750Words.com

First of all: Happy birthday to me.

Secondly: the actual blog entry.

Part of the reason that I write this blog is to document. Part of the reason I write is for chicks (clearly!). Part of the reason I write this blog is to ... ponder.

I don't fool myself into thinking that the couple hundred of people who "like" my blog read it regularly, and I'm pretty sure that not many others even know it exists, but pondering on this blog can be challenging because I know I do have an audience.

Which, of course, is part of the thrill.

Even if it's just a few people, though, I have a tendency to censor myself lately in this space in a way I never did back when it was, like, four people that were reading my MySpace blog.

I'm not complaining. I'm just saying.

I found a site, though, that gives me a private area to muse. One that uses a game layer to encourage me to participate daily.

And one that generates lots of stats. Which. I. Love.

The idea is that many of us like the concept of writing, but we don't do it as much as we'd like. We get distracted and/or intimidated on what people might think. 750words.com gives a canvas to write about three pages (750 words) a day, in a totally private environment. Just to get writing and to encourage thinking.

There might be other sites like this, but I don't know them and don't care about them (they're not in my Monkeysphere). I do know this one, and I do like it. I've only made a single entry, and we'll see how long I can keep with it, but... so far, so good.

Here are a couple of screen grabs of the stats for my first entry. (Yes, I wrote for 20 minutes at work, and I feel bad about it, but it's my birthday so cut me some slack!)

I feel like I might be cheating a bit with my writing. I knew what I wanted to explore and what I, basically, want to write about--I've even mentioned it a few times on my blog--while perhaps a more "pure" experience would be writing whatever popped into my head on any given day.

But that's what this place is for. Hah.

So, I hope to explore and develop that idea on 750words.com, and, at some point, come to some kind of resolution about the issue. I might pull entries over to this blog or I might just recap them... or they might end up in a different medium altogether.

Language

I am sure that someone more wise and pithy than I am has come up with a saying along the lines of "A problem is an opportunity for a solution" or "Turn lemons into lemonaide". Someone more enterprising has even probably made posters with these sayings on them. Something like:

or

(I don't know what that second one means, but I see a "hand jobs in the future" joke there somewhere...)


My point is that there is almost always a silver lining to something bad, and/or that something bad can sometimes be spun into something good.

My last blog entry was about ambiguity. It talked about how it sucks not to know what we can know and what we can't... and/or that it sucks to not understand whether it's something that should suck or not.

One area where ambiguity (lemons) has provided me lots and lots of fun (lemonaid) is language. I only speak English at any level worth mentioning (I studied Spanish for years and years, but I can barely read it at a functional level; nuanced conversation and intricacies of the language are well over my head, and I can barely remember any of the Japanese I took oh, so long ago) but even given this limitation I have learned to love the lack of clarity that exists there.

Obviously, I want to have clarity sometimes. Maybe even most of the time. If I want to bake a cake, I don't want to have the directions to be "Cook the cake for a while". I will need to know that I need to preheat the oven, the temperature, and the length of time that it should be in there.

In the absence of purely functional needs, though, ambiguities can be quite entertaining. I love puns and other plays on words. ("I wondered why the baseball was getting bigger. Then it hit me." ... how can someone not appreciate that?)

While I think my vocabulary is pretty good (in English, at least) I still find myself glossing over what words really mean. I remember words and phrases at a molecular level, if you will, rather than at an atomic one. I remember phrases and context but not always what the words themselves mean and can mean. (Like I might remember what what is, but not oxygen and hydrogen.)

By examining words at that atomic level (or even sub-atomic, if one wants to get into etymology) is great fun. Homophones and homonyms and homographs, oh, my!

I'd be her beau if she'd bow after I made her a bow from a bough and put a red bow on it.

Language is a beautiful thing.

In addition to the words that exist, it amazes me to think of the words that do not exist (at least in English). Agnostic and altruism are words that are fewer than 200 years old, even though the concepts far predated the creation of them. English lacks the hundreds of words for snow that the Sami (not the Eskimos, for the record) have. Thinking about the words that English does not possess--especially for one who does not speak any other languages well--is daunting. I just do not know what I do not know.

I am not a massive appreciator of art. I think that, quite often, "art" is just a word applied to otherwise useless stuff that people make and/or consume. I know that I am a bit of a philistine, though, and I appreciate some of that "useless stuff", so... I don't know where that gets me.


Poets seem, to me, capable of filling gaps in language. They take words that we know (or at least words that exist) and stretch them and make us look at them in different ways so that we feel differently about those words than we did before they were used by the poet.

That, in my opinion, is art worth appreciating.

Recently I have been thinking about the phrase, "I am sorry". It's not an uncommon phrase, for sure, and one that polite children had drilled into our heads at a young age. It's a phrase that too many of us use too frequently even as too many of us use it too infrequently.

Maybe it's just me, but I hadn't really thought about what it means. Or what it can mean.

"I am sorry" is, essentially, the same as "I apologize". When one does something wrong, it is polite to apologize. To acknowledge to the wronged party that it was something that should not have been done.

"I am sorry" also can speak less to the act than the effect:

"I am sorry [that you are unhappy]."
"I am sorry [that I hurt you]."
"I am sorry [that you feel that way]."

It doesn't offer an apology--it doesn't necessarily even claim any culpability.

A third, I think less common, meaning for "I am sorry" is "I regret". Even "I regret" can mean "I apologize"... but I mean it in a different way. I mean it in the "I don't like how this turned out for me" kind of way:

"I am sorry [that I didn't buy gold at $300/oz]."
"I am sorry [that I didn't get that mole checked out]."
"I am sorry [that I ever talked to that chick]."

The ambiguity of language can defeat the purpose of using it. Even a simple phrase like "I am sorry" can carry so much nuance and meaning (that is capable of being interdependent or independent) that it gets to the point where I despair to ever being able to truly communicate anything. (And, given my difficulty on deciding on what I want to communicate, it's particularly frustrating to not be able to do so when I actually get there...)

I am not a poet, but I will have to do my best to make "I am sorry" mean what I want it to.

Ambiguity

I am not a religious person. I am not a spiritual-but-not-religious person. I'm not eager to die, but (as long as it's not too painful) I am resigned to the extremely high likelihood that I will experience it at some point or another.

At a really high level, then, I think I deal with ambiguity pretty well. Sort of by ignoring it.

In my job, I take things that different people (clients, coworkers, users, et al) express and I mash it up and I form specifications or personas or other documentation that, hopefully, encapsulates and clarifies.

At a micro level, then, I think I deal with ambiguity pretty well. By trying to get rid of it.

In addition to existence- and minutiae-based life, there's a lot of middle ground... some of which (health, relationships) are pretty important and some of which (politics, ice cream) are less so.

It's this cast middle ground where ambiguity is much more difficult for me. (I don't think I'm alone, and I don't think I'm particularly special or remarkable for this weakness, but it's my blog so I'm gonna write about me, dammit!) Economic policies seem to be easier to address than a question like "Why does anything exist?", even if they're more difficult than putting together a set of wireframes for a website. Friendships--even in all their complexities that make setting up a meeting agenda look like child's play--must be more understandable than free will, right?

When I was growing up, my parents had a poster or a picture of something with the Serenity Prayer on the wall. To remind everyone, it goes something like this:

"God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
Courage to change the things I can,
And wisdom to know the difference."

Perhaps because I really took the gist of the saying to heart, I ignored that it was a prayer and that the capital G word was used.

I don't recite that prayer to myself on a regular basis, but I take solace in knowing that other individuals have the same challenges I do... I guess misery loves company, right?

Applying it to the big stuff? Easy. I cannot know which definition of agnostic is correct (whether we cannot know God, or whether we do not know of God's existence). I cannot understand why string theory exists, even if I ever end up wrapping my head around what it is.

Applying it to the little stuff? Sure thing. Even when complex, the little stuff just takes clear thinking and creativity and (if it can't be avoided) hard work. I don't want to have to buy a new car, but I can make a decision I can live with if I put my head to it.

