Sometimes when I'm starting an email, I have multiple directions I can go... whether it's because all of my options are so brilliant or because they are so weak isn't relevant (although sadly I think they tend to settle somewhere in the middle)... what matters is that I'm torn with indecision about which opening to use.
I'm stuck at that place this evening as I recap my second lifetime golf adventure/debacle. Rather that pick one, I'm going to give all three that occurred to me. Feel free to cut and paste your favorite into your "Ed O. Blog: Home Edition" activity book.
(Option One) A wise man once said that a golf course was a waste of otherwise perfectly good pastures. While I'm not sure that I'd go that far (I've never really been a massive fan of pastures), and I'm not altogether sure that Karl Malone is a wise man, I do know that most of the time golf courses are not my favorite places to spend a Sunday.
(Option Two) I am a member of the Washington State Bar Association, and I might be the only member that does not golf. I am bored by golf. I can name literally millions of things I would rather be doing (and I mean "literally" in the figurative sense, of course). So when I agreed to play golf as part of the Memorial Day trip to Oregon, I hope that someone was paying attention to my selfless display of family spirit.
(Option Three) I understand that country clubs need rules. They need to feel comfortable with how people dress and with how appearances of members and their guests come across. On paper, a "no blue jeans" policy might make some sense. But when I thought of the lunacy of me wearing my $8 Old Navy elastic wasteband shorts (which are allowed) rather than my considerably more expensive designer jeans, I had to shake my head and laugh at how messed up the policy really is.
I agreed to play golf on Sunday morning for one reason: to spend time with my brother and my dad. They had each had times in their lives when they'd golfed, and I hadn't, so I wasn't expecting to be able to keep up with even their low standards. Actually, I DID have a time in my life when I golfed; I'd butchered a course in Portland over 18 holes with some law school classmates. But I'd never felt the tug to come back. Still haven't.
The first hole went as I'd anticipated. It took me 16 stinking shots to finally put the ball in the hole. Awesome. At first I was a little embarrassed and I was a little frustrated, but as I worked my way through the remaining 17 holes, I remembered that I SHOULD be bad. Golf is a hard game, and I had neither the time nor inclination to ever try to become decent at it.
Over time, though, en route to my 177 (105 over par, if my math is right), I did find some positives:
-- I hit two decent shots of those 177 swings
-- I was consistently on the green in 7
-- I never yelled "fore" (although I should have on one hole. I yelled "look out!" and it did the trick. I rock.)
-- I managed to typed out a txt message to a friend without being yelled at by anyone (I think they'd learned to avert their eyes by that point)
-- I haven't been missing anything in my absence from the game
My dad and brother were great. They tried to support me and be positive, but it was a bit like applying antibiotical ointment to an amputee... the arm is gone, and polysporin ain't bringing it back. I simply can't play golf, and no amount of good vibes is going to stop me from hitting golf balls into any and all waterways on a repeating basis.
I actually did some research on Google and found the following facts about golf and its history:
-- OJ Simpson liked golf
-- Jesus, Buddha, and Mohammad all abstained from the activity; even Moses merely dabbled
-- Over two million acres of rain forests are converted to driving ranges on a quarterly basis
-- Did I mention the OJ Simpson thing? And do you remember that he probably killed two people? Yeah.
177 over 18 holes. If you play golf: think about that. If you don't: it's a really good score. I am a natural athlete and am great at everything I try to do.
Golf. Ugh.
Monday, May 29, 2006
Wednesday, May 24, 2006
Adam Sandler, Catalyst
I'm sure we can all agree that memories are one of the things that separate us from the rest of the animals (with long division being the other differentiator). As I sat in the theater on Sunday, waiting for the DaVinci Code to start (twice, actually... I had the pleasure of sitting in a theater for five hours to watch one movie, but that's a potential topic for another blog entry) I saw an Adam Sandler trailer. It reminded me of a story I'd read, and it opened, for some bizarre reason, a doorway to memories.
I remember picking up my first pet out of the box with the rest of her litter. I remember the smell of our freshly cut front lawn when my brother and I played wiffle ball. I remember the pain in my right hand as I helped cut down the net after we won the state championship. I remember seeing my future (ex-)wife in a delightful summer dress on a sunny afternoon in Evanston. I remember my grandfather giving a toast at our last Thanksgiving with him. I remember my heart skipping a beat the first time I made eye contact with a certain beautiful classmate. And I remember the empty feeling of walking into my new apartment and feeling alone for the first time in my life.
