Come Home to the Scent of Roses Courtesy of Your Cell Phone

Bored with sending pictures and videos via your phone?  How about sending a scent from your phone or email to a system in your home so you can come home to the scent of lavender? While I consider this technology a niche at the moment for people who just have to have everything, I can see how it could be applied to entertainment in the future…movies with surround sound and scent, anyone?  Except I watch a lot of action and crime movies…do I really want to smell a decomposing body or the scent of someone who’s been living in the jungle for weeks?  Hmmm, suddenly the popcorn is churning in my stomach.

And of course, I always think about the naughty things one can do with a new technology.  Sure, while he loves you he sends you the scent of roses but what happens when he breaks up with you?  Does he send you the scent of rotten fish?  In addition to spam text messages, will we be getting spam scents?  Instead of the relaxing vanilla you expected, you come home to the eye-watering aroma of jambalya courtesy of a cajun restaurant’s advertisement.

Of course, I don’t think I have to worry about getting unauthorized scents any time soon.  I’m not sure I’ve gotten the hand of sending text messages from my phone much less scent recipes.

The Programmer and Perfectionism

I read an article this morning about women and their quest for perfection. To me, this quest is unattainable (can we say Don Quixote but without the moral innocence) and frankly, why do we want to be perfect in all aspects of our lives? That and then the scientist part of me gets nitpicky:

1.  How do we measure perfection?

2.  What is the definition of perfection?

3.  How do we know when we’ve become perfect?

4.  What do we do when we achieve perfection? (fall over an die because there’s nothing more to do? get cryogenically frozen and put on display in a museum for posterity?)

Too much analysis for me.  While I think I understand the causes that launched today’s phenomenon of women attempting to be perfect (the perceived pressure for a pristine house with perfectly coordinated upholstery; gourmet yet home-cooked meals; smiling, happy, healthy, genius children; the right cars; the right neighborhood; a handsome, smart, sensitive spouse; an airbrushed body that competes with the models on magazine covers; an intellectually challenging, progressive work environment where you’re on the fast track for promotion every six months, and family and friends in the same stratosphere), I don’t have any desire to join the ranks of tired, unhappy, dissatisfied women striving for an ideal that someone else made up (of course maybe there are women who have achieved this supposed perfection and are therefore ecstatic-we just only ever hear of the people who aren’t quite making it).

I’m about as far from the above definition of perfect as one can be, and I have no interest in achieving it. I’m not in an up and coming neighborhood (but I adore my neighbors), I don’t have a car (I’d have to wash it and put gas in it), dinners are often soup and sandwiches, dishes get left in the sink over night (and ignored through the day), nothing in my house matches (because, frankly, I have zero fashion sense), I don’t have kids, well-adjusted or otherwise (and am on the receiving end of ‘you’re not getting any younger’ looks), I will never get a corner office unless I pay for it myself (since I’m self-employed), and even if I workout for two hours everyday and just eat lettuce, I’ll still have an ass. And I wouldn’t change any of this to have a ‘perfect life’. My house feels like home, my career goals are to be self-sufficient and to be able to pick and choose my clients, I can still fit into my jeans from college, and I love my friends and family though they’re strange, quirky, and sometimes just plain weird. In the end I’m happy with me, happy with where I am in my life, and can’t quite think how it can get any better than this.  (That does not mean I want this moment to last forever.  I have goals: I’d like to have more time to read books, I’d like to run a 5K a few minutes faster, I’d like to be part of an archaeological dig some place warm and exotic but not break any nails or sweat…)

Maybe why I’m able to deal with or ignore the pressure society/media/women put on women to be perfect is because I see the quest for perfectionism and its consequences numerous times a year. I am married to a programmer. Programmers can be absolutely obsessed with perfection. Learning the perfect language, finding the perfect framework, writing the perfect code, making it all perfectly clean and concise, having the perfect coding and testing environment on their computer(s)…and I could go on. In the programming facet of his life, my husband strives for perfection often-TO THE EXCLUSION OF ALL ELSE. Forget food, bathing, sleep, everything…about all he does is get up to use the bathroom.

To me this translates into: ‘If I try and have a perfect life, I won’t have any life to speak of‘.  Damn, that sucks.  And I promptly throw the idea of perfection out the window.

The other thing I’ve observed about the quest for perfection: IT JUST NEVER HAPPENS-the perfection part that is.  My husband has never found the perfect programming language, framework, working environment, etc. for a project (and I don’t think this is because he’s not smart).  Then he just gets upset.  Why is a project never perfect?  Well, because there are other people involved, budget constraints, time constraints, psycho clients with crazy request…the list goes on.  All the same factors will affect your ‘perfect life’; money, time, wacko children, family, and co-workers.  Let go, honey, you can’t control it all (and do you really want to?).

So while I may not be on a quest for perfection, how do I deal with a programmer who does desire perfection in at least one facet of his life?