The middle ground, though... that's the rub. When must I accept I cannot change something? When should I accept that? When does the serenity I feel by letting go merely provide a nice cover for an absence of courage?

Are these questions big stuff? Or are they little stuff that I'm not willing to (*gasp*) work on?

What is my personal record for number of questions asked to end a blog?

Social Convexity

Do you know what I think is cool?

(If you guessed "pizza", "porn", or the "Portland Trail Blazers": you get partial credit. It's not what I had in mind here, though, and please remember I do like some things that don't start with "p".)

I think gravity is cool.

More specifically--or more relevantly for this blog--I think that gravity wells are cool.

Gravity wells are (as far as my undereducated-in-hard-sciences monkey brain can understand them) representations of the effect that matter has on everything around it.

Space with no significant mass can be represented as a flat sheet, and when you add an object (a moon, or a planet, or a star, or a black hole, or the million backwards-baseball-cap-wearing dudes I want to shoot out into space) to that plane, you get a bend. A more massive object creates a deeper indentation, with a black hole (which has a singularity of density) creating an infinitely deep well.

I think that's about right.

In any case, the universe interacts with these indentations. They can influence how other objects move and can even bend light.

What if people are ... social wells? They influence people and institutions and events to varying degrees. Some people do a great job of building relationships (of whatever kind) because of their social concavity breadth and depth.

While a concavity can be an indentation on the surface, a convexity is something that pops up OUT of that surface. A bulge, if you will.

I don't know that are gravity bulges, but if we extend the notion of social concavities to include social convexities, I think it gets a bit more interesting.

How might a social convexity manifest itself? A cold demeanor. A distance from other people. An unwillingness to go out of one's way to help others. A physical deformity, perhaps. All things that can help push people away.

Would these rippled in the social plane be absolute or relative? Part of the beauty of gravity wells (it seems to me) is that they are pretty universally applicable (although I'm sure at the quantum level things break down; they always seem to). But for a person: wouldn't one person find a racist dude to be a convexity while another (fellow racist) would find him to be a concavity?

Perhaps. I don't have all the answers (for once).

I just think about my bulge. Or, rather, my social convexity (or, indeed, maybe I have increased social convexity because I think about my bulge) and I wonder if I should be trying harder to have more friends or trying harder to build stronger ties to existing friends.

Or maybe I shouldn't worry about it, because some fellas are convex and some ain't.

The Weekend, Part I: Two Conversations

My most recent bout of being single (I enjoy the term "bout" in this case. A "bout" is a boxing term for a contest, of couse, and you can come down with a bout of plague. It occurred to me that I actually don't know the definition of "bout". According to dictionary.com it is:

1. A short period of intense activity of a specified kind.
2. An attack of illness or strong emotion of a specified kind.

While "bout" might be an enjoyable term, I'm not sure that it will be a "short period". We'll see...) is much like my previous stint sans a SO (stint: another interesting word choice by my stream-of-consciousness... often associated with hearts and jobs): one of semi-soul-smashing loneliness intermingled with hope and punctuated by little adventures.

(How's that for a first sentence to start off a blog?)

This past weekend was the first one in quite some time that I'd gone out three nights in a row. With the demise of Chopstix-as-I-knew it (new ownership removed the dance floor, which means that there will be fewer women dancing, which means that there will be fewer women to admire and/or lightly mock, which means that there is little reason for me to go there) and my work and relationship stuff I had going on, I just wasn't motivated to go out on Thursdays like I once was.

This past weekend, though, I decided to head out for three nights in a row, just to see what would happen. Nothing amazing happened, but enough transpired for me to write a blog about it. Or two.

This one will focus on two conversations I had on Saturday night, and the other one (should I write it) will examine some sketches I made with a new app on my phone as I consumed rum and observed life around me. Generally, as it turns out, the blogs will be written in reverse chronological order.

Talkin' Ball

It was Saturday night. Or, more accurately, it was Sunday morning. Ozzie's was closed and I was standing outside, waiting. Not waiting for anything in particular, but waiting for everyone to go home so I could, too... or waiting for something to happen. Or both.

It was both, this night.

Somewhere on my blog, there's an entry about my first night at Ozzie's. The entry is about a girl I met and how I managed to talk her up (and eventually go on a date with her) in spite of her being escorted around the bar by a guy. I can't find that blog entry (the search feature on Blogger isn't all it's cracked up to be) but that guy has remained a regular at Ozzie's. I'm not sure (actually, I doubt) that he remembers that first night, but he's always seemed like a nice guy. I will call him First Night Guy.

In spite of seeing him (probably) literally dozens of times at Ozzie's, I've never had a conversation with him. Until this night.

Now, before I get into (my recollection of) the particulars of the conversation, I wanted to give a couple of pieces of background info:

1. First Night Guy does a bit of a schtick when he sings karaoke. He has a drink in his hand (who doesn't?) when he signs up, but he is cogent and (usually) quite sober. When he takes the mic, though? He starts staggering. He leans this way and that. He belts out his song beautifully, but he sandbags it. It's odd but funny.
2. I do my fair share of drinking and have been known to have diminished articulation capabilities after doing so. I don't claim to remain perfectly lucid after lots of rum, and I'm pretty used to talking to drunk individuals.

My conversation with First Night Guy had the lowest signal:noise ratio I've ever experienced. It was, quite literally, three minutes of him talking where he said almost nothing. As drunk as I was, I knew enough to let him go, because I was witnessing something amazing.

Let me try my best to reconstruct the conversation. We were talking about the NBA, for some reason, before it all went downhill (in a good way!):

FNG: So, I tell you...
Me: Yeah... ?
FNG: I see guys ... you know.
Me:... ?
FNG: From Seattle.
Me: OK.FNG: Jason Terry. Man, Jason Terry.
Me: Went to Arizona, drafted by the Hawks. Sure.
FNG: He... Jason Terry.
Me: ... ?
FNG:  I mean, I was preseason McDonald's All-American, but--
Me: Wow. Cool.
FNG: --Michael Dickerson, I mean, he...
Me: ... ?
FNG: You know. They talk about it being rough. But this is Seattle. It's not.
Me: It's not... what?
FNG: Doug Christie? He's serious. But.
Me: Well, he went to Pepperdine and his wife is kind of crazy.
FNG: He went to Ranier Beach.
Me: Yeah ... ?
FNG: [eyes kind of roll back into his head] ...
Me: You OK?
FNG: I mean, the A-T-L? That's serious.
Me: Uh, yeah.
FNG: ...
Me: ... ?
FNG: ...
Me: Um, sooo...

FNG: I think I'm gonna take this taxi.
Me: Good idea.

There were about four spots in there where I wanted to laugh. Four other spots where I wanted to find a bucket of ice water to splash on him to wake him up. I hope he made it home safely. I look forward to seeing him stagger around (either legitimately or not) again soon.

Unsolicited Advice

I like to change things. I don't like to change my place of residence or my place of employment or my friendships or anything else important, so I'm left to changing which video games I play and how I look.

It's fun to wear different outfits and have different facial hair and hair styles. I know that my visage is not really not an important part of who I am (other than, perhaps, my lack of attachment to it), so I'm willing to wear pants that most (straight) guys wouldn't wear. I'm willing to part my hair on either side, depending on my mood. I'm willing to let women I don't know give me advice on how I ought to present myself in public.

This interaction started as so many others have: I drank lots of rum and was wandering around Ozzie's, waiting for my next turn to sing. Someone started to talk to me, so I stopped. In this case, there were two "someones". They were both from Austin, Texas, as it turns out.

The first woman was dark-haired and seated to my left at the bar. The second woman was slightly older and was wearing glasses.

Other than what she said, I don't remember much about the First Austin Chick ("FAC"). She had darker hair and might have bit a bit heavy. The Second Austin Chick ("SEC") had glasses on. She was slightly older. And she had a ... very weird stare.

What do I mean by that? It looked like she was looking at the back of my skull when she looked at me. I don't know how to explain it other than by putting together a magnificent chart:

This is a top-down view of a normal person's gaze (the top one) and her gaze (the bottom one). It was weird.

