Long ago, far away, I bought a typesetting company in Iowa with my mentor and business partner. Yes, yes, yes, I know I'm an idiot. I am reminded daily. The Wall Street Journal said I was a dope. Business Week decided I could have been more clued in. And a letter I got in the mail today told me that "If you'd talked to me, you'd never have bought that company and had to bear your guilty soul."

As the book the Secret says, if you want it bad enough, it will come to you. And if you don't, you'll deserve the crap you get.

It's nice to be smart in retrospect. It's comforting to know you'd never have pushed the launch button on the Challenger or invested with the Hunt Brothers or bought a Newton.

In the book the Black Swan, Nassim Taleb points out that, "Nobody would publish a book about business failure." Because the business press, and media in general, creates the myth of the formula for success. How do you find this equation? Just get a bunch of successful people in a room and try to find something they all share in common. Do they get up early to exercise? Did they have sloppy handwriting in grade school? Do they lace their shoes all on the left and then the right?

Nassim says it's all bunk. Success is what we all know already, a mix of skill, perseverance, and luck. And luck is a big big part of it. If Bill Gate's mother hadn't been on the board of United Way with the CEO of IBM, he likely wouldn't have gotten that meeting to sell them DOS. And how do you control who your mother knows? I guess you just have to wish hard enough.

Persia: Not Ahmadinejad's IranMy girlfriend is Persian, which is a nice way of saying "Iranian" if you live in America and want to draw a line between yourself and, say, ululating, consulate storming terrorists and elected Holocaust deniers. I'm serious. I believe it is this distinction that allows her brother, who is an actor, to get parts on Law and Order as an evil doctor or evil TV executive rather than being put in a long beard and told his character is planning to blow up mini-malls in Totowa.

Apparently, 6' 2" Persians are even harder to cast on TV than Mexicans. Or, as George Lopez, who's show was replaced by "Caveman," which is based on the Geico ad character, put it, "So a Chicano can't be on TV, but a caveman can?"

Of course, anyone who would confuse my girlfriend, a North Carolina born, Ivy-league educated lawyer who works for a bank with a terrorist would be the kind of person who doesn't doubt that Bin Laden has Totowa's famed Holiday Inn high on his list. ("They provided transportation to the mall.")

But growing up in the South in the '70s, she faced the pressure of being lumped in with the students holding Americans hostage--this despite her parents having moved to the US to avoid exactly the same extremist Islamic government.

Calling yourself "Persian" was the only recourse. Either people could understand the reason for distancing oneself from Iranian politics, or they simply had no idea where Persia was anymore than Paraguay. Either way, conflict avoided.

However the issue hasn't gone away and it's the same as it always has been: racism. It's what keeps Carlos Mencia on TV making the kind of fat, gay, black, Asian, Mexican, Jewish, jokes that frat boys, anonymous website commenters, and Beavis and Butthead enjoy. At least Beavis and Butthead was supposed to be ironic.

It's the same thing that Jewcy has been pointing out about the ADL selecting which kinds of genocides qualify as "mean spirited enough" to be real genocide.

There's no point trying to shut up the idiots, but at least we can call their bluff and remind them that they are what they are. On a trip to Australia an old man I'd met said to me, "New York City? You know there are 3 million Jews there?"

"No," I responded, "Actually, there's 2,999,999, because I'm here with you."

I've recently moved in with my girlfriend. She's Persian. I am not. She likes oriental carpets ("Do you know how much these carpets are worth?"). I do not. She likes French provincial furniture ("Do you have a version with more curlicues?"). I, well, you get the picture.

I grew up with Danish Modern furniture and my father's desire to paint walls white, if for no other reason than having fewer paint cans. Also, I once was nearly forced to rent an apartment in London that was owned by a Persian man with unrestrained decorating taste. There were mirrors on the ceiling, and the walls were covered with either deep blue or red velvet. ("I am sorry, I ran out of red velvet.")

Now we must attempt to find a way to match our styles. And I have made this suggestion. We get a mirrored panther. Possibly on a red velvet platform.

I think such an object would allow a concentration of all Persianess into a singularity of Orientalism. An entire opium den/Rubaiyat/Tehran airport in one fused mass. The challenge is, where to find a mirrored panther? The Internet will make this easy, no? No.

The first couple I find certainly have the potential to make me ill, but they are not three dimensional enough.

