10 things I love about Boston

8. The Public Garden

Astute readers may notice that most of my 10 favorite things are on the Cambridge side of the Charles--even Josh Lederman y Los Diablos mostly play in Somerville and the western suburbs. And when I started to make the list, even I was surprised to see the Public Garden appear on it. "The Public Garden? I hardly ever go there."

But frequency isn't really the same thing as quality, is it? And each single time I've sat in the Garden has been a perfectly cultivated little jewel of memory, not unlike the Garden itself. My first day in the city, when I'd come to interview at BU, sitting and realizing that I had to live here, I just had to. A long twilight talk with a former student and good friend, after I'd ended a five-year relationship. Eating ice cream with Mr. Improbable, a month or so into our relationship, when he'd cut short a trip to New York to get back home to me. Sitting by the lake after I'd decided to get a dog, looking at all the different breeds that went by, asking myself which one was right for me.

I don't pass through the Garden often, and I stop and linger even more rarely. But somehow it's become the whole city in miniature for me. When I need to think, not just about life, but about life in Boston, that's where I go to do it.

Maybe now that I've realized that, I'll go there more often. Maybe not. Some things are better left as special occasions.

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The cussing will continue until morale improves

Researchers at the University of East Anglia have done a delightful little study (which I'm sure isn't how they describe it to themselves) showing that workplace profanity can have positive effects on employee morale, stress level, and group cohesion. Apparently, you don't swear in front of bosses or customers, but swearing with (though not at) your peers has all kinds of nice social and psychological repercussions. Reper-cussin's!

I like this, and not just because my own use of profanity (in private and among close friends) can be, at times, reminiscent of Deadwood in its range, syntactical complexity, and occasional employment of iambic pentameter and classical allusions. But because one of the important things that good manners gives us, paradoxically, is the ability to forgo manners when appropriate, in order to let people know that you've taken off your "company face." And knowing when to leave the formalities behind is an important part of building intimacy and trust.

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Correction!

For those of you who were at my chat today (transcript here for those of you who weren't!) I won't be on the Peter Blute show tomorrow after all. I'll be on it, but not tomorrow.

The topic for the interview, whenever it happens, is Halloween etiquette! Won't that be fun. I don't think I'll be going to any Halloween parties this year (Mr. Improbable and I will be traveling), but I've come up with a GREAT costume idea for next year. Since I'm both a PhD and a cute brunette from Kansas, I thought I could go as "The Professor and Mary Ann." Cut a cheap pair of khakis and a pair of jean cutoffs in half and sew them together. Alter a white oxford so it buttons down on one side and ties into a halter on the other. Slick all my hair back on one side and into a big poofy ponytail on the other, and carry around a science book and a coconut pie.

Isn't that a great idea? Feel free to borrow it, but know that there is no one on the planet who is quite as perfect a blend of those two as am I!

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Housekeeping

Don't forget that there's a chat today, noon to 1 on boston.com. I hope you can join us! It's always a lively time.

My editor Susanne asked me to pass along a request to all my blog readers. She is the one who plucked me from academic obscurity and elevated me to the heights I occupy today, so I can deny her nothing. If I am the rock star of politeness, she is is the Col. Parker to my Elvis, the Brian Epstein to my John Lennon, the Malcolm McLaren to my Sid Vicious. Here is her request:

Do you have a great suggestion for achieving holiday sanity? A way to make holiday party obligations fun, not flummoxing? A secret to turn gift-shopping and baking from chores to cheerful times? A new local monthly women's magazine named Lola wants to know. A selection of tips will be published in the premiere issue, which hits the streets of Greater Boston on Nov. 16. The best tip will receive a Lola bag filled with samples from Michael Kors Island Capri and Juice Beauty. The editors will tell you if your tip has been selected for publication. E-mail tips to reader@lolaboston.com. Lola is published by Boston Globe Media.

Also, don't forget that we're looking for questions about medical etiquette for an upcoming special issue. You can send those to missconduct@globe.com.

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My day, she is made

A reader just e-mailed and said, "You are a rock star of politeness to me!"

Is that not the best compliment-slash-oxymoron you have ever heard? I am so happy right now.

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Language without words

Here's a nifty letter from a reader in response to this week's tipping question:

In the olden days of professional waiters ( this was 1940, 1950) if the service was not up to standard; you left the regular tip and put a penny on top of the paper money.

A career waiter knew what this meant.

Now with all the wait-people wanting to be rock stars or nuclear scientists, this penny gambit would be the waste of a penny.

I've never heard of the penny gambit myself, but I like it. As a general rule I'm firmly on the side of user-friendly, simple etiquette based more on general principles than on elaborate rules and rituals. It's the only way to go in a diverse, ever-changing society. But something was lost when the elaborate R&R's fell by the wayside. Not graciousness or civility, necessarily. The old ways too often reinforced nasty distinctions of class, race, and gender, and were based more on respect for social roles than for the actual people who filled said roles. But a way of communicating, subtly yet clearly, without words. There used to be an entire code for how ladies could communicate with their fans. (Their handheld air-motion devices, I mean, not their admirers. Although they often communicated to their admirers with their handheld air-motion devices.)

Or the language of flowers. If Mr. Improbable were to bring me yellow tulips, for example, I would not worry that he felt that his love for me is hopeless. I'd just know that somewhere in the neighborhood, there was a deep discount on yellow tulips and Mr. Improbable had seen them and thought, "Cool! I can get points!" We have lost the language of flowers.

Or the language of hats, as in this anecdote from Peg Bracken's incomparable, and sadly out of print, 1960s guide to etiquette, I Try to Behave Myself:

In a downtown department store, once, two young women entered the elevator on the tenth floor. An elderly man entered, too, and promptly removed his hat. The elevator stopped on Nine. Then on Eight. Then on Seven. At this point, one of the young women turned to the other and growled, "Hell, this damn thing's stopping on every floor." Quietly, then, without a change of expression, the elderly man put his hat back on.

You don't have to agree with what the man was communicating--that women ought not to use even mild profanity in public for fear of losing their status as "ladies" and thus their right to male respect. I certainly don't. But his way of communicating it was the essence of old-school cool. And there's the paradox of what we've lost, and gained, right there.

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The battle continues

Latest tea tag: "Listen and you will develop intuition."

Oh yeah, herbal tea company? I got news for you. I've got intuition. It's what I get paid for. I've got so much intuition I'm practically Betazoid, herbal tea company. I got your "intuition" right here, buddy. Right here.

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Apropos of nothing, really

Mr. Improbable is giving a talk in London next month, and found this little gem while searching for hotels online. Check out those reviews! I don't think he'll be staying there.

The foreign-language reviews are particularly entertaining, and might provide a nice translation exercise for the imaginative teacher--"un cauchemar," "das schlimmste, was ich je gesehen habe," and "decepcionante" are surely useful vocabulary terms for every student of French, German, or Spanish.

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They're on to me

I think the herbal tea company is on to me. The tag on my first bag of tea today read, "Keep up." The second one read, "Let your manners speak for you."

They know I've been mocking them.

Well, bring it on, herbal tea company. Monitor my blog in your incense-clouded offices, see if I care. Use your organic-cardamom-enhanced psychic powers to send me special coded messages. I can take it. You think just because I won't pull a sword out of a man's mouth that I'm a wimp? You've got a lot to learn about me, herbal tea company. I am the scourge of vapid new-age writing. And I do not fear you.

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