Somehow, my age came up. I made FAC guess my age (she guessed 26; I'm slipping a bit) and showed her my license to prove that she was way off. At this point, this conversation (or something like it) occurred:

FAC: You do look a lot younger. It's your pores.
Me: Thank you--what?
FAC: I work with skin, and you have great pores.
Me: Um, OK.
SAC: I do hair. I like your hair, but ...
FAC: Yeah, you've got a good look.
Me: Um...
SAC: But you should... your part isn't working.
Me: Uh, OK. [I pushed my hair around a little bit.] What about now?
SAC: Yes. YES! Keep it like that and you will definitely get laid tonight.
Me: Uh. Yeah. OK.

Another time, another place, another woman? I would have said something along the lines of, "Is that an offer?" or "Are you writing checks you won't cash?" or "My hair isn't the reason I'll definitely get laid tonight." or ... something equally ridiculous/crappy/charming.

But she was who she was, and I was where I was, and so... I said, "Uh. Yeah. OK."

At that point they became semi-distracted by someone else, and I took my pores and slipped away.

It wasn't exactly the flawless feet compliment I received in Las Vegas in 2007, but I'll take it.

They Drive Buses AND Entertain Me

I was txting Shawty the other day. And by "the other " I mean "yes". As part of my txt, I fingered in "I no longer have a cat".

Which was accidental. It's true, of course, but I'd intended to txt "I no longer have a car". Stupid consonants.

In any event, I no longer have a car. For the past couple of months, I have been taking the bus to work and to other places around the city. While it has been a drag in some ways (it takes longer to get anywhere, some people smell really bad on the bus, hot women rarely talk to me on the bus...), it has been just fine in others (it's cheaper than gas and insurance, it's nice for going to Belltown after prefunking, hot women rarely talk to me off the bus, anyway...)

It's also provided me some entertainment. While I generally dislike interacting with people unless I'm getting paid for it or the person is an attractive chick, I must admit that bus drivers can be entertaining.

They can entertaining individually, but they are more entertaining when their behaviors are juxtaposed against one another. Some are cheerful, some are dour; some are helpful, some are grouchy.

Yesterday, I rode the bus three times (it would have been four, but I worked late and mooched a ride home from a coworker). My experience with each of the three busdrivers was markedly different and, taken as a whole, entertaining to me.

Ride #1

It was around 8:30 AM. It was a Monday and it was the first of the month. And I knew I was going to have some troubles.

As part of my bus-riding lifestyle, I have invested in monthly bus passes. Or, rather, a single ORCA card that I can recharge for a month. One need not wait until the actual month to charge it (I could pay for several months in advance), but I get the sense that most people wait until the actual month to charge it (I know that I do; I don't want to lay out $90 earlier than I have to... I don't want my vast estate to be reduced in the event I'm hit by a bus). It does, though, take 24-48 hours for the online recharge to actually kick in.

Which is where I knew I was gonna have some troubles.


There I was, Monday morning, with an uncharged ORCA card. I could have brought $2.50 to pay for my fare, but it doesn't seem right that I should have to pay $90 for the whole month and then still have to pay $2.50 merely because of a system delay.

So I didn't bring cash to pay.

What was the worst that could happen? I understand that bus drivers may not actually stop a rider from riding because she refuses to pay (although my understandings in life don't always turn out to be true). So I figured, if I were called on it, I would explain that the money I paid hadn't kicked in yet.

I was still apprehensive, though, as I got onto the bus. I tried to be cool and act like it had happened before when the scanner on the bus beep beep beep'ed at me, indicating my card had no funds associated with it.

I looked up at the driver and said, "Oh, crap. It's the first, isn't it? It looks like the system hasn't caught up yet."

The driver smiled and said, "It's fine. It's a Monday and the first of the month. It'll be happening all day."

OK. Cool. I sat in my favorite seat (passenger's side, two rows back from the handicapped/disabled/crippled (which is the right term?) area) and made it to work without incident.

Ride #2

The second ride of the day was in the early afternoon. I had a meeting about a mile away, and rather than walking it, I took the bus. It was conceivable that my card would have access associated with it, and the first bus driver had been cool about the situation, so I felt more confident using the bus.

Assuming, of course, I could catch it.

I knew that, as long as the route I needed was running on time, I would make it. If it was a bit late, I'd still get to my meeting in plenty of time. But if it was early (or if I were late), I would have to wait for the next bus and I might be punctualitily challenged. Not good.

So I walked briskly from my office and turned the corner... and saw my bus about a block away, rounding another corner to where it would be stopped. So I picked up my pace to a jog and then more of a running situation.

And I made it. Barely... but I made it.

(Unfortunately, the gel inserts that I had in my boots got all out of whack, pushed up towards the front of my shoes. I had to feel them, all askew, for the rest of the day because I am loathe to take my shoes off and rejigger the goods. (That sounds weirder than I'd originally intended, but I'll let it stand.))

I scanned my card and... beep beep beep. No funds associated with the card.

I looked up at the driver and said, "Oh, crap. The system still hasn't caught up yet?!?"

He smiled at me and said, "No problem!"

OK. Cool. I sat in my favorite seat and opened my notebook to ensure that I was in the right frame of mind for the meeting.

But the bus driver wasn't done with me.

You see, I was the only one on the bus, and although I was sitting about five meters away from him, he decided to strike up a conversation. With me.

Him: You're all sweaty!
Me: A little. [I wasn't. I was winded, but not sweaty. I need to run at least two blocks before I am soaked with perspiration. Give me a little credit!]
Him: It's hot out there.
Me: Yeah, warming up, all right.
Him: [Moving the bus away from the curb and towards the next stop.] I like the heat. It (something unintelligible).
Me: What?
Him: [I couldn't really hear him from here on out, so I'm typing my best guesses.] When it gets hot the women wear less.
Me: Yeah. That's good.
Him: They show more skin...
Me: *nod*
Him: And then they walk around, jump on trampolines...

Honestly... I don't know if he said that, but I am pretty sure I heard something about trampolines.

Whatevs. It was disgusting (I think) but entertaining.

Ride #3

My meeting finished, and I had to take the bus back to the office for my next meeting. I was running late, and the bus was running late, and it was sort of warm out still. I was feeling antsy.

That feeling, coupled with the two-for-two on getting approvals from bus drivers, added to the possibility that my payment had finally showed up on my ORCA card, gave me a sense of confidence about being OK if my card gave me the beep beep beep again.

As with my understandings, my senses of confidence are sometimes at odds with reality.

I got onto the nearly-full bus, and swiped my card and ... beep beep beep.


I looked up at the driver and said, "What the--!?! The system still hasn't caught up yet!?!"

He frowned and said, "It says your card has no funds associated with it."

I looked confused and said, "Well, I paid for August. It should have registered by now."

He frowned and said, "It says your card has no funds associated with it."

I shrugged and said, "Well, I don't have any money on me."

He frowned and said, "It says your card has no funds associated with it."

I shrugged and started to turn.

He frowned and said, "It says your card has no funds associated with it."

I said, "I'm sorry." And walked to a seat on the bus (my favorite spot had been taken by someone else, alas).

I heard him, presumably as he continued to frown, say, "That's OK. Taxpayers will pick up the tab for your ride, I guess."

So saucy! So entertaining!

I think I might need to get a car.

Dream

I don't dream a lot. Or, rather, I don't remember them very often. I find dreams fascinating--a mix of recent events and deep memories and (seemingly) pure randomness.

Since I think that one of my prime abilities is to take nonsense and restate it as a pattern (or to take nonsense and restate it as slightly more jargon-laden nonsense), I enjoy hearing about my friends' dreams and then theorizing what they were dreaming about. Right? Way off base? It doesn't matter. It's issue spotting without a teacher's guide.

I tend not to analyze my own dreams, though, even if I remember them. I fear that I might convince myself that what I'm half-jokingly claiming that they mean is actually what they meant. When, in fact, I tend to think dreams are like private versions of made for TV movies that we just catch the middle of.

