable in no small part, I'm sure, to the lack of sleep. But I'm confused about her and myself and that was in the back of my mind until the workshop ended around 4:45 and we returned to the hotel.

Then EAH, who's the Kabul counterpart of my team member LNT, and I went to the Dubai Mall. What an insane place. We both wanted a walk, and I wanted mainly to stay awake and see if I could find some hiking shoes. She had a couple of shopping items in mind, as well. Not everything is available in Islamabad, and way, way less is available in Kabul. Massive success for both of us on the shopping front, and it was good to spend some time with her. We'll be working together a fair amount on a couple of upcoming regional or at least bi-country proposals so having some non-work time to get to know each other a bit was good. Plus we seemed to enjoy each other's company. I enjoyed hers anyway.

Now I've got a few work things to do and then I am going to pass the f out. Party starts at 8:30 tomorrow. Woohoo.

trips

Early Sunday morning, I will leave for a proposal workshop in Dubai that's going to include something like 50 people from five different countries. That is way, way too many people. But okay, this is how we do things. I'm looking forward to it, my first overnight business trip in the new role (except Geneva last summer, but that was obviously before I'd moved to Islamabad). At the very least I'll meet some interesting people, learn some more about the project, hopefully contribute a bit myself, and do some shopping. Should put together a list. It'll include:

• Scrabble
• Boggle
• Scotch (obv to purchase in duty free on the way home)
• Wine if I have space in my bag

And something else I thought of last night that is escaping me at the moment.

Back Wednesday night, then work on Thursday and at least part of Friday. And then I'm going to Lahore for the weekend, for a big Sufi music festival and a food festival that coincide with each other. Quite excited for that. RF and I are staying a proper hotel this time, and several other friends are also coming for the weekend although I'm not sure where they're staying. It'll be fun to see the Lahore crowd again, even if briefly. The last trip was so fun. 

Last thing before I stop procrastinating and start boning up on the background materials for this workshop: The book club picked the book I recommended! So 22 Feb we'll meet up to discuss LaRose. I picked it up again last night and read until later than I should have -- see previous post for an explanation of why I might have had trouble getting to sleep -- and am enjoying it. 

girls

Hard to call it a breakup because we weren't really dating but SRB broke things off last night because, long story short, she's not over her ex. That's probably good in the long run, but at the moment it sucks.

1. being rejected is shitty
2. being rejected in favor of another dude she also rejected but still has feelings for is shittier
3. being rejected after making it clear that the only red line was that she be working on getting over the other dude, her agreeing to that, then getting all weird a few days ago and lying about why even when i asked point-blank about it, sleeping with her a couple of times but not having sex because of said weirdness -- is even shittier

Texted with my friend AK about it this morning (her night, she's in DC), and she pointed out that it's not personal: for SRB it's about herself and her feelings for this other guy and the fact that she likes me -- which she does -- is in the background. Also that if SRB is dealing with internal shit then it's way better to have a clean break than be ambiguous about shit. That's true, but still feeling hurt/pissed.

I'll get over it, just feeling a little bit emo today.

EDIT: After cooling down a bit and FB messaging with SRB, I had an epiphany: I've been taking our relationship way too seriously. It's not like we have a future together, she's leaving the country for good in May. (In my defense I didn't know that for sure until today, but it was always likely.) We like each other, and part of me knows it'd be dumb to throw the baby out with the bathwater. The baby in this case being hanging out with and sleeping with someone I like, and the bathwater being my quasi-suppressed desire to be in a boyfriend-girlfriend relationship. Letting my internal expectations/status-meter race ahead of where we'd decided to be at -- and we talked about it several times -- was not good. Not good. Didn't realize how far ahead until she hit me with the "I'm not ready to be done romantically with my ex" last night.

But talking with her today gave some clarity on what she meant by that, and I think that if I can reset and recalibrate to a much more casual level, we can be friends with benefits. Which is what we should have been, and were, except in part of my brain, all along.

a perfect spy

Year's off to a subpar pace in terms of books-read. A Perfect Spy is wonderful. At the end of the day I still think Tinker, Tailor is Le Carre's masterpiece but the two books are very different from one another. A Perfect Spy is very personal, very intimate. I heard a podcast recently in which two writers debated whether Le Carre or Ian Fleming was the greater spy novelist (nothing against Fleming but lol no contest) and the guy arguing for Le Carre pointed out that male love is a major theme of his writing. That is certainly true, and never more overtly than in A Perfect Spy. In this case, specifically about the love between sons and fathers and how searching for a father figure can go badly awry. It's a beautiful and sad story.