Mirrored Panther Take 1: (A little to Chinese?)

Mirrored Panther Take 2: (Cool Panther, Scary Lady)

Alas! I could not find a mirrored, tiled, panther anywhere! That includes an entire site devoted to mosaic sculpture on one very very very long page. However, lest you think that I am an idiot Googler ("Did you try putting it in quotes?") or that the world is not full of mirrored, mosaic animal sculptures, I present:

A mirrored horse: A little large for our apartment, but maybe for you?

A mirrored dolphin: What does a mirrored dolphin have to do with cancer research? Also, definitely too big for the apartment.

A mirrored catfish: Now we are talking.

So, what to do? Nu? After much Internet searching, I have found the answer. Something that satisfies the Persian in her and the Jew in me: A mosaic (although sadly not mirrored) Hamen. (As in hamentaschen!)

A mosaic Hamen: (But what about a hamen Moses?)

Actual bag of bolts from fan kit: I kept everything as required for "preparedness." So you watch out, I'm ready.Me: I've got a drill.

Friend on the other end of the phone: Try not to die.

It's true, I don't have a good record with D.I.Y. (For instance, for a long time I thought D.I.Y was a brand name.) And while it is true that knowledge is gained at the expense of practice, my current bank account includes bicycles falling on my head, lamps exploding, and a variety of deep hand wounds. I've also spent a lot of actual money. And, unlike my cooking projects, so far I've not always been able to get the burn marks cleaned off the ceiling.

For example, the ceiling fan that I actually took a stab at (it only hit me on the head so far, not yet in the eye) has cost me: a bunch of screws of various lengths, $5; a fancy wrench, $29; and a ladder, $180; an electrical tester I know realize I need, $30. Total, some number over $200. What am I a handyman and an accountant?

Estimate provided by an actual handyman: $75.

But where would the fun be in that? Where would be the surprise in not electrocuting myself? The thrill of realizing that "Oh! It goes in that way! I have to take it all apart again." The pathos of the part that seems to be left over. And the ultimate joy of, at last, calling the actual handyman.

No, not like some stupid '50s sitcom where everyone laughs at me. I mean the thrill of calling the handyman and having this conversation.

Handyman: Very impressive work. (shaking his head)

Me: I know! Did you see how I managed to get the wires through that tiny hole.

Handyman: Yeah, how'd you do that?

Me: (very very proud at thoroughly confounding another handyman)

Me "Working": My cat: Surveys my activity from a safe, out of range, out of focus, distance.From this persepective I seem even less sure of what's going on.

An Allergy Free Cat: Is a Happy Cat Here's some of the things I have to do today:

• Return the electrical breaker I bought that was wrong.
• Find something of equal or lesser value that I can now consider "free," like box of tiny screwdrivers.
• Return the shower head I'm not ever going to install and get a toaster oven in exchange. Alton Brown said toaster ovens are cool.
  
• Determine plan for convincing clerk that I do have the receipt for the shower head, it's just invisible.
• Rub down cat with anti-allergy shampoo.
• Rub down other cat with anti-allergy shampoo after moving all the furniture it has scooted under; includes bed, sofa, kitchen cabinet, front closet, my closet, my underwear.
• Disinfect and bandage allergy-free-cat inflicted wounds.
• Come to some kind of resolution on the 3 month old email about my expiring US airways miles. Hope that all deadlines have finally passed and it is now a moot point that I don't have to do anything about except gripe. ("Bastards just took away my miles! Just like that!")
• Reopen article about outsourcing that my publisher and PR team thought was, "Not up to your usual standard."
  
• Close article about outsourcing so as to reboot computer to install "Critical iTunes Update."
• Make plans to visit my girlfriends parents in North Carolina by checking prices on Expedia.
• Curse airline industry.
• Fight with girlfriend over travel plans.
  
• Fight with girlfriend over the way my job lets me "work at home."
  
• Attempt to define drooling on keyboard as real work, just like her job.
• Call girlfriend back to apologize after realizing I am hard to live with, again.
• Think really seriously about installing that ceiling fan that's on the floor. Maybe shift ladder again to determine best position for thinking seriously about it.
• Google myself.
• E-mail anyone who has even kind of mentioned my book.
• Mop excess moisture off of coffee maker.
  
• Revel in glow of dry coffee maker, and at least one task accomplished.