In any case, I had a dream recently.

I was standing in a bar/restaurant. It was in California. Not a specific bar/restaurant, and I couldn't, like, see the Golden Gate Bridge or the Hollywood sign to indicate it was California, but I just KNEW it. You know?

I also knew that I had run into a guy's car earlier that day. I knew I was at fault.

OK. So. I was there. My best friend growing up, Big Cow, was there. And a female... entity... was there. A woman, but not a specific woman, although it didn't seem odd that a woman entity that was familiar to me but that didn't have a specific form was in the booth near me.

Anyway, she and Big Cow were sitting in a booth (not together, but on opposite sides). I was standing near the booth, and I was having a conversation. I was talking to a muscle-bound man who was extremely agitated... agitated that I had run into his car's bumper.

He (with his large friend lurking in the background) kept insisting that I owed him $3200. That seemed a bit steep for me, given I only damaged his bumper, and while I knew I was at fault AND I knew he could beat me up, I still didn't want to pay him that money, or outwardly lie.

So our conversation went something like this:

Him: You need to pay up.
Me: Yes, I do need to take responsibility.
Him: $3200.
Me: I will definitely pay an appropriate amount.
Him: You are gonna pay me $3200, right?
Me: Trust me: you'll get a check for repairs when I get home.

Haha. He kept calling me on it, and I kept trying to dance around it. I think we shook hands at one point, and he had a very firm grip. I think he had a New York accent, too, which is weird given we were in California.

I made eye contact with the female entity sometimes but she was totally uninterested (not uninteresting, of course, but uninterested). I don't remember ever even looking at Big Cow, although I remember thinking that if I got into a fight he wouldn't be much help in spite of being a very big guy himself.

I woke up. I thought it exceedingly odd. I decided to remember it, so I focused on the events in the dream and I typed them up (in a very similar form to the italicized, above). It didn't make sense to me.

But then it did. I hate to admit it that a dream at all influenced my real life (that's crazy, right?) but in this case, it sort of did.

Here we are, less than a week later. And I broke up with my girlfriend tonight.

I can connect the dots, between my dream and that decision, but... I think I'll keep it to myself. I'm sorry. For so many things, I'm sorry, of course. But for not connecting the dots for you: I'm sorry.

Killing Me Softly (?)

Aging happens to all of us. Until we're dead, I guess (although even that exception could be debated).

I've been pretty lucky in my life on a variety of fronts, one of which is injuries. I broke my pinky finger in elementary school, and I had a series of turned ankle incidents in late high school and into college, but generally I've been lucky. In spite of my relatively advanced age, I've awoken each morning with few (or no) aches and pains.

That is... until recently.

About a week ago, I noticed that my leg hurt. My calf and part of my thigh and my butt. All up the left side, it hurt when I stood up or walked around. It's been a week, and it's not better.

I plan on going to the doctor if it doesn't clear itself up soon, but it's gotten me to thinking.

Thinking about how I perceived aging. And how it might be much, much worse than I'd anticipated.

While I have, for some time, been able to (intellectually) wrap my mind around some of the psychological impacts of aging (lost opportunities, impending nonexistence, etc.) I always had the physical aspects of aging as something creeping and inhibitory. I envisioned that my mind would be slightly less sharp over time, that I would be more easily winded (and enflabbened) and that I might even have to consider dating women in their mid-thirties.

In other words, I envisioned a rather slow decline. Of course, there's always the I met a quick end, but that sort of death is not something I've spent too much time thinking about (other than cat- and student loan-related issues...)

So... I'd anticipated old age creeping up on me: a descent into infirmity before whatever identifies me as "me" is snuffed out. Or moves on. Or whatever.

I did not think about an alternative: that getting old might be painful. That it might involve me wincing every time I roll over in bed or that it might contain maladies that occur with no warning and simply never go away.

That would suck.

I complained about my singing voice being gone some time back in my blog and it (for whatever it's worth) is pretty much back now. Maybe my back will right itself, or maybe I'll get a pill or a massage or something that will bring me back into non-pain during all my waking (and some sleeping) hours.

Maybe.

Hopefully.

In the mean time, though, it's given me more to think about and makes me think that maybe (JUST maybe) dating women in their mid-thirties might be the least of my problems down the road.

Saturday Night's All Right

Whether it's in the sense of verbal altercations or actual fisticuffs, I don't get in many fights. In fact, I've only been in one as an adult (January, 2008, defending a friend; I lost, but didn't lose eyes or teeth, so it's fine).

Saturday night I went out with Politica. We went drinking and dancing in Belltown, and we walked the mile or so back to our neighborhood.

It was an uneventful walk until we got about two blocks from my place.

I don't keep up on local politics, but there's been a push to allow more street vendors to sell food in Seattle. It's unclear to me whether the laws or regulations have actually changed, but there seem to be more of them popping up lately, and one of them happens to have popped up about two blocks from my place.

(It sells hot dogs, and while I'm sure the cream cheese-laden pieces are delicious, I don't plan on partaking any time soon. I keep my kitchen stocked with hot dog fixin's, and even I am not lazy enough to not be willing to make that short walk home.)

It was about 2:30 AM when Politica and I approached the stand, and there was a pretty good crowd for a Saturday. People were jibber-jabbering and eating hot dogs. Good stuff.

The crowd was, unfortunately, in our way, and there was not a lot of space to walk between them.

Now, normally I would dodge and move and avoid contact with anyone, but I walked past the first couple of people and, seeing that not ONE person had moved, I got a little aggravated. So I squared my shoulders and just walked forward.

Bumping, of course, into someone.

Someone, of course, who wasn't happy about it.

I'll admit I was not polite. I did not "give" as I walked, and as a result my should hit his shoulder harder than I otherwise would prefer to. Further, 99% of the time if I bumped into a person that hard I would turn and apologize.

But I was irked that they were obstructing the whole sidewalk and the rum in my system had given me precious little inclination to apologize for anything.

While I will admit that I was not polite, there was a marked overreaction on the part of the bump-ee.

I took two steps and then I heard the following gem:

"Do you want to fight?"

I know enough not to turn around. Although I listened for approaching footsteps as I kept walking.

"Do you wanna fucking fight?"

Was it an effort to goad? Was his rage building? I didn't know and didn't want to find out. I can't be goaded. We kept walking.

*splat*

We looked to our left and there, on the sidewalk, was a half-consumed hot dog bun. I saw cream cheese as I glanced down, and I'm not sure if there was meat left or not. I guess it doesn't really matter.

As I walked, I looked over my shoulder and shouted something about the guy wasting his money on a hot dog.

Some time later, as we were safely ensconced in my apartment, I reflected that I was really glad that the guy didn't hit me with that hot dog. I like to think that I can't be goaded, but a cream cheese hot dog hitting me in the back of my head and neck might have been enough for me to make an exception... even if it was to my detriment.

That's What She ... Oops!

I share an office with two coworkers. Both nice people with whom I get along just fine.

Earlier today my female coworker received a phone call, and I heard her say, "Oh, OK." Two seconds later, I received a phone call from the front desk downstairs, letting me know I had received something in the mail.

"Oh, OK," I replied.

I stood up and went to retrieve my Lord of the Rings Blu-Ray set. I looked at my coworker and asked her, "Would you like me to grab your package?"

She smiled and seemed a bit confused, but I (pleased with my deduction that we'd both received a call from downstairs) offered, "That's what she said."

That's what she said.

It's a great saying that has traveled from awesome to lame back to awesome again. (And, perhaps, back to lame. I don't care.) It was repopularized on the NBC version of the Office, and the BBC version of the Office had the classic "Said an actress to a bishop" version... which I rarely use, on account of its lack of ubiquity.

So I said, "That's what she said," and overlooked her continued confusion. Maybe she thought it was lame, or maybe she thought I was being too cheeky. In either case, I shrugged and exited the room.

I went downstairs and there was one package. My package.

Now it was my turn to be confused.

Upon returning to my desk, I asked whether she'd received something in the mail.

