Pride (In the Name of Love)

Take pride in your work. I ain't too proud to beg. Beam with pride.

Of the deadly sins (including, but not limited to, lust, gluttony and standard definition television), pride is considered by many to be the most egregious. Putting oneself ahead of others at others' expense. When we see or hear people who speak in the third person about their prowess on the basketball court, or when we see corporate execs get massive financial circle-jerked bonuses, it rubs us the wrong way because we've all been so indoctrinated into the Christian ethic of humility being good and pride being terrible.

Homer was, unfortunately for his purgatory-bound soul, pre-Christ. I don't intend this to be some sort of religious statement, but one can clearly see that every major character in the Illiad and the Oddyssey isn't too concerned about humility. From Achilles to Odysseus to Hector to Menelaus to Paris... all of the characters are pretty proud of who they are, of the people they've killed or seduced, and of what their presence means to lesser folk around them.

Forgetting for a moment that almost all the major characters die, I don't think that Homer's characters are in any way reduced for the lack of humility. Hector pussy-footing around and being humble about how many Greeks he had killed would have minimized his influence not only in the story but in the war.

Life would be easier if things were black and white. Or even if they were black and white with shades of gray in betwee. With pride, though, it's technicolor and figuring out what is Good and what is Bad is difficult. Humble is good, right? But false humility is condescending and often worse than a realistic appraisal of one's own abilities.

Is honesty the best policy here? Can one avoid falling into the trap of arrogance and pride by accepting credit and admitting failure with a straight face? Hypocrisy is avoided, perhaps, but without tact feelings are going to be hurt (in the case of discussing a strength with someone else) or bad impressions are going to be made (in the case of conceding a fault in oneself).

This whole topic is something that I think about a lot. I try to be realistic and honest and tactful and all of the other things that make me socially acceptable. A couple of things in the last couple of days, though, have triggered me to think about it all morning, though, and actually induced me to get out of my cat-covered (and cat hair-covered, I'm sure) bed and type this out.

With both things, some background is needed. So stick with me (although, to be honest, if you've made it past the Ancient Lit for Dummies intro, you're probably going to stick with this until the bitter end).

So. First thing.

Harlan Ellison is an author. A very, very good author. He wrote a lot of really great science fiction and horror-type stuff in the 1970's and 80's. He's also quite short and very feisty. He's known for having an incredibly large ego and I find him quite entertaining as a person.

Anyway, it's not uncommon for writers to have workshops where they get together and hone their craft. I'm not exactly sure what that means, but I understand that it means they bring bits they've written and/or do writing exercises to get feedback from other skilled writers... authors that they respect.

Larry Niven is another science fiction author that I enjoy. He has written a lot of stuff that has stuck with me and a few basic concepts from his writing (asymmetrical facial hair and having a plug right into the pleasure center of your brain, for example) have stuck with me. He also wrote a memoirs-type book, where he talked about participating in writing workshops and I remember he discussed that Harlan Ellison attended one or two, and that it didn't go well.

How did it not go well? Harlan Ellison had such an ego and took so much pride in what he wrote that he couldn't stand to see it criticized. He argued and lashed out at those who dared to do what, apparently, writers do at workshops.

Is Harlan Ellison a great writer because of his ego? Or in spite of it?

This relates to me because, whether it was back in law school or writing creatively or technically for my job, I've historically had very little ego when it comes to my writing. I can hammer out words and sentences relatively easily, and if someone thinks it's better if I change a word or lose a sentence, I'm rarely going to bat an eye. I'd just do it.

When I started writing this blog, I doubted I was going to keep at it. I doubted that anyone would read it. I wrote it for myself and ONLY for myself.

As I found out people were reading it and that some people liked it (at least enough to check it out once in a while) it felt good and I was proud (*gulp*) that I was able to write things people liked. I've had over 19,000 views on my blog now and I'm starting to think maybe it's not just my mom reading it over and over.

The feedback I got was almost universally positive, even though I know that much of what I've written is simply not that good. It's easy to deal with feedback when the most difficult thing is thanking someone for praising an entry that I didn't think was that good.

My last blog was entry number 300 and it was not that good. I did something different and I don't think it's my strongest effort. I also received about a half-dozen comments from friends (over chat and in person) who pointed that out to me. They were kind and considerate about it, but I felt like I let them down and I also felt a bit of a blow to the "blog ego" that had been steadily stroked.

Am I Harlan Ellison? Maybe it I had 19,000,000 views I would be, but for now I still have managed to legitimately hold onto some humility. Please let me know when my blogs suck... remembering tact is appreciated.

For the second test of my humility, I will have to tell a story that I've told several times before, but not in this blog.

Some time ago, I met a woman at Ozzies. We'll call her NoPants. Shocking, I know. From this woman I acquired a telephone number, but in spite of this acquisition I was unable to convince her to hang out with me. Shocking, I know. After a few attempts I gave up.

