How to Have a Quiet Halloween

I don't know about you, but I plan to post this sign on my door:

WE HAVE DELICIOUS BROCCOLI TREATS!!!

Hey, I Gotta What If...

One of my favorite movies, “The Majestic”, begins with that line. It’s so full of possibilities, that line, and then the off-screen voice goes on to describe an idea so devoid of possibilities that it barely qualifies as an idea.

I’ve been mulling over the problem of attraction lately. Whenever I meet a woman, no matter what the circumstances, I ask myself, What if? What if she's attracted to me? What if she's not? The debate paralyzes me.

Why have I been unattached for so long? There’s no doubt I’ve chosen this path, to a certain extent, but I cannot and will not take full responsibility for it. I, who believe wholeheartedly in personal responsibility.

There have been opportunities in the last five years. With perhaps two exceptions, the women I’ve met in that time have been unattractive or unattracted to me. Those two women with whom things clicked? There were Reasons It Could Never Be. No, neither of them was involved when we met, it’s just that life is often more…complicated…than we’d often like it to be.

I know that location has a great deal to do with what’s considered attractive; here in California, most folks place tremendous emphasis on the physical, and the words “athletic” or “fit” being the most commonly used adjectives in the online personal ads I’ve read locally. As one woman wrote, “Disney really ruined it for our generation.”

Maybe that’s the problem: we don’t want to just be in love, we want to be in love in a movie.* Okay, but how can we forget that Belle got to know her true love when he was still the Beast?

Stephanie Klein writes, “I need someone extraordinarily talented. I need to be in awe, and feel proud of the man I’m with. It can’t be because of how well he treats me, but rather I need someone powerful and charged, someone extraordinary, put on this earth to make a difference. I need to look up to him. That’s my type.”

Gets right to the heart of it, doesn’t she?

How do you get to the point of being certain that the person you’re with is capable of making a difference? Is it possible to spot the extraordinary over a cup of coffee or a glass of wine?

I don’t think it is.

I think it takes time. Ten dates, at least. And even then…there will be questions. Most women relentlessly test the men they’re with until they’re sure. If they’re insecure, they continue to test them after they’re sure.

But getting to the point where there’s a second date…how does one do that? It’s a question I’ve wrestled with for a while now.

Stephanie may have given us a hint when she wrote that she needs someone powerful. That’s really what’s been missing in me lately. I am an accomplished man, professionally and personally. I’m well read, smart, funny, and reasonably sane. I do possess a certain amount of power on certain levels, and there’s no question that I’ve made a difference in the world.

But, on first meeting, I don’t project it. I don’t. Why is that?

My astonishing friend LJ and I went out for dinner one night about a year and a half ago, when she and I were still lovers. We sat at the bar instead of a table, because she’s a wonderfully social creature and she likes to be able to talk to people. On this particular evening, she spied two college-age women, standing ten feet from us and looking very thoroughly bored. Before I knew it, she’d introduced herself and invited them over for a drink. After maybe five minutes of introductory small talk, LJ excused herself to go to the ladies’ room, and left me to carry on the conversation with these two attractive young women – not a situation I have ever felt comfortable with. To my surprise, the conversation continued to flow, and when she came back, this dear woman simply stood back and watched with a knowing smile. Later, when we were walking back to the car, she wrapped herself around my right arm and said, “The blonde was into you, did you notice that?” Yes, I had. “So now you know,” said she, “it’s not just me. Other women, even women half your age, think you’re attractive.”

I’d forgotten that story until this evening. Sorry, LJ…that was a helluva gift.

What is it about that lesson that’s so hard for me to accept?

I think I make a choice…I’ve caught myself at it more than once…to avoid doing those things that attracted bad relationships in the past. After all, if I don’t have any relationships, I can’t have another bad one, right? So on meeting someone new, I withdraw, and hide the qualities that might make me attractive.

I justify this behavior by citing how seldom I’ve met someone I’d actually want to date long term. The odds that the next woman I meet will be extraordinary are slim, so why bother?

Hey, I got a what if: what if she is?

Because maybe. Just maybe.



* Shout out to Nora Ephron: Yo, Nora! ‘Sup?!?

Something Wicked This Way Comes...

I have a couple posts in the works, but since last night, I've been thinking about a post about a little tradition my daughter and I have for Halloween: The All Night Scary Movie Festival.

It's not a terribly original post idea, and it seems that Wordnerd got there first, sort of, but so be it. And besides, I'm going to be talking about the movies and not the things that scare me. So, chill.

My daughter moved back to San Diego to live with me when she was fourteen. She and her mother had stopped getting along (okay, she'd gotten sick of her mother's shit, if you want the truth). If a fourteen year old girl wants to leave her entire circle of friends and move to another state, it has to be Important-with-a-capital-I. What sold me on the idea...not that I wasn't immediately thrilled that she'd asked to come live with me...was that her friends all thought she should move, too.

So, when she got here, I did my level best to make sure there were things for us to do together that could become father-daughter traditions...things she'd look back on fondly twenty years from now. The problem with teenagers is that they're changing faster than anybody wants them to. Faster, even, than they want to, themselves. I remember how I felt when the things I loved as a boy were suddenly off-limits as I got older. It sucked.

When my daughter came to me in October that year and said she wanted to go Trick-or-Treating with her girlfriend, I didn't want to just say, "No, you're too old for that."

I offered an alternative: An all-night scary movie festival.

She's a bigger movie-buff than I am, so she enthusiastically embraced the idea.

That first year, we watched, "The Others", "The Shining" (with Jack Nicholson), and "Signs". We had "Poltergeist", and the original "Carrie" waiting in the wings, but we both faded around 1 am.

Last year, she suggested that we do it again, and she chose, "The Village", "The Sixth Sense", and a couple others we didn't get around to watching because we...well...we both faded around 1 am. "Carrie" remains in cellophane.

This year, I've commandeered the list. I considered "It" and "The Stand", because Halloween just isn't, without Stephen King. But this year, the list was almost predestined...my daughter is busily reviewing movies released in 1925 as part of a tribute to her high school's 80th anniversary, so we'll begin with the original "Phantom of the Opera" with Lon Chaney, Sr. (Interesting side note: when I asked the otherwise very knowledgeable Suncoast Video Guy if they had a copy of "the original Phantom", he said, "Did you check new releases?" Uh, no, this one starred Lon Chaney. "Who?" The Man of a Thousand Faces? He stared at me, blankly. "When was it released?" 1925, I said. "Hmm," said he, "sooo, I'm guessing it's not a musical.")

Because my daughter scoffed at "Aliens vs. Predator", we'll also be watching "Alien" (the director's cut from 2003), "Carrie" (at last), and both versions of "House of Wax" (though I am convinced that the Vincent Price version will be creepier, I plan to thoroughly enjoy Paris Hilton's demise in the more recent version.)

It should be a good night.

Word Search

A number of my fellow bloggers have posted about the often bizarre and disturbing keywords that have led to their sites, and I thought I’d check it out myself.  After all, it’d have to be entertaining, right?

In the last two days, 46% of you got to my site looking for Kristy Sammis.  She’s got a great blog, and though I haven’t posted any comments there in months, it’s nice to know that I can bask in her reflected glory.  In fact, being a lazy person at heart, it’s extremely nice to know that I can bask in her reflected glory without having to do anything at all. If you’re looking for her, thank you for visiting, stay as long as you like, and you can find her here.