She informed me that she had received nothing but a wrong phone call from the wrong desk.

Oops. I did not see that coming.

That's what she said.

UnfriendEd (O)

I run a tight ship when it comes to Facebook. I regularly pare down my friends list and I rarely keep non-family members that don't add value to my life (either in real life or Facebook life) on as friends. Not that every time I unfriend someone it means I actively dislike them, but my Facebook friends list generally reflects my real life.

Much of the time when I unfriend someone they know it's coming, and most of the time they don't know it's coming they don't seem to even notice that I've unfriended them (for weeks, if ever)... which helps cement that I made the right choice in zapping them. (I saw one such former Facebook friend on the street the other night; I wasn't sure it was her, and then I thought, "OMG... what if she's pissed that I unfriended her 'lo, so many moons ago?" (I wish I thought exactly with that cadence and vocabulary...) Fortunately, she gave me a finger-wiggling "hello" and a smile that didn't reach her eyes and then we went our separate ways. It could have been worse.)

Because I keep my friends list rather tidy, I am attuned to being unfriended. I know, in other words, when I have one fewer friend than I had before, and by my nature I need to figure out who the unfriender is.

Sometimes it's someone who's hidden their profile, and sometimes it's a glitch in the Facebook system.

Sometimes, though... it's intentional.

This blog details some of those times.

Sometimes my blog rubs people the wrong way. While some might say that apathy is the worst result of writing (and I dislike hearing from my friends that my latest blog is boring *coughcoughWinnercough*), I think that there are far worse results: making my friends look bad, making myself look like a racist homophobic misogynist, or even misrepresenting my actual personality.

In spite of the risk of, say, implying that I am a racist homophobic misogynist, I often am willing to take that chance. You know, for the lolz.

One blog I wrote some time ago is The Unexpected Burded of Extraordinary Charm. It paints a picture of me being so awesome that it excused me walking out of a store with a security device still attached to a jacket I purchased. It was intended to be silly. But not everyone took it that way, I guess.

One of my Facebook friends posted a comment on the blog: "vanity at its finest". Maybe she really thought I was showing my true colors, or maybe she didn't like that Canberry was prominently featured. In any case, she un-fanned my blog and unfriended me on Facebook. I haven't heard from her since.

Oops.

Perhaps because I am pretty uninhibited about what I post on my Facebook wall, I sometimes forget that standard isn't shared by all my Facebook friends. Some time ago, I was Facebook friends with a woman I'd dated casually ("casually" in some regards, if that makes sense) and she seemed to have a pretty good/laid-back sense of humor.

Seemed to.

We'd been chatting off and on for a while and I was Facebook friends with both her and her roommate, and I felt pretty comfortable posting on either/both of their walls, because they seemed to "get" me.

Seemed to.

One day the roomie posted on my friend's wall something along the lines of, "I'm so glad that we got to [do whatever it was]! You're the best for helping me out!!"

And I responded, "She's definitely good for some things. ;)"

Maybe it was the winky. Maybe it was the straw the broke the back of a camel I didn't even know existed, but it was (as the first year Spanish students say) "bastante". Her roomie unfriended me. She blocked me on Facebook. I sent one "REALLY?!?" txt to her. And haven't heard from her since.

Oops, again.

One area of discord on Facebook is politics. I am not a very political person--I have my opinions, but am blessed/damned with the ability to see both sides of almost every issue, so I can muster no passion for political causes, and I certainly am not evangelical about anything other than the awesomeness of tacos and Teenage Fanclub.

There was a woman with whom I was friends on Facebook (a pattern developing, yes?), and she was a big dog person. Actually, a big animal person. I like dogs and kitties, but I'm not militant about it. This young woman worked in a vet emergency room and seemed to be all about animals.

(I am not sure, really, what she was like in real life. Unlike the rest of the people on this list, she was a "pure Facebook" play, as the startup crowd might call it if they tried to meet women in as many different avenues as possible. She was the sister of a friend of my friend, and I lured her into communicating with me. At least for a time.)

Her Facebook naturally reflected her commitment to animals. She posted pics of cute dogs she'd helped. She posted pics of her dogs. She posted about donation and service opportunities to help animals in need.

This is all cool with me, by the way. I respect people who have passion for what they do, and even if her message got a bit pushy, it was fine by me.

I guess it was fine until I ever so slightly challenged her world view.

She posted a status along the lines of, "The difference between dogs and humans is that you can always trust a dog" or "... never trust a human." Something like that.

I find that, to be honest, ridiculous, and I tried to subtly disagree by pointing out that many humans are trustworthy and that some dogs are no good. She sort of overreacted in her response, and I maybe should have let it go, but I pointed out that SHE worked in a situation where she put in a lot of effort to help dogs she doesn't even know, and that dogs lack the depth/capacity to do that sort of work.

Wrapping my point in a compliment, I thought, would make the message easier to handle.

The result? You may be able to guess...

She unfriended me on Facebook. I haven't communicated with her since.

Sometimes Facebook disagreements are aggravated by real life reactions. Much like with the previous chick, I got into hot water with another Facebook friend over animal rights statements. Unlike the previous woman, this person was someone I considered to be a real friend. Or at least something between an acquaintance and a friend... but not someone whom I'd only casually dated or knew because I thought she was cute after arriving on her page from her brother's friend's page.

I have not read Fast Food Nation. I haven't seen Super Size Me. I eat fast food occasionally and I don't want to see the fucked-up things that happen in the industry. I know it's not good for me, and I certainly know it's not pleasant for the animals who get killed in order to make the food.

Similarly, while I eat chicken and hamburger and all sorts of stuff from the grocery store, I don't want to SEE it being made. I don't want to hear the screams of the animals when they die or their glassy eyes as they just sit around, getting bigger and doomed to be slaughtered.

I don't want to see it because I don't find it pleasant, but also because I don't really care. I enjoy the NFL, but I don't enjoy seeing players running windsprints in practice, and I don't want to see them hurting themselves in the weight room. I enjoy water but I don't want to see it running over mud or dead animals rotting upstream before it gets purified and into my belly.

Life is unpleasant, and I know it. I don't need to be reminded of it.

My Facebook friend posted a link to a YouTube video about slaughterhouse processes, and had a comment along the lines of, "Before you eat another being, you MUST watch this!"

To which I replied, "Is celery a being?"

That did not go over well. She unfriended me.

But the story (such as it is) doesn't end there.

Within 48 hours (it might have been that night, it might have been the next night), I bumped into her outside of a bar. She and I "debated" the topic for about two minutes, and it ended with her saying, "I want to hit you in the face right now."

I don't know if I won or lost the debate, but I blocked her when I got home.

Fortunately, several months later we reached detente. She graciously apologized and I humbly accepted and we are Facebook friends once again.

The least expected unfriending I've received was some months ago. I hadn't posted anything outrageous. I hadn't had a blowup with a friend or insulted someone's dog or roommate or roommate's dog... and yet I was down a friend.

Some investigation revealed that it was my paternal grandmother.

I am fortunate enough to have super-cool grandmothers. I am not very guarded in my Facebook persona, and they're either open-minded enough to deal with it or they just don't pay attention to me altogether. Either way it's fine, right?

So when my paternal grandmother unfriended me, I was confused. I looked back through my recent wall posts. I looked at my recent pics. Other than a porn reference and a series of drunken pics of me with shaggy hair, there wasn't much that was potentially offensive.

I couldn't just call her, though. If she was actually mad, then I didn't want to face her wrath without any idea of what I was getting myself into. If she'd accidentally unfriended me, then I didn't want to make her feel bad or demonstrate that I was angst-ridden over it.

It was quite a pickle.

I let it sit for a couple of days and then I made a wall post and my sister and cousin and parents got involved. (It turned out that it was, indeed, accidental. She didn't know how she managed to do it, and was disproportionately apologetic. Or she's an excellent liar.)

And then I was Facebook friends with my grandma again, and Facebook life--for all its ups and downs--was once again good. :)

Potter

You know how things kind of snowball? Like, you do a little meth and then all of a sudden your teeth are falling out as you pose for a mug shot?