A couple of weeks after giving up, though, she reappeared at Ozzies and I ended up going with NoPants and her friend, The Bronx, back to The Bronx's place with a male friend. We had a nice conversation about politics (and by "nice conversation", I naturally mean I let them bitch about the state of the world while I kept mum and sipped on a drink) and we had met Yuniesky Betancourt (really) when NoPants said we should go to my place to watch a movie.

OK. Cool. Yes. Sure.

A short cab ride later, we were at my place. NoPants was wearing one of those dresses that can double as a top, and at the Bronx's place she had put jeans on underneath.When she got to my place, as I made us some food she went into my bedroom and removed her jeans and shoes.

We ate some food. Watched some TV. There was no funny business. She crashed on the couch, and I had a nice time hanging out with her. Looked forward to seeing her again. Etc.

I woke up a couple of hours later, at about 7:00 or so. I stepped out into the living room to check on her and she was gone. That's fine and all, but she left her shoes and pants crumpled up in my bedroom. I txted her to make sure she was OK, and she replied that she preferred her own bed. I shot her a txt back reminding her she'd left her stuff at my place and that I looked forward to seeing her again.

No response. The next day I called and left a voicemail. No response. A week later I txted her, letting her know that I would be happy to drop the stuff off somewhere--it wasn't that I was holding them ransom so she'd go out with me.

I just wanted her shit out of my apartment.

Eventually, after consultation with friends, I threw her shoes and jeans out.

Naturally, about a week after I did that I saw her again at Ozzies. She was stumbling down the stairs at closing time and I had a chance to talk to her for the first time. It went something like this:

Me: Hey there.
NoPants: [blank drunken stare]
Me: So what have you been up to?
NP: School. Working.
Me: You know that you left stuff at my place that one time?
NP: What stuff?
Me: Shoes. Your jeans.
NP: Oh... they were cheap.
Me: So you never got back to me? I thought we had a good time.
NP: Your apartment smelled like SHIT!
Me: Wha--?
NP: Smelled like cat shit!
Me: Uh... ok. Bye.

Checkmate.

Other than one brief encounter at the bar where she works, I have not seen her since.

I did, though, see The Bronx last night. At closing of Ozzies, I said hello to her by name. She was startled and didn't recognize me. We had something like the following conversation:

The Bronx: Why do you know my name?
Me: Because I hung out with you and NoPants that one time. Tell her hi for me!
TB: Ah... she and I are not talking.
Me: Really?
TB: Yeah. We're having a bit of a tiff.
Me: Well, I haven't talked to her in a while. She never called me back after that.
TB: ...
Me: What?
TB: Why would you admit that a girl didn't call you back right in front of all of these people?

I was sort of taken aback by that. It didn't register to me why The Bronx would be surprised that I would admit it. Would I prefer that she would have called me back? Sure. Am I embarrassed that she did not?

Fuck no.

How does this relate to humility and pride and all of the stuff that the (verbose) preamble of this post discussed? I'm not sure. Am I humble enough to admit my failings? Or am I proud enough to not give a crap if a woman chooses to abandon perfectly good denim rather than having to risk encountering my cats again?

Number 300: Multimedia Extravaganza!

First an introduction: I have been sitting on writing blog number 300 for several days now. Not because I haven't had anything (any less) interesting (than normal) to write about, but because I have been putting pressure on myself to write something good.
Not like "chili cheese burrito" good or "eighteen flavors of cockblocking" good. Something actually good.

Which is silly. Anyone taking the time to read this blog has been previously entertained, has decided to take pity, or is currently being held at knifepoint. Very few people outside of Peru are paying for this blog, and so I should not put any pressure on myself.

Still and all, I felt it.

After much contemplation (actually about 18.7 seconds of actually thinking about it in the shower) I have decided to make blog number 300 a multimedia extravaganza. By "multimedia" I mean "text and video" and by "extravaganza" I mean "unnecessary and meaningless polysyllabic word".

So I've decided to videotape myself.

...

I should be more specific, huh? I have decided to videotape myself blogging.
Why would anyone care to see that? I don't know. Why would anyone ever care to read or see or hear or taste anything that I do? I don't know.

So. I'm tackling this blog in a way that I have not tackled one before. With video. I guess I just said that. Or, rather, typed it. Actually I did both because I am speaking the words aloud for the benefit of those people that prefer video. Or, perhaps, just want a glimpse behind the blog-making scenes.

Personally, I usually prefer text to video. ESPN.com? CNN.com? CatFancy.com? Text, text, text. Who wants to see video when they can read? Actually, anything this side of porn I prefer to be in the written word. (Don't ask me what "this side of porn" means. That might be a topic for blog number 400.)

One issue is that YouTube, where I plan on placing the video, limits the length of video clips to ten minutes. Right now I'm already at seven and I haven't even officially started the blog.

Of course, maybe there really is no substantive blog to start. Maybe this is more of a meta-blog than a "real" blog.