One person got here searching for Alan Funt.  Not him, personally, because he’s dead, but information about him, I’m sure.  I hope.  Anyhow, I did make reference to him in one of my posts…a favorite of mine, partly because of the fact that it will be good fodder for embarrassing my daughter at various public functions, and the rest because it’s mildly amusing in a pass-milk-through-the-nose sort of way.

A couple of folks got here using the keywords “whale watching movie”, and another used the phrase “best time for whale watching in San Diego”.  To those folks, I humbly apologize.  The title of my blog is not (and never was intended to be) an invitation.  It’s more of a statement of what’s possible, and I’m fairly sure that my office mates would not be amused at the sudden influx of tourists seeking rare glimpses of distant cetaceans.  Please note that it’s easier to see the whales from the lookout point at the Cabrillo Monument a mile down the road.  The view of them that exists from my desk is my own, private view, thank you.  It’s mine, and you can’t have it.

I am not entirely sure what led one person to use the search phrase “does a whale’s tongue weigh 4 tone”, and I am a little afraid to google that to find out the answer to the apparent question, if indeed that’s what it is.  The search engine used was Google Australia, which is interesting.  But most interesting is that the person was more literate when they began typing the search phrase than when they finished.  After all, they did use an apostrophe in the word “whale’s” but dropped an “n” in the word “tonne”, which (correct me if I’m wrong) would be the correct way of spelling “ton” if you live Down Under.  (Come to think of it, Aussies speak what is almost an entirely different language.  During my last deployment, a couple of my shipmates met a pair of local ladies, one of whom said, “Be a dear and get the doona out of the boot”, which apparently required a wildly extravagant amount of translation, all of which was unsuccessful until said young lady led my buddy to the car, opened the trunk and pulled out a blanket.)  Anyhow, I have met some positively wonderful Aussies over the years, and I apologize for not having the answer to that particular question anywhere within my blog.  

Finally, I’d like to thank the Universe for again placing the phrase “you need to find a girlfriend” where I could easily stumble across it and feel worse about being romantically unattached.  I’m not sure if it means anything, but when I wrote this post, the phrase “Kurt needs a wife” came up.  Perhaps the Universe is backing off a bit, or holds less hope for me, which is a particularly humbling thought.  Thanks for that.

Tagged

I had a long day at work today…a very long day.  Eleven hours.  As I’ve mentioned before, I am an instructor…my specialty is “distributed training”, which is to say that whenever I attend any kind of meeting or gathering or sometimes just when I’m sitting in my office, I get this reaction from people who’ve only just met me: “You’re Yoda???”  I imagine it’s somewhat akin to Jimmy Olsen’s reaction if he happened to round the corner and catch Clark Kent in a phone booth with his shirt unbuttoned.

Yes, I teach…generally through the medium of chat…and since I’m not actually in the room with my students, the instructor/trainee relationship is somewhat stunted.  You know, when you’re in a classroom, you can say to the class, “…and after you do that, then do this.”  And everyone nods and takes notes and once in a while asks a polite question.

With distributed training, you say, “…and after you do that, then do this.” And you get any of these possible responses:

• “Do this , then that?”


• “Wait one.”


• “Where is the reference for doing that?”


• “I can’t do that right now, I’ve got General Quarters.  Can we do it at 1600 this afternoon?”

And lately, what I get the most is, “No, we’re not going to do this or that, that’s not how the system works.”

To which I reply, “Okay, so you explain to me how it works.”

And (generally after a very long silence) they’ll reply, “I don’t know how it works.  I need someone to teach me.”

I had…no kidding…nine hours of that today.  The last two hours, they did as I asked, and (just imagine!) everything went deliriously well.

So when I got home today, I was really hoping I’d have a meme to respond to.  Thanks, Sherri!

So here we go:

What were you doing ten years ago?

Ten years ago, I was six months into my year-and-a-half long divorce battle.  Actually, the battle was not over whether or not to get divorced, but whether there would be anything left of me when the divorce was final.  We fought for all that time over the blank in which the court was to fill in the amount of my child support (California has a brobdingnagian formula by which the courts calculate “guideline support” and there’s no use in trying to predict it).  My attorney kept leaving it blank, figuring rightly that the judge would order whatever amount he felt like on the day of our hearing, and my ex-wife wanted a dollar amount in the blank, but was too obstreperous to say so.

I was also wildly in love with a woman named Janice, whom I’d met mere weeks after my ex-wife and I separated.  It was not a terribly good relationship for her, I’m afraid.  I was an emotional train wreck.  She, on the other hand, gave me all the reason I needed to avoid being trapped back into an awful marriage.  I am enormously grateful to her for that.

Where were you five years ago?

I was still on active duty, doing a job that has since been outsourced and given to a civilian contractor, who is, coincidentally, me.  

I was also watching helplessly as the only other long term relationship I’ve had since my divorce ground to a close.  It actually lasted until December, but the handwriting was on the wall long before that.

Where were you one year ago?

Probably sitting right here at this computer.  Or this computer’s older sibling.  

Things haven’t changed much since then, really.  My life is actually pretty stable these days!

What are your five favorite snacks?

Now, we’re getting somewhere.

1. Fudge brownies
2. Cheez-its
3. Dry-roasted peanuts
4. Chips and fire-roasted fajita salsa
5. Cinnamon Caramel Cashew ice cream

What are five songs to which you know all the words?

I’m a musician, and I know the words to a LOT of songs…so I’m going to change the question to “What are five songs you wish you knew all the words to?”

1. Baby Got Back – Sir Mixalot
2. Thirty Thousand Pounds of Bananas – Harry Chapin
3. The Bright Side of Life – Eric Idle
4. Camelot – Monty Python
5. Yakko’s World – Yakko Warner

What are five things you’d do with 100 million dollars?
1. Buy a very nice house on Sunset Cliffs
2. Buy an airplane
3. Retire
4. Set up a trust to make up the difference between what the city budgets for my daughter’s high school and what it would take to actually run the school.
5. Fund wishes for Make-a-Wish kids


What five places do you like to run away to?

1.  Just out – going for a walk clears my head
2.  Almost any place my imagination can take me

This one was hard!  I don’t often run away physically, it’s more a mental retreat for me.

What are five things you would never wear?

Oh, the possibilities are endless.

1. any uniform from Star Trek – The Next Generation
2. A “belly shirt”
3. a t-shirt emblazoned with a “Hillary For President” logo
4. sandals
5. Any item of clothing identical to what my significant other is wearing, if the intent is simply to be cute

What are your five favorite TV shows?

1.  Gilmore Girls
2.  Battlestar Galactica
3.  The West Wing
4.  House
5.  Lost

What are your five biggest joys?

1.  My daughters
2.  My parents
3.  My sister and brother-in-law
4.  My friends: Bear and RadiantSmile
5.  Art: music and books

What are your five favorite toys?

1.  My flight simulator
2.  Tivo – yes, it’s a toy.  An essential toy.
3.  My guitar
4.  My work…yep, I love my job that much.
5.  This position is available.  If you’re female, smart, funny, attractive and sane, and you’d like to learn more about this position, and perhaps actually be my favorite toy, drop me a line.

Five people to pass this on to:

1. Ramblin’ Girl
2. Gray Shyro
3. Betty
4. Etchen
5. Chloe

Object Lesson

Once again, Stephanie Klein touches me, this time with her post on rejection. I’d dealt with the subject, here, in a passing way, and I won’t revisit it.

No, what moved me about Stephanie’s post was how a careless remark from or action by someone we love can shape our view of the world.

