on neurosis and energy-wasting.

i stayed with my parents' semi-friends for the holidays and i discussed many things over the past two days. actually, it boiled down to many an argument with walter, the father, over bush, politics, america's shameful history (slavery) and other things which probably made him label me a lost liberal. but an intelligent one at that.

so i think i mentioned that he requires you to wash your hands (with soap, that is) every time you come into the house. but he's really crazy about it. today they had some guests for lunch--an interesting couple of intellectuals, actually. the man is a retired french lit professor from brooklyn and his wife is the math chair at some university and is french, and their software engineer very smart son. anyway, this sort of argumentative ex-prof. refused to wash his hands with soap. i found it all sort of amusing, especially because it was clear he was just trying to push walter's buttons. i guess i didn't realize just how deep walter's ocd is, because when the couple left he started fuming about how he was "very upset" and how his wife should not only wash all the dishes, but "make sure you get all the handles". well i've never seen neurosis that deep.

but this ocd also plays into why walter notices things so much. for instance, one of the only points he agreed with me on during our debates was how embarassing it is how much america wastes, because i guess he'd notice something like that being sort of--crazy. i'd noticed the small ways in which french people try to conserve energy: there are two buttons on the toilet flusher--one for, well how to put it nicely, heavier loads; the turning on and off of the water every time you use the washing machine; the smaller and more efficient cars (apparently more mileage, which of course i know about as much about as i do how this here computer works); the light-switches in apartment buildings which are glow-in-the-dark and you need to turn on every time you want to walk up the stairs or move about the hallway (as in, they don't stay on all night). those are to name the ones that just came to mind. but there are more, oh are there more.