For all of the pressure that I have put on myself about this blog entry, I am really not that concerned. There will be more blog entries after this. Some will be funny. Some will induce my friends to recommend MySpace allow "negative one million kudos". As long as I don't give the impression that I am mailing this one in, I will be happy simply to put it in my rear view mirror.

(Just so you know, as a parenthetical, I made a little joke before "view" that only the Web cam picked up. It was about 8.5 minutes in, I think, although now that I've built it up it won't be worth your time or effort unless you are already watching it and even then, it's questionable.)

I can make one substantive update on my life: my job search. After leaving my previous employer a few months ago, I have done some contract work and I had what I thought was a job lined up. After that fell through, I had the wind taken from my sails a bit and decided, rather than saying I was going to to look every day and then disappoint myself, to take some time to "decompress". Although, to be honest, I never really get that compressed.

This week I finished up my LinkedIn.com profile and I went to a career/networking event to talk to people. It was an indication of the gravity of the situation that I managed to be in a room full of women for over an hour without hitting on even one. I got a few business cards (for actual business use! Amazing!) and have followed up.

One interesting possibility, which remains remote but still interesting, is Dubai. I joked about it with Classy some months ago and now, as I remain unemployed it has moved from a total joke to only a partial one. I actually plan on speaking to someone about the possibilities there next week. It has resulted in me worrying about the future of my cats as well as me singing some bastardized version of a boy band song ("It maye seem crazy, but it ain't no lie. Dubai, bye, bye! (Bye! Bye!")

I almost invariably feel like I ramble in my blog but normally I have a story to tell or something to bitch about. In this case, I feel the "hook" is a video that probably no one will watch... and the amorpheous nature of this hook results in me not knowing if I've been rambling more or less than I normally do.

In the interests of pulling off the bandaid, I think I am going to end this one here. I am sorry if you feel cheated but I need to either pull some old adventures out of the deep freezer or have new ones so I can have something a little bit more normal (as far as my blogs go) to write about.

Cockblocking for Fun and Profit

I think everyone knows what cockblocking is. I used to think it was when a herd of roosters stopped traffic (either merely due to their presence or with a more specific goal of catching drunk drivers or terrorists) but it turns out that it's when someone or something stops a guy from making progress with a girl.

That's all well and good as a term and as a concept, but much like the Eskimo people allegedly have, like, some sort of irrational number of words for "snow" (I don't remember what that number is... I think it's √113), my social group has come up with several different terms for different kinds, or flavors, if you will, of cockblocking. Actually, I have come up with them, personally, and occasionally others not only listen to what I have to say but actually agree with me. It's rare (both the listening and the agreement) but it sometimes happens.

I'll give three different types of cockblocking below... two with relatively recent real-world examples and the third with a general explanation and hypothetical f'rinstance.

Burning Money

The original sub-cb term. The term means to cockblock without having any potential gain from it... the term comes from the idea that stealing is bad. Right? Stealing is bad.

If I steal $100 cash from you, it sucks for you. I'm a bad person. At least, though, I get the benefit of that money. I will buy alcohol or flowers for my cat or food at Taco Bell... something.

It seems a bigger crime, though, to steal that $100 and set it aflame. Lighting it on fire to deny anyone the pleasure of that currency (and don't even get me started on money velocity).

If a married (or, rather, a faithfully married (it kinda sickens me that I have to make that distinction, but in the name of science I must)) guy cockblocks? He's burning money. If a lesbian hits on a straight girl to the detriment of a guy who otherwise might be making headway on said straight girl? Burning money. Super-ugly and/or socially retarded dude chasing a girl out of a bar to the detriment of other guys there? A less direct case of burning money, but burning money.

White Knighting

While burning money is almost exclusively used for evil (whether knowingly or not) white knighting can do a lot of good.

Sometimes girls don't want to be hit on by certain guys. Many of these women are either too considerate to be rude or that "certain guy" is just too oblivious to pick up on the signs of disinterest (which may include bad body language or phrases such as, "I'm going to go talk to my friends now" or "Please leave me alone.")

In these cases, a cockblock can be a good thing.

Recently I was at a bar with a large group of friends. A second group of people arrived, with one or two person overlap between the two groups, and there was some mingling going on. A guy from our group had hit it off well with a girl from the other group, and it was a good thing. All of the guys from our group knew that it was going on, and we were respectfully keeping distance from her.

Unfortunately, there was a fly in the ointment. A dude from the other group was either oblivious or indifferent, and he proceeded to elbow his way through the groups to the chick in question.

Our buddy was giving her some space, and didn't want to barge right in and interrupt the conversation that Other Guy was so keen on having. I was one of the elbow-ees, though, on Other Guy's trip to the chick, and I saw another friend try to distract Other Guy from his target.

Other Guy was pretty good, I'll give him that. My friend had tapped him on the shoulder and asked him a question and the guy had kinda waved him off. My friend then asked the chick a question, and Other Guy turned and looked at my friend and said, "Excuse me. Could you wait just a minute? I'm trying to talk to her."