Such things are unavoidable, of course, because none of us has any way of knowing what another person holds dear and how they’ll react to what we say and do. And if we stop to consider everything we say and do, we’ll never say or do anything, out of fear that we’ll hurt someone.

The trick is to find some balance between compassion and inaction.

My father is one of the most compassionate men I’ve ever met. He is thoughtful, considerate, kind, gentle, honorable, and wise. He is my hero, my friend, my biggest fan…he’s my dad, after all.

He and I were featured in a PBS special on the Navy’s Tiger Cruise program, which at the time was for fathers and sons: Dad or Son would fly out to the last port a ship visits before returning home, and ride the ship back. On this trip, Dad flew to Hawaii to meet my ship. During the trip, the PBS crew took my dad aside and interviewed him about the experience. I don’t remember the question that prompted my dad to say this, but at one point, my dad said, “It’s indescribable, when you see your son has become a man…” He hesitated a moment, his chin quivering and his eyes misty. Later that day, he took this picture of me receiving an award…

You can see the cameraman in the background. The photo is a tad out of focus, because my dad was misty-eyed again…a moment later, he bowed his head and wiped his eyes, and the TV camera caught him at it.

I could go on about the things my dad has done…no son as ever been prouder, or loved his father more.

I have a memory, from when I was perhaps six or seven, of going to the airport to watch the airplanes take off and land. It wasn’t an airshow…it was just a normal day in Windsor Locks. But even then, I was fascinated with airplanes, and I couldn’t get enough.

Then, as now, I was supremely strong-willed, and hated to do what was expected of me for its own sake.

When it was time for us to go, I flatly refused to get into the car. I was determined that we’d stay longer. I threw a temper tantrum. My dad, as calm as ever, did and said everything he could think of to get me to get into the car on my own. He didn’t raise his hand to me…he simply tried to reason with this unreasonable boy, while airplanes roared overhead.

I don’t remember how long we…discussed…it before my dad got into the car, looked at me standing there and said, “Get in the car, or I’m leaving without you.”

I still refused. I don’t remember how many times he made that offer, but I know it was more than once.

And then, he did it. He drove off.

I stood there in the middle of that dirt parking lot, breath coming in hitches, my fists clenching and unclenching, as the shock of being left behind washed over me. I felt abandoned.

Of course, he drove to the end of the dirt lane that led to the lookout spot where we’d been…where I still was…turned around and came back. He was out of my sight for perhaps thirty seconds, but the relief I felt when he came back was indescribable.

I expressed my relief in the form of anger, and I remember that he had a hard time not laughing at me and my impotent, little boy rage. “Don’t be mad at me,” he said. “You’re the one who wanted to stay.”

I haven’t thought of that afternoon in years, but I can tell you how that incident shaped my world: my greatest fear is of being abandoned. It most often manifests itself in romantic relationships. When I was at sea, I was secretly terrified of falling overboard, because I knew exactly what it would feel like to watch the ship steaming away from me.

Is it my father’s fault that I am terrified of being abandoned? Nope. It’s mine. He offered me the opportunity to go with him, more than once, and there does come a time when an object lesson is required. I would not be the man I have become without that lesson. I needed to be shown that it’s possible to push too far.

I watch myself with my daughters, to see if I’ve done any harm. They are astonishing young women, though I really can’t take more than partial credit, and though I’m confident that they’d grow up healthy and normal and strong, I’m just as confident that they’ll one day have to deal with a weakness of some kind that I imparted to them.

If I do, perhaps they’ll forgive me for it.

Haiku Moments

I have mentioned before that I write haiku from time to time.  I began this as practice for writing, a suggestion I got from One Continuous Mistake: Four Noble Truths for Writers by Gail Sher.

When I was in high school, I remember my English teacher…sophomore year, maybe?...giving us an assignment to write haiku.  I hated that assignment, with a passion unlike any other at that point in my life.  How could anyone write a whole poem in just seventeen syllables?  I struggled over every word, and I don’t recall ever putting one on the page.  

I get it now.

Turns out that my instinct was right about the limitation imposed by the fixed number of syllables.  The structure isn’t as important as these three things:

• the literal meaning is pleasing


• there is a deeper meaning


• it offers the reader a moment of enlightenment

Haiku are about living in the moment.

With this realization, I bought one of those blank, lined, hardback journals.  Looking at it now, I remember the moment when I created that first poem; it was in the car, immediately after I left the book store.

Black coffee
Sweetly steaming perfect cup –
Full of life

I’m not sure that meets all three of the elements I listed, but there it is.

There is humor in some of what I’ve written:

cobweb gathers dust
is it spider or I who
needs to clean the house?

Eyelids droop. There’s a
curious euphoria
in being this tired

And melancholy…

Moonbeam alights on
wall too thin for privacy
What is she watching?

There are those which capture how I felt when first in love.

she owns the mirror
black frilled femininity
twirls my breath away

Standing by her car
her embrace is a surprise
I feel unworthy of

We touch. I wonder
where I end and you begin;
Fingers interlaced.

Softly sweet, your glance
at me sideways makes me blush;
When can I kiss you?

unexpectedly
she sings.  it is a moment
of pure joy for me

…and a very few that speak of that marvelous time when love is bright and strong and real:

stretched high on tip toe
only moonlight on your skin
you are breathtaking

closed eyes, I trace
slow circles on flawless skin
you rise to my touch

you moan, back arching
I want to kiss all of you
but where do I start?

I have seen you when
barely awake, yawning, shy,
you are most lovely

I’m getting back to my writing.  I took out Spitfire tonight, read through what I have of that first chapter, added a few paragraphs, some dialogue.

It felt good.  

To Soothe the Savage Breast

Once again, my daughter comes through with the music: This band rocks...as I'm typing this I'm listening for a third time to this track (music by Joe Green) that reminds me of the best stuff Queen ever did. The lyrics are in Italian, but here's the translation:



"Woman is fickle, like a feather in the wind,
she changes the tone of her voice, and her thoughts!

Always a sweet, pretty face,
in tears or in laughter, she is always lying!

Woman is fickle, like a feather in the wind,
she changes her accents, and her thoughts
and her thoughts, and her thoughts!

He is always miserable who trusts in her
who to her confides his unwary heart!

Yet nobody feels happy fully
who on that bosom doesn't drink love,

Woman is fickle, like a feather in the wind,
she changes the tone of her voice and her thoughts
and her thoughts, and her thoughts!"

Recognize it yet?

Perhaps you'll recognize the lyrics untranslated:

La donna è mobile
qual piuma al vento
muta d'accento
e di pensiero

Sempre un'amabile
leggiadro viso
in pianto e in riso
è menzognero

La donna è mobil
qual piuma al vento
muta d'accento e di pensier
e di pensier, e di pensier

È sempre misero
chi a lei s'affida
chi le confida
mal cauto il core

Pur mai non sentesi
felice appieno
chi su quel seno
non liba amore

La donna è mobil
qual piuma al vento
muta d'accento e di pensier
e di pensier, e di pensier

Who the heck is Joe Green? Okay, Giuseppe Verdi.

Check them out:


The East Village Opera Company

Autoanthropology 201

Sherri posted this, which is a great idea, so I’m not sure why she chose the title she did. (Perhaps she couldn’t think of a better title.) (Yes, the original title for this post was "Strange", but after going back and rereading some of my older posts, I realized I'd done something similar and called it "Autoanthropology 101", I made the change.)

