Prayers Again, Please

Clara is in surgery; the doctors are inserting a pacemaker.

Update: She's through the surgery, and the surgeons were pleased with how well she did. She's a little fighter.

The reason for the pacemaker is the ongoing arrythmia; the doctors had hoped that it would correct itself within a few days, but no such luck. The arrythmia may be caused by the allegedly benign tumors growing on Clara's heart (one manifestation of Tuberous Sclerosis Complex), but (and I'm speculating here) may also be caused by the allegedly benign tumors in her brain. Operating on an infant's heart must be a difficult proposition, since it's about the size of a walnut. The tumors must be truly tiny. And if the arrythmia is caused by the brain tumors, there's almost no point in removing the heart tumors...it'd be an extremely dangerous procedure with no payoff.

Of course, the presence of the pacemaker means that the MRI to look at the brain tumors won't happen, so whatever is happening in her head will be that much harder to diagnose.

Still in the woods.

Since You Asked...

What did I say? I thought I might borrow a few words from Mr. Darcy:

"Would you do me the honor of becoming my wife?"

Trivia question: What was Mr. Darcy's first name?

Check out the link to the right...Clara Jane's pictures.

So, I've Already Proposed

It began with a simple post on Craig’s List:

“So, Here's The Thing...I'm not looking for the classic "babelicious babe"...I really don't care about that.  What I want most is creative, smart, funny (and let's face it....sane).  

A little about me:  I am divorced, with two kids, one of whom lives with me most of the time and the other with their mother.  I'm creative, smart, and funny (and reasonably sane), and my friends tell me they appreciate my integrity.  I'm respectful and emotionally generous.  Most of the women I know tell me that I'm sweet.  My kids will tell you I'm a good father, unless you catch them when I'm on their case about something, usually grades.  Having served for 23 years in the Navy, I understand the nature of commitment, and somewhere around here, I have the remnants of some of the self-discipline I picked up during my time in the service.”

I got two responses.  

The first was from a woman who admitted that she smokes.  Thank you, no, even if you’re trying to quit.  

The second got my attention for two reasons: She was writing from work at noon on a Sunday, but cautioned me not to expect a response until Monday if I wrote back, and she asked for a response whether I was interested or not.  “I can handle rejection,” she wrote, “and would definitely want to know!”

We wrote for a few days, and by Wednesday I had her number.  (“You like apples?  I got her numbah.  How you like THEM apples?”)  Our first conversation consisted of a lot of laughter, plans for Saturday morning coffee, and ended with “good night,” instead of “bye”.  

Coffee on Saturday lasted four and a half hours, and included lunch and an hour of playing in the toy store.  It turns out that she is creative and funny and very, very smart.  Inside an hour, I knew I wanted to kiss her.  An hour or so after that, I was pretty sure she wouldn’t mind if I did.  It turned out that I was right.  

Part of the conversation was about Frank Herbert’s Dune, and partly for that reason, I’m calling her Sihaya.

I called her the next night.  I hate the Three Day Rule.  Usually, I follow it anyway, but not with this girl.  

Last Saturday afternoon, I went to see her dance at the Renaissance Faire…she performs Middle Eastern dance with a troupe (the other reason she’ll be called Sihaya here, since the girl in Dune was a woman of the desert).  Before her performance, we walked around to see the sights at the faire, and as we came out of one stall, we had to wait for the Queen and her royal entourage.  As they passed, I bowed and Sihaya curtseyed.  

The Queen stopped.  “And who do we have here before us?” she asked, grandly and not unpleasantly.

I introduced Sihaya, and gave my own name.  

The Queen asked who we are to each other.  I looked at Sihaya, who grinned at me.  “We are dating, Your Highness,” said I.

“And how long have you been thus?” asked the Queen.

Another grin from Sihaya, and I returned it.  “About a week,” I replied.

“In that case,” said the Queen, “We have a game for the two of you.”  She bade us stand in front of her, and face each other.  “We wish you to imagine a time in the future.  Perhaps it will be five years.  Perhaps it will be two.  But, Kurt, We would give you a glimpse into this future time, when on one knee, you ask this beautiful lady for her hand in marriage.  So that is the game We have for you…to ask this wonderful lady to marry you, and to do so in a way that she cannot say aught but yes.”

And so, I did.  And she did.  

She's Here!

Thank you all so much for your prayers!

Clara Jane was born last night at 7:42 pm, at 7 lbs 11 oz, and 19 ½ inches.  She has long black hair, just like her mother did when she was born.  The cardiac arrhythmia continued after she was born, so they whisked her off to the NICU right away, but when I saw her she was pink as pink can be, and working a pacifier as hard as she could.  There was a brief incident during the night when her heart was beating more rapidly than the doctors would prefer, but when I talked to my brother-in-law this morning, Clara was stable and doing fine.  She’s not out of the woods yet, but she’s doing about as well as can be expected.

When the doctor came in to take my sister up to surgery, he looked at the fetal monitor trace and said, “Hmmm…you’ve been having some pretty good contractions there.  We’d have had a baby tonight, either way!”  

So, I’m back at home…my parents got in last night and it was about to get crowded enough that I’d have just been in the way.  I’ll go back up on the weekend and help with all the stuff they weren’t able to get done this week because the baby came early.  

Thanks, again, so very very much, for all your prayers and thoughts.  I know they made a difference.

Please Pray

I just got the call from my sister...the cardiac arrhythmia that the pediatricians were concerned about has happened, and she's scheduled for C-section this afternoon at 4 o'clock. We don't know much yet, and won't until Clara is born, but please, please pray.

Well Met

Got together with a friend this afternoon…a friend I’d never actually met. Ramblin’ Girl was in town for a friend’s wedding, so we met up for a drink in the airport lounge while she was waiting for her flight.

It turns out she’s even cooler in person than her blog would lead one to believe, which basically means she’s really cool: smart, funny, easy to talk to, and cute.

On my way to the airport, I cursed myself for not having a good digital camera, because these kinds of meetings deserve pictures. When we met up, I forgot to ask if she had one with her, and the conversation ranged for a while in several directions, so neither of us thought of it…thus, sadly, I must report that there are no pictures of this Truly Historic Event.

Spending part of an afternoon with RG made me think again about how lucky I am to have such friends, and the often convoluted paths that cross in unexpected ways. I am happier with my life than I’ve been in many years, and friendships such as this one are part of the key.

It's In Our Nature

As I write this, Nature is literally tapping at my window, in the form of a starling who thinks that his reflection in the mirrored glass is another male encroaching on his territory. He flies up and pecks at the window tappy-tap-ta-ta-tappy-tap then rushes back to make sure his family and nest are safe before making another run on his equally aggressive reflection.

This has been going on all week, and I suspect that the eggs have hatched now, because today, there is a female starling joining him at the window from time to time.

The mating pair of hawks has also returned to our hillside, as they do most every year. This year, one of them is trailing a sort of string from one of its legs, and I wonder if it wasn't here last year because it was in captivity. Three years ago, the pair had two little ones, and year before last, the yearlings could be seen hunting with their parents in the afternoons.

Most often, the smaller birds harass the hawks without mercy, for this week, the starlings are entirely consumed by the perceived threat from non-existent members of their own species, and the hawks are enjoying the freedom to swoop down to the corner and pick up a fresh rabbit or squirrel without an entourage.

The reason the starlings haunt the hawks is because the bigger birds don't seem to have any scruples regarding the raiding of nests.

(I imagine that this is the sort of conversation they might have, if I can be permitted a small amount of anthropomorphization:

He Hawk: "Hmmm. I'm feeling a mite peckish, Portia. I could do with a snack, perhaps a little chickie-morsel? Do we have anything in the scrub-pine to munch on?"

She Hawk: "See for yourself.")

All of this makes me think about how sometimes our instincts can fail us. We get so focused on something inconsequential that we ignore the really important stuff close at hand.

Tap, tap.

It Had To Happen Sooner Or Later...

Catching Up

Yep.  Been away a while.  Can’t say that I haven’t missed writing…just haven’t had much to say.  I’ve sat down a few times, but if I can be permitted a vulgar analogy, I’ve been afflicted with a kind of literary constipation.  

After taking a moment to arrange a bit of music to write by, I’m ready – at last – to set down a few thoughts, paced by the tapping of my toe.

As if I have any.

Thoughts, that is.

What is it with people these days?  According to an article on the news page at imdb.com, Morgan Spurlock (Oscar-nominated documentarian responsible for Super Size Me) delivered an over-the-top lecture at a Pennsylvania high school, mocking special education students and teachers.  Apparently, his talk included the use of the F-bomb.  Now, I’m a sailor, and the use of the F-bomb generally doesn’t offend me…unless I’m in the presence of someone who will be offended by it.  I’m a big fan of language, and let’s face it, fuck is a word, and pretty useful one, at that.  What offends me about this, if it’s true, is the mocking.  Spurlock later said that he couldn’t understand the unfavorable reaction on the part of the school, saying, “The greatest lesson those kids learned today was the importance of free speech.”  