Well, I had something that snowballed. It started off little and then, by the end, it had taken on a life of its own.

First, though, know that I had never lived by myself until just over five years ago. I lived with my parents, and then roomies in college, then my parents again for a year, and then My Ex for the better part of a decade. It was only in early 2006 that I came home to an empty residence.

Well, almost empty.

I have, as you may know, three cats. I never intended to have three cats--especially not in a one bedroom apartment--but it just happened.

That's not the snowballing part, though.

When I was a kid, my parents would leave the house and we would leave music on. Why? I was told it was because the dog enjoyed it. I never really accepted that answer, and while I never fully understood it, I understand now that it was just a habit.

I had my own habit related to my pets, and it snowballed.

Houdini is my oldest cat. He's almost 13, a gray and white short hair. Truman is the middle, and he's 12 and orange and idiosyncratic. Potter was the youngest. He was black and fluffy and the friendliest of the kitties to anyone who came over and visited.

I had Potter put to sleep about an hour ago. But more on that in a moment.

Because I lived alone, except for my cats, I took to talking to them occasionally. Not full conversations, of course, but something above and beyond "Here, kitty, kitty!" and "Stop pooping on the carpet!". When I left for work (or karaoke, or to volunteer at one of the innumerable places that I so often do) I felt like I had to say SOMETHING. An apology for leaving them alone? An explanation for why I was gone so often?

I settled on something odd. Simple, but odd.

"Houdini, you're in charge."

I didn't say it every time I left, but most mornings I did. While there was never any specifics given for the responsibilities involved with being "in charge", Houdini was the natural fit for the job: Truman is too slow (mentally and physically) and Potter was too flighty.

Potter was the baby. He was only two years younger than Houdini, but for some reason he always struck me as markedly smaller and markedly less mature. Innocent, even.

(Anthropomorphism run amok!)

"Houdini, you're in charge" snowballed in my head into discussions and explanations of why Houdini was perpetually left as the feline overlord. I would occasionally argue against imaginary charges by Truman and Potter of discrimination.

Actually, it was only ever Potter. I guess even an imaginary Truman was too laid-back to have any ambition. Mr. Potts, though? My imaginary Potter wanted to be treated like a grown-up. He wanted responsibility.

I bargained with this imaginary Potter, telling him he was getting closer to earning the spot, and that it would be his some day.

Well, I was wrong.

It's Monday night and about 72 hours ago Potter started getting lethargic. He normally wandered all over the apartment, following me and checking out what I was doing. Jumping on the couch, then on my lap, then lying on the floor by the door. And then repeating the cycle.

He slowed Friday night and Saturday and by yesterday he was simply lying in one part of the apartment and then moving to lie somewhere else. He had his routines... but they were all out the window. There was something definitely wrong. He jumped, painfully for him it seemed to me, onto my lap last night as I was using my computer. He'd spent hours at a time there, and part of me worried that it would be the last time.

This evening I took him to the ER and it turns out he had a blockage and kidney issues and heart arrhythmia. It was going to cost thousands of dollars to fix him up in the short run, with absolutely no guarantees it wouldn't happen again.

I cried and I told the vet (who was crying herself; I have no idea how she could care so much about a cat that she had met minutes before) that I had to let him go.

I had Potter put to sleep about an hour ago. He was a great cat and I'm hopeful that he had a good life. I will miss him.

Surprised

Have you ever seen Reservoir Dogs? If you haven't, then you should. It is, after all, one of my top 10 movies.

If you've seen it, then you may or may not remember the following clip. If you have not seen it, you should be able to watch this with minimal fear that any plot spoiling will occur. (Although you cannot watch it without lots of curse words occurring.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hPZ9kidioi8

(It's not letting me embed it. *grumble*)

For those of you who care not to watch it, it's Quentin Tarantino talking about the meaning of Madonna's song Like a Virgin. Basically he's claiming that it's about a woman who'd slept with a lot of guys, but then she meets a guy who makes her feel, physically, like she'd never had sex before.

Anyway, I was reminded of this over the weekend. I was at Ozzie's and I was having a drink and waiting to sing, and I heard something.

I've heard some things, in my years going to Ozzie's and other karaoke bars. I've heard some great singers and I've heard lots of mediocre singers and I've heard a massive number of bad singers.

After a while, one builds up a tolerance for terrible singing. One needs a toughness that allows sanity to remain without being overwhelmed by disgust or anger at the people who just aren't good singers.

I have a pretty high tolerance for bad singers... after all, almost everyone that sings is there to have fun, and being positive is much more healthy and fun than being negative.

With that being said, I heard something. I heard a singer that was very bad.

She was so bad, that she caused me pain. It hurt me.

It shouldn't hurt me, you know--my ears should be Bubble Yum by now--but when this chick sang it hurt. It hurt just like it did the first time.

What was it about her? A combination of things. Was she out of tune? Yes. Was she enthusiastically off-beat? Sure.

But she had that special something that made her resonate on a visceral level. I don't know what "it" is, but she had "it".

And I hope I don't see "it" again any time soon.

A Fine Line Between Kind and Stupid

I work on and with computers quite often. I read about people getting hacked or phished and it turns out that it's not very often brute force: having a computer run every username/password combination is simply too time- and processor-intensive for most potential intruders.

Instead? Social engineering is key. Determining what password a user is likely to use helps cut down the amount of work it takes to get in. Asking what a user's password is can be tricky and might require nerves of steel, but that is even easier.

While it's easy to think that I will never fall for that some or trickery, I try not to delude myself. I can keep my guard up but I know that I can fall prey to it, also.

Of course, even if we sometimes forget, scams--like porn and dating--predate the internet. People learned long ago that cheating someone out of valuables is often easier than earning those valuables through honest work.

OK. So. Please pause there. Hold that thought, even.

Now back to me. I don't like talking to people. Unless it's for my job--where talking to people is a key reason I get paid in (reasonably) hard US currency--I don't like talking to people unless (a) I know them, or (b) they are attractive women.

That might make me sound like an asshole, but it's generally true. I'd say that I'm working on it, but... I'm not. Not really. I don't want to expend emotional effort to learn to like talking to strangers in random social settings.

Even, though, as I have come to terms with my introverted streak, one thing that I do want to work on is willingness to help people in need. I have a tendency to be self-centered and, when coupled with my introversion, it means that I am oblivious (or even apathetic) about the plight of people I don't know (who don't just HAPPEN to be attractive women).

I try, at least sporadically, to help those who seem to need it, even if it means talking to strangers.

Which brings us back to the thought that you've been holding...

Some time back (a fortnight? A month?) I was approaching my apartment building. There was a guy who was using a cell phone right outside the door of the building, and I fobbed (is that a verb?) my way in and past him, and he initiated conversation. I was not altogether pleased, but I didn't want to be rude, so I had this conversation with him:

Dude:  Hi, could you help me out?
Me:[warily] Uh... maybe.
Dude: Do you know the best way to get a hold of the building manager?
Me: [pointing to the phone on the wall] Did you use the--
Dude: I just called the number on the flier and used that phone... no answer.
Me: Sorry to hear that. No I don't--
Dude: Hmm... well, could you do me a favor?
Me: I don't--
Dude: I just came from Renton to pick up my friend's car. He passed away and it's in the building's garage.
Me: I don't know...
Dude: If the manager were here, he could just let me see if the car's even there. It's a brown pinto.
Me: Well, yeah, I don't--
Dude: Could you maybe let me in to just take a look? I've come all the way up here and would hate to just turn around if the car is right in there.
Me: Hmm...
Dude: I've got the key, even. Look [shows me the key].
Me: OK. I'll let you in.
Dude: Thank you so much! I appreciate it!
Me: ...

And then I spent the rest of the evening wondering if I should have escorted him to the garage and escorted him back out. Or if I shouldn't have let him in at all. Or if it was just perfectly fine that I let some random dude into the building.

On the one hand, lots of old people die in my building. It's entirely reasonable that amongst the hundreds of my neighbors someone had kicked the bucket.