Rising to her challenge, I submit the following list of Eleven* Strange Things About Me:

1) As long as I can remember, the only way I’ve been able to get to sleep at night, regardless of how tired and shagged out I am (after a prolonged squawk) has been to tell myself stories until I drift off to sleep. Quite often, these stories feature me as the hero, and I invariably have some unbearably cool Hero Gear. At various times, I have owned vintage airplanes and car racing teams, commanded warships, and driven trains. When I was 11, my self-told bedtime stories centered around my adventures as a high school student who always drove to school in a restored World War II German half-track. There is always a girl named either Shelley or Diana, and over the years, I have saved her from a number of improbable calamities using only my lightning reflexes and my infallible instinct for survival.

When my ex-wife was pregnant with my older daughter, we attended a Lamaze class that included the self-hypnosis relaxation techniques known as Imagery. When the instructor remarked that I seemed to be picking it up pretty quickly. I said, “Yeah, I’ve been doing this since I was little.” I’m certain he didn’t believe me.

2) I have experienced telepathy a number of times. Once, during some mandatory training the Navy sent me to during the 80s, we spent an hour or so practicing Imagery relaxation techniques. The facilitator “guided” us (“Now imaaagine yourself in a peeeeaceful plaaaace…your faaavorite haaaapy plaaaace.”) through the exercise. I pictured myself in my mother’s kitchen, as she made my favorite: apple pie. At the end of the exercise, the facilitator quietly said, “Who had pie in their image? I smelled apple pie.” Years later, at the beginning of a gunnery exercise in which I’d be expected to draw upon skills I hadn’t used in years, my nervous preparations were interrupted momentarily by a clear mental image of a friend having lunch in her office, and after that, I had an overwhelming sense of confidence. We not only excelled in the exercise, as the spotter, I scored a direct hit, dropping a five-inch diameter projectile onto the top-dead-center of a tank from three miles away. When I got home, I called my friend and she greeted me with, “Oh! Hey! On Wednesday, I was having a late lunch in my office and I felt like you needed a little encouragement, so I sent you some confident thoughts…”

3) I sometimes have a hard time not blurting out movie lines that are perversely appropriate for a given situation, and sometimes the lines I don’t say strike me so funny, that I can’t stop giggling. For example, in that Lamaze class, when the instructor asked how many people have experienced the birth of a child, I so wanted to say (in a squeaky, high-pitched, Butterfly McQueen voice), “Ah don’ know nuffin’ ‘bout birfin’ no babies!”

I do the same thing with lines from Monty Python skits. We often have theoretical discussions at work that devolve into “yes-you-can-no-you-can’t” and when that happens, I have to bite my tongue to avoid saying, “Look, this isn’t an argument! It’s just contradiction! An argument is a connected series of statements intended to establish a proposition.” Of course, no one would get it and respond, “No, it isn’t.”

4) I am secretly an absolute freak about The Gilmore Girls. It’s not just that I like looking at Lauren Graham (which I do), it’s that the show is full of quirky characters doing insane things but somehow managing to remain true to themselves. I love the writing on this show. The dialogue is full of smart, obscure pop-culture references and the storylines are balanced and just unpredictable enough to keep me drawn in. I love that there’s at least one show on TV about smart women who don’t have to dissect things and solve crimes to be considered intelligent. Why do I feel like I have to justify this?

5) I am not so secretly freakish about The West Wing. I don’t care about the politics they espouse on the show. For Democrats, they are sometimes surprisingly conservative (take for example, the episode in which Martin Sheen, as President Jed Bartlet, justifies an attack on a Third World nation suspected of harboring terrorists and conducting an illicit WMD program by saying, “Because, in this day and age, you can build a bomb in your country and bring it to my country, what goes on in your country is very much my business.”) The writing is even better than on Gilmore Girls and I like it.

6) I have observed that guys who are arrogant assholes seem to be more attractive to women. In an effort to make myself appear more attractive, I attempted to become an arrogant asshole. I lasted one whole minute.

7) I became a vegetarian for a month. It was an unhappy time for me, but I figured it was just the diet, and was determined to stick with it until the day I drove by the In-n-Out Burger on the corner of Rosecrans and Sports Arena by mistake. (Please allow me to explain to non-Californians: In-n-Out prepares their burgers the same way they have since the Fifties, and they vent the aroma out onto the street, a Siren’s scent. It is impossible to come within 200 feet of an In-n-Out without getting hungry.) I am no longer a vegetarian.

8) I snore. I always have. When I was 8, my parents began closing my bedroom door at night so that they could sleep. In the summer, they’d have to keep the side window in their bedroom closed because the sound of my snoring would pass through my bedroom side window, echo off the neighbor’s house, and keep my parents awake. I cannot nap in public (such as on a plane or train) for fear of detecting someone’s ill-concealed smirk after I wake up.

9) I don’t so much cuss at bad drivers as scold them. The sluggard who counts to ten after the light turns green will generally earn this: “Okay, come on, Sweetheart, it’s the narrow pedal on the right. No, the RIGHT. That’s good…all the way through the intersection now.” I take a great deal of pleasure in pulling alongside the driver who blew by me and cut me off on the freeway so that he could get the next exit first, especially when I got there the same time he did without driving like a maniac.

10) I have very little of consequence in my refrigerator, and almost all of what is there is past its expiration date. I do not see the need to stock my eighteen cubic foot refrigerator when there is a 550,000 cubic foot grocery store a block away.

11) There is an added draw to the grocery store: I have a little thing going on with one of the cashiers, whom I will call FlirtatiousCutie. Whenever I see that she’s working, I go through her line…even if it means violating the Fifteen Item Rule when she’s working the Express Line (not often…see Strange Thing 10). When she’s helping the customer in line ahead of me, our eyes will meet and she’ll smile at me and lower her eyes, then go back to helping that customer wearing that little smile that belongs to me. (If you’ve seen the smile Maggie Gyllenhaal gives to the camera at the end of Secretary, you know the one: I-know-what-you’re-thinking-and-you’re-right.)

*“It’s one louder, isn’t it? It’s not ten. You see, most blokes, you know, will be playing at ten. You’re on ten here, all the way up, all the way up, all the way up, you’re on ten on your guitar. Where can you go from there? Where? Put it up to eleven, exactly. One louder.

Fair and Balanced

I've been listening to and reading reports about the relief efforts on the Subcontinent, and stumbled across this headline today: Islamist Cleric Slams Slow Pakistan Quake Relief.

It makes me want to shout, "SEE??? It takes a while, doesn't it???"

But really, my main question is: Why has no one in the press compared New Orleans to Pakistan and come to the conclusion that relief just takes time after a disaster?

Moment of Truth

It turned out to be a busy day for both of us, Freckles and me. Sure, for me, it started out pretty much like any other, if a bit earlier. I shaved a little closer than usual, and brought my travel shaving kit to work so that I could get rid of the coffee breath and the mid-day stubble before it was time for our lunch. In it, I packed my favorite cologne.

I got a message that my 9:00 am meeting from yesterday, an old friend who’d failed to show up, would be coming this morning. The meeting was important, but I steeled myself for the task of cutting it short at 10:30, regardless of what had been resolved or decided in the meeting by then.

I kept the meeting on topic, and wrapped things up with an impromptu phone call to a colleague in Hawaii to confirm that our decisions had been the correct ones.

They were.

At 10:30 exactly, I excused myself, surreptitiously snagging my shaving kit and made for the men’s room. I could feel the adrenaline rasping excitedly through my arteries and veins.