Dude, it was a health fair.  You were there to talk about the risks of eating too much fast food.  How do jokes about pot-smoking teachers tie in, here?  Right.  They don’t.

And since when does spouting crap in public teach anyone about the importance of free speech?  Not to be contrary, here, but all Spurlock actually did was teach his audience that free speech exists, something they probably already knew.

If you want to teach a lesson on the importance of free speech, ditch the disrespect and start talking about Abdul Rahman, the man facing the death penalty in Afghanistan for converting to Christianity.  

I know, I got off on a tangent there.

In other news, my sister’s baby seems to be doing well.  There is still concern, and after her last ultrasound, the doctor made the decision to move her delivery to a hospital with a better-equipped NICU, in case there are complications.  (As if tumors on her heart and in her brain aren’t complications enough.)  My sister reports that the baby is very active, though she hasn’t yet turned head-down in preparation for being born…so, in yet another challenge, she’s slated for a C-section on April 7th.  I’m headed up to LA that day to join the crowd in the waiting room.

I’ll also be joining them on the Tuberous Sclerosis Alliance Walk for the Cure on June 25th…they have a website set up for sponsorship donations, and if you feel inclined, check it out: http://www.firstgiving.com/clarajane.

And as one last bit…I’ll point you to one of my very early posts.  Shortly before I wrote that post, my hairdresser tut-tutted over my soft-but-thinning locks and remarked, “You know…you might consider just shaving it all off.”  I must say that over the last ten months, I’ve uncorked every excuse in the book not to shave my head, and even rebelled by not cutting my hair at all for nigh on to five months.  I let myself get – as my buddy Bear put it – scruffy-lookin’.  

Last Sunday, I took the plunge.  It actually looks pretty good.  I’ll offer a photo as soon as I have one.

Inaccessible.

I have been taking a pseudo-break from blogging.  You may have noticed.  

Actually, I’ve been taking a break from most forms of writing.  I’m not sure why.  There haven’t been many things on my mind that have seemed worthy of throwing out there for the sake of whatever flavor of posterity comes as a side dish when the entrée is Blog.

I have felt mostly like retreating from the world, of late.  I am not unhappy…far from it…but I simply have not felt like I have the energy to extend myself and deal with other people.  

Part of it stems, I’m sure, from the realization that I’m still carrying around quite a lot of anger, which manifests itself primarily as self-abuse in the form of bad eating habits.  I have also been quite a bit shorter with people than I like – also rooted in anger.  

So, fat and unpleasant to be around, I’ve taken to being a bit reclusive: I’ve ignored voice mail from friends, failed to call when I said I would, blown off e-mails, brought my noise-canceling headphones to work, retreated to the virtual world of Microsoft Flight Simulator (where lately, I have been flying a model of a World War II-era fighter plane – with its virtual guns disabled…paging Dr. Freud, Dr. Howard, Dr. Fine, Dr. Howard!), and have started to learn to swear in Mandarin.  (青蛙操的流氓) You probably don’t want to know what that means – and part of the joy of swearing in a language no one understands is…that no one understands.

The funny part of all this (and that’s not to say that learning to swear in a foreign language just for the sake being able to do so isn’t funny), is that I’m actually not depressed.  I’m quite content with my life, which is, on the whole, pretty effing good.  I am healthy (more or less – aside from my weight), I make a good living doing a job I love, and despite being solitary (a term I prefer to “single”), I’m not unmanageably lonely.  

You know that feeling you get when you’re in the midst of something, feeling in the groove, and you’re surprised to find that you’re bleeding, but you have no idea when it happened or how?  It isn’t particularly painful, or you’d have noticed the injury right away, but you need to stop and tend to it…and then you don’t quite feel safe any more, doing what you were doing.

That’s how I feel right now.

What’s bleeding?  Certainly not my heart, which you’ll know from reading my last post.  I’m not sure.  

I do know that I’ve become aware of the perception people seem to have that I am damaged.  And not just me…but the women I seem to be attracting.  Not all of the women who’ve found me attractive of late would qualify as “damaged”, but the one who is not falls squarely into a category that can only be called “inaccessible”.  

Which makes me wonder: Do I choose that?  Do I have something against being in a healthy, supportive relationship?  Have I chosen to isolate myself?  Which of the two of us is really the inaccessible one?

IA

None of the military folks I know are happy.  

Normally, these are people who greet life with ebullience neatly camouflaged behind a façade of darkly twisted humor.  

I’ll give you an example.  One morning at sea some years ago, I stood with two of my shipmates on the fo’c’sle (all the way up on the bow) of our ship, USS COWPENS (CG 63), as one of them prepared to lob two concussion grenades over the side as sound effects for our battle-readiness training.  I had another role to fulfill that morning, but wouldn’t be needed until later, so I hoped to have an opportunity to toss one of the grenades.  No particular reason, I just wanted to be able to say I’d once thrown a grenade.  As leading chief of the division we three were in, I could occasionally do things like that.

Our conversation may have been jovial, but none of us was anything less than serious about the task at hand.  A single mistake could kill all three of us.  Basically, it was a regular day in the U.S. Navy.

The sound of a rapidly clanging bell cut our conversation short, followed by an announcement on the 1MC*: Fire, fire, fire!  Class Charlie fire in After Steering.  Away the Flying Squad, Away!

We exchanged glances.

There was a moment of reflective silence, as we all shifted a little nervously from foot to foot.  A fire aboard ship can always lead to a long dip in the Deep Blue.

“Well,” I said, “if there’s got to be a fire in After Steering, I can’t think of any place I’d rather be than up here on the fo’c’sle.”

“You’re glad to be here!” said my buddy Matt.  He pointed a thumb at Dan, and chuckled, “He’s the one holding the grenades!”

In short, sailors are fun-loving and fatalistic about the dangers they’ve chosen to face.

There’s a key word in that last sentence: chosen.

Two weeks ago, our command got a message announcing its obligation to support a program called “Individual Augmentation”, which is an attempt to help the Army and Marine Corps meet their personnel rotation requirements in Iraq, Afghanistan, Bosnia, Kosovo, the Horn of Africa, and Guantanimo Bay by sending sailors to work in supporting roles such as communications specialists and prison guards.  Each “Individual Augmentee” serves in his or her role for a minimum of one year.

There was a list of names accompanying the message.  One of my office mates has been slated to go, and as of this morning, the rest have been put on notice that they, too, may be expected to go at any time.  At the school next door, seven people are going.

Before they are assigned to a new and exciting location, they’ll undergo three days of medical screening and be offered time to take care of any legal matters (such as the writing of a will), followed by seven days of physical fitness, weapons, and tactics training.  They’ll spend an hour or two learning about “Improvised Explosive Devices” (IEDs…booby traps), another hour or two on land navigation, a couple hours on convoy operations, and a couple on urban combat operations.  The last of the seven days will be a practical exercise offering them an opportunity to put the things they’ve learned in the classroom to good use.

This is a Bad Idea.  

First, these are people who bring a skill set that is entirely alien to the ground-pounder’s battlefield, and virtually none of what they know now will stand them in good stead when they climb aboard that first convoy.  

Second, this lack of knowledge will make them a danger to themselves and to the units they are sent to augment.

Third, the danger that these individual augmentees bring with them will undermine the esprit de corps that is essential for a unit’s ability to perform its combat function.

Finally, no one volunteered for this shit.

In the short term, more American military members will die, and the war will last longer.  In the longer term, our all-volunteer military will collapse from the inevitable wholesale departure of smart, well-trained professionals who won’t put up with such an egregious misapplication of their talents.

By now, you may be questioning the intelligence and sanity of our current leadership.  Even if you hadn’t been already.

Actually, gentle reader, this is the cost of, “Oppose the war, support the troops.”

I turned it around on you, didn’t I?  

The simple truth is that those who did choose to serve in the military are now being asked to accept the unthinkable because the average citizen couldn’t be bothered to pitch in.  If you look back at past generations…your parents and grandparents…you’ll see that they rallied to their cause in ways our generation has dismissed as quaint, ignorant, and misguided.  The members of Easy Company, 506th Battalion, 101st Airborne Division didn’t start asking about going home until the Germans capitulated.  The men who commissioned the first USS COWPENS (CVL 25) deployed to the Pacific Theater in 1943 and didn’t come home for twenty-three months.  No one told them they’d be able to go home in six months, or eight, or ten, or a year; they were shown a job, and they simply did it the best they could until they led the procession of American warships into Tokyo Bay in August 1945.  They were prepared to go longer, if necessary, and nothing short of Unconditional Surrender could have convinced them that their task was done.

For the average citizen in this country today, guts are quaint and tenacity is misguided.  Relationships are not the only things we can’t commit to.

