A Pilgrim’s Digression

Since sometime in August, I have been reading the novel Lucky Jim, by Kingsley Amis. A friend of one of my favorite poets, Philip Larkin, I had been aware of Amis for a long time, but had never got round to reading his most well-known novel. I knew it was a comic novel, and I knew from my reading of Larkin’s biography that Amis was quite a funny fellow in college, so I expected good things. I don’t feel disappointed.

I am only a little more than half-way through this short novel, though. I read a page here or there, on the train or in the coffee shop, or at my desk at lunch. It’s no way to read a book and really absorb it, but it is how I read these days. Bits and pieces, here and there. I find I have trouble keeping character names straight, or remembering what happened last week, when I last picked the novel up.

Anyway, this will not be a literary analysis of any kind. I don’t do that anymore. I want to share a few of what I feel are memorable quotes from the book. I’ll begin with just a brief synopsis, to provide some context.

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Yesterday at work, I overheard two colleague’s talking, and it quickly became apparent that one of them had applied for a job with another government agency.  The second fellow asked him why he was looking for another job.

“Well, I’ve been here five years.  If I stay any longer I’m afraid I’ll end up like a lot of people who no longer put forth the effort they did when they started.  I want to keep myself on the ball so I don’t get lazy.”

I sometimes feel like I am the only person in the world completely satisfied with his job–not even desirous of looking for anything better.  I don’t care if it is a sign of impending laziness, I like my work, and I appreciate all the benefits of my job.  I have found what I’m looking for.

I actually remember reading not long ago that today, five years is the average amount of time people work at a job.  At one time, people would find work in a factory or company or department store and remain there for the entirety of their working life.  No more.

It makes me feel rather anomalous that I would rather be one of those people who stays with the same organization for thirty years.  Maybe I like comfort and stability too much.  Who knows.  However, when I hear people at work complaining about our organization or disparaging their boss, I think to myself, “You have no clue how lucky you are to work here.”

Or maybe I just haven’t worked there long enough myself in order to be that cynical.

Seeing O.J. Simpson arrested and arraigned has not only brought on a disorienting case of deja vu, but it makes me feel very old, all of a sudden.  It was a little more than ten years ago that he went on trial the first time.  I still remember the day the verdict was handed down; I was still in college at the time.  Good Lord, was it that long ago?

This time around, it does not seem like his trial is going to be the 24/7 event it was back then.  My French teacher actually let us out of class early so we could go to the student union and watch the verdict delivered on the TV there.

The current affair just doesn’t seem as huge or culture-shaking as that.  Or it could be that the first trial so drastically changed the way our media reports news that today’s coverage, which would have seemed over-the-top in 1988, is just par for the course.

In which case, ironically, it will take a bigger event than O.J. getting arrested to shake us out of our torpor.

We began so well.  When Brendan was an infant, we were diligent about not bringing him into bed with us.  Even when he was old enough that we could convert his crib into a day bed, we were strict about him going to sleep in his own bed and sleeping there all night.

Somewhere along the way, though, we got lazy.  Maybe it was when he started getting up early in the morning and crawling into bed with us.  Gradually he started getting up earlier and earlier and crawling into bed with us, until finally he was only sleeping maybe two or four hours in his own bed.  Then he didn’t sleep in his own bed at all.  For the past year or two, that has been the case.

It isn’t that he is afraid of the dark, or that he has trouble sleeping.  It’s that Mom and Dad have been lazy.  It’s just easier to get him to go to bed if he is allowed to sleep in our bed.

That changed, this weekend.  I have trouble getting a good night’s sleep anyway, and Thursday night was particularly bad.  I woke up at one point and Brendan was literally laying horizontal on the bed, across his mother, with his feet in my side.  Not comfortable.  Sometimes, either my wife or I will get up and sleep the rest of the night on the couch, it can be so untenable.  Not to mention, it leaves me and my wife precious little private time together.