It was a pretty good move. If my friend had been alone, or if the chick had ANY interest in Other Guy, it would have worked.

But he was not. And she did not.

Her body language was terrible. She was sort of pinned up against a pool table but she was leaning as far away from Other Guy as she could, she wasn't making eye contact, and she was giving monosyllabic responses to all of his inquiries.

I took a shot at being a white knight, and it paid off.

Over Other Guy's left shoulder I looked directly at the chick and asked her a direct question about her current status as a student at a local private University graduate school program.

She heard it and her eyes lit up. Not because I asked the question, but because anyone other than Other Guy had asked it. I had given her an opening to talk about the program she is in, and I was able to throw in some tidbits about my similar experiences.

I couldn't look at Other Guy, but it was game over for him. He'd fended off the first assault but this was too much. I'd engaged his target and she was clearly more interested in talking to me about our topic than she'd been in the last five minutes talking to him about all the things he was throwing her way.

So Other Guy was successfully driven off, and my buddy was able to talk to the chick without interference, and I feel like they should name their first son after me. Unless it's an unplanned pregnancy. I don't want to be associated with that shit.

As an addendum to white knighting: it can be a pretty good neg, too. Last year I met a woman who was a friend of a friend and she was playing pool (odd that white knighting seems to happen most often around pool tables... I wonder if the most oblivious dudes play pool regularly?) with her friend when a really nasty, pretty drunk dude kept talking to her.

She and I were getting along nicely, but when Nasty Dude asked if we were a couple I guffawed and said, "No way!"

Because of that simple utterance, this girl had to fend him off for another 45 minutes. I was chucking at her the whole time and she gave me shit for not helping her out... and then we dated for about six months.

Jokeblocking

This is the most dangerous of the cockblocks, and should be only entered into with extreme caution or if everyone is really, really inebriated.

Recently four of "the guys" were hanging out outside of our favorite bar after close. There's always a big group of people outside of Ozzies at about 1:45 AM, and that night was no exception.

I am going to avoid codenames in this story because I don't want to make it too obvious who people are and air dirty laundry... or clean laundry. Instead, I'll use Friend A, Friend B and Friend C.

Friend A and Friend C were standing off to one side, talking to me. It's a short walk home for me and we were just killing some time, when we noticed that Friend B was talking to a girl.

We'd all had an interesting night and we tend to keep tabs on who's talking to whom (to avoid unintentional cockblocking, in part) and we knew that Friend B had just met this chick outside of the bar. We also were a bit buzzed (or worse/better), so when Friend A suggested we go and all cockblock Friend B? It sounded like a great idea.

Oops.

We strode, in unison, towards Friend B and the Target. We stood, the three of us, facing the two of them. Friend A was all the way to my right (to the left of Target, facing her). Friend C was all the way to my left (to the right of Friend B, facing him) and I was in the middle.

Friend C was the first one to think that maybe this wasn't such a good idea, and whether it was because he was farthest from Target or because he just didn't think it was wise, he didn't really say or do much to distract her from Friend B.

The same cannot be said of Friend A and of me.

We introduced ourselves at the same time, and she was unable (for some strange reason) to process all of the information we were tossing at her. As Friend A babbled, I had the following exchange:

Me: Uh... nice hair.
Target: What?
Me: Is it real?
Target: WHAT?
Me (performing a rough kino of grabbing/stroking her hair): It's silky as shit.
Target: Uh, thanks. I just got it darkened.
Me: So is this its natural color?
Target: No. I got it darkened.
Me: Why? I bet it looked better lighter. What color was it?
Target: Blond. Like fake platinum-color blond.
Me: That's hot. Sounds hot.

I can't accurately capture Friend A's efforts there. He was chiming in randomly and she would glance at him and say a word or two of the confusion she was feeling and then look back at me as I negged the shit out of her.

(Incidentally: I stole the premise of the hair neg from Wainy Days, where Paul Rudd satirizes the PUA cliche. It starts about 1:25 in.)

At this point, I looked at Friend B. He had a bemused look on his face... like he knew what we were doing, and he couldn't believe it.

After a few more nonsensical statements (including one about her friend who's a "cutter" at Seven being self-destructive (and motioning with an air-razor to indicate what I meant)) I retreated into the background... or at least back to where Friend A and Friend C were and we reconvened.

If it had ended there? Good. It would have been good. But life it rarely good, I've learned. It tends to be badass or horrible. Or boring. But rarely good.

After two or three minutes of talking, Target made eye contact with me. Friend B was still talking to her, but she motioned me over and pulled me up next to her. I was a bit shocked and aghast. She started telling me more about her hair, when I whispered to her, "Listen. My friend ___ was talking to you first. He's awesome. I feel bad talking to you."

Proving how impossible women are to manage, she said, "NO! It's not like that!" and I kinda backed away, giving myself distance between her and putting Friend B between us.