There is a principle of strategy that was taught by the great samurai Miyamoto Musashi that went like this: Do not commit to combat until it is certain that you must.  When you do, turn neither to the left nor to the right; drive directly toward the center of your enemy, and do not stop until one of you is defeated.

Perhaps it was never truly certain that we should commit to war in Iraq.  But once committed, we should…as a nation of citizens…have pressed forward until we achieved unconditional surrender, instead of settling for what we have -- the hellishly slow descent through stalemate into self-induced defeat.  Anyone who thinks we’d simply have installed a puppet government and left it to its own efforts to rebuild needs to visit Japan or Germany…both of which are leaders on the world stage, and neither feels any particular obligation to support the US at the expense of its own interests.

Opposed to the war?  Fine.  Noted.  Like it nor not, we are there now, and if we were to leave now, we’d cause more harm than if we stayed to get the job done.  So we might as well roll up our sleeves and get it done.

Support the troops?  I have a suggestion for you, then: Become one.



* PA system aboard ship

My Work Here Isn't Done

Have you ever watched a film, or read a book that truly moved you?  One that made your heart swell in your chest, but didn’t stop there…it made your life swell?  I just watched such a film: Meet Joe Black

Granted, this film is now eight years old, so I should have seen it by now, but I hadn’t, until today.

It’s a daunting film, running just shy of three hours, with very little action…this is a film about the last days of a man’s life, a man who knows that Death could take him at any moment, and yet it lingers over tiny, exquisite details.

I had a busy week, this week, traveling for business and meeting with compatriots who mostly think of me as an oddity, a genius-cum-crackpot, a heretic.  As is the community’s habit, they dismissed months of my work out of hand, without a whole lot of discussion.  We’re not comfortable with this, they say, when they say anything at all.  It is disconcerting to propose an elegantly simple solution to a complex problem and be met with neither disdain nor acceptance, but merely…silence.

My boss reminded me that this community is famous for doing just that, and that a good many of the current practices were once met with disapprobation.  Heresy is important to progress.

After seeing a film like Meet Joe Black, I find myself taking stock of my life, wondering if I’ve done all I can, if there’s anything more I can or should be doing.  Is it enough that I helped coordinate a wish for a Make-a-Wish child?  It was just the once, after all.  Is it enough to have served as a rape crisis advocate?  Is it enough that people often rely on me when they feel they have no place else to turn?

There are times when I withdraw.  I say I’ll call, and then I don’t.  I forget a meeting or fail to come through with the help I offered.  Is it enough to simply apologize, to admit that I’m not perfect?  Isn’t there more?  I always feel I can do more.  

People have helped me so often, have sacrificed in large and small ways to bring me to this point that I feel that I should earn the things they’ve done for me, and I will always wonder if I’ve done enough.  It is a powerful drive that comes almost entirely from the uncertainty in my center.  

Perhaps that is what makes me a good man.  

Good Things

Have you ever met anyone who, without trying, or even meaning to, changes your life? Not just your life, but the way you view your life?

It’s hard to quantify, the effect we have on other people’s lives. It can be even harder to say, “Your presence in my life makes a difference.”

A couple weeks ago, someone suggested to me that we boycott Valentine’s Day, we solitary people. I responded by proposing the opposite – that she be my Valentine. I sent her flowers today…virtual flowers, actually, because I’m a dork.

See, I don’t think that Valentine’s Day ought to be just for lovers, or people who want to be lovers, or even people who simply want to encase their lovers in chocolate. I think it’s about communicating to those around us that we appreciate the changes they bring about in us.

To all of you who read this blog, a late-evening Happy Valentine’s Day. And thank you. You’ve helped me to trust in my skills as a writer, and that makes a difference.

And what happy changes have been brought about by my Virtual Valentine? That’s a question I’ll answer only for her.

All good things.

TSC

I’d like to apologize for not writing more.  I haven’t forgotten you all!  Far from it: I’ve been incredibly busy over the last couple weeks.

In the meantime, you may recall that I asked for your prayers for my unborn niece, who was diagnosed last month with Tuberous Sclerosis Complex.  

I’d like to direct your attention to this web site regarding Tuberous Sclerosis, and ask again for your prayers.

My sister and her husband are meeting with another specialist on Thursday, to discuss the results of last week’s MRI.

Because Prayer Helps

…and because Meg asked:

If you pray, pray for Ruth, Rowland, Emily, Marie, Jamie, and Loni -- for comfort, healing, and peace. It's important. And pass it onto your friends. Thanks, guys.

Tilapia Is The New Cod

In honor of completing my Five Weird Things post, I took my daughter to Red Lobster…thought it would be a fitting tribute, since Sherri loves the place so much.  For that very reason, I will not mention the vague contempt which I, a New Englander, have always held for seafood restaurant chains.  I will say that I remember very clearly how nice it was that I used to be able to get live lobsters for a buck seventy-five a pound, or a buck and a half if I happened to catch a lobsterman in the parking lot at the seafood stand.  

The service we received tonight was noteworthy, as I shall attempt to relate:

“Good evening, sir, my name is Gabe, and I’ll be taking care of you this evening.   Can I offer you something to drink?”
Heidi orders a Coke, and I order iced tea – no lemon.  
“Excellent. Would you care for an appetizer this evening?”
“No, thank you.”
“Alright.  Would you like to hear the specials?”
“No, thank you.  I think we’re ready to order.”
“Great,” says Gabe, turning his attention to Heidi.  “What can I get for you?”
“I’ll have the shrimp Caesar salad.”
“Excellent.  And for your choice of vegetables?  We have mashed potatoes, rice pilaf, steamed vegetables, or cole slaw.”
Heidi and I exchange quizzical looks.
There is a moment of bemused silence, with Gabe’s pen hovering patiently over his order pad.  I recover first, and ask the obvious question, “There’s a choice of vegetables with a salad?”
Gabe smiles benevolently at us, his apparently uber-bumpkin patrons.  “A salad comes with the shrimp, yes.”
Still bewildered, I frown slightly and ask again, “But she ordered the shrimp Caesar salad.  Doesn’t that pretty much already have vegetables?”
“Oh!” exclaims Gabe.  “Of course.”
Gabe scribbles a dozen horizontal lines on his pad, then writes furiously.  While I cannot see what he is writing, I imagine it to be, confused chick gets SHRIMP CAESAR.
He then turns to me.  “And you, sir?”
“I’ll have the Sam Adams battered fish and chips.”
“Excellent.  That comes with chips, which are actually French Fries.  You can order another side of your choice, if you like.  We have mashed potatoes, rice pilaf…”
“Another side?  Sounds great.  I’d like the cole slaw, please.”
Gabe fixes me momentarily with a glance that, in retrospect, should have seemed significant, but at the time could have meant…confusion? Disbelief? That he’ll be blogging this later?
“Great,” he says, “I’ll be right back with your drinks and cole slaw.”
And he is off before I can ask, What did you say? Did you just say that you’d be right back with our drinks and cole slaw?
I ask Heidi instead.  She agrees, that’s what he said.
Couldn’t be, I postulated.  It’s noisy here, and we must have misunderstood.
When he brought our drinks (and my dinner salad), he hesitated for a moment before asking, “Would you like me to bring your cole slaw now, or with your fish, sir?”  He fixes me with a look of concerned confusion, as though I had ordered a steak with chocolate sauce.
I see his confusion and raise him a puzzlement and a confloption.  (He doesn’t realize it at this point, but I can see that he’ll be flummoxed at the turn.)  “With my dinner will be fine,” I say.  I am in no mood to have cole slaw with my salad.  
When dinner arrives, he sets down Heidi’s Caesar salad, and then turns his attention to me.  He places the side dish of cole slaw at my left, and sets the basket of fish in front of me.

It is a large-ish basket of fish.  

There are no chips.

It is a basket containing only fish.

“Is there anything else I can get for you?” Gabe asks.  From the look on his face, it is clear that Gabe wishes to escape us and what clearly seem to him to be bizarre requests.
“Yes,” I say.  “Where are my chips?  I thought fish and chips would come with actual, you know, chips.  French Fries.  Pommes frites.”  (Okay, I made the “pommes frites” part up.)
Gabe casts his eyes about in a manner reminiscent of a garden-raiding rabbit caught snacking by a Rottweiler for whom the moment carries no real urgency.  “You ordered cole slaw instead of chips, sir.”
“I did?”
“Yes, sir.”  He wheels over a chalk board and proceeds to draw a flow chart of our initial conversation, in which it seems I did, in fact, order fish and chips, hold the chips, add a side of slaw.

At Last, Five Weird Things

Five weird habits.  Sherri wants five weird habits.  Of mine.  Actually, it’s five more weird habits, because, evidently, in Sherri’s mind, the ten weird habits I already wrote about aren’t enough.  (But I think she owed me a tag, anyway, so she’s forgiven.) (Not that she needed to be.  I’m just saying, is all.)

