A few pigeons were eating the remnants of a meal underneath a table.  The grouping consisted of a large, clearly well-fed adult pigeon, and two smaller and much leaner adolescent pigeons.  Whenever these two other pigeons tried to get at some of the food, the older pigeon pecked at them to chase them away.  They certainly could have used the food more than their older companion.

The guy at the table offered up an interesting observation- just as with the pigeons, so it goes with humans.  The bigger and stronger among us apt to push around the smaller and weaker.

Though this is obviously an extreme generalization, I though it was fairly poignant of my table mate.  I’ll have to keep my eyes open next time I spot a pigeon.  Who knows what other similarities are out there?!

As with the first Presidential debate (and it will almost assuredly be the same for the next two debates) I found the coverage after this debate to be completely unfulfilling.  And by coverage, I mean asking partisan figures to comment on their thoughts on the debates and on who they opinions as to who “won” the debates.  In the interviews that I watched, I remember ONE person commenting that though they were voting for one candidate, they thought the opposite candidate had won.

How is it helpful to ask for the opinions of someone who is partisan, when it is fairly clear what their answers will be?

This is exactly the partisanship that I referred to in my blog entry on being forced to choose between the two political parties.  In my opinion, enough with this divisiveness.  Personally, I would love to see a town hall format to these debates (with more than just four of them by the way!) with the candidates responding to the questions of everyday Americans rather than to those of a single moderator.

The more I get to hear the candidates discussing their views and proposed policies the better.  And the less the political pundits get to prattle on and on and ask questions of partisan figures who then provide us with the expected responses, the better.

Naturally these questions drive both myself and others around me crazy at times. To some extent, I have improved my abilities to be content with whatever it is that I am doing, even if it consists of nothing. But for the most part, I have to continually remind myself to take a deep breath and to just plain relax- truly not easy for me to do!

Whether or not it’s healthy to be this concerned with time (I don’t think that it really can be), I do think that it is natural for someone like myself who thinks about the “big questions” and has a very large fear of death. The fact that each of our lives is and has to be finite makes them in some way centered around the concept of time. Along with my fear of death itself, it’s my fear of becoming old(er) and looking back with regrets about the way I spent my time.

I have heard many people echo the experiences I have had with wanting to have more time (to do what?!), and not only to have more time, but to also have more free time in which to do nothing in particular. And then when I do have that time, I of course have trouble relaxing and instead feel guilty about doing nothing- i.e. feeling like I should in fact be doing something. A classic vacation scenario.

And then there is of course the situation of being somewhere I don’t want to be (work), and time moving ridiculously slowly, compared with the situation of being somewhere I want to be (or being with someone I want to be with), and time moving at warp speed. It involves a unit of time (a minute or an hour, or even a second) that is uniform no matter where I am or what I am doing, and it is my perception of this unit of time that is the variable.

I recently left my job and my life in Arlington, Virginia, and spent a few weeks at home in Rhode Island. It was to be my long awaited break, before my road trip west to my new home in San Francisco. Something curious happened- time flew. OK, now maybe that isn’t something so curious at all, but it was still very noticeable to me. Having waited for a long time and for numerous reasons to leave the Washington DC area, I of course had felt the time to be passing very slowly until I left. Here I am, sitting on (or is it in?) the West Coast, a full 6 weeks later. Completely, and overwhelmingly unreal.

How did time pass so quickly, and how does it pass so quickly in general when there is nothing you have to be doing? Of course being in the house I grew up in and being with family and friends in Rhode Island contributed to this taking place. But how was it possible considering that I had nothing to do other than enjoy being home (a little simplified, considering I was going to be moving cross-country, but still…)?

Talking it over with a friend of mine who also recently left his job, and had about a month in between where he was next headed, we came to the interesting and puzzling conclusion that time actually moved quicker when we had nothing to do each day, than when we had everything to be doing each day. This seems to be contrary to the norm of “the busier you are, the faster the hours, days, and weeks go by”.

How very strange that time moved at its fastest when there was nothing filling our days!

One of my favorite activities, one that allows me to escape for a bit from the stresses and demands of our daily lives, is to go to a cafe. I absolutely LOVE cafes. I always enjoy good coffee, particularly a well-made espresso, latte, or cappuccino, but for me it has always been more about the company and about the opportunity to clear my ever-thinking mind. While I do enjoy being in groups from time to time, I have always enjoyed spending more intimate time with one or two other people, and what better place to spend a few hours, relaxing, catching up, and shootin’ the breeze than a cafe.

The cafe where the idea for this blog was initially born is a wonderful little cafe named Pastiche. It is located in Federal Hill, the little Italy of Providence, Rhode Island. I was discussing the idea of writing a book with my best friend. Two years (and a failed attempt at writing a book) later, after a lot of thought, I have decided to follow through on my drive to write and to share some of my observations.

Anyway, back to the cafe. It’s a place where Rhode Islanders come for a sumptuous dessert, perhaps accompanied by a tasty and lively espresso or cappuccino. It’s a place to lounge in, and according to their official dinning rules, patrons are allowed to stay for up to two hours after the purchase of their last item. Thus, though they are not a true European cafe, where people can stay for hours and hours on end, having finished their one cup of coffee five minutes into their stay, Pastiche is close, very close. And exactly my kind of cafe.

A cafe has always given me the opportunity to observe, and not just the people around me, but to “observe” my own thoughts as well. It is often in the company of a friend or two, that thoughts I might have been having for some time in the back of my mind, finally make it to the front. It is these thoughts and observations that I will attempt to share throughout the course of the lifetime of this blog.

So back to the meaning of “The Perfect Foam”. As you may have guessed (both by the picture of a cappuccino on my homepage and by the above reference to a cafe), the perfect foam refers to the one-third of a cappuccino comprised of foamed milk.

I have always been an up and down kind of guy. One aspect of my personality is my ability to get supremely excited over small details- the perfect ice-tea on a hot day, some home-made ice-cream, bread and butter, etc. I might have had the worst possible day (at least in my own eyes), but I have always been able to push things aside and get excited over something as small as the perfect foam. I have had more than a few friends look at me with absolute bewilderment as I happily held up my spoon, having just dipped it into a freshly-made cappuccino, and exclaim, “now this is the perfect foam”, with an ear to ear smile on my face. This may not seem like much, and it isn’t the fact that it is foam that has the ability to make me this happy that matters. It is the ability to find joy, even when a day seems completely ruined, and to find this joy in something as small as the perfect foam (I should add that what makes foam perfect, is its thickness- it MUST be thick!).

Personally, I believe that this is what makes our lives so great, and so utterly human. We have the wonderful ability to get excited, and to find joy in the smaller details in life. Whether it’s a certain song, a certain type of food, or anything else, what would life be if we each couldn’t enjoy them?

For me, the day that I stop getting excited over the perfect foam, is when I know that I have my priorities completely in the wrong place. Sometimes it can be helpful for all of us to take a few minutes, take a step back, and realize that there are always details of our lives that we can enjoy.