I had to take a moment to steady my hand before I applied the razor to my face…A slip and I’ll still be bleeding at lunch. My reflection and I exchanged a long, steady look. This is important. Relax. No cream, just hot water, I shaved myself as smooth as I ever get. Cologne, not too much, just a spritz on the inside of my right wrist, then a quick wipe of the wrist on my cheeks and throat.

Ready.

I headed back to my office, and walking in, fellow cubizen and usual lunch partner Buck asks what I’m planning for lunch.

“Sorry, man. I’ve got an…appointment.”

“Oh? Are you gone for the day, then?”

“Uh, I don’t know.” I hesitate a moment. “Actually, it’s a date.” I cringe, and take a moment to silently castigate myself. So much for the downlow. “I have a lunch date.”

“Cool!” he says. “Well, good luck!”

Tim, another co-worker, asks, “Can we come along? We’ll be quiet, I promise.” There is mischief in his eyes.

“Absolutely not.” I wonder if I should change the place for our lunch date to somewhere farther from the base…it’s possible that they may choose the same place at random. I decide it’s worth the risk, and say nothing.

I head out to the spot Freckles and I agreed to meet. She had told me she also had a meeting, and that she’d try to be out of it before 11:00, but that these meetings always run long. “If I’m late, don’t worry, I’ll be there eventually. If you’re not there, I’ll look for you in your office.”

Sure enough, she’s late. I head back to the office, regretting again that I’d mentioned the word “date”. Now, I will have to explain why I am back so soon.

Head down, I mutter, “Meeting,” in the direction of the inquisitive eyes, and settle down at my desk to do nothing while I wait.

B comes in and wants to know what’s going on for lunch, and Buck, helpful as ever, says, “Kurt has a date.”

As if on cue, Freckles walks in. She looks frazzled, and she is a little breathless. Ignoring my colleagues, she says, “Sorry my meeting went so long. Do you mind waiting while I change? I’m still in uniform. I can meet you down there in fifteen minutes, if that’s okay.”

Of course it is.

Knowing that fifteen minutes really means twenty, I exchange a look with Buck who nods his head. The look he gives me is inscrutable.

I head for the car, sorry that she won’t be riding with me because it means the date will be shorter by fifteen or twenty minutes, and I am already not willing to let it end.

She arrives a few minutes behind me, wearing a white hoodie and brown Capri pants that expose just a hint of her tummy. Her hair is down. I’ve never seen her with her hair down, and the sight is a bit overwhelming. If she was beautiful in uniform, her hair in a tight French braid, she is stunning with her hair unbound. In that moment, I am the luckiest man alive.

Waiting to order, we settle into an easy conversation about leadership issues and her concerns about one of her guys who just can’t seem to live up to the Navy’s expectations. She’s doing all she can to keep him from serious disciplinary action, but he requires near-constant supervision. That’s what awaits her after lunch. Another thing we have in common: compassionate leadership. Utmost concern for our troops. I tell her so, complimenting her on it.

Over lunch, we swap sea stories, two former cruiser sailors…she’s been there and so have I; we’ve both done that and got the t-shirt. We are both warriors, equals. Can this really be? I wonder.

We talk about office politics, how some thrive on it and others do not. “I could never be political,” she says. “I can’t lie to anyone about anything.” I have already sensed this about her, but I do not say so. I look into her eyes, smile and think, exactly the quality I’m looking for.

She talks about her concern for her weight, how she’s been working hard to control it and to lose more. She’s so honest she tells me her exact weight. “You don’t need to,” I say. “I’ve noticed that you’ve lost weight, but you look amazing right now.” And I tell her that the first time we spoke, she was so beautiful that I could think of nothing to say.

She takes compliments well, I must say.

The conversation flows easily, and after an hour or so, she says she needs to get back to her troops, but she lingers for a few more minutes, laughing as we each tell another story. I ask her callsign, and she tells me, then surprises me by knowing mine. Of course, I realize after a moment, it’s in my e-mail signature. Still, she’s been paying attention.

We slide the remains of our salads into boxes…quite a lot, actually, since we were both engrossed in the conversation…and head for the door.

“Thank you for lunch,” she says. “I had a good time.”

“Me, too. Would you like to go out again sometime, maybe for dinner and a movie?”

She looks at me and smiles. “I’d love to, but, I…have a boyfriend.”

He’s deployed to the Gulf right now, and there’s no firm word on when he’ll be back, and we share a sad chuckle about the uncertain state of things for the military now, with the War on Terrorism and the war in Iraq. It is the first uncomfortable moment, not because of the revelation, but because war is regrettable.

“We can still get together for lunches, though,” says she. “I’d really like that.”

I will, too.

I Should Probably Not Blog So Early in the Morning

I woke up this morning at about 3:30, which is not uncommon when I have a lot on my mind.  

At times like these, when I’m most inside my head, I really wish I could write the way Stephanie Klein does, with beautifully woven bits of imagery.  Usually, the best I can manage is a sort of kvetching, self-indulgent…well, “whine” would be a good word if this were an audio blog.

The whole concept of blogging has come into question as of late.  Stephanie wrote about what she very aptly called “the secret life of blogs”, how the beginning of each blog is like e-mailing one’s self, as though working out what one thinks and feels in conversation with one’s closest friend.  As it catches on, as people begin to read, the blogger becomes a bit of an exhibitionist, balancing what he shares with what he doesn’t, eager to express the thoughts that drove him to create a blog, but desperately avoiding full disclosure.

There are places one does not go.

There is always the risk of discovery.

Of course, that’s part of the appeal.  It’s perversely exciting to know that someone might connect the Kurt Kalbfleisch I wear for the benefit of others with the naked one here.  Semi-naked, anyway.

Anonymity is a personal choice, or it is here, at least.  

It’s a funny thing, and I suppose pretty telling about who I am: I choose vulnerability over security almost every time I’m given the choice.

No, that’s not true.  Most times, I don’t have the courage to choose vulnerability.  When it comes to small moments of vulnerability, I often run and hide.  Approached by a beautiful woman, I tell myself that I’ve nothing to say and retreat into embarrassing silence.  Once engaged in conversation, my eyes drift of their own accord to someplace safe, so that I don’t have to see the reaction to the thoughts I reveal, and I am sure this is universally perceived as disinterest.  (It isn’t: I am simply very, very shy.)  I know that these things are subtle – though sometimes perhaps not so subtle -- defense mechanisms.  

I’d like to say that this little moment of self-realization will lead to full-scale change in my life, that I’ll stop doing the things that keep me from letting people in, from letting myself into other people.  

If only it were that simple.  

What will it take, I’ve often wondered, to get me to stop doing those things?

What do I need?

Last week, Gillian posted this meme (without tagging anyone), and, well, it does sort of offer up some answers to that last question.

Yes.

So here’s how it works: do a Google search for “YOUR NAME needs” (don’t forget the quotation marks) and see what comes up.  Where I’ve written “YOUR NAME” in all capital letters, put your own name.  For example, my search string was “Kurt needs”.

That phrase resulted in 1,980 links (funny, I would have thought the phrase “Gillian needs” would have garnered more, since she’s got a much cooler name than I do.)

Here are some:

• Kurt needs some Kleenex


• Kurt needs a 350Z for that Houston, Texas!


• Kurt needs to give himself a couple of workers who can legitimately deliver in the ring


• Kurt needs you!