So here goes.

1.  I obsess about things…just not for very long.

Dennis Miller refers to this as ADDOCD: I keep changing the things I obsess about.  Work projects will do it for me.  I’ll get focused on a problem at work, then bring it home with me (in my mind, not on paper), and lay awake that night working on a solution.  The next morning, with or without a solution, I will find something else to be concerned about.  I have been known to go from losing sleep about a satellite communications issue to ranting for half a day about finding the coffee pot empty even though I was the third coffee drinker to arrive that morning.  The vast amount of energy I poured into online dating some months ago is now almost entirely devoted to flight simulation.  If I lose focus on one thing, I have to compensate by giving far too much of my attention somewhere else, as though my freaky little world is defined by some Newtonian Law of Conservation of Obsessions.

2.  I am insanely defensive about my computer.

This one has two parts, one for work and one for home.  At work, I have a system of placing files that makes sense to me and I don’t give a Yugo mechanic’s expletive whether anyone else can find one of my PowerPoint presentations or not.  If someone adds an icon to my desktop or changes the content of a database, my customary reaction is to unleash a passionate string of colorful and highly original invective.  At home, keep your grubby dick skinners off my machine.  I built it from parts, and it is unique.  No, you do not know how to fix the problem, so shut up and go back to watching TV.  That whole thing in Chaos Theory about a butterfly flapping its wings in the Amazon and the weather changing somewhere else?  Absolutely true.  Hurricane Katrina began shortly after I vented my…er…opinion…to the atmosphere because a friend “just checking e-mail” tried to replace my unresponsive wireless mouse with a standard PS2 mouse instead of telling me so that I could change the wireless mouse’s batteries.  Seriously, the IAEA could rid themselves of a huge problem if they quietly suggested to Iran that it should surprise me by up-clocking my motherboard.

3.  I am often stunningly creative in my expletives.

Granted, sometimes I resort to whatever fricative comes immediately to mind, but there are moments of sublime inspiration when I should really stop in mid-rant and write some of this shit down.  Anything less than fifteen syllables and I’m just doing it for laughs.  I am not at all unlike the Old Man in A Christmas Story, who, as we know, worked in profanity the way other artists might work in oils or clay.  And thanks to Erica, I have a colorful new addition to my arsenal – er – repertoire: corn-speckled dog turd.  Which leads me to the fact that…

4.  I collect colorful phrases.

I discovered a long time ago that if you’ve got an unexpectedly descriptive phrase at the ready (and these are not necessarily profane), people might actually remember a point you’re trying to make.  For example, gathering a large number of minute details for a particular project might be referred to as sweeping the marbles.  Any project that is doomed to collapse under the weight of its own ineptitude is a self-licking ice cream cone. That idiot over there doesn’t need to pull his head out of his ass, he needs a rectal craniotomy.  If I’ve just said something terminally embarrassing in a crowded and noisy room, it is inevitable that I time it so that the room will be as quiet as a mouse pissing on a Q-tip.

I actually write some of these down.

5.  I flush the toilet while I’m still peeing.

Yes.  I know.  I have no idea why I do this, but I catch myself at it at least once a day, and the mental conversation goes something like this:

No-no! No!  Awwww!
Why did I just do that?
I don’t know.  To mask the sound of my urinating?
But no one is home.  
To save time?
Yes.  That’s it.  I’m saving time by flushing twice.
Thank you.  It’s nice to know my efforts are understood.

Powerlessness By Proxy

The amazing and beautiful Lisa reminded me that it’s been a few days since I wrote anything, and her post this evening brought some thoughts to the forefront that I’d like to share with you.

A few Sundays ago, my daughter and I joined my best friend, Bear, in celebrating his sobriety.  Bear, you see, is an alcoholic.

He and I have known each other for almost twenty-five years, since we stood a very cold midwatch together as pier sentries on Pier 12 at the Naval Operating Base in Norfolk, Virginia.  We made each other laugh, and to tell you the truth, I’ve always considered him to be the funny one.  

And because he and I have been friends for so long, he wouldn’t hesitate at all to agree with me on that point.

If you’ve never been to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, and you’re invited to attend one, don’t turn it down.  Don’t worry if you’re not an alcoholic, they’ll love you anyway, because that’s what they do.

All through our pre-deployment work-ups in 1981, Bear and I hung out together.  We’d keep each other laughing at General Quarters, because our stations were right next to each other.  We’d make each other laugh when he was doing that whole backwards writing thing that you can only see in old movies, now.  (He once wrote my sister a letter that way, which she thought was the coolest thing.)  And because we were always laughing, we were always getting in trouble for laughing at inappropriate times.  Think Monty Python meets “We’re No Angels”…I was the De Niro to his Penn, the Cleese to his Idle.

Being young sailors, it was inevitable that we would drink.  I’d never had so much booze.  He had more experience overseas than I did, and he suggested (wisely, as it turned out), that we take turns being reasonably sober, so that one of us would always be able to get us both back to the ship.

We had us some adventures, we did.  

Now, most guys who’ve been friends as long as we have would probably look back on their drunken youth with a degree of fondness that simply isn’t there when he and I reminisce about those days.

Not us.  When we talk about it, it’s at an AA meeting, because what it represents for us is the beginning of ten years worth of fuzzy memories for him, ten years of things he’s worked to make amends for throughout the last fifteen years.  He’s lived through a motorcycle accident and a car accident and a thousand more agonies neither you nor I will ever fully understand, and I made it easy for him to start down that path.  

To me, the divergence in the roads we took from that inebriated season is the most incomprehensible difference between us.  When he stands up at a meeting and talks about taking turns getting shit-faced, it feels like an indictment.  In that hall, I will forever be “the sober one”, the one who had control and for a time, didn’t help his best friend.

In spite of my failing, and because of it, the men and women in that meeting nod respectfully as Bear introduces me, and they accept me.  They understand what it is to let a friend down, and my fear that they will judge me for what I didn’t do is unfounded.

They understand the truth: that nothing and no one could have kept him from walking that foggy road.  Alcoholics understand powerlessness.

When I talk with the man Bear is today, I am astounded at the changes in him.  It isn’t simply the absence of alcohol in his life, it’s the depth of character that has grown out of his quest for Sobriety.  He is worthy of it.

In writing that last paragraph, it dawned on me why there is no judgment for me when Bear speaks of trading nights of drunkenness: If we are all powerless ourselves, how can we control the actions of others?

The Kind of Balance We Seek

Edit: It's been pointed out that the sign isn't really readable. It says: "Meet the Blogger, 1-3 am"

The Tribe Has Spoken

It often happens that Sherri writes something that seems worthy of contributing to on a grander scale than what can be contained in a two-inch comment box.  In this case, she wrote about the stupidity of certain television shows.  

It probably comes as no surprise that I eschew television shows that are not intelligently written.  True, I got hooked on the first season of “The Apprentice”, but that was before I learned that “reality” television shows are scripted, too.  Yes, they are.  Not in the conventional sense of actors being handed pages to read.  “Reality” shows are scripted backwards, sort of the same way that China designs airplanes: by reverse engineering.  The actors are put into situations that pose the potential for conflict, and then filmed from multiple angles simultaneously.  The writing staff then takes the raw video footage and pieces it together in a way that makes a story that can be told in 46 minutes.  The story must have incident, which is to say that there must be an event that can stand on its own without explanation.  The purpose of incident is to offer an advertising hook, to get people to watch the show, and to keep people tuned in through the commercials.  Incidents happen within a minute of each commercial break…and the Trademark Incident happens at the end of the show: “You’re fired.”  “The tribe has spoken.”

The problem with this is that it’s an unnatural act trying to pass itself off as a natural act.  There’s an old scientific principle which states that, “The observer cannot avoid changing that which is being observed.”  The presence of (multiple) cameras removes all reality from the situations being filmed for the “reality” show.  Or, as Adam Savage says on “Mythbusters”, “I reject your reality and substitute my own.”

So, basically, those shows are nothing more than badly-written fiction.  They are the Robert James Waller novels of television.  (And yes, I know, every woman on the planet swoons at the mere mention of The Bridges of Madison County.  It’s still dreck.)

I need something smart, something that engages my mind on more than one level.  Something that isn’t focused entirely on impossibly good-looking people.  (I’ll buy the idea that you can have a PhD in Marine Biology by the time you’re 26, but you won’t also have had time to make yourself look that good in a wet suit.  There has to be some evidence of all that cold pizza you habitually ate in the lab at two AM while you were working on your dissertation.  Also, am I the only one who thinks that the question of how these new marine creatures make the water warm could be answered with a trip to the nearest public pool?)