One quibble: He gets DC and "American" dialogue wrong. Jarring for such a careful writer, and such a master of dialogue! No one says they're "in the Mall," one is "on the Mall." The position of various monuments is dubiously described. And no American I've ever met would say, "Let's shake your hand," when they mean, "Shake my hand." Come on, John! Unless of course that's just to say consistent with the voice of the protagonist -- the book shifts from first to third person often and the first person narrative itself switches between first- and third-person references as the protagonist describes his past. But it doesn't seem consistent, the American recollections stand alone and they're out of step with the character's mastery of adaptation. 

books read 2017

1. A Perfect Spy, by John Le Carre
2. LaRose, by Louise Erdrich
3. What the Dead Know, by Laura Lippman
4. Blindness, by Jose Saramago
5. Uprooted, by Naomi Novik
6. Neuromancer, by William Gibson
7. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, by Agatha Christie
8. Doughnut Economics, by Kate Raworth
9. The City and the City, by China Mieville
10. What it Means When a Man Falls from the Sky, by Lesley Nneka Arimah
11. Sister Outsider, by Audre Lorde
12. Norse Mythology, by Neil Gaiman
13. Hermaphrodites and the Medical Invention of Sex, by Alice Dreger
14. Prussian Blue, by Phillip Kerr

brit club

A few milestones today:
1. First time driving myself onto the enclave. The guards must have been having a good day because they didn't even stop me to ask where I was going, just waved me through. In my experience they usually bug people at the outer gate.
2. Became member of the British Club, which should make it much easier to access the compound, as well as use the BC facilities without inconveniencing someone who lives inside. For the most part, that just means less headache in terms of showing up to play tennis or ultimate frisbee. Worth the $30/month.
3. Presented my department's 2017 goals to the senior management team, along with the other department heads. I went late so people were tired, but I think they went down well. Although we've bitten off a pretty good bite, it'll be remarkable if we achieve even most of the things we've set out to do. The process of developing them with my team, which is now a proper team of four rather than just me and LNT, was rewarding and felt very positive.

My finger is was in bad shape the last two days, tender along the side of the nail to the point where I couldn't grip anything tightly because the lateral pressure from my middle finger hurt too much. Just the way the skin was healing around the part of the nail that came out from the cuticle. Feels better today and in fact I just got back from a really solid workout. Feel slightly lightheaded and otherwise great about that. Now I've got a bunch of work to do before sleepy time.

Tomorrow night: Poker with a new group of people. Should be interesting.

book club

Yesterday I noticed that a friend was interested on fb in a meeting of the Islamabad Book Club, hosted by an organization I'd heard of called the Desi Writers' Lounge. That meeting was tonight, and the book they read was The Remains of the Day, which I read about a year and a half ago and loved. So I thought, I must go.

Good choice. We were eight young people, all around 30. Very lovely discussion moderated unobtrusively by a guy who's with DWL. The conversation was all over the place, and it's fascinating to see where people's minds go. Also, what people from this part of the world have learned about the World Wars, or the Tuskegee syphilis experiment, or the transatlantic slave trade. And how they reflect on class and the fact that servants are still prevalent in their culture. Also it's just a beautiful book and I was glad to reflect on it with other people. Also getting to know new people is just a pleasure.

Now RF is coming over for a glass of whiskey and a New Year's catch up. Can't wait to hear about Cape Town. 

a motorcar

One of the first things I did after getting back to Islamabad was follow up about getting a rental car. Still makes sense to buy one but I just wasn't making time and taking taxis everywhere is limiting and annoying. Now I've got what I'd call a faded-spearmint-colored Toyota Vitz (aka Yaris in the US). Heaven is being able to go buy a full-sized trash can and laundry hamper whenever you want.

The first week back was hectic as expected but could have been worse. I felt productive, at least. Had some friends over on Thursday night for Cranium, my first time hosting. Great success, that's such a fun game for getting people to loosen up. Spent the weekend with SRB and various crews, and also running extremely necessary errands (see, e.g., the aforementioned trash can-and-laundry-hamper run) that were not possible before I was with wheels.

Last night we went to a barbecue at the Polish deputy ambassador's place. He's a really fun guy but the crowd was a bit mixed. Also neither SRB nor I felt entirely ourselves: not sure what was going on with her but I just felt kind of out of it. Much quieter than usual. Partly hunger, I think, and I felt better after eating something. But we skipped out earlyish, around 10 or 10:30, and went back to her place. She's learning guitar and so she put on some tutorials that she'd been working on and we sang a few songs together. Singing is fun but something about which I'm quite shy. I'm not shy about much. So it felt good to sing with someone else. And she was really sweet about it afterward. A few people here have commented on how nice and deep my speaking voice is. That is not my perception of it, perhaps partly because I judge it against Dad's and his is beautiful. But last night was the first time, I think ever, that someone has told me that I sing well and on-key and maybe I should join a chorus or something and sing more.

I blushed.