The funny thing is that not all of my memories are actually from my life. Some of the things I think about and reflect upon the most are from books and stories that I've read: thinking of time as a string (A Wrinkle in Time), being chased through a supermarket by crazy people (Swan Song), reconsidering my definition of evil (A Fairly Honourable Defeat), and mourning the death of Robb Stark (A Storm of Swords).
Books have always been important to me. To stimulate, to entertain, and to supplement my memories. They also have the advantage of being able to be revisited... real life memories fade and distort, but the content (primary memories) established in books remain constant and we can simply reread it to examine our emotional (or secondary) memories that we associated with the primary ones.
I like Adam Sandler but I am not sure how often he's the catalyst for this level of introspection and inspection of memories and the importance of books. And if you're still reading this, you're probably wondering what any of this has to do with anything.
Sandler's movie (*gasp* a comedy!) is about a "universal remote" that lets him pause, rewind, and fast forward time. It kind of reminds me of that Ashton Kutcher movie from a few years ago. And, of course, Wells's Time Machine.
It also reminds me of a short story that I read years ago. It was part of a "New Science Fiction" anthology, if I remember correctly, and was one of the most interesting things I've ever read. It had the following basic plot (to paraphrase Tenacious D, this is the greatest and best short story plot in the world... tribute):
-- protagonist (we'll call him "Adam" because I can't recall his name) is happily married
-- Adam meets "Ben" (again, can't remember his name), who claims he can rewind time and relive it whenever he wants
-- Adam doubts him at first, but Ben convinces him by making crazy predictions and such
-- Ben explains that he's lived innumerable lives. Done everything he's wanted to, and everything he can think of. If he sees an attractive woman, he might woo her, or rape her, or marry her and have kids with her. Or all three. He's been president of the US and king of the world.
-- Ben gets to know Adam and convinces him that Adam could have some of the same excitement Ben's known
-- Adam is ultimately convinced to kill his wife, in spite of his love for her, believing that if he's caught or if it's a mistake Ben will "rewind" and save him (and her)
-- Adam kills his wife, is caught, and realized Ben has either played him or that the rewind only affects Ben when he rewinds (leaving branches in time, including the Adam-as-wifekiller branch)
I love that story. It's made me think about love and mortality and morality and power and manipulation. Ben was looking for a challenge, and what could be more difficult than making a happy man do something terrible to someone he loves?
I would love to reread this story. I would be fascinated to see if it's as good as I remember, if I've embellished it in my internal retellings, or if there are subtleties that I missed.
But I don't know the name of the story. I don't know the author. I've searched through my books and on the Web and have come up empty. Over time, the story has become doubly dear to me both because of its content as well as that it's as inaccessible to me as my first kitten or the way I saw her or the crack of the wiffle bat as I put another of my brother's pitches onto the roof of our house.
I remember picking up my first pet out of the box with the rest of her litter. I remember the smell of our freshly cut front lawn when my brother and I played wiffle ball. I remember the pain in my right hand as I helped cut down the net after we won the state championship. I remember seeing my future (ex-)wife in a delightful summer dress on a sunny afternoon in Evanston. I remember my grandfather giving a toast at our last Thanksgiving with him. I remember my heart skipping a beat the first time I made eye contact with a certain beautiful classmate. And I remember the empty feeling of walking into my new apartment and feeling alone for the first time in my life.
The funny thing is that not all of my memories are actually from my life. Some of the things I think about and reflect upon the most are from books and stories that I've read: thinking of time as a string (A Wrinkle in Time), being chased through a supermarket by crazy people (Swan Song), reconsidering my definition of evil (A Fairly Honourable Defeat), and mourning the death of Robb Stark (A Storm of Swords).
Books have always been important to me. To stimulate, to entertain, and to supplement my memories. They also have the advantage of being able to be revisited... real life memories fade and distort, but the content (primary memories) established in books remain constant and we can simply reread it to examine our emotional (or secondary) memories that we associated with the primary ones.
I like Adam Sandler but I am not sure how often he's the catalyst for this level of introspection and inspection of memories and the importance of books. And if you're still reading this, you're probably wondering what any of this has to do with anything.
Sandler's movie (*gasp* a comedy!) is about a "universal remote" that lets him pause, rewind, and fast forward time. It kind of reminds me of that Ashton Kutcher movie from a few years ago. And, of course, Wells's Time Machine.