I watch “The Gilmore Girls”, because the show is about smart people who seem to be okay with the fact that they don’t have it all figured out.  The dialogue is full of cultural references both pop and not-so-pop, and often has more than one reference in a single line, as with this exchange between Lorelai and Rory discussing the new waiter at their favorite diner:

Rory: Ew!
Lorelai: He doesn’t look that bad.
Rory: He’s the boy who dissected a frog, didn’t wash his hands, and then ate a sandwich.
Lorelai: Ew!
Rory: He’s like the lost Farrelly brother.  He’s so stupid.  He watched “The Breakfast Club” and decided to tape his own butt cheeks together.

Granted, it’s not “The West Wing”, but then not much is.  “The West Wing” makes me very glad I have TiVo.  I don’t expect the show to last much longer, though – they had “A Very Special Wedding Episode” a few weeks ago, which means the bell is tolling.  It was great run while it lasted.

“Lost” is, of course, one of the best shows on television, though I’m a little disturbed about what I’ll call character churn on the show.  Character churn is when characters are written off the show and new characters replace them.  This is happening too often, I think.  And of course, it’s an island, so the only way to write characters off the show is to kill them.  It’s pretty obvious that the 2021 season on ABC will not include a Lost Reunion, nor will we ever be subjected to A Very Lost Christmas.  The other disturbing thing about the show is the morality of it: the first female character to get laid since the crash became the first female character to be killed, later in the same show.  I can set that aside, though, because it’s still great theatre.

Smart, funny, original shows often disappear too quickly.  “Sports Night” lasted a season and a half before it got kicked off the Fox island.

Thanks to my daughter, I’ve discovered another show that met a premature demise: “Firefly”.  Part space opera, part western, this show was smart, funny, and corny all at once.  The characters were stereotypes (a Hero, a hooker-with-a-heart-of-gold, a preacher, a doctor, a crazy girl on the run from the law…), but the dialogue was fast-paced, witty, and exotic.  It had the two qualities that made the first three Star Wars movies (episodes IV through VI, for those of you born after 1975): witty banter and a refusal to take itself too seriously.  

Actually, I’m glad that “Firefly” didn’t last longer than it did.  Like “Buffy, The Vampire Slayer”, it might have lost its edgy wit after a few seasons, and left us with the dark shell of a once-great show.  

So what will I be watching next week?

Traveling Thoughts

There is a new quote hanging over my writing space today:

“What are we but our stories?” – James Patterson

Yes.

Okay, as I write this, it’s not hanging there yet, but it will be as soon as I can get home and fire up the printer.  And find the tape.  Because having a teenager in the house means that you can never find the tape.  Or the scissors.

At the moment, I am sitting in the Houston International Airport terminal at six in the evening.  Four hours ago, I asked for a different seat on my flight back to San Diego, and they gave me one.  On an entirely different airplane.  Leaving seven hours later than my original flight.

I’m not complaining.  They also bought me dinner and gave me a $500 travel voucher.  

So at the moment, I am feeling a little bit like Tom Hanks in “The Terminal”, except that I will probably not have time to build a fountain and I will absolutely not be romancing any flight attendants, particularly ones that look like Catherine Zeta Jones.

I did buy a book at Borders, though.

It’s an interesting experience, spending a day at the airport.  I like the atmosphere, though I have to admit that I’m not too fond of the lack of any quiet places.  Nine hours of CNN will drive anyone bonkers.  And, of course, there are those people who will sit next to you in an otherwise empty waiting area so that they can use their cell phones.  Quick shout out to the guy who keeps pacing back and forth by my chair: Thank you for finding the one thing that’s more annoying than simply sitting near me and shouting into your phone.

It’s wise to have some things lined up to do if you’re spending a day in the airport.  Now, to be fair, I spent the afternoon in the airport at Pensacola on Monday, waiting for my travel partner…and didn’t need anything to keep me busy.  There’s an observation area in the terminal, and I spent the afternoon watching airplanes take off and land…something I hadn’t done since I was a kid.  It brought back some terrific memories of weekend afternoons with my dad, pointing up into the sky and learning to recognize airplanes by their shape and sound.

This afternoon, however, I stopped by the video store (yes, they have one in the Houston airport), and purchased a copy of “Must Love Dogs”.

First, I’d like to point out that this is not a good movie for a single guy to watch.  That said, it’s still better than reading James Patterson’s Sam’s Letters to Jennifer.  Wonderful book, but not to be attempted without a box of Kleenex at the ready.  (If you can read this book without getting misty-eyed, you are made of iron.  Not just your heart.  Your entire being.)

Because the Houston airport isn’t well suited for plane-watching, I’ve been spending a bit of the afternoon people watching.  Let me paint a mental image for you:  I am seated with my back to the windows, facing the waiting area and the concourse beyond, because people are more interesting to watch than parked airplanes  To my left is an aluminum-shrouded pillar, which has the electrical outlet needed to juice my laptop.  To my right is a row of chairs, and suspended from the ceiling 10 yards away is the HDTV screen showing CNN nonstop.  Non-frigging-stop.  (How nonstop?  I am able to monitor Ariel Sharon’s condition more closely than his own doctors are.)  I am alternating moments of furious tapping at my keyboard with peering over the top of my glasses at the people around me and passing by.  Some of these people go by several times, and have been going by for hours.  I am apparently not alone; there is unquestionably a whole community of Airport Lifers here today.  Some of them I am particularly curious about: the pretty blonde in the purple sweater who has, in the last ten minutes, twice gone by on the moving walkway in both directions and just went by on the courtesy cart twice, once in each direction.  What is that about?  Perhaps she is triplets.  

While I’m thinking about it, I’d like to honor the high point of my trip today: as I passed through security in Pensacola, the TSA agent checking IDs looked at my retired military ID card and thanked me like this: “Have a great trip today, Kurt, and thank you for everything you’ve done.”

A week later: I came away from the day at the airport with an overwhelming sense of goodwill toward my fellow travelers, and people in general.  I know this is not as curmudgeonly as I’m sure most of you prefer me to be…but it is a fact; most of the people I encountered were, like me, just trying to get where they were going without too much trouble.  

That feeling was undoubtedly influenced by the fact that the seat they finally gave me was a window seat in First Class.  This was a first for me, and let me tell you...I wouldn’t mind travel at all if I could do it that way every time.  It was worth the extra seven hours in the terminal to sit where I didn’t have to ask the guy in front of me to take pity on my knees.

It was a good trip.  

Hope

Just a quick follow-up on my sister’s baby.

She could not possibly have chosen better parents.

I wrote a note to them yesterday, just to say a) I love them and b) that they’re being prayed for more than they know.  (Thank you all!)

The response they sent was hilarious, as they played off each other’s e-mails.  Yes, they’re shocked, and worried, and saddened…but they are meeting this new challenge with grace and humor and love (and six hours of Internet research).  

As my brother-in-law put it, “I love my daughter.  I love my wife.  I love this family.  We’ll get through this.”  

And apparently, we’ll laugh, while we’re doing it.

Please Pray

My sister called this morning.  While looking at the ultrasound during her monthly prenatal visit, the doctor found a number of tumors growing on her baby’s heart.  

They were not there last month.

There is no way of knowing if they are malignant, but even if they are benign, the problems they could cause include brain damage.  (As of this morning, the word benign has been redefined for me, and if I had my way, doctors would be required to deliver the news of a benign tumor with a healthy dose of sarcasm, and an exaggerated wink.  Or maybe a facial tic.)

Your prayers will help.

The Chickens Were Oblivious

Having bludgeoned classic literature beyond recognition, Hollywood is taking its cudgel to the great legends.

I do not want my King Arthur demystified, thank you.  When I was growing up, I loved the idea of having a wizard for a teacher, and I loved that there could be wizards.  I never related to Arthur, but I worshipped Merlin.  As I grew older, my understanding of Merlin’s character deepened, and I love the thought of someone so insightful that he could teach a boy (and then advise a man) how to create peace and unity that would last a thousand years, yet be so completely clueless about women.  (Now, in my forties, I find it’s a delicious piece of Truth that it’s easier to build a country than it is to understand a woman.)  The story is a good one by itself, but it loses something without its magic.

Now, Hollywood has taken the mystery out of the story of Tristan and Isolde, reducing it to a story about two young people so good looking that they couldn’t resist each other.  All the way through, I kept asking myself, “Why?”  I can understand why he’d fall for the pretty girl who nurtures him back to health with skills only she possesses.  But wouldn’t a woman so caring and talented and wise look for reasonably equal depth in the man she chooses?  The deepest conversation they had was when she read poetry to him, poetry he admitted he didn’t understand.  And then, suddenly, they’re naked.  

That was when the movie lost me.  

Now, in the legend, Tristan plays the harp, and wins Isolde’s heart with his music.  Also, he kills a dragon, proving to everyone that he’s not a harping nancy-boy.  (He has also killed Morholt, the giant, poison-blade-wielding knight, which proves that his killing the dragon was not an accident.)  I mean, there’s something a woman-of-depth can sink her metaphoric teeth into: a guy who can slay giants and knights and play the harp has got to be a keeper.