Her response? She went over to her female friend (who had been waiting for Target to finish with all of this nonsense) and pulled her over to talk to Friend B. She grabbed my hand and we had some more super-deep conversations about her hair.

Friend B and Target's friend didn't hit it off, but Target was still all up in my business, and I became worried. What started off as a joke had spun out of control and I knew that Friend B had to capability to cockblock me for the next decade if he so chose. I had to extricate myself.

Fortunately, Friend C came over and cockblocked ME. He started talking to Target and I was able to remove my hands from her hand and lower back (it's crazy how they sometimes just end up there) and walk home without saying anything to anyone.

It all ended well. Friend B was able to reengage and I was not to be blamed for any of the fallout of what was, after all, Friend A's big idea.

Let this be a lesson to all of those out there who would use jokeblocking as a surgical tool... it can be like using dynamite to replace a filling.

The Worst

Most single people date. I managed to make it through about three millenia on this planet without ever, really, going on a date. And then things changed and I went on a date or two.

Over the course of these dates I have had highlights and lowlights and stretches of stress and boredom and excitement.

As is my want, I have decided to focus on the lowlights for this blog entry. I have ratcheted up the anonymity here, so there will not even be any codenames used for the girls, but I will say this: I do not anticipate the co-stars of any of these lowlights to even be THINKING about me, let alone thinking of reading this blog.

Worst Start to a Date

We had already been out on a date or two. She was cute and quirky and I was looking forward to having a relaxed dinner with her in order to get to know her better.

I drove to Belltown and (miraculously) got a spot around the corner from her building, where I was to pick her up. I was about 10 minutes early, so I sat in my car, listening to sports radio or something. At the appointed time, I gave her a call to let her know that I was downstairs.

Unfortunately, she didn't pick up. I got her voicemail, and I hung up to call her right back. I've certainly been known to have my phone muted, so it wasn't a big deal.

The second call yielded the same results. It was odd, so I wandered over to the door to her building and called her up from there. Still no response.

At this point it was about 10 minutes after when we were supposed to meet. I didn't really want to drive home and then get a call halfway there, so I decided to kill some time. I went back to my car and listened to the radio some more. Called a bit later. Nothing.

In this situation now? I would have probably just gone home. While I've only been stood up once by any woman other than this one (and that was probably due to events beyond the control of the stand-upper), I just wouldn't wait around for 20 or 30 minutes. Let alone 40.

After 40 minutes, though? I got a call. She was upstairs and could buzz me up.

When I finally saw her, I was a bit agitated. Although, as always with this woman, I was less upset than just... puzzled. In a classic exchange that cemented her place in the pole position of worst start to a date.

Me: Hey... so are you OK?
Her: Yes. Why?
Me: Uh... what do you mean, "Why?" I've been waiting for 40 minutes.
Her: Oh, yeah. Sorry.
Me: What were you doing?
Her: Masturbating.

I swear that's what she said. So ... puzzling.

Worst Kiss

The previous story was pointing the finger at a lady friend... this one was ENTIRELY on me. Based on inexperience... not in terms of technique, but in terms of ... hmm ... personal health.

OK. So here's the scoop: I am what the kids call "disease-free". Given my inexperience with people (women) in certain regards, though, I became a bit hypochondriacal about things. I read about just about every kind of infection and malady and disease that I MIGHT catch by being a single guy.

I had flown down to Los Angeles to see a friend (go with me here) and we went to a karaoke bar (shocking, I know). I sang a song and it was fun but I remember thinking, "Man, a lot of people have used this microphone tonight... I probably should not have been touching it with my lips."

Fast forward a couple of weeks. I shaved my upper lip whiskers and there was a big zit right by my lip line.

I've seen my share of zits on my face, but for some reason this one was different. It was big and angry and it flouted convention and denied reason. I took steps to get rid of it, but after a WEEK it was still there. I, naturally, was reading about all of the horrible things it could be online. I concluded that I'd caught something nasty from the mic at the LA karaoke bar.

In the meantime, I'd met a girl. We'd gone on a couple of dates. We decided to take a walk around Greenlake and we came back to her place after. I think that we actually got along well, and I was pretty sure that we were going to go on another date.

Until the end of the date, when the Zit That Would Not Die combined with my ability to find scary medical info from the Web to queer the whole deal. (As an aside: Is that a homophobic phrase? I should probably do some research. For the nonce I'm treating it in a similar way to using the word "niggardly": it sounds bad but it doesn't put anyone down.)

One of the cheesiest things a guy can do (right up there with wearing the same style of hat as his big group of buddies) is talk about his ability to kiss. Until and unless it can be quantified and I can talk honestly about my kissing percentile, I will merely concede this: I'm not a terrible kisser.

The thing is, when I leaned in to kiss my date, I totally freaked out. I felt like she had to be staring at my lip. I wondered if I had some sort of viral infection that I was going to pass on to her if I kissed her. I was utterly distracted.