It also reminds me of a short story that I read years ago. It was part of a "New Science Fiction" anthology, if I remember correctly, and was one of the most interesting things I've ever read. It had the following basic plot (to paraphrase Tenacious D, this is the greatest and best short story plot in the world... tribute):
-- protagonist (we'll call him "Adam" because I can't recall his name) is happily married
-- Adam meets "Ben" (again, can't remember his name), who claims he can rewind time and relive it whenever he wants
-- Adam doubts him at first, but Ben convinces him by making crazy predictions and such
-- Ben explains that he's lived innumerable lives. Done everything he's wanted to, and everything he can think of. If he sees an attractive woman, he might woo her, or rape her, or marry her and have kids with her. Or all three. He's been president of the US and king of the world.
-- Ben gets to know Adam and convinces him that Adam could have some of the same excitement Ben's known
-- Adam is ultimately convinced to kill his wife, in spite of his love for her, believing that if he's caught or if it's a mistake Ben will "rewind" and save him (and her)
-- Adam kills his wife, is caught, and realized Ben has either played him or that the rewind only affects Ben when he rewinds (leaving branches in time, including the Adam-as-wifekiller branch)
I love that story. It's made me think about love and mortality and morality and power and manipulation. Ben was looking for a challenge, and what could be more difficult than making a happy man do something terrible to someone he loves?
I would love to reread this story. I would be fascinated to see if it's as good as I remember, if I've embellished it in my internal retellings, or if there are subtleties that I missed.
But I don't know the name of the story. I don't know the author. I've searched through my books and on the Web and have come up empty. Over time, the story has become doubly dear to me both because of its content as well as that it's as inaccessible to me as my first kitten or the way I saw her or the crack of the wiffle bat as I put another of my brother's pitches onto the roof of our house.
Some things
Some things sound like good ideas at the time. When a series of good-sounding, truly bad, ideas occur to--and are acted upon by--a person in sequence, bad things can happen, videlicet:
-- going to bed at 9:30 because one is feeling very tired
-- getting out of bed at 3:15 AM to stretch one's legs
-- having a big glass of chocolate milk at 3:20 AM to quench one's thirst
-- posting about insipid events on MySpace at 3:30 AM whilst the sugar buzz wears off
Granted, this isn't stealing-a-cop-car-stupid, or unprotected-sex-with-Brazilian-street-children-bad decisionmaking, but I really don't know what I was thinking last night/this morning.
I mean, really... using "videlicet" in a blog entry? Who does that?
-- going to bed at 9:30 because one is feeling very tired
-- getting out of bed at 3:15 AM to stretch one's legs
-- having a big glass of chocolate milk at 3:20 AM to quench one's thirst
-- posting about insipid events on MySpace at 3:30 AM whilst the sugar buzz wears off
Granted, this isn't stealing-a-cop-car-stupid, or unprotected-sex-with-Brazilian-street-children-bad decisionmaking, but I really don't know what I was thinking last night/this morning.
I mean, really... using "videlicet" in a blog entry? Who does that?
Monday, May 22, 2006
Number Eight
So this is, like, my 8th blog entry. As cultural historians look back on the entire body of my blog work, in my first seven entries they will see an immature author struggling against patriarchal societal contraints, a student of the human condition crushed by the unrealistic expectations of his extended family, and a guy who never quite knew what to do with his hair.
Without the advantage of hindsight, though, those (and other) perspicacious observations really don't resonate, so I'm going to tell you (and I'd like to bust out a vosotros here, if I might... no need for formalities) one thing that I am struggling with as I hammer away on my keyboard and spew out my nonsense in this blog: I'm writing with one hand tied behind my back.
Not literally. I mean, it's possible that I've spent time at a computer keyboard with one hand otherwise engaged, but in this case I'm speaking more metaphorically.
Meaning that while I'm not afraid to whine about my life in general terms in this space, and while I've really got precious little to hide in my life, there are some things that I'm less than comfortable posting. Some things that I think about people I know and ways that I feel about people that could, conceivably, read this blog (and could, in theory, be reading this, wondering if I'm talking about them).
Of course, the odds are low that this will happen. And I've got data to back it up. I've recently completed a study of my audience for my blog and the visitors can be broken into three groups:
-- the Confused. These individuals tend to arrive at this space entirely by accident. Whether it's because they missed the banner ad they meant to click on or because they intended to visit a blog that they actually thought looked interesting, the Confused most often have visits to my blog that last about 0.75 seconds. Older visitors in this category often exceed one second in visit length as it takes them longer to move their mouse to the "Back" button on their browser and they don't know the Alt (left arrow) hot key for escaping as quickly as humanly possible.
-- the Disgusted. Before a significant sample size was reached, I'd tentatively titled this group "the Angered", but with the final results of the study in, I've found that waves of nausea are often associated with visitors in this category, and that nudged it to a reaction of disgust, rather than anger. These visitors are often lured by the verbose nature of my entries and are invariably turned off by the content, syntax, or gestalt of my ramblings. Most death threats I receive come from this group.