• Kurt needs new shoes


• Kurt needs support and direction


• Kurt needs to add and subtract some matrices


• A suit designed to repel bullets – just the type of outfit Kurt needs to take on sentries!


• Kurt needs a wife


• Kurt needs to work out to get rid of the belly

I’ll leave it up to you to decide which of those is astonishingly true and which are just silly.  It’s after 6 now, and I need to go shower and get ready to take on those sentries.

A Good Day for China

Not sure if you heard the news...and though we here in the US may not seem to be very interested, the Chinese are very proud today. And justifiably so.

No, I am not talking about the successful launch of their second manned space flight.

No, this is about the newly discovered archeological evidence that the Chinese did, in fact, invent pasta.

Sorry, Italy. You got there second. The Chinese have been serving noodles for four thousand years.

At last, we have an explanation for the stuff on the steam table at the Rice King on base.

The names might lend a clue as to why we in America might favor the Italian stuff. Chinese -- "Iron Wire Pasta" Italian -- "Angel Hair Pasta"

Mmmmmm...Iron Wire...yummy!

Wait For It.....

Yes.

Small Moves

Kelly is apparently anxious to know how things went with Freckles today.  (I knew someone would be.  Thanks, Kelly!)

She also writes that taking a step forward, even a small one, is progress.  

I am fond of a book entitled One Continuous Mistake by Gail Sher.  The book is subtitled Four Noble Truths for Writers, and typical of the Zen philosophy she practices, the Four Truths are printed on the back of the book.  They are:

• Writers write


• Writing is a process


• You don’t know what your writing will be until the end of the process


• If writing is your practice, the only way to fail is to not write

She explains that the measure of the writer, the truest measure, is not how many words are on the page at the end of each day, but that the writer participated in the process of writing.  There are days when I sit and stare at the computer, a blank virtual page on the screen, and I can find nothing to say.  There was one day some years ago when I sat back, dripping sweat from the effort, and found that I’d written four thousand words.  

I think the key is patience.  As Ted Arroway says to his daughter in the movie “Contact”, “Small moves, Ellie, small moves.”

So, Freckles.  Yes.

I began my day with firm determination…today was to be the day.  

As so often happens when one is resolved to a course of action, the Universe sends little tests designed to weaken one’s resolve.  It was time for the Third Day Car Movement Ritual (you may remember that my daughter’s car had been towed after it had been parked on the street outside my home for longer than 72 hours), and getting out of the car, I dragged the leg of my khaki pants against the greasy door latch…something that never happens.  So, I headed to work with a big black smudge on my left leg.  When I got to the men’s room at work, I discovered that I was having a Bad Hair Day.  (This is not easy to do when one has so little hair.  In fact, it’s quite astonishing to have a Bad Hair Day.)  I had to wait through the weekly office meeting before I could wander off in search of Freckles.

Finally, I did indeed wander off in search of Freckles.  I headed over to the lab where she works, and discovered that they’ve installed a new security system…it used to be simple walk-in…and I could not get in.  I cruised around the usual places where I seem to see her in transit somewhere, and no luck.  

I refused to let it get me down.  At some point today, there had to be a break.  Had to.

I dealt with various issues at work.  I solved problems.  I taught people.  I gave advice where it was sought after.  I developed a scenario.  

I was not idle at all.  

And I was preoccupied the entire time.

Kelly’s comment was the last straw, and I undertook a rather desperate measure: I dropped Freckles an e-mail and asked directly: How about lunch one day this week?

It was late in the day when I sent it, and the parking lot was nearly empty, so I am sure she won’t get it until tomorrow morning.

I’ll let ya know.

Small moves.

What Not To Take To The Gym

Holiday Thoughts

At the risk of seeming politically incorrect, Happy Columbus Day.  

Not Happy Discoverer’s Day (which presumably is intended to equally honor the Scandinavian explorer who allegedly got to Nova Scotia before Old Chris made it to the West Indies).  I know, Christopher Columbus did unpleasant things to the locals when he arrived, so it’s considered (by some) to be inappropriate to honor him with a special day.  

Remember when February had two three-day weekends?  Lincoln’s Birthday and Washington’s Birthday.  When I was a kid I loved that.  I could never tell which was which, but I liked having two Mondays off from school.  Then someone suggested that we celebrate Martin Luther King’s birthday.  It’s appropriate…a hero of the civil rights movement.  But, there had to be a zero sum gain, so at the same time the government was trumpeting its new holiday to honor Dr. King, it took away Lincoln’s and Washington’s Birthdays and gave us Presidents’ Day.  (There’s no small amount of irony in that.  Lincoln now gets half a birthday so that Dr. King gets a whole one.  Lincoln having laid the foundation for Dr. King’s work, and all.  And let’s not forget that Dr. King chose the Lincoln Memorial as the backdrop for his “I Have a Dream” speech.)

I find it amusing that the Forces of Political Correctness haven’t renamed Halloween.  I mean, Halloween is a celebration of Paganism that doesn’t even bother to cover its nakedness.  Shouldn’t we honor heroes on that day?  And let’s face it, the sugar consumed on and after Halloween makes drill-wielding heroes of our neighborhood dentists.  So let’s change the name to something that is more suitable to our politically correct sensibilities: Dentists’ Day.

Actually, I didn’t set out to write about political correctness this morning.  No, I sat down with a slightly more selfish topic in mind: San Diego street maintenance.  Specifically the maintenance being done to my street right now.

On Friday morning, the street crew came and tore a trench across my street, put up signs and barricades, ate their lunch and disappeared for the weekend by 1 pm.  Hey, it’s a long weekend, I thought.  They’re leaving early to enjoy the long weekend and isn’t that nice? But what about this gaping hole in my street that will have to be here all weekend now?

It turns out that they weren’t leaving to enjoy the long weekend, because it wasn’t a long weekend for them.  They arrived this morning at 6:30 am.

All of that had me thinking (which I’m not happy to do before sunrise on a day off) that San Diego’s municipal leadership really is a collection of idiots.  Think I’m kidding?  The city council overstated the city’s net worth by $640 million dollars for fiscal year 2002.  (By contrast, Enron overstated its revenue by $580 million over five years.)  The city pension fund is a billion dollars in debt.  Yes, that’s right…a BILLION.  

Of course, the city pushed through a bond measure that put more than three hundred million dollars of public money into a new ball park for the Padres.

It’s no wonder we have Carl Spackler handling the day-to-day maintenance of the city’s infrastructure.  (“I have to laugh because I’ve even outsmarted myself.  My enemy, my foe, is a pot hole.  And in order to conquer the pot hole, I have to think like a pot hole.  And whenever possible, to look like one.  I gotta dig a hole and let it sit there for a few days.”)

The Fallout From Infidelity

I brought it up in this post: the effect infidelity has on the cuckolded partner.  Daisy, bless her heart, asked how anyone gets over something like that.

My answer in that post, as now, is to rebuild your life.  On your own terms.

For several years, I volunteered as a rape crisis advocate.  My role was to get to the hospital as quickly as possible after being called, and help make sure that the victim’s best interests were being looked after.  Oddly enough, when medical and law enforcement get together, they sometimes forget that the patient is a human being whose life has just changed irrevocably, and that he or she is desperately trying to get back on some reasonable emotional footing.

One of the best ways to help them do this is to give them control of their care and the investigation.  They’ve just come through a situation in which control was forcibly taken from them, and the best thing anyone can do to help them is to make sure that they have a say in what happens to them next.