This morning we drove all the way to F-10 (sweet, sweet automotive freedom) for classic desi breakfast at a place that RF had recommended, then went to the mall where I bought coffee beans for $20/pound (worth it) and a grinder for $44 (worth it). Tomorrow: fresh ground coffee in the French press. My quest for a pour over cone continues. Then I read a bit of A Perfect Spy, which and cements further my love of John Le Carre as a writer. Who knows, by the end I might like this one more than Tinker, Tailor.

My finger felt okay enough today to practice a bit of magic so I started learning my third trick and did a bit of drilling on the basics. Now I'm drinking a glass of the fancy Bowmore that I smuggled into the country and writing this blog. Tomorrow I feel like the work year will really begin.

war remnants museum

A deeply moving, distressing, upsetting, and uplifting place. There is no question to its creators that the war was one of American imperialist aggression. The south Vietnamese government is always referred to as a puppet. The large collection of US weapons with deadpan, almost clinical descriptions. The gallery of victims of Agent Orange. The wall after wall of photographs of anti war demonstrations from Congo to Pakistan to Argentina, affirming and thanking the solidarity of people around the world. The huge exhibit on war photographers, so many of whom died here. The temporary exhibit on the resilience of several combat victims. It's overwhelming.

Very glad I came here. 

nam part 2

The slight star-crossedness of this trip continues apace. Yesterday morning I woke up, stepped into Alex's bathroom, stumbled on the lip of the door, put my foot down on the soaking wet floor, felt it slide out from underneath me, went down, and caught the last three fingers of my right hand between the door and the floor. Plus side: didn't hit my head. Minus side: ripped out a nice chunk of the cuticle on my right ring finger. It was painful enough at the time to make me nauseous and lightheaded. Alex broke out the neosporin and bandaids and ibuprofen like a champ. It still hurts dully now; light pressure and gripping is possible. Heavy gripping and pressure on the end of my finger not possible. So I wasn't able to participate in Alex's Brazilian jiu jitsu class last night, a disappointment. Have been wanting to try combat sports. Something to do back in Islamabad, there's a gym there that's apparently pretty good. Once my finger heals a bit. Think I'm gonna lose the nail.

Otherwise Vietnam has been great. Alex is in a good place, getting ready to move to Colorado and get married to a woman he loves. It's cool to spend so much one on one time with him, he's a real adult in a way that shouldn't be surprising but is because he's still Alex, still my younger brother's best friend. He's been in Asia for almost six years. Hard to believe.

I haven't been an ambitious tourist here but that's okay. Went to the main covered market yesterday, ate some good Vietnamese food, today going to the War Remnants Museum. First, lunch. Meeting Alex and coworkers at a place called Eden. 

nam

Vietnam and Turkey share the characteristic of having languages written in Roman-ish letters that are completely incomprehensible to me. No recognizable words or roots to work with. I enjoy this phenomenon, the flexibility of those simple pen strokes.

Not sure my taxi driver is all that familiar with driving stick. He shudders along at the bottom of one gear too high, puts the handbrake on while the car is still moving, and stalled out a second ago. He asked me just now if I was okay and I said yes. Asked him if he was okay and he said, "Maybe. I very tired. So much traffic." He's not lying. 

sing

The food in Singapore is unbelievably good. In three days I ate nothing below "excellent," and dishes topped out at "I will remember this for the rest of my life." Never spent more than $25 on a meal. Good lord.

I went fishing in the jungle with my friend Larry. First time I'd been in about 20 years. Caught a fish thanks to Larry's serious expertise. He's a spouse here -- my friend JF works for an NGO and he's tagging along for the year -- so he fishes 3-4 times per week.

Singapore is very clean, very pretty, and very efficient. Public transit is outstanding. You almost never see police. There is no crime to speak of. Punishment for crimes is astonishingly harsh and swift and corruption is absent. You can drink a beer on the street but smoking weed will get you literally caned and sent to prison for a significant period. Drug trafficking is a likely death sentence.

Big chunks of traditional Chinese Buddhist moral teaching are horrible, just nakedly designed to keep the peons in their place.

Hanging with Larry and JF was a pleasure. They're good company, their dog Oliver is a sweetie, and their place is nice. And Larry is very chill and game, which are the two most important qualities in a travel buddy.

Now I'm headed to Saigon and AB. We're going to do some Brazilian jiu jitsu tonight apparently!

My penchant for not planning super carefully bit me in the butt a bit this morning, as I found out belatedly that to get a visa on arrival in Vietnam you first need an "approval letter" from any number of private companies that exist to provide such letters. This is a legalized scam, but there you have it. So I had to scramble a bit this morning, but in the end I got it printed at a kiosk in the Singapore airport and no worries. Relieved that, after some slightly miserable travel experiences so far on this trip, I handled this hiccup with my cortisol close to baseline. That is good Travel Luke. Bad Travel Luke hates how Thai people pronounce English words because he's fed up with their country.