-- the Aroused. Sensing my quick wit and boyish charms, this class of readers tends to skim my entries (polysyllabic words tend to confuse them), sigh wistfully at how complicated I am, and yearn to meet me, to hold me, and just to be with me. Unfortunately, this is a very small group and is comprised exclusively of men above the age of 65.
Where was I? Ah, yeah. So I wish that I had the balls to just write exactly what I was feeling, with the massive caveatsthat it was subject to change and that my feelings could be massive distortions of reality (presented to help preserve my sanity and to confuse/disgust/arouse my readers). But I can't. Because while I have plans and theories about people I know and things I want to have happen, I'm going to leave them out until they either come to pass or become impossible. And I think we all know which of those two possibilities is more likely.
Then, of course, I will be much more likely to reveal them and mock myself ruthlessly over how ridiculous I was to ever have harbored them.
Without the advantage of hindsight, though, those (and other) perspicacious observations really don't resonate, so I'm going to tell you (and I'd like to bust out a vosotros here, if I might... no need for formalities) one thing that I am struggling with as I hammer away on my keyboard and spew out my nonsense in this blog: I'm writing with one hand tied behind my back.
Not literally. I mean, it's possible that I've spent time at a computer keyboard with one hand otherwise engaged, but in this case I'm speaking more metaphorically.
Meaning that while I'm not afraid to whine about my life in general terms in this space, and while I've really got precious little to hide in my life, there are some things that I'm less than comfortable posting. Some things that I think about people I know and ways that I feel about people that could, conceivably, read this blog (and could, in theory, be reading this, wondering if I'm talking about them).
Of course, the odds are low that this will happen. And I've got data to back it up. I've recently completed a study of my audience for my blog and the visitors can be broken into three groups:
-- the Confused. These individuals tend to arrive at this space entirely by accident. Whether it's because they missed the banner ad they meant to click on or because they intended to visit a blog that they actually thought looked interesting, the Confused most often have visits to my blog that last about 0.75 seconds. Older visitors in this category often exceed one second in visit length as it takes them longer to move their mouse to the "Back" button on their browser and they don't know the Alt (left arrow) hot key for escaping as quickly as humanly possible.
-- the Disgusted. Before a significant sample size was reached, I'd tentatively titled this group "the Angered", but with the final results of the study in, I've found that waves of nausea are often associated with visitors in this category, and that nudged it to a reaction of disgust, rather than anger. These visitors are often lured by the verbose nature of my entries and are invariably turned off by the content, syntax, or gestalt of my ramblings. Most death threats I receive come from this group.
-- the Aroused. Sensing my quick wit and boyish charms, this class of readers tends to skim my entries (polysyllabic words tend to confuse them), sigh wistfully at how complicated I am, and yearn to meet me, to hold me, and just to be with me. Unfortunately, this is a very small group and is comprised exclusively of men above the age of 65.
Where was I? Ah, yeah. So I wish that I had the balls to just write exactly what I was feeling, with the massive caveatsthat it was subject to change and that my feelings could be massive distortions of reality (presented to help preserve my sanity and to confuse/disgust/arouse my readers). But I can't. Because while I have plans and theories about people I know and things I want to have happen, I'm going to leave them out until they either come to pass or become impossible. And I think we all know which of those two possibilities is more likely.
Then, of course, I will be much more likely to reveal them and mock myself ruthlessly over how ridiculous I was to ever have harbored them.
Sunday, May 21, 2006
Injury to insult
There are some advantages to being a teetotaller. I am less likely to, say, strike out angrily when a guy bumps into me in a bar. I am less likely to start crying for no apparent reason in public. And I am less likely to stagger down the street into oncoming traffic.
Of course, when I say something or do something that's embarrassing, it seems that it might sting a bit more because I can't blame alcohol for my idiocy and/or clumsiness.
Last night I was walking around Seattle, looking for a bar that a friend had mentioned, and it was off of a main street. It wasn't, like, down an alley or anything, but it wasn't as well lit as the primary avenues I'm more used to traveling. I knew that the bar was supposed to be on the block, but I didn't see a sign for it and so I kinda went back and forth a couple of times.
Unfortunately, I got a little too close to the edge of the sidewalk. Specifically, I managed to step into a recess where a tree was planted (and the cement ended), rolling my right ankle and sending me sprawling to the ground.