And it showed. I think I got in the general vicinity of her mouth, but there was no energy, there was no spark, and there was no passion coming from me. While (a) I don't know exactly how it felt for her, and (b) I've never made out with a blind chimpanzee, I am pretty sure that she thought it felt like making out with a blind chimpanzee.

I was horrified. I was paranoid.

And I never called her again. And she never called me.

Most important: my doctor almost laughed at me when I went into the doctor's office to see him a couple of days later. Tests revealed that I had a blemish.

Ooops.

Worst Post-Date Communication (type one)

With few exceptions, I don't usually see too many horrifically entertaining statements or actions during a date. I am a laid-back guy and women tend to be kind to my face, even if they harbor fury (or apathy) in their hearts for me.

I've broken the Post-Date Communications down into a few categories because there are so many that I've had that have been a thousand times worse/better than most things that have happened during the actual dates.

Type one is one that takes place between dates... not a challenge for a second date (Type two), a final word (Type three), or final non-word (Type four).

I had a date with a woman. It was date four or five, I think, and I did something at the end of a date that, as advice to guys from me, guys should never do. Just don't piss off a chick with the last thing you say before you leave. And then, as a corollary, don't totally have forgotten what you said.

I won't go into the details, but I did that. I said something as a throw-away comment, and she took it the wrong way. She had agreed we were going to go out at a particular time to a particular place two days later, and so I followed up the morning of our next date.

She had been stewing on the 17 words (or however many there were) for about 36 hours, as it turns out, and she didn't respond to my first txt. I pinged her again at about 4:00, to ensure that it was cool that I picked her up as planned.

I got back a terse txt that said,

"I'm not sure dinner works for me. I'm upset."

Such a classic upset woman txt. She was declining, but with some deflection. She also didn't indicate that she was upset with ME. So I dug my grave more deeply with,

"Rough day? C'mon! Dinner will be fun. I'll let you touch me."

If she saw humor in that, she did not indicate it with,

"What you said really irritated me."

Uh. Yeah. I had NO idea what she was talking about. We had the following exchange:

"Today? My earlier txt was pretty benign, given it was 8 words."
"No. What you said before you left the other night."
"Uh... are you fucking with me? Really. What did I say?"
"You said something about [deleted for blog purposes]."
"I did? Um. I don't even remember that. I doubt I used those words. Why are you pissed off?"
"You said it. And you were not joking."

I dimly recalled saying it, to be honest. But in a three hour date, everyone should get a mulligan. And the comment wasn't even THAT bad. So I tried one last push to save our dinner plans:

"I am sorry. I didn't mean it. Let me apologize in person tonight over dinner."

Even now, I think that was the best move I could have made. I was being sincere and I thought that if we just talked it out it would be fine. Instead? I got this:

"I do not need people with that attitude in my life. Fuck off now."

Wow. I think I stared at my phone for, like, two minutes straight. I was shocked.

I eventually (if temporarily) won her back by writing a blog about it and sending her the link. We went out one or two more times after I won her back. This chick was a temporary part of my life, but "Fuck off now." is eternal.

Worst Post-Date Communication (type two)

Type two post-date communications involve some sort of a challenge for a second date. I count my lucky stars most women aren't retarded enough to make this kind of challenge to me. Fortunately one did, at least, so I can relate it here.

I met a woman online. She was attractive and seemed smart and cultured on her profile, but she seemed a bit high maintenance. I believe that "high maintenance" tends to be overused as a phrase... if a girl likes a guy, they will often shift away from that sort of thing, in my experience. I might be wrong.

In any case, she lived up to her online profile on all fronts.

She was attractive. She was smart and had an interesting background. We had a reasonably good time, and I walked her home and we agreed to see a movie together later in the week.

Naturally, I got back to her a day or two later to figure out a time and place. She got back to me with the following email:

"Hi, Ed. I had a good time, too. I might be interested in seeing you again, but I was wondering what you would arrange for us to do. What would be an exciting date for us to go on?"

I read a lot of bullshit online. I have a thick skin in terms of not getting angry, etc., but this pissed me off. Firstly, she'd already agreed to go out with me. Secondly, she was implying that the dinner and conversation that we'd shared was somehow insufficient and/or had to be dramatically improved to be acceptable.

Finally? It was a challenge. Screw her.

So I emailed her back an idea about getting a pizza and playing pool or something. Something that I like to do (although I am the worst two-armed billiards player on the West coast) and something that I want girls I like to like, but not anything that I was going to be unable to sustain over time.

She didn't bite and we never spoke again.

Worst Post-Date Communication (type three)

Type three is an actual bit of communication that ends the dating relationship.

The winner in this category has, shockingly, a bit of a story behind it.

I dated a woman who was smart and cute and interesting. She also was Chinese and Mormon and lived with her parents.

After a couple of dates, she told me we could only be friends. I asked for reasons, of course, and she gave them to me:

1. I made her feel stupid, and
2. Her parents would NEVER accept me because I was neither Chinese nor Mormon, and
3. She was mad at all men.