Discovering that one’s spouse has been unfaithful is very much like being raped in this regard.  Something central to one’s identity has been taken against one’s will, and the world has changed.  The unfaithful spouse has been controlling and manipulative, covering his or her tracks to avoid discovery, and if it’s gone on for any length of time, the cuckold loses faith in his or her own connection with the world.  

When I realized my wife was having an affair, I no longer had doubts about her and began to doubt myself.  There’s no small amount of irony in that.  Clearly, I was not good enough, appealing enough, dedicated enough, smart enough, aware enough, attentive enough…the list goes on.  And each time she lied about where she was and who she was with and what she was doing, I knew she was lying, and I chose to act as though I believed her.  Because I was not good enough, or appealing enough, or attentive enough.  When the truth would no longer be denied, she begged me to let her stay, and I offered her another chance, though I set down one condition: she had to arrange for couples counseling.  

She never did.

Eventually, I got tired of waiting for her to live up to her end of the bargain, and I moved out.  I took control.

The problem with getting past a partner’s infidelity is that one’s view of one’s self has changed and one’s sense of being worthy of anything worthwhile is gone.  I know my ex-wife is a narcissistic sociopath, and yet there’s that constant little inner voice that chimes in and says, “yes, but as screwed up as she is, if you weren’t good enough for her, how can you expect to be good enough for someone as wonderful as you say you deserve?”


Those are the kind of games that my mind played with me for years because I allowed myself to buy into her choices.  I thought that the right thing to do was to be the stand up guy, to do what I could to hold the marriage together because I loved her and she said she still loved me.  The truth came through eventually; she chose yet another man over me and our marriage.  (To be fair, it’s entirely possible that she wasn’t unfaithful again, but all the same signs were there that had been present the first time, and I wasn’t about to stick around long enough to find out.)

For anyone wrestling with this issue, I offer this simple statement: You are not responsible for the choices made by others.  You make your own choices, which may contribute to your spouse’s emotional state…even be the reason they give for having strayed…but in the end, the most important thing you can do for yourself is to relinquish responsibility for the choices your unfaithful partner made and acknowledge that it was their choice.  

If letting go of inappropriate responsibility is the most important step in regaining control of your life, the second most important step is holding your partner accountable for their actions, especially those following reconciliation.  To this day, my ex-wife swears she has no idea why I left.  It wasn’t her initial infidelity, it was that when given the opportunity, she chose another over me again.  I’ve told her that several times, and she still doesn’t get it.

We are all individuals, and circumstances will absolutely differ, but what I’ve found is there comes a point when you either surrender completely, or you stand up and say, I will not take this any longer.

I’m not big on ultimatums.  I figure that the leopard will show his or her spots sooner or later, and usually sooner.  The key is to realize that those spots won’t change through any action of yours.

The saddest part of all is that there are no absolutes.  I could say that if I had it to do again, I’d have followed through when I kicked her out the night it was finally all out in the open, but my decision to let her stay resulted in my younger daughter.  She’s such a joy to have around that it’s simply not possible to regret changing my mind that night.

Don’t bank on any miracles, though.

And don’t give up your choices.

Wrap It Up

My sister and her husband work for Disney Feature Animation, which means that every once in a while, my daughter and I are invited to do fun stuff on Disney's nickel.

This photo was taken at the Cast & Crew Wrap Party for Disney's "Chicken Little" (FANTASTIC movie, by the way).

Wait, what do aging rock stars have to do with Chicken Little, you ask?

You pretty much had to be there.

The short version is that the director and producer are (evidently) rabid Bon Jovi fans.

So, across the front row are Mark Dindal (Director - Chicken Little), my daughter Heidi, my sister Kate, Randy Fullmer (Producer - Chicken Little), and the back row are me and my brother-in-law, Joe.

And check out the Chicken Little website. The movie will be out on November 4th.

Stuck

Ever put too much pressure on yourself?

I’ve been doing that lately. I haven’t written much because I’ve been struggling for clever ideas that would measure up to some of the blogs I’ve been reading, including my own. How dippy is that?

That’s got me to thinking about the lack of progress on my novel. I haven’t written a word for weeks, and the shortcut to the folder where I keep it just sits there on my computer desktop, mocking me.

Having become aware of not having written anything on that front, I’ve cast my self-examining eye about and realized that my writing is not the only part of my life that’s jammed up.

At work, I’ve been given the green light to go ahead with a project I’ve been begging to do for years, and all I’ve done is stare at the pile of reference material on my desk and surreptitiously surf through my favorite blogs.

Freckles really deserves to be pursued. (Or, to be more accurate, I really deserve to pursue Freckles.) I’ve been hemming and hawing about that for more than a month, and why? I seem to have this thing about rejection.

Oh, I know, everyone hates to be rejected, and I should just get over myself. I wish it were that simple.

My former downstairs neighbor has gone back to her husband, and her live-in boyfriend now lives with his high school sweetheart, just around the corner from me. All of this occurred over the summer. Since early August, actually. How does that happen? Was there no depth at all to the way they felt about each other? Maybe they were just nesting, the way puppies and kittens do in the pet store window.

By contrast, I haven’t been in a real relationship in five years. I’ve been willing, but sent away…because the objects of my desire felt they didn’t deserve me. That leaves me wondering about my choices. What does it say about me that the women I am most attracted to consider themselves damaged in some way? Am I trying to remain solitary?

When I go back to the beginning of my paralysis, I find myself standing in the midst of a crumbling marriage, thoroughly clueless about the depth of the impact her infidelity would have on my self-image. By the time all of that was said and done, my ex-wife managed to reject everything about me: my friendship, my skills as a lover, my skills as a parent, my beliefs, my intellect, my humanity. The only things she did not reject were the content of my wallet and my ability to refill it. Twelve years later, I’m still stunned.

Anyone who considers saying, “just get over it” really isn’t being helpful. I know. How does one get over a life-changing event? By rebuilding one’s life, of course.

That’s just what I’m doing, only once in a while I reach a “stuck point”, which is where I am now. I’ve rebuilt nearly everything but my willingness to handle rejection.

Maybe the right answer is just to dive in. Sometimes, courage means doing what needs to be done in spite of the bullets slung your way.

I guess we’ll know on Tuesday morning, when Freckles gets back from her vacation.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Welcome to First Date Club***

The first rule of First Date Club is that you do not talk about other dates.
The second rule of First Date Club is that you do not talk about other dates.
The third rule of First Date Club: If someone yells “Stop!” or goes limp, the date is over.*
The fourth rule of First Date Club: Only two people to a date.
The fifth rule of First Date Club: One date at a time, folks!
The sixth rule of First Date Club: Nice shirt, nice shoes.
The seventh rule of First Date Club: Dates will go on as long as they have to.

And the eighth and final rule of First Date Club: If this is your first date together, you have to make each other laugh!

I know from long experience that dating could sometimes benefit from a little subversive activity, so I thought I'd put this out here. It began back when the movie Fight Club came out, as a sort of joke among the AOL San Diego Chat Room misfits. It still makes me smile (well, smirk, really) because my experience with post-divorce dating has been pretty thoroughly disappointing.

Don't think that I'm bitter...I'm actually not. I'm just so totally over the whole First Date Thing. And everything that comes before the First Date. I want to skip right to the fourth or fifth date, but I'm guessing that most women would be a little put off if I introduced myself and suggested that we meet at either her place or mine to make dinner together and curl up on the couch to watch a DVD.

Most people (including me, for the most part) expect things to happen in a certain order, and it throws us off our game if we have to improvise.