I remember once in college I was walking along an icy sidewalk and I slipped badly on a metal grate, ending up on my butt (and learning to avoid metal grates in freezing conditions). I remember, too, a couple of years ago I slipped on my back porch steps and fell on my tailbone. I also remember a few times in my life where I've sprained my ankles playing basketball, a couple of those times resulting with me unable to walk for a few days.
But generally I'm not a clumsy guy (at least not physically... emotionally and intellectually might be different stories). I'm not used to falling down so my face is actually touching the pavement. I'm used to looking around to see if anyone managed to catch my terrifically embarrassing display, but it's not usually because I've fallen down.
The good news is that nobody saw me take my spill and that my ankle wasn't that badly sprained... I was able to walk it off and waste the rest of the evening in various futile efforts in spite of my injury.
The bad news is that my shirt got ripped. I evidently hit left elbow first, because I have a quarter-sized scrape on that arm and a significant tear in the fabric of a shirt that I actually like(d) quite a bit. The other bad news is that this morning I am able to move my right foot about 2 inches, it is swollen and purple, and I didn't foresee this sort of thing so I don't have any ice in my apartment.
I wonder what's next, really...
Of course, when I say something or do something that's embarrassing, it seems that it might sting a bit more because I can't blame alcohol for my idiocy and/or clumsiness.
Last night I was walking around Seattle, looking for a bar that a friend had mentioned, and it was off of a main street. It wasn't, like, down an alley or anything, but it wasn't as well lit as the primary avenues I'm more used to traveling. I knew that the bar was supposed to be on the block, but I didn't see a sign for it and so I kinda went back and forth a couple of times.
Unfortunately, I got a little too close to the edge of the sidewalk. Specifically, I managed to step into a recess where a tree was planted (and the cement ended), rolling my right ankle and sending me sprawling to the ground.
I remember once in college I was walking along an icy sidewalk and I slipped badly on a metal grate, ending up on my butt (and learning to avoid metal grates in freezing conditions). I remember, too, a couple of years ago I slipped on my back porch steps and fell on my tailbone. I also remember a few times in my life where I've sprained my ankles playing basketball, a couple of those times resulting with me unable to walk for a few days.
But generally I'm not a clumsy guy (at least not physically... emotionally and intellectually might be different stories). I'm not used to falling down so my face is actually touching the pavement. I'm used to looking around to see if anyone managed to catch my terrifically embarrassing display, but it's not usually because I've fallen down.
The good news is that nobody saw me take my spill and that my ankle wasn't that badly sprained... I was able to walk it off and waste the rest of the evening in various futile efforts in spite of my injury.
The bad news is that my shirt got ripped. I evidently hit left elbow first, because I have a quarter-sized scrape on that arm and a significant tear in the fabric of a shirt that I actually like(d) quite a bit. The other bad news is that this morning I am able to move my right foot about 2 inches, it is swollen and purple, and I didn't foresee this sort of thing so I don't have any ice in my apartment.
I wonder what's next, really...
Saturday, May 20, 2006
Per nugget
Every once in a while, something clicks for me. It might be a problem that I need to work out, or it might be some sort of ambiguity that I want to decide. Most of the time, these sorts of things go overanalyzed and unsolved, and fester to either really get to me or go away of their own volition. Kinda like smallpox before the 19th century. Most of my problems don't cause horrific scarring and/or death, of course, but otherwise, they literally are smallpox before the 19th century.
Where was I? Ah, yeah. So while most of my issues just seem to sit around until they decide to go away on their own, sometimes I have something click. Like things make more sense to me or I remember something or I learn something or meet someone. It's a great feeling, as I'm sure you (assuming "you" exist; I think that it's possible that the views of this blog are just random numbers generated by MySpace to make me feel better...) know.
So I woke up this morning, after sleeping on the problem I'd mentioned in this very space some hours earlier ("Previously, on Ed O.'s blog..."), and felt like I can continue to do it. Can continue to go out and feel foolish and feel unproductive and feel it's OK.
Setting aside the very real possibility that this epiphany is misguided (maybe I should just pack it in now...), I feel like I have a bit of a second wind and some clarity.
All of this is good, I suppose. But the source of my mini-discovery is a bit... peculiar. I was lying in bed this morning, with a cat deciding to use my chest as a resting spot (don't worry, he's my cat; strays rarely make it past the traps into my inner sanctum) and a television commercial popped into my head.
Specifically, a Jack in the Box commercial. For those of you that don't know, Jack in the Box is a fast food restaurant (incidentally, the first place my dad took my mom after they met...) and a "commercial" is an advertisement that shills name recognition and available products or attempts to generate demand.