Wow. I could dedicate a whole blog to ripping that list to shreds, but after going over the finer points (and failings) of her list--while appreciating that she was being honest--I told her no.

I told her I did not want to be friends. That I had a lot of friends already and I'm not going to act like it's cool that we're just buddies. She was surprised, and she sort of had an "OK, you missed out on this, buddy!" kind of attitude over chat, but it ended nicely enough, with each of us going our own ways.

Or almost ended nicely enough.

I was frustrated over her stupid fucking little list, and I fired off a MySpace message to her the next day. I said some things that were direct and honest but reasonable. It was a last-ditch effort to get her to relax and enjoy spending time with me.

And it was not received well. At all.

Her reply was clear and to the point:

"I do not believe that your email was appropriate at all. Please do not contact me again."

SNAP!

I did not contact her again.

Worst Post-Date Communication (type four)

Type four is the final non-word. Where a chick just drops off the face of the planet. The most complete example I have is a woman that I took to dinner. We went to a second location and got some coffee... it wasn't the most fantastic date in the history of mankind, but it was pleasant. She worked at a coffee stand but she seemed like a good person. And she was cute. Actually, she was cute enough that she had been stalked by some of her coffee stand patrons and she seemed a bit skittish about that.

I told her that I'd call her and she said that would be good.

I called and left a voicemail a few days later. No response. I went to send her a MySpace message and ... her MySpace account was deleted. A txt went unreturned. As did a second one about a week later.

I have no idea what happened to her. I can't understand why she didn't just take 30 seconds to send me a txt or an email or whatever to let me know that she was not only not into me but was not interested in ever seeing me again.

Maybe she just took the easy way out... or maybe she got scooped up by a customer and she's living in a small room dug out below the basement of his SeaTac home.

Boundaries in Blogging

I was chatting with Big Apple the other night. She is a friend of a friend who, I suppose after a bit more chatting and whatever, will be a friend in her own right. She kicked off the conversation by complimenting my blogs and asking if she had a "codename" and, if so, what it was.

The funny thing is that I could not say, with 100% certainty, whether she had been in a blog or not. There are a couple of reasons for that.

First of all, this is blog post number 296. I have a reasonably good memory, and it might seem that since I am almost entirely responsible for all of those blogs, that I should remember each and every one of them. I do not, alas, possess that level of recall.

Secondly, I haven't hung out with her that much. There has been one specific incident that might have spurred me to blog about her and the situation (and, indeed, that blog very well might exist; I haven't done anything approaching homework for this entry) and there are some other things that I am not personally involved with that I could spin a yarn from...

There are two other aspects that influence both of those reasons. The first is that I don't JUST write in my blog here on MySpace. I write (often longwinded) emails to people with my trials and tribulations, and I may or may not have a shadow blog entry or two out on the Interwebs somewhere. I might have mentioned Big Apple in an email at some point after the little situation happened.

The second aspect is that I try to keep a reasonable limit to my blogs, even though the boundaries aren't always clear to readers. Ms. Hat and I spent a night eating pizza and watching TV several weeks back. We hadn't hung out before and a few times through the night she apologized for being quiet... but that she was worried about ending up in my blog.

(I assured her she would not... but I suppose I'm either a liar or that meta-references don't count, because here she is.)

So... boundaries. I have some general rules I try to follow, including:

• Do not mock my friends
• Do not mock people who might read my blog (I learned that the hard way, as it turns out, over a year ago when I miffed a couple of people that I didn't even know read my blog... and I didn't even recal disrespecting them)
• Few, if any, references to dates or the girls I'm hanging out with in a romantic or semi-romantic way
• Limit the amount of "me at my worst"

That last one is the trickiest, I think. I've done some things and had some things happen that I will tell people about in conversation (even rather casual, with people I don't know that well) but that doesn't really sit well with me being immortalized in my blog. I might have my moments of desperation, or extreme failure, or even extreme success, but I try not to write about those.
It's difficult not to do, because it's often pretty darn interesting. But I have to make do with obscure references to stocking caps and Aussie chicks and vomit-spoiled bedding.

I'm sorry. Perhaps I should try to ratchet up the adventure level so the currently off-limits stuff becomes everyday and get put into MySpace blog-ready form...

A Tale of Two Parties

Last night I went to two parties. I don't get invited to that many parties, and me actually attending parties that I am invited to isn't very common, so the mere fact that I went to two parties last night is almost blog-worthy in and of itself.

As a precursor to the remainder of this blog, let me say a little something about communities. I went to an itty-bitty high school. Unless I was just blissfully unaware, there weren't cliques. There were no jocks that sat at a different table from the geeks that mocked the skaters that [past tense verb] the [stereotype].

As an adult (at least physically), I've kind of established a group of friends and a couple of concentric circles of acquaintances and girls and people that aren't like me... I don't have tats or do drugs (other than caffeine and alcohol and porn) but I have people that I've hung out with that do. I've never thought that I'm a social chameleon or anything, but I tend to be just as comfortable around any given kind of person as any other kind (which, since I'm INTJ, is never very comfortable).