One of the reasons I don't do well with dating is that for many women (in California, at least) there's a schedule for things: First date, nice kiss. Second date, deeper kissing/moderate petting. Third date, sex.

I don't work that way!

I've always sort of marched to the beat of my own regiment of pipes and drums, and I tend to want to draw things out a little. Unless our third date has gone on for an extraordinary length of time -- say, a week or so -- I'm not likely to be comfortable having sex on the third date. Or the fourth. Sure, if you turn me on and lead me into the bedroom, I will not turn you down because I am male and I think with my penis just as much as the next hairy, fat guy...but I am likely to be a little embarrassed by this, and will absolutely feel pressured to perform magnificently (which, of course, I can, but generally not when I am feeling pressured to do so). The thought that the woman I'm shagging might at any moment be deciding that it's worth a couple dates with someone new for the outside chance that she'll find a guy with a better shot at hitting just the right spot pretty much takes all the pleasure out of third date coitus for me.

It's just that it seems so...expected, you know?

These days, I'd rather really get to know any woman I go out with. I want a whole series of "really? me, too!" moments. I want to know what makes her feel beautiful. I want to really nail down what makes her laugh. I want her to introduce me to her friends and have to say "no" when they ask, "So, have you slept with him, yet?" and I want them to articulate the next question for her: "Why not?" I want to be friends, to include her in my circle of friends and have her include me in hers. I want to show her my lunatic side and joyfully discover some hidden talent of hers, like spoon hanging or armpit farting.

Of course, all of these things remain in the future for members of the First Date Club.

* This has never happened on any of my first dates. I'm just saying, is all. Safety first.

***My deepest apologies to Tyler Durden.

I Understand Now

Several months ago, a friend of mine (former fellow cubizen C) made the rather interesting observation that he and I are to our professional community what martial arts masters are to theirs.

What prompted this remark was the very long, painful session of "technical assistance" that he and I had just provided for a ship that had done nothing we had asked. We were both frustrated. Why, asked C, would anyone ask for help and then refuse to accept it?

Of course, anyone who has ever had a friend ask for advice after making an unwise choice in love knows why: When everything is as it should be, there's nothing to complain about.

I spent a rather unpleasant six hours trying to help a ship work through some of its technical... erm..deficiencies...today. It began with three simple questions:

1) Is the data communications path working?
2) Is your desktop computer configured correctly?
3) Is your fire control system configured correctly?

Naturally, I was not aboard this ship. I was in my extremely well air conditioned computer lab (read: it was f-ing freezing) in San Diego, and the ship was in Hawaii.

We were communicating by Chat.

I'd like to digress for a moment and say that I should have seen Chat coming. In 1997, I was aboard USS Coronado, chatting with a friend through the wonders of AOL, when a frustrated B-52 bombardier burst in and announced that he could not find any way to communicate with the bomber wing in Louisiana because the plethora of radios and telephones that the government had spent 348 gajillion dollars on had all simultaneously failed. He railed on for a moment about the impossibility of such a situation and suddenly stopped in mid rant.

"Is that AOL, Chief?" he asked.

"Yes, sir."

"Oh, my GOD! Our duty officer is an AOL FREAK...he meets all his women on AOL. Please say you're not picking up women on AOL while we're at sea, Chief."

"Uh, okay, I won't. What's his screen name? Maybe he's online."

In retrospect, maybe I shouldn't have said that.

Now, everyone in the military has Chat. Even Marines. In the field. Remember all those movies about commandos...John Wayne in a green beret pushing through the jungle with nothing but an M-14 and a bayonet clenched in his bared teeth? Even those guys have Chat now.

So, perhaps you've forgotten about those three questions I asked. (Perhaps you even ignored them. Wouldn't be the first time. Hell, it wouldn't be the first time today.) I needed answers to those three questions so that I could help the ship find out why they couldn't do their job.

After half an hour of more or less continuous chat about various technical subjects, none of which answered my original three questions, I asked again. And I waited again.

Gentle Reader, two and one half hours elapsed before I got an answer to my questions.

The answers led me to make certain assumptions, which led to more questions, and more waiting...and answers that did not make sense. Consider the following (fictitious but illustrative) conversation:

Q: "So, what's the weather like where you are?"

A: "I'm having a dish of ice cream."

One might infer that the weather is warm, but it's a tenuous connection at best. I can tell you from personal experience that system engineers abhor this kind of answer.

I spent much of this afternoon wanting to type, "JUST ANSWER MY FUCKING QUESTION!!!" into the chat room.

Five hours after we started, the ship came back with something like, "we've just framulgated the garglewhoofer, " and it made no sense in any context, much less the context of the entire afternoon's troubleshooting efforts, so I was completely lost. I had no idea what the ship had done. I only know they have not done what I asked them to. And I realized, quite painfully, that I still did not really have answers to my first three questions.

I was at a loss for words.

If you know me, you know just exactly how rare this is.

Military protocol left me only one response, and I typed it: "OK."

The ship was confused by my response, and they typed back, "Int OK?" (For those of you who do not understand military chat shorthand...who do not spreckedy lingidy, this translates directly to, "Interrogative OK?" or more precisely, "What do you mean, OK?")

I was polite: "I have no idea what your problem is and I recommend a local tech assist." Translation: You have worn out my patience and I've decided that you should be someone else's problem now.

The problem with all this is that helping ships work through basic configuration issues is not my job, it's someone else's. I do it because if I don't, then I don't get to do what I'm actually paid to do, but of course, by spending my time helping them with the basics, I don't have any time left over to do my real job. It is a classic self-licking ice cream cone.

Several years ago, when I first began to study martial arts, I was shocked and embarrassed when my instructor, a Sixth Degree, silenced a joking classmate by barking, "If you're not going to pay attention in my class, you're wasting my time and you're wasting your classmates' time. Give me your full attention, or leave and don't come back." The guy left...not embarrassed, but pissed off.

During my first Kendo class, our instructor announced that we would have the great honor of hosting the former World Kendo Champion, and that he would honor the club by teaching a class. The instructor went on to say that those of us who had been studying for less than two years would not be permitted to participate in the class, as we did not yet know enough and the champion's time was too valuable to be wasted on teaching mere basics.

I don't think we Americans hold mastery in high enough regard, and as a result, we miss a great many valuable lessons. Most people seem to regard the phrase "All men are created equal" (as in "we hold these Truths to be self-evident") to mean the same thing as "All men are equal". The first phrase is undoubtedly true; the second is most decidedly not.

For example, while I can catch a football, I cannot run forty yards in under five seconds. I can dance a two-step, but forget about a pas-de-deux. I can perform "Margaritaville" but don't ask me to do "Malaguena".

The people who can do these things have worked hard to be able to do them, and I am by no means an equal within their fields of expertise. There is nothing wrong with affording them the respect they've earned for the levels of excellence they've achieved.

I spoke with my military boss this evening about it, and I've proposed that whenever we encounter a ship that needs technical assistance, he allow me to put out the following before we begin:

I can help you, but remember that others may also need my help, and if you do not pay attention, I may decide they need my help more than you do.
I have been doing this longer than you have, and I know more than you do.
My way is not the only way, nor is it the right way, but it is a right way.
When I ask you a question, answer it promptly and directly.
When I instruct you to do something, do it immediately, and tell me the result.
If you do what I tell you, we will fix your problem and we will both learn.
If you do not do what I tell you, we may not fix your problem, and while I will still learn, you will not.