Now, as if the music and the prowess with the sword (there’s some symbolism for you, a thousand years before David Lynch), in the legend, it turns out that Isolde’s mother (also named Isolde…as is the woman Tristan eventually marries…and we think The OC is hard to follow?) is quite the whiz with a potion, and Tristan and Isolde accidentally drink some of the stuff.  They, uh, drank the kool aid.

By the time Tristan returns to his family, and they’re amazed that he’s not dead, I was ready to walk out, but the movie reeled me back in.  Here’s how it happened: There is a wide shot as Lord Marke (Rufus Sewell) greets the returning/resurrected Tristan, and in the foreground…there are a pair of chickens pecking at the ground.  Why were they in the shot, I wondered.  They didn’t add anything to the story.  Or did they?

I began to look for other hidden clues.  More symbolic poultry, perhaps.  A horse that winks knowingly at the camera.

You see, those chickens in the foreground represent us.  You and me.  Those chickens are Hollywood’s audience, pecking at the ground for bits of nutritious entertainment, because that’s what we’re reduced to.

I want my dragons back.

Oh, I'm Sorry...

This has been a damned short weekend, and I’m spending most of the rest of it getting ready to travel on business.  I hate the whole concept of traveling on business, much less the term “traveling on business”.  The implication is that I’ve somehow grown up and become one of those guys carrying a lap top case stuffed with too much crap as they shuffle down the center aisle toward a seat in Coach.

I used to travel on orders.  “On orders” made it clear that I didn’t have a choice about my travel: I was ordered to shuffle down this aircraft aisle and settle into my Coach-class seat.  I could delude myself with the thought, It’s all part of the sacrifice I’m making for the rest of you. As if that made flying in Seat 44F somehow noble.  I have friends in Falujah, making their sacrifices, and I’m here on Delta making mine.  

But now, I seem to have grown up, and I’m one of those guys with the laptop and the ass-too-wide-for-a-Coach-class seat.  My legs have always been too long for Coach, and now the discomfort extends to my hips.

Not that I had any choice about this travel, either.  My military boss felt I should go, so I go.  He’s going, too, so I can’t even complain, really.  

Last week was one of those when things just backed up and didn’t get done.  The holiday on Monday screwed it all up, and even with the short week, I managed to put in an extra day and a half of work.  

And I still left things undone.  When I left at 3 on Saturday afternoon.  

There’s an edge to this post I really didn’t intend.  I’m choosing to be unapologetic; I am tired and my back is tight and I will spend my day traveling tomorrow, beginning at 4:30 am.

Aside from all the hours I worked last week, it was a great week.  It was as though the Blue Fairy came through the window and tapped my work with her wand.  Bing!  I can see things becoming meaningful again.  

I know others also often feel as though their efforts go unnoticed, unacknowledged, unrewarded, unheeded.  We seem to have lost the ability to take pride in our own knowledge that we’ve done our best, and continually seek the recognition of others.  We want the glory we see given to others on television or in the media, even if it is on a small scale.  

You see it in the popularity of “reality” television.  It occurred to me just now that the reason so many people love those shows is that the protagonists are no different from the people watching the shows.  They want something better than the job they have, they’re not always perfectly articulate, they face situations they don’t like without unshakable calm, they have bad habits and blemishes and embarrassing secrets.  (Sort of the same things that explained Rosie O’Donnell’s popularity.)  And they are angry.  Watchably angry.

People watch because of one thought: That could be me.  And people do watch.  And they learn.

They learn that it’s okay to be angry and aggressively defensive.  

Now, there are myriad other places where we learn that behavior, so please don’t take me for one of those folks who thumps a Bible and focuses indignation on whatever happens to strike me as the Source of Society’s Decay today.  I’m just saying that those shows work because they appeal to the desire we all have to be part of something, before they turn it around and make it something no one can look away from, like a multi-car pileup or a child in a wheelchair.  

Anger is everywhere these days.  (Even in this post.)  A guy drives a car through the glass front of a restaurant.  A woman drives for miles against traffic on the freeway and finally sits ranting in her car for hours.  Another guy walks into a fast-food restaurant and shoots two dozen people.  

Where does that come from?  

When I was learning to drive, my dad taught me that if you came up behind significantly slower traffic on the freeway, you flashed your lights a couple times as a way of requesting a clear lane.  These days, that’s a good way to provoke a psychotic game of bumper tag.  (Tailgating is apparently considered acceptably less aggressive, but not by me.)

Toot your horn at someone who has just narrowly missed causing an accident, and you’re going to get the Bird at a minimum, and more if you happen to be going the same direction.  

Even while walking, people are inclined to step into your path without regard for the consequences, and then bluster at the person they cut off.  Shopping carts will only stop if they’re blocking the aisle.  (Go to any Wal-Mart or Target and you’ll see what I mean.)  Now that I think about it, strollers work the same way, especially the expensive ones.

It all adds up.  I used to be considered a very patient man, but even I spend most of my time with a good head of steam going, and one of these days, I’m going to treat some idiot who rolls his suitcase over my foot to a verbal explosion:

WHY THE FUCK DON’T YOU LOOK WHERE YOU’RE GOING?

But, then, I’d only be contributing to the problem.

It’s a nice fantasy, though, and if you happen to see me in the airport tomorrow, wearing a smile on my face, you’ll know exactly what I’m thinking.

A couple of generations ago, people dealt with disappointment and criticism better.  They accepted the blame when they were at fault, and sometimes when they weren’t.  They responded politely.  It’s a lost art, accepting responsibility.

Speaking of accepting responsibility, I’m going to take the blame for this meandering post.  Not terribly coherent tonight.

Good night, all.  I gotta go finish packing.

Please?

We hung out, completely at ease with each other.  Before we even got to dinner, she asked me to the movies this weekend.

We had dinner at Outback Steak House, followed by shopping for music and DVDs.  

I cracked her up with a story about going on Fly Safari in the basement of Farr’s Sporting Goods when I was high school.  (I was a crack shot with a rubber band, stalking the Wild Late Summer Housefly through the aisles of the Camping Goods Department.)  She regaled me with war stories from behind the counter at McDonald’s.

We shared a hot fudge sundae for dessert.

When I took her home, she hugged me, unabashedly.  

Lord, I know she’s got to grow up, but is it too much to ask that this year, the year she’s seventeen, drag its feet? Just a little?

Belated Holiday Greetings

I know that it’s been a while since I posted, but I have been on a quest of sorts, searching for just the perfect greeting for the New Year (and, in fact, the Entire Holiday Season, whatever you conceive it to be).  I cannot claim to have written this, but it’s worth putting up here, anyhow.

Here it is, my New Year’s Greeting to you all:

Dear All (not to imply that you should also hold me dear),

Please accept with no obligation, implied or expressed, our best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low stress, non-addictive, gender neutral celebration of the winter solstice holiday, practiced within the most enjoyable traditions of the religious persuasion of your choice, or secular practices of your choice, with respect for the religious/secular persuasions and/or traditions of others, or their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all.

Here’s to a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling, and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted calendar year 2006, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures whose contributions to society have helped make our country great, (not to imply that our country is necessarily greater than any other country), and without regard to the race, creed, color, age, physical ability, religious faith, or sexual preference of the wishee.

By accepting this greeting, you are accepting the following terms: This greeting is subject to clarification or withdrawal. It is freely transferable with no alteration to the original greeting. It implies no promise by the wisher to actually implement any of the wishes for her/himself or others, and is revocable at the sole discretion of the wisher. This wish is warranted to perform as expected within the usual application of good tidings for a period of one year, or until the issuance of a subsequent holiday greeting, whichever comes first, and warranty is limited to replacement of this wish or issuance of a new wish at the sole discretion of the wisher.

And, as always, the above greeting is void where prohibited by law.

With Platonic Love (and Non-sexual Affection),
Kurt

Inadvertent Advert

If I could beg your indulgence* for a few moments, I’d like to direct your attention to Jen’s site.  Those of you who click the links on the right border of this page already know her as my favorite artist, and you probably also know why.  

She has an astonishing eye, and she sees things in ways I cannot begin to understand, but the images she captures speak to me like a supremely enigmatic but infinitely patient teacher.  Now that I think of it, her pictures are rather like she is, in that respect.  

Today, at last, Jen is making her pictures available for purchase.  This is a big step for her, and I hope you’ll enjoy her work as much as I do.

*She hasn’t asked me to write this.

A Cherry Tomato Is A Sensual Thing

It is.  Try this: Gently take one in your mouth, all at once…and bite down on it.  That, my friends, is pure sensuality.