The hidden role of commercials, or at least this Jack in the Box one, is to provide life guidance. I'm horrified that I can take something away from a fast food ad, but here are the specifics:
-- Mr. Box (heh) is wandering around a fast food trade show, and there are different booths set up
-- One young man is offering chicken nuggets, and Jack is intrigued, asking him how much they cost
-- The guy answers, "$25,000. Per nugget."
-- Jack is a bit stunned, asking how many he expects to sell at that price
-- The response? "All it takes is one."
The connection to my situation is this: I've gotta keep trying, I've gotta keep being myself, and I've gotta keep aiming high. High risk-high reward. Take nothing for granted. One game at a time. Both teams played hard.
Of course, a more reasonable approach might be to find out how my life has become so fucked up that I'm taking inspiration from old TV ads. I fully expect in a week or two to get some insight from "Where's the Beef?" or "I'd like to buy the world a Coke."
For now, though, I'll take what I can get and see where it takes me.
Where was I? Ah, yeah. So while most of my issues just seem to sit around until they decide to go away on their own, sometimes I have something click. Like things make more sense to me or I remember something or I learn something or meet someone. It's a great feeling, as I'm sure you (assuming "you" exist; I think that it's possible that the views of this blog are just random numbers generated by MySpace to make me feel better...) know.
So I woke up this morning, after sleeping on the problem I'd mentioned in this very space some hours earlier ("Previously, on Ed O.'s blog..."), and felt like I can continue to do it. Can continue to go out and feel foolish and feel unproductive and feel it's OK.
Setting aside the very real possibility that this epiphany is misguided (maybe I should just pack it in now...), I feel like I have a bit of a second wind and some clarity.
All of this is good, I suppose. But the source of my mini-discovery is a bit... peculiar. I was lying in bed this morning, with a cat deciding to use my chest as a resting spot (don't worry, he's my cat; strays rarely make it past the traps into my inner sanctum) and a television commercial popped into my head.
Specifically, a Jack in the Box commercial. For those of you that don't know, Jack in the Box is a fast food restaurant (incidentally, the first place my dad took my mom after they met...) and a "commercial" is an advertisement that shills name recognition and available products or attempts to generate demand.
The hidden role of commercials, or at least this Jack in the Box one, is to provide life guidance. I'm horrified that I can take something away from a fast food ad, but here are the specifics:
-- Mr. Box (heh) is wandering around a fast food trade show, and there are different booths set up
-- One young man is offering chicken nuggets, and Jack is intrigued, asking him how much they cost
-- The guy answers, "$25,000. Per nugget."
-- Jack is a bit stunned, asking how many he expects to sell at that price
-- The response? "All it takes is one."
The connection to my situation is this: I've gotta keep trying, I've gotta keep being myself, and I've gotta keep aiming high. High risk-high reward. Take nothing for granted. One game at a time. Both teams played hard.
Of course, a more reasonable approach might be to find out how my life has become so fucked up that I'm taking inspiration from old TV ads. I fully expect in a week or two to get some insight from "Where's the Beef?" or "I'd like to buy the world a Coke."
For now, though, I'll take what I can get and see where it takes me.
Down, down, down you go...
The first time I went out with any sort of plan as a single/divorced/available/whatever guy was on May 5. Cinco de Mayo meant a lot of people were out, and I had a good time singing karaoke and met a nice woman and had a very good time.
I went back out the next night, sang some more karaoke, talked to some people (almost all guys) and had a pretty good time.
After spending last weekend in Reno, I went out tonight, sang some karaoke, talked to almost nobody, and had a pretty lousy time.
Clearly this isn't supposed to be easy, and as someone who is relatively introverted and doesn't drink nor dance (although with the dancing deal I'll make selective exceptions) I expected it to be even harder. To talk to women and meet people and... enjoy myself wasn't something that I anticipated being simple for me.
But I'm in the middle of a tough time with it. I'd like to think that me going out would prep me for going out again, and instead it's seemingly getting worse.
The alternatives, of course, are to keep plugging away as I've done it, to go out and change my behavior, or to stay in. Those are actually the order in which I plan on attacking this: I'm not going to give up going out until I've had the shit totally kicked out of me for a long time (4 or 5 nights out is just a start in that respect) and I don't want to have to act unlike me unless the current me isn't capable of having a good time.
This is one long bitch session, and this is a reason that I never started a blog before. Anyone who's managed to make it this far: you have my apologies.
I went back out the next night, sang some more karaoke, talked to some people (almost all guys) and had a pretty good time.
After spending last weekend in Reno, I went out tonight, sang some karaoke, talked to almost nobody, and had a pretty lousy time.