Rather embarrassed, I mentioned the situation to my therapist in my session on Friday afternoon.  He said, “There’s a very easy solution to this.”

I said, “Let’s hear it.”

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This was a new one to me, and I feel like I ought to tell folks about it because it almost fooled me. I received an email today purporting to be from the IRS. It was not flagged as spam. The email address was given as do-not-reply@irs.gov. It used a realistic IRS header graphic, and for all intents and purposes looked real.

Here’s what it said:

After the last annual calculations of your fiscal activity we have determined that you are eligible to receive a tax refund of $109.30. Please submit the tax refund request and allow us 6-9 days in order to process it.

A refund can be delayed for a variety of reasons. For example submitting invalid records or applying after the deadline.

To access the form for your tax refund, please click here [link removed]

Regards, Internal Revenue Service

After suppressing my first impulse to cheer that I was actually getting money back, I began to be suspicious. It seems a bit late in the year to get something from the IRS. But the amount was so small–$109.30–that it sounded legitimate.

I moused over the link, and it appeared as simply an IP address with a long string of special characters. I read the email carefully. Then I saw it: the name masking the email address was spelled incorrectly. How did these brilliant spammers, who otherwise probably would have got me to click the link, spell the name of the agency?

Internal Revenuse Service.

Turns out this one has been caught by Snopes, too.

The vast majority of the time, I get along quite well in my life as a Cybernaut. I don’t know that we are really called Cybernauts–we people who live the vast majority of our lives through an Internet connection–but it is a word I like to use to describe myself. I sometimes feel like I exist more as a virtual creation than as a physical being.

Plus, Cybernaut brings back memories of my pre-Internet existence. When I was a toddler in the mid-seventies, pre-Star Wars, there was a line of toys called Micronauts that I enjoyed playing with. But since I don’t want to think of anything about myself as “micro,” I think Cybernaut works just as well while suggesting the same thing: a person who is part machine, part human flesh, who explores a largely electronic world (the Microverse in the language of the Micronaut comic books).

As I say, these explorations are usually quite pleasurable and unstressful, until I hit a road block, such as I did today: the forgotten password.

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In the leadup to the much-anticipated “Petraeus report”, to be delivered next week, it has been interesting to listen to talk radio. Sean Hannity and his cohorts have been almost giddy with anticipation of the success that Petraeus is supposedly going to announce. Last night, on one of the local Washington talk shows, the host kept asking, “What are Democrats going to say if the surge turns out to be working?” As if he expected a meaningful answer from his hand-picked callers.

The conservative talking point is that Democrats and liberals have bet the bank on failure in Iraq, and they will be formally discredited when Petraeus delivers the report of victory that has been postponed four years now. Of course, any suggestion that the report might be exaggerated in its claims of success will be met with derision and hints of lunacy.

Not trust the military to present an accurate assessment of its war effort? Ridiculous! Why would they exaggerate their success?

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On the way home from church this afternoon, I mentioned that Brendan had been a very good boy throughout a long service.

“I know,” Brendan said, confidently. “I prayed twice. And I didn’t even open my eyes.”

“Oh, that’s even better,” I said.

Brendan hesitated, then said, “Well, I did open my eyes once, just to make sure no one else opened their eyes.”

“Did anyone else have their eyes open?” I asked.

“Yes,” Brendan said. “And guess who it was?”

“Who?”

“It was Josh!” (Josh is our foster son, you’ll recall.)

“Really,” I said. “Josh, I am surprised at you. Opening your eyes during prayer?”

“Yeah, guilty as charged,” he said.

“Brendan, from now on, you are in charge of making sure everyone has their eyes closed during prayers.”

“Alright, Dad, I will,” he said. “We can practice when we get home. I’ll say a prayer and you all have to keep your eyes closed, and if any of you open your eyes, me and God will be very disappointed.”

“On second thought,” I said, “Maybe I shouldn’t have made you the Chief of the Prayer Police.”