I’ve been thinking about sensuality quite a bit, lately, but mostly in a distracted and steadfastly self-absorbed way.  Everywhere I turn, the Universe is taunting me with images of what Meg described as “all the true love [I am] looking for in life.”  And, as I may have mentioned, I am a tad frustrated with the taunting.

Last week, after a particularly hard couple of days at work, I felt the need to have someone serve me dinner.  This was a purely selfish thing, but trust me when I say I deserved to lay on a chaise longue and be fed a variety of tasty morsels by what Michael Palin calls “maidens of the Orient.”  

(“…and there, strokéd was he by maidens of the Orient.  For sixteen days and nights strokéd they him.  Yea, verily, and caresséd him.  His hair ruffléd they, and their fingers rubbeth they in oil of olives, and runneth them across all parts of his body, forasmuch as to soothe him.
“And the soles of his feet licketh they, and the upper parts of his thigh did they anoint with a balm of forbidden trees.
“And with the teeth of their mouths nibbleth they the pointed bits at the top of his ears, yeah, verily, and with their tongues thereof make themselves acquainted with his most secret places.”)

There is somewhat of an art to eating alone in a restaurant.  The trick is to look as though you want to be eating alone.  You can’t go empty-handed into a sit-down restaurant and eat a meal by yourself.  That’s just creepy.  

A book takes the curse off it.  If you’re reading while you eat, then while you may still appear sad and lonely, you at least seem to have the means at hand of coping with your solitude.  

Choosing the right restaurant is essential.  If it’s noisy, there is no hope of actually reading anything, and no amount of subterfuge can hide the fact that you’re basically just watching the people around you like some urban version of Dian Fossey.  You might as well start snapping pictures and taking notes for “Coffee Drinkers in the Mist”.

I knew of the perfect restaurant, of course, because during my divorce, I lived in the barracks for a while and solitary dining out had been a way of life.  I stopped at the Bookstar on my way there, and picked up “How To Be Good” by Nick Hornby.

Now, back when I was solitary more often (before my daughter came to live with me), I ate dinner in this particular restaurant quite frequently.  It’s safe to say that I read a fair portion of Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey/Maturin series (all twenty of them) while dining alone there.  

So it was a bit like returning to the womb.  Maybe that’s not a good analogy.
The waitress I always hoped for back then is now the manager.  It took me a moment to recognize her: she’s gone blonde.  While I was admittedly staring at her, trying to place her, she caught me and gave me a quizzical look as she asked me if I had everything I needed.

Later, at the register, I smiled apologetically and said, “I’m sorry about that.  You totally caught me staring at you earlier.”

“No worries,” she said.  “I just hope everything was okay.”

“You don’t remember me, do you?” I asked.  She narrowed her eyes and looked closely at me as I continued, “I remember when you first started here as a waitress.  I used to come here a lot and always tried to get seated in your section.  That was, what, five or six years ago?”  I never could figure out her schedule, so I never got to be one of her regulars.

She smiled.  “That would be about right.  I’ve been working here for five and a half years.  I’m sorry I don’t remember you!  It’s been a while since you were here, hasn’t it?”

I assured her that it had been, and she told me to come back soon.  “Don’t be a stranger,” she said.

So, facing dinner on my own again this evening, I grabbed Hornby and headed there again, hoping that Tuesday nights were a regular night for her.  

They are.

Better, she greeted me with a coy smile and a warm, “You’re back!  I remember you this time!”

Now, some guys might have said something like, “…and I’ve never forgotten you,” but I’ve never been that much like Sean Connery.  Besides, that kind of a remark only sounds good if you speak with a bit of a slur in your Scottish accent.

I settled for asking her how her Christmas was, and after she’d seated me, I basked in the warmth of being remembered, which is, it turns out, also a sensual thing.

See, it’s such a small deal, being remembered by someone whose job it is to make her customers feel special, but I’m learning to relish those tiny flickers.  Moments like that are like cherry tomatoes – you should take them in whole, bite down, and savor the burst of Connection.

Five Things That May Surprise You

Lord knows that I have given Betty enough reasons to slap me. With a meme, that is.

So here’s the deal: I have to share five things you don’t know about me, and because I can’t just leave this concept alone, I’m going to bump it up a notch and say that the five things ought to be surprising or unexpected in some way. I’ve been pondering this for a while, because you deserve something more than a rehash of things I’ve already written…but it’s not easy. I do admit that I don’t always share everything on my blog…but those are generally pretty deep-seated and not the sort of thing you’d like to read about unless you also have a particular fondness for NASCAR because of the crashes.

So, here goes.

1) I am a pack rat. I have things packed in boxes that have been in those boxes without being moved for three years. They’d have been there longer, I’m sure, but I have only lived in this apartment for three years. I keep vowing to get rid of the stuff with a strict Six-Month Rule, but when I make a run at it, I’m overwhelmed with sentimentality. For things. I know: I need help.

2) I have an angry undercurrent that I have trouble with. I just seem to let it out, rather than waiting to vent it in some more productive way. I bark at people, and though I am not violent, apparently my size alone can be imposing enough to give the impression that I would sooner rip off someone’s head than give them the time of day. It would be too obvious to say that I am still angry at the drubbing I took in my divorce, and since then in all of my dealings with my ex-wife. I am angry as much at myself for putting up with so much shit as I am with her for giving me shit she had no right to give in the first place. As often as I’ve reacted angrily to someone (whatever the reason), there have been at least as many times when I’ve been abrupt simply because I’m tired or busy and I just don’t want to deal with anything but what’s on my mind at that moment. Most of the time when someone says to me that I’ve said or done something rude or unkind, I’m completely flummoxed, because I hadn’t been angry or tired, and I hadn’t thought I was being short at all. Whenever I realize I’ve been that way, I am much more deeply sorry than anyone ever knows.

3) I have seriously contemplated suicide twice. What saved me the first time was the realization that my ex-wife wasn't worth it. The second time, it was the thought of my father’s face if he learned I’d killed myself.

4) Ed used to be one of my favorite TV shows. At the end of the episode when Ed proposed to Carol, I wept like a baby for more than an hour.

5) I am multi-orgasmic.

These things need some continuity, so I’ve gotta tag a few of you…

Lisa
Condoleesa
Wordnerd
Erica
Binsk

Things I Do Not Understand, Volume 2

Once again, I find myself bewildered by certain things, so I thought I’d share them with you.

Aggressive Holiday Shoppers.  What the hell was I thinking?  I went to the mall on the second-to-last payday before Christmas.  I suppose I should not have been surprised by the asshole who cut me off in the parking garage and then slammed on his brakes and flipped me off for having the audacity to jam on my brakes to avoid hitting him as he ran through a stop sign without looking.  Oh, that’s right, I jammed on my horn, too.  Because it’s Effing Christmas and I was trying to get into the Christmas Spirit.  I could have gotten over it, because I love my fellow man and this is the season for that and all, but the crowds (and there were crowds) acted as though I had personally pissed on their mistletoe.  Ignoring for the moment how big my bladder would have to be to have done such a thing to the thousands of people thronging to the trendier of the two malls in Mission Valley, how ironic is it that people will slash at each other like velociraptors over a fresh kill in order to get their prizes home a week and a half before the Big Day?  Since everyone seems to hate their families, I have to wonder why they bother.  Because you just know that Penelope Pertnipple is going to jam a brightly-wrapped gift box into Uncle Lecher’s hands and snarl, “I know you don’t smoke, but I thought you’d look so distinguished with this Meerschaum pipe.  They said you shouldn’t actually touch it, so I got the gloves with it.  Where are the gloves?  GOD DAMNIT, THEY DIDN”T GIVE ME THE GLOVES!  Oh, well, I hope you enjoy it.”  Quick, someone grab their new digital camera and take a picture.

People making a living at writing badly.  Whatever happened to the cigar-chomping editors who used to make life hell for the reporters and copy writers?  Consider this story from Reuters (a well-respected news agency) about the racial violence in Sydney.  It says, “racial violence first flared last Sunday” in one paragraph, then a few paragraphs later, says, “Racist text messages and emails have been circulating calling for violence this Sunday – the one week anniversary of the unrest…” I’m sorry, what?  Apparently, Reuters is now hiring junior high school girls to write for them.

When the media drops all pretense.  Another story in the news this week was about the FBI questioning a fourteen year old boy in California who had scrawled PLO slogans on his notebook.  The OfficialWire news desk wrote that “the entire experience left the student badly shaken, and he has since been hesitant about expressing his political views in any context.”  The article does not elaborate on why I should care that a fourteen year old boy is hesitant to express his political views.  I was fourteen once, and I was hesitant to express my political views, then, too.  Not because the FBI asked me to step out of class and answer a few questions, but because I was fourteen!  I was also hesitant to ask Debbie Dosh to the Halloween Dance, but no one gave a fart in a windstorm about that.