Clearly this isn't supposed to be easy, and as someone who is relatively introverted and doesn't drink nor dance (although with the dancing deal I'll make selective exceptions) I expected it to be even harder. To talk to women and meet people and... enjoy myself wasn't something that I anticipated being simple for me.
But I'm in the middle of a tough time with it. I'd like to think that me going out would prep me for going out again, and instead it's seemingly getting worse.
The alternatives, of course, are to keep plugging away as I've done it, to go out and change my behavior, or to stay in. Those are actually the order in which I plan on attacking this: I'm not going to give up going out until I've had the shit totally kicked out of me for a long time (4 or 5 nights out is just a start in that respect) and I don't want to have to act unlike me unless the current me isn't capable of having a good time.
This is one long bitch session, and this is a reason that I never started a blog before. Anyone who's managed to make it this far: you have my apologies.
Thursday, May 18, 2006
Quickie
Today's most convoluted sentence:
"I'm not sure if I should not go to places that I know you are so you don't think I asked you simply so I could "accidentally" bump into you."
Wow. And she seemed to understand what I was talking about. That's some incredible reading comprehension, there.
"I'm not sure if I should not go to places that I know you are so you don't think I asked you simply so I could "accidentally" bump into you."
Wow. And she seemed to understand what I was talking about. That's some incredible reading comprehension, there.
1980
Energy crisis. Hostage situation. Streisand in the top 40. 1980 had its low points.
But it also had the Miracle on Ice. It had "Another One Bites the Dust".
And it had Mount St. Helens.
I wish that I had some super-cool story of high adventure, romance, and/or personal discovery that I could tie to the eruption, but unfortunately there was very little high adventure, romance, or personal discovery for me on that day (kinda depressing that things are in the same boat 26 years later).
Here are some things that I wish would have happened:
-- I was riding my bike to the market and the eruption hit... I couldn't really hear anything, but I could feel it. The air got still and the ash started to fall. I pulled my bike over to the side of the road and realized, for the first time, that I was experiencing something that I'd never forget.
-- I was up early to check my traps when my husky mix Wolf perked his ears and stuck his nose up in the air. I knew something strange was about to happen. I heard a low rumbling and suddenly through the trees burst dozens of deer... after tracking these silent creatures for so long, I stood in awe as they abandoned their normally graceful demeanor and fled, as if for their lives. A moment after I saw the herd I saw the smoke, the burning trees, and the red hot magma as it slowly, inexorably, crept down the hillside. I grabbed my musket, whistled for Wolf, and began a slow trot towards the settlement to warn the others.
-- I'd been up for 36 hours. Some poor kid had decided to wrap his Cortina Mk IV around a telephone pole and the thing had sent sent glass and metal into the various body parts of a group of Korean tourists who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. When they were brought into my ER even those that were awake and capable of speaking quickly proved incapable of speaking English. There aren't many times I am glad for my tours in the "police action" (lost too many friends and too much of my youth) but this was one of them. Just when we were through patching up the auto accident aftermath, and just when I was about to head back to my place to curl up to a bottle and try to forget my life, St. Helens blew. I looked at Cindy, put out my cigarette, and got ready to go back to saving lives.
What really happened is I remember going outside and thinking that it was cool that there was snow on the ground. But snow that wasn't white and wasn't cold. I was kind of a simple kid (kinda depressing that things are in the same boat 26 years later).
But it also had the Miracle on Ice. It had "Another One Bites the Dust".
And it had Mount St. Helens.
I wish that I had some super-cool story of high adventure, romance, and/or personal discovery that I could tie to the eruption, but unfortunately there was very little high adventure, romance, or personal discovery for me on that day (kinda depressing that things are in the same boat 26 years later).
Here are some things that I wish would have happened:
-- I was riding my bike to the market and the eruption hit... I couldn't really hear anything, but I could feel it. The air got still and the ash started to fall. I pulled my bike over to the side of the road and realized, for the first time, that I was experiencing something that I'd never forget.
-- I was up early to check my traps when my husky mix Wolf perked his ears and stuck his nose up in the air. I knew something strange was about to happen. I heard a low rumbling and suddenly through the trees burst dozens of deer... after tracking these silent creatures for so long, I stood in awe as they abandoned their normally graceful demeanor and fled, as if for their lives. A moment after I saw the herd I saw the smoke, the burning trees, and the red hot magma as it slowly, inexorably, crept down the hillside. I grabbed my musket, whistled for Wolf, and began a slow trot towards the settlement to warn the others.