Fact: I don’t understand his quest/obsession for programming nirvana, BUT I ACCEPT IT. I understood what he was like before I married him and had no delusions that he would change after we got married. So my advice to you, don’t try and be society’s vision of perfect (like we could define it any way) AND ALSO don’t expect your programmer to be perfect (in his programming or the rest of his life). You know how I listed the spouse as being handsome, smart and sensitive. Well, mine is handsome, smart in programming but not all that sensitive when his nose is pressed up against a monitor. But this supposed flaw doesn’t bring my life to a grinding halt. Programming is my husband’s life but my life is centered around a multitude of other things (and not my husband). He wants to spend Saturday programming, great! I’ll spend the day hiking, visiting friends, or pursuing my own work. My life doesn’t revolve around him nor does his revolve around me. We are companions, lovers, friends…not dependents. Sure, there are days where I try to persuade him out of his chair or nag at him to shave, and he’ll usually listen to me, but I also recognize when he is in his perfection mood and leave him alone.

Oh, and on the flipside, my husband doesn’t expect me to be ‘perfect’ either.  He point blank told me that he’ll never ever clean a toilet, even if his life depends on it, but he’s also never said anything to me when the bathrooms become tiny toxic waste pits…or his feet stick to the kitchen floor…or my outfit doesn’t match…or he’s out of underwear…or there are no clean glasses and if he wants dinner he better pick it up on his way home.

Now that’s love (and my definition of a perfect relationship).

Puke Kills Or What Not To Say In Bed

Programmers’ minds can be convoluted. Their thought process abstract. I think I’ve learned to follow most of my husband’s leaps from one topic to something seemingly unrelated without batting an eyelash after so many years of marriage.

But sometimes, he still makes my eyes cross and my brain hurt.

Last night as I snuggled into bed, my programmer came in to kiss me good night and wish me an early, happy Valentine’s Day. We cuddled, shared a few cute kisses…and then he said it:

“I almost threw up on you last night. “

Needless to say, I pulled back a little and blinked while he continued to natter on about whether this gross episode had been part of his dreams, bleary, late night code-induced reality, or something in between. While he’s mulling over this fuzzy zone of his memory, my freshly awakened hormones are involved in a thirty car pile-up. With a hazardous waste tractor trailer and a truck full of rabid chickens that pluck the eyeballs from the few survivors. Finally, a plane drops from the sky and squashes the few remaining feel good sparks flat as he muses about why he felt like throwing up on me.

I’m not a squeamish girl. I’ll actually do disgusting things that my husband won’t touch with a ten foot pole. But when you talk about vomit when we’d been working up to a session of cooing, moaning and toe-curling? Bleck. Yuck. Get away. All I could think about was changing the sheets because god only knew what he actually had done since he couldn’t remember anything but the desire to puke.

Romantic Tip #1 (I would have thought this tip was obvious, but now I feel it is worth reiterating.):

DO NOT. EVER. TELL YOUR LOVER YOU THINK YOU ARE GOING TO THROW UP ON THEM IN BED. NEVER EVER.

Now that’s the most important bit of Valentine’s Day advice. Ever.

Spread A Little Love, Programmer Style

Just because a programmer is starry-eyed and seemingly, completely absorbed with the latest release of Firefox or a new software framework (Seam (has nothing to do with sewing), Ruby (I’m not talking about a sparkly you can put on your finger), or Spring (not the season or something you can bounce on) doesn’t mean he or she isn’t cooking up ways to show the profoundness of their love for their spouse. Programmers just might not declare their love via traditional methods (flowers, candy, sparklies from an honest-to-goodness jewelry store). Heads up, programmers: BestBuy is not a jewelry store, a thumb drive on a lanyard doesn’t say quite the same thing as a string of pearls.

But programmers are very, very good at showing their spouses how much they love them using their techie skills.

Take Jay McCormack for example, a Solution Architect in Australia. I’m not quite sure what a Solution Architect is, but his blog contains words that my programmer uses (IMAP, Web 2.0, Open Source), so Jay’s getting shoved into my programmer classification. On his blog, he has a lovely, toe-curling (men, when a woman curls her toes, it’s a VERY good thing) accolade to his wife-he’s telling the whole world he can’t live without her. And while he’s the techie, I get the impression he’s hugely amused that his wife’s website is leaving his in the dust (think the almighty page rank quest).

So, programmer, use your unique skills to show your love. For example:

1. Write a blog entry about how much you love your wife (or husband).

2. Design a webpage for her own personal use (if she wants one), or make a private blog where the two of you can engage in digital flirting in your own personal cyberscape.

3. Bring home goodies from your conferences-sure the T-shirts and thumb drives are branded with logos she’s never seen, but she’ll know you were thinking about her even when you were getting bombarded with the latest and greatest technology.

4. Make sure she has her own techie stuff (i.e. the computer she wants (not your cast-off or what you think is best for her), a new mouse, her own girly mouse pad, an ergonomic chair made for her butt).

5. Ask her for a picture for your office (she’ll go all gooey that you want to show her off to your co-workers). Use her picture as your background on your monitor.