I say all of this because I was in two totally different circles of people last night. Different from one another and different from what I was used to.

The first party was a post-holiday one that my friend's dad threw (I'd normally mention which friend, using a nickname, but I don't want to embarrass anyone other than myself in this post, so I'm refraining). I'll call his dad Daddy. Not in person, to his chagrin. But that's getting ahead of myself.

Daddy lives with his partner in a beautiful house. The two gentlemen throw excellent parties, which I have had the honor of attending a couple of. Last night's party was no different. We arrived at about 5:30 PM and the party (which had kicked off at 5:00) was already busy-busy. There were about fifty people there, I'd guess, at that point, and it only got busier over the next couple of hours.

5:00 is really early to start a party, but it worked out exceedingly well for us because of our second party later that night. It also worked out exceedingly well for many of the party-goers, who appeared to be significantly older than the crowd I'm usually hanging with. I don't know the age distribution, but I would estimate about a quarter of the party-goers were over 60, and three-quarters were over 40. I would bet there were as many people over 70 as there were under 30. Which made sense... the party was for Daddy's friends, family, and co-workers.

The food was delicious. The drinks were strong and free. I knew just enough people to avoid having to check the Web on my phone as an instinctive response to being surrounded by strangers.

The next party kicked off at about 10:00, and we'd planned on being there around then. At least that was the plan.

By 9:45, the party had lightened up considerably. The blue hairs had left for the most part. The akvavit rounds had been consumed. People were settling around tables on the heated porch outside to talk and unwind.

My friend and I were sitting at a table, discussing the CHC scale (if you don't know what it is: it's the Cute/Hot/Classy approach to discussing how attractive women are) and we were approached by Red Jacket Guy. Red Jacket Guy (RJG) had earlier in the evening irked my friend by holding his half-full drink glass in front of a camera during a photo opp earlier in the evening in spite of (a) standing BEHIND the picture-taker, and (b) being asked repeatedly to knock it off.

RJG was loud, pretty obnoxious, gay, and wearing (shockingly, I know... you never saw this one coming) a red sports coat.

He came up and asked us what we were talking about, and he managed to ask us to rate (on the CHC scale) a series of celebrities that gay guys seem to love. Audrey Hepburn. Debra Messing. It was remarkable. I try to reject stereotypes. But it was remarkable.

It also was annoying my friend. I was trying to play peacemaker by smoothing out rough edges in the chit-chat. I was trying so hard that I barely noticed the guy touching my arm. And my knee. And my thigh.

He was kino plowing me. Amazing.

Eventually (and mercifully) the conversation ended. My friend and I wandered over to another table, where Daddy was holding court. He was comfortable and a bit impaired and was talking to a few other people. He waved me over to him and put his arm around me in a convivial way and introduced me to the Judge. The Judge was a nice guy who happened to be (like me) a member of the Washington State Bar. We rattled off our bar numbers (why do I have mine memorized? Why would I EVER have to know it off the top of my head, let alone when I'm drunk?) and we were all having a good conversation.

And then I noticed that Daddy had his arm around my waist. He had some sort of semi-lecherous death-grip on my left hip region and even stated, "You have a nice form!"

You know how sometimes women have to deal with grandfather-like figures that flirt with/compliment them? I have seen that happen before, and I think I underestimated the difficulty of the situation... because I'd never lived it. I think being the grandfather figure will be more fun.

It was like 11:00 before we finally left. The Judge offered me his number (I don't remember exactly how I said, "No." I think I just kinda mumbled as I kept walking.)

When you're hot you're hot.

So onto the second party. My buddy Cab is really plugged into the Seattle music scene and he had a 30th bday extravaganza. Six bands played sets where they covered other bands, including Kiss and the Misfits and Jawbreaker.

It's super-cool that there was a bday party for Cab, but I guess it was even a bigger deal than I was able to appreciate... the bands performing weren't just random guys. They were kind of a big deal.

Of course, that is not my scene. I don't mean it in the "I'm better than that" kind of way... I just don't go to shows very often, and the shows I go to are almost never entirely populated by people wearing nearly exclusively black with a lot of tattoos and piercings.

My friend and I missed the first couple of sets, unfortunately, but we had a great time watching the rest of the show. Cab performed with the last group, playing guitar and singing. I very, very rarely get jealouse but watching him play and sing I so wanted to be in a band. (Side note: will I do anything about it? Uh. What do you think?)

I also saw a couple people I knew/semi-knew. Cab's wife. Her friend. And a girl that I'd met once or twice over a year ago. I talked to her for a bit and I managed to both offend her and make a fool of myself within 18 seconds... which she spent about a half-hour throughout the rest of the night telling me about.

It was a fun night and a massive improvement on the previous one, when my Xbox 360, t-mobile network, and Portland Trail Blazers had all failed me.