On the other hand, crime is pretty common in our area, ranging from a bomb scare to Politica's car getting stolen to all sorts of other reasons cops are parked on our block that I don't even know about.


On still the other hand, he seemed desperate. He gave details.

On still... OK. Enough with the hands.

Liars know to give details. Scammers know to make a series of small, reasonable requests and to escalate once they get to "yes". Thieves know ... well, how to steal stuff, I guess.

Was he an honest guy in a jam? Or did I help him break into cars and/or someone's apartment?

And why do I talk to non-attractive female strangers... ever?

All's Weird that Ends Weird

Sometimes I like to tell stories of things that happen in my life. Sometimes those things flatter me, but more often they are passively embarrassing or overtly humiliating. This is a tale that is both of those latter things.

I was, once upon a time, singing at Ozzie's. Shocking, I know. I was there by myself on a Saturday night, and I was drinking more than a little bit.

I was downstairs, waiting for my turn to sing, when I saw a couple of reasonably attractive young women standing in front of me. One of them had, I noticed, a card on a necklace around her neck. My eyes are pretty good, but I couldn't make out what it said. Because of the combination of the woman being attractive and me drinking more than a little bit, I asked the woman what the card read.

"Have a man speak to you in another language."

Immediately upon reading this, I went into inner turmoil. It was minor turmoil, for sure, but it was turmoil.

As everyone who knows me should know by now, I'm not a big fan of bachelorette parties. More specifically, I REALLY don't like them. I admit that they have their place as a ritual for brides-to-be, and for the brides-to-be's friends, but I also know that much of that ritual is to mockingly flirt with men around them while ignoring objective measures of attractiveness... meaning they usually act much more hot than they are.

(Yes, I know society's standards for beauty in women is, at many levels, bullshit. I know that how a woman is on the inside matters. I know that it's not fair that gorgeous women get away with more in life than more plain ones. But when I'm in a bar drinking, I rarely care much about any of that.)

So, on the one hand, I had my disdain for the bachelorette party generally. On the other hand, I had a great opportunity to talk to a couple of attractive women, and ... I'd been drinking more than a little bit.

The rum won out (as it occasionally does) and I opened. It went something like this:

Me: Puedo hablar español para usted...
Her #1: What?
Her #2: Ah... [insert a BUNCH of Spanish that I didn't follow at all due to ignorance and rum consumption]
Me: Wow. I didn't get any of that.
Her #1: ...
Her #2: ...

There comes a time in every conversation with women I don't know, where I have to power through discomfort or flee (as gracefully as possible).

The conversation with these two women wasn't a disaster to this point, so I continued the chit-chat, asking if either of them were the ones getting married (they weren't) and if they were going to sing (they weren't).

Her #1 clearly wasn't that into me. My ego told me it was because she had a boyfriend, of course. (Whether facts would tell me that or not is another matter. I never found out.)

Her #2, though? She was staring at me the whole time with a big smile on her face. That, for the record, is either a very good sign (she's interested) or a very bad one (she's totally insane). I decided that it was probably the former, so I got their names, told them it was great to meet them, and that I'd see them around the bar later.

And, I did see them around later.

More rum had gone into my system, and I was getting ready to sing upstairs when Her #2 approached me. She had a card around her neck this time, and as the karaoke song was being queued up, she smiled and stared at me and I grabbed the card and it said, "Be serenaded by a man."


I told her it seemed I was the next best thing, and I sang to her.

She seemed to enjoy it, and at the end of the song I noticed that her entire bachelorette troupe was in a booth on the other side of the room. I noticed because they were all chanting, "Kiss her. Kiss her."

I looked at Her #2 and she stopped staring long enough to roll her eyes. We smiled at one another. And I kissed her.

To the applause of her party.

Coincidentally, it was just about closing time. I asked where she lived (she lived close). I asked her if she wanted an escort home (she did). I asked her if she wanted to leave right then (she did).

On our way out of the bar, one of her friends checked in on her, establishing that I wasn't kidnapper Her #2, and that she was sober enough to not be constructively kidnapped. After a brief conversation, we headed to Her #2's place.

Which was fine. I'm going to gloss over things until the way the night/morning ended, but highlights/lowlights included:

• No television (??)
• An awesomely friendly Siamese cat
• A funny txt exchange with one of her friends that she let me write "her" end of

So... after a couple of hours of talking (and stuff) it was about 4AM. I was exhausted and much more sober. And the conversation got weird.

Her #2: ...
Me: What's up?
Her #2: ...
Me: You're acting weird all of a sudden.
Her #2: ...
Me: What's up?
Her #2: ... it's just ...
Me: ...
Her #2: ...
Me: Is it cool if I crash here tonight?
Her #2: ... well, my parents are going to come pick me up tomorrow...
Me: What time?
Her #2: 10:00.
Me: Bah. No problem. I'll get a few hours of sleep and be out of here well before then.
Her #2: ...
Me: What?
Her #2: ... I think I need alone time.
Me: OK. Now?
Her #2: Yeah.
Me: ...
Her #2: ...
Me: Are you just waiting for me to leave at this point?
Her #2: Yeah.
Me: Ouch. OK.

And so, with that, I got dressed (meaning put my shoes and jacket back on, of course), petted the cat, and departed.

It was (and remains) the oddest brush-off I'd ever received from a woman while in her bed, and I lashed out in the only way I knew how: I failed to ask for her telephone number.

That'll show her, right?

Even after all this time, I'm still processing whether this experience makes me dislike bachelorette parties more or less...

The Invisible Injury

Growing up, I think we all hear the same things from old(er) folks. Insight and advice and laments and observations that don't really register. Stuff that, essentially, adds up to, "I didn't really think it would happen to me, either, but you'll know what I'm talking about someday."

Which, of course, is not always true. We won't all know what it's like to have lost a leg in Vietnam or to lose our life savings in an elaborate gardening misadventure or to find out that we actually killed our father and married our mother and then gouge our eyes out.

I mean, we all can do anything we want in this world, right? So there's time. It's just not likely.

One of the things that I'd (blessedly) managed to avoid was the aches and pains that so many people talk about as they get older. Until recently, I'd have a sore muscle and then it would go away--either because I tweaked my ankle walking down the street or I slept on my neck wrong.

Lately, though? My knees hurt. I might have tweaked the right one working out, but giving it time to heal hasn't done much good... and now my left one is starting to feel bad, too. Maybe it's feeling neglected in my allocation of attention. I dunno.

Perhaps these are isolated, temporary, aches and pains... like so many in the past. I guess I'll just have to wait and see.

The thing that I'm more concerned about? My voice. My speaking voice gets dry and raspy at the drop of a hat nowadays and my falsetto singing voice is just... gone. It's been about a month now and I think I'm more worried that I won't be able to sing Grace Kelly than I am that my legs will hurt when I change sleeping positions.

My voice has left me before, of course. My singing voice has disappeared before--late 2007/early 2008 it was gone for about three months, and when we went to Las Vegas in 2009, I couldn't even singing Stayin' Alive--but I always got the sense that it would come back. I always had confidence that, like the bruised tailbone I received in November, 2002, it would linger for a bit and then one day I'd wake up and all would be right again.

But maybe this time will be different. Maybe this time I will never recover, and I will have my singing options reduced permanently. And maybe, just maybe, some day I will tell the story to some young person about how I didn't really think it would happen to me, either, but he'll know what I'm talking about someday.

Birthday Party Aversion

Shawty? Nope.

TM2000? Nope.

Winner? Nope.

Stix? Nope.

Big Apple? Nope.

Queen Bee? Nope.

F-Bomb? Nope.

Sneetch? Nope.

Raft Mate? Nope.

These are all people that I consider to be friends of mine. They all invited me to their birthday parties/birthday get-togethers within the last year and I did not attend. In over half of the cases, I had declined in advance, but that doesn't excuse my absences. (I'm not counting folks like lol who have given up on inviting me, as well as others I'm almost certainly currently forgetting.)