-- I'd been up for 36 hours. Some poor kid had decided to wrap his Cortina Mk IV around a telephone pole and the thing had sent sent glass and metal into the various body parts of a group of Korean tourists who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. When they were brought into my ER even those that were awake and capable of speaking quickly proved incapable of speaking English. There aren't many times I am glad for my tours in the "police action" (lost too many friends and too much of my youth) but this was one of them. Just when we were through patching up the auto accident aftermath, and just when I was about to head back to my place to curl up to a bottle and try to forget my life, St. Helens blew. I looked at Cindy, put out my cigarette, and got ready to go back to saving lives.
What really happened is I remember going outside and thinking that it was cool that there was snow on the ground. But snow that wasn't white and wasn't cold. I was kind of a simple kid (kinda depressing that things are in the same boat 26 years later).
Tuesday, May 16, 2006
Dee to the Eye to the Vee to the Oh to the Are to the Sea to the Eee!
Divorced.
MySpace, in its infinite wisdom and its infinite inflexibity, seems to make me choose my "Status". I suppose that's so people can advertise their availability... although if people are forced to reveal something they wouldn't do voluntarily, it seems likely that they would just lie about it. But whatever.
I'm not, strictly speaking, divorced. I've been separated for about 2.5 months. The papers have been filed. The marriage is over.
Initially, I had my status as "Married"... because I am married. But that didn't really seem to be in the spirit of the thing, since while I'm not exactly out there dating people (or even necessarily interested in it at the moment), I'm much, much closer to divorced than married in terms of both my current situation and the foreseeable future.
The alternative, I suppose, would be to put "Single". I'm sure that dozens of hotties have already been turned off by my divorced status... my beautiful closed eye avatar pic (hailed by a recent review in The New Yorker as "... a shot across the bow of MySpace conventional wisdom") pulls 'em in, and my divorced status pushes 'em away. Or something.
But while I'm not strictly divorced, I'm going to be divorced. Probably for a considerable amount of time. I'm not proud of the fact, I never saw myself as a divorce candidate, and I don't think it's going to be easy to live with. There is a bit of a stigma there (here) and that's probably good for society, because a wealth of stable (even if imperfect) relationships is almost certainly good for society.
With all of that said: I can't be embarrassed. My (ex-) wife is a great person and I miss her every day, but neither of us have anything to be ashamed of. It just didn't work.
So am I embracing my (soon-to-be-) divorced status? Hellz, no. But I'm not acting like my marriage didn't happen.
It is what it is.
MySpace, in its infinite wisdom and its infinite inflexibity, seems to make me choose my "Status". I suppose that's so people can advertise their availability... although if people are forced to reveal something they wouldn't do voluntarily, it seems likely that they would just lie about it. But whatever.
I'm not, strictly speaking, divorced. I've been separated for about 2.5 months. The papers have been filed. The marriage is over.
Initially, I had my status as "Married"... because I am married. But that didn't really seem to be in the spirit of the thing, since while I'm not exactly out there dating people (or even necessarily interested in it at the moment), I'm much, much closer to divorced than married in terms of both my current situation and the foreseeable future.
The alternative, I suppose, would be to put "Single". I'm sure that dozens of hotties have already been turned off by my divorced status... my beautiful closed eye avatar pic (hailed by a recent review in The New Yorker as "... a shot across the bow of MySpace conventional wisdom") pulls 'em in, and my divorced status pushes 'em away. Or something.
But while I'm not strictly divorced, I'm going to be divorced. Probably for a considerable amount of time. I'm not proud of the fact, I never saw myself as a divorce candidate, and I don't think it's going to be easy to live with. There is a bit of a stigma there (here) and that's probably good for society, because a wealth of stable (even if imperfect) relationships is almost certainly good for society.
With all of that said: I can't be embarrassed. My (ex-) wife is a great person and I miss her every day, but neither of us have anything to be ashamed of. It just didn't work.
So am I embracing my (soon-to-be-) divorced status? Hellz, no. But I'm not acting like my marriage didn't happen.
It is what it is.
Monday, May 15, 2006
Blog
I've had friends that have "Web logged" (what the kids call "blogging") for some time now, but I've always considered it too... self-indulgent? intellectually masturbatory? (If you're a friend and you're reading this, I'm ofcourse not talking about your stuff!)
An alternate explanation for my absence from the world of blogging is the (a) lack of content that anyone would ever want to read, and/or (b) anyone that would ever want to read anything that I would want to write.
But I bumped into some old friends this past weekend that are on MySpace and I can always zap this later if I come to my senses and realize that maybe the world was a better place before I tried to make a blog. We'll see how this works out...
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