I've known Shawty for almost exactly three years. We met the on her birthday eve in 2008. We spent, basically, that whole weekend together and we dated for several months after that. In 2009, she was dating another guy but I just happened to be at Ozzie's when she had her party. In 2010, I drove up to Who-Knows-Where, WA, to go to dinner and dancing with her and her friends. I was there as her ex-bf was being all weird when she was talking on the phone to her then-bf (who was an International Man of Asshole, as it turns out).

We chat every day. She's an important person to me, and I know she's been having a less-than-optimally fun time in life lately. Her bday party was on Saturday night, and I didn't go. And I feel like a dick now.

It wasn't a matter of a conflict--I had planned on going, and I would have been happy to spend the evening with her under other circumstances--and it wasn't a matter of really wanting to do something else... I am coming to terms with the fact that I really REALLY don't like birthday parties.

I have spent most of today thinking about what that is... whether there is some legitimate reason that I can hide behind as I reflect on all the birthday parties that I have chosen not to attend.

Let's start with my own birthday.

• There's the obvious: I'm old. I don't dislike my birthday, in particular, but celebrating my advancing age? Just not a high priority. 
• Secondly: I don't care to be the center of attention. Even when I dress ridiculously or sing a karaoke song or take a chainsaw to a marching band, I enjoy being able to disappear.
• I've had a bad experience or two regarding my birthday. As a kid I don't really have many memories of my birthday. I don't think I have big parties, but I remember that I would get cheesecake as a wee lad and then german chocolate (with the coconut frosting) as I got older. I have no negative memories of birthdays, which I guess is good, right? Well, in 2008 I had a very brutal birthday party involving misunderstandings and girls and an overwhelming sense of pressure. It was a really stressful night, and it's part of the reason the last couple of years I specifically haven't gone out of my way to do anything.

Now, onto other peoples' birthday:

• While I am friends with the birthday person, I rarely am friends with (m)any of the other party-goers. Being around people that I don't know but am expected to interact with makes me anxious. 
• There are certain kinds of people that I specifically do not enjoy being around. Both in a general sense and some specific cases.
• Location is an issue for me. I really do not like the BalMar, for example. I find the drinks weak and the service ridiculously slow. I find the dance floor packed and unappealing. I can honestly say that I have not had fun any time that I have entered the doors of that place (and once I was pissed when I didn't even get into the doors, although that was sort of Canberry's fault for not bringing the proper identification). There's also the proximity angle to a location... some places in Seattle are difficult to reach via busline and expensive to reach via cab. And I don't drive if/when I drink.

I have a tough time balancing the facts that (a) I do not enjoy being unhappy, and (b) a birthday party for someone else does not exist to bring happiness to my life.

Maybe I'll figure it out and start going (assuming I keep getting invited). Or maybe I'll just figure out that I'm some combination of lazy/selfish/other and make my peace with that fact that I'm not going to attend birthday parties with any regularity.

In any event, I'm sorry to Shawty for not going last night. And I'm sorry to anyone else who may have invited me only to see me fail to attend. I appreciate the invitations and I appreciate YOU. I just don't appreciate birthday parties.

Something I Hate

I don't really have an overarching, "Things Ed O Hates" list. I have a grumpy streak, like everyone else, but I tend to see the positive in people and things... or I try to avoid those people and things. Maybe I just say all of this so I believe it, but I try to be that way.

Unfortunately, some things are unavoidable. At the risk of missing about 95.34% of the things that I hate, I came up with this list of ten items, normalized to the level of hatred (or, alternatively, disgust/revulsion/whatever), of the top item:

The one thing that I wanted to comment on is number five on the list: early-to-mid-20's guys.

I'm not saying all of them are jerks... I've got some friends who are early-to-mid-20's guys. For the most part, though? The less I say to them (and the less I hear them speak), the better. (And by "them" I mean early-to-mid-20's guys generally... not my friends.)

I was at a housewarming party on Sunday night. I had been invited by one of the two hostesses and wasn't that familiar with most of the people there. Part of the fun was determining who knew whom and who was hanging out with whom, and while most people in my place would have asked, but I was having fun observing and guessing.

The party was stuffed to the gills (at least at first) with hairstylists (I choose my housewarming parties carefully; I'm not purchasing tulips willy-nilly) but as the crowd thinned, it became both easier to contextualize the remaining people and more confusing regarding what I was seeing.

Confusing because there was trio of dudes who looked out of place. In their (yeah, you didn't see this coming) early-to-mid-20's, they were walking around the party, holding on to a pair of Ranier twelve packs.

This wasn't exactly a wine-and-cheese-only party, but I think they were the only ones who were drinking cheap bear from cans, and they were definitely the only ones who didn't want to put their beverages down for fear of someone else lifting them.

Which... OK. Fine. I don't want to fling stones. I was wearing black fingernail polish, for crying out loud. Live and let live. Etc.

But. They're early-to-mid-20's guys. They can't help but annoy me.

As the party continued to thin and I was settling into a chair with the hostess's dog in my lap and one of her friends engaging me in conversation, there was a mix-up involving drinks. It was not a big deal, but someone put their red cup o' booze down and someone else evidently started drinking it.

Like I said, no big deal. I think the confusion was cleared up within 30 seconds, in spite of unhelpful lines of investigation like this:

Person One: What were you drinking?
Person Two: It was in a red cup.

Of course, almost all of us were drinking from red cups. Except the dudes with the Raniers.

Dude with Rainer Number One (DWR#1): What? You had a red cup?!?
Everyone else at the party: ...
DWR#1: [leaning in towards the woman who'd lost her drink] A red cup!?!
Everyone else at the party: ...
DWR#1: [motioning at the large stack of red cups and the prevalence of them in the room] A RED CUP!?!

It was an odd thing, what happened next. No one cared about his mockery/joke/whatever it was, and after building up to some sort of crescendo with no response, he ... deflated.

He deflated and then he sulked.

A bit later, my friend's brother showed up. He's a nice guy who just happens to be shorter than me. And shorter than DWR#1, which provided the impetus for this delightful exchange:

Dude with Rainer Number One (DWR#1): Hey. Is that your brother?
My friend: Yes, it is.
DWR#1: So "short" runs in the family, huh?
My friend: That's it. One more and you have to get out of my house.
DWR#1: ...

There was no apology for being a dickhead, which ampliphied the dickheadedness.

Partially because of the presence of the early-to-mid-20's guys, and partly because of the fact that I didn't really know anyone there, I had sent out some feelers via txt to see what else was happening. One of the txts was to a friend at Ozzie's, to see how busy it was. Her response was that "People are here" ... which is far from a given on a Sunday night.

So, when the early-to-mid-20's guys decided to leave (or at least talk about leaving... the talking about leaving took about 45 minutes, and the leaving took significantly less time), they mentioned Ozzie's.

Me: Oh, Ozzie's?
DWR#1: Yeah.
Me: A friend told me there were people there tonight.
DWR#1: There usually are.
Me: Uh...
DWR#1: People like karaoke.

It was the sort of semi-drunken ignorant condescension that few humans outside of that gender and age range can pull off. It definitely cemented early-to-mid-20's guys on my "Things Ed O Hates" list... actually it might have pushed them past Keith Olbermann and into a dead heat with Scary Clowns.

Now that I think of it, though, my list might be a tad off. In spite of those guys, I had a good time at the party. If there were three scary clowns walking around, I am less sure I could say the same thing.

Ways to Hold a Basketball

There are many ways to hold a basketball.

One can cradle it to one's chest with both arms, embracing it.

One can hold it under one's elbow, holding it casually against the hip.

One can, assuming large hands with some strength, palm it with one hand.

One can use three fingers of one hand as a tripod.

One can also hold a basketball with one finger... by spinning the ball.

No spin? It falls off. Not enough spin? It wobbles and becomes unstable and falls off.

But get it spinning and it becomes significantly easier. Get it spinning and all one needs to dedicate is the tip of one finger and an occasional well-placed slap... and it keeps spinning.

Until one becomes distracted. Or one simply gets tired of it and lets the ball drop.