The instructions printed on my socks. Yes, you read that right.  No, I am not making it up.  Yesterday morning, while putting on a brand-new pair of socks, I noticed that next to my big toe, there was a little mark in yellow ink that looked like this: 7.  I wondered what this mark could be for…some sort of indication of where my foot ought to end and my toe begin, perhaps?  To keep myself busy while I pondered this question, I donned my other sock.  In a similar location, the other sock was marked with this symbol: R.  The “R” was, of course, upside down from my vantage point, but its presence provided the necessary understanding to solve the riddle of the hieroglyph on my other sock, which was not a “7”, but an “L”.  I wonder, am I paying more for socks that come with the instructions printed on them?  Did the sock company lose a lawsuit by some poor, tortured soul who spent a day with his socks on the wrong feet?  Is there anyone out there dumb enough to care which sock goes on which foot, but smart enough to read the instructions upside down?

The Economy in a Cardboard Box

Erica’s post set me to thinking this afternoon about Customer Service. After all, Kalbfleisch’s Economic Razor states: The strength of the economy is inversely proportional to the quality of service in any fast food restaurant. This is because when the economy is good, all the good workers have good jobs and the fast food places have to scrape the barrel to meet their staffing needs. When the economy is bad, you end up with rocket scientists working the cash register at McDonalds, and except for the guys in the O-ring division at Morton-Thiokol, you can pretty much count on an engineer to give you a Perfect Sandwich. For several years, I’ve joked that if I ever decide to become a doctoral candidate in Economics, that will be my thesis. Until recently, I thought of this as an immutable law, cast in stone as much as any economic theory could be, and would someone please nominate me for a Nobel Prize in Economics? Armed with this understanding, Alan Greenspan could get caught up on years of back episodes of “The West Wing” simply by stopping at Burger King on his way to testify before Congress.

(Please permit me to digress for a moment on the subject of Nobel nominations. It seems that Stanley Tookie Williams, co-founder of the Crips gang, has been nominated five times for the Nobel Peace Prize while he was on death row. I didn’t know this, but apparently you can go to any US Post Office and ask for a Nobel nomination form, and they’ll give it to you. All you have to do is fill it in, and they’ll do the rest! They used to have those forms at 7-11, but it got to be like a whole gang initiation thing, you know, to, like send in some upstart, punk-ass, wannabe gang-bangin’, glock-passin’ dogg, so he be, like, “Yo, muthafucka, gimme one o’ yo N-to-tha-izzobel Prizzize forms, NOW, muthafucka, befo I put tha fo’-fo Desert Eagle to yo muthafuckin’ dome, Cuz.”)

Word.

So, where was I? Oh, yeah. Economics.

So, last week, my daughter got a job at McDonalds. I like this job. It’s a block from our house (let’s not talk about the weird zoning laws that put a McDonald’s just four blocks from a neighborhood filled with five and ten million dollar homes), so she doesn’t have to go from newbie driver to Mario Friggin’ Andretti the day she gets her license.

On Thursday, after a terribly long day at work, I headed over to Mickey D’s to grind my sizzelf a burga…sorry, to get a burger. I order my usual: quarter pounder with cheese combo, hold the onions. My daughter is in the dining area, doing paperwork, and after I said hello, I headed home with my prize. Yyyyummyyyy. Burger.

I had checked the bag before I left. Yes, the custom order slip was taped to the outside of the excessive packaging box, and it said, “QTR PDR W/O ONION”. No worries. I had even observed the manager open the box containing another customer’s burger, check to make sure it was correctly assembled, and send it back to be remade when it turned out to be non-compliant burgage.

I assumed, given all of this evidence, that I could safely take my burger home and eat it there. I assumed that when I got it there, it would be The Burger As I Ordered It.

Big mistake. Big.

No, it had onions. Not only did it have onions, it apparently had been covered in onions. It had, where do they grow onions? Wisconsin? Roughly all of the onions grown in Wisconsin this year were on my quarter pounder.

Now, I like onions on my burger. Grilled onions, thank you…not the big, honkin’, chunk-o-onion pieces they put on burgers at Mickey D’s these days.

I just snarfed the burger, cursing the air between mouthfuls, while silently thanking the Great and Benevolent Oz for the strength of our economy. I took consolation in the fact that I had sent Mickey my revenge for years of bad service: my sixteen year old daughter. I rolled my eyes with glee, even as I washed the putrid taste of onion out of my mouth with Mr. Pibb. Yes! I will soon get exactly what I order at McDonalds! My daughter will make sure I do! Ha-a-a-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!

When she got home, I told her about the Onion Burger From Hell and said that if I hadn’t already dumped my fries into the top half of the over-packaging box, I’d have taken it back and asked them to fix it.

Because clearly, they’d heard my order correctly.

“Oh God, Dad,” said my daughter, “then they’ll remember you, and when you come in, they’ll ask me, so is that, like, your dad?”

So, there you have it. I have been spared the ignominy of sharing a Nobel Prize with a guy named Tookie. My ironclad theory of economics has been dashed on the rocks at the base of the Cliffs of Insanity.

You see, the quality of service at a fast food restaurant isn’t based on the strength of the economy. It’s much more personal than that.

Apparently, it’s embarrassing to provide good service.

Hold the pickle, hold the lettuce,
Special orders WILL upset us,
All we ask is that you let us
Serve it our way…

Pride and Privilege

Last night, I took my daughter to Disneyland.  We spent more time on the road going to and from than we did actually in the park, but it’s a once-a-year thing, and something special we could do together.

See, it’s the Disney Family Christmas shindig this week, and because my sister and her husband both work for Disney, they invited us to go along.  

Naturally, on Sunday night before she went to bed, my daughter complained that she was coming down with a cold.  It’s something of a tradition that someone in our family experience some minor illness or discomfort whenever we go somewhere, and it was her turn.

So, I wasn’t surprised at all when she called from school around noon, her voice heavy with snot, asking if she could get a ride home.  I was crestfallen.  It was no fault of hers, but she’d put me into a bit of a bind: should I get her out of school early and cancel the Disneyland thing, or should I tell her to tough it out if she expected to go up to Anaheim with me?  I thought for a moment, then decided that she should come home, sleep for a couple hours, and then go with me to Disneyland, but only on the understanding that she’d have to go to school today.  

She agreed.

So, as I said, we had a terrific time at Disneyland.  We rode the Pirates of the Caribbean and the Haunted Mansion, ate a fantastic dinner, and in general, acted like pals.  I loved every second of it, in spite of the fact that every time I looked at her, I was also checking to make sure that she felt okay.  She was fine.

And then this morning, she knocked on my door to say that she really felt too sick to go to school.  I sort of expected it, even if I wasn’t happy about it.  “Okay, you can stay home, but be sure to pump fluids,” I said.  I didn’t fawn over her, or even check on her.  She’s a big kid, and a good one, and I’ve always trusted her to know when she’s not well enough to go to school.

Now, I know, some parents will insist that trusting my daughter this much isn’t healthy, and that she needs to be followed up on.  Ridden, if necessary.

Hogwash.

One of the things I’ve always done with both my daughters is to speak to them like adults who have earned my respect.  I started this while I counted my older daughter’s fingers and toes the first time, which would be roughly 6.23 nanoseconds after they finished cleaning her up and asked me to take her to her mom.  I’m not sure how much of the quality of our relationship I can attribute to this habit, but I will say that neither of my girls sass me nearly as much as they apparently do their mother, which is approximately a hundredth of how much other kids seem to sass their parents these days.  It’s a simple philosophy: treat the children with respect and they will grow up respecting themselves and other people.

As I always do when my daughter is home sick, I called her to see how she was feeling.  I did it to let her know that I was thinking of her, and that she was important enough to stop what I was doing…she knows how busy my job can be…and also to see if she needed me to bring her anything when I headed home.

Her cell phone was off.  This is not unusual, as she turns it off during the school day to avoid having it taken away, should someone call her during class, and she also keeps it turned off when she’s home, because she’s got her own land-line phone.

So, I called her land-line, and got her answering machine.  No big deal, she could be in the other room, so I talked mindlessly into her answering machine for a minute or so before it cut me off.

I figured that when she got the message, she’d call, and when she didn’t call, I assumed she’d be sleeping.

When I got home, she wasn’t there.  

It turned out that she’d gone to the mall for Christmas shopping with a friend.

I called the friend’s cell phone, and asked to speak to my daughter.  I was on the war path already.  She couldn’t explain why she’d gone to the mall, nor could she say how long she’d been there.  If I had been snarling angry before, I was now in another dimension.  The top of my head flew off, the rest of my skin fell in a heap around my ankles and I began channeling R. Lee Ermey’s Gunnery Sergeant Hartman.  I am not entirely sure that I did not scream, “What is your major malfunction, Numbnuts? Didn’t your mama and I give you enough attention when you were a child?” but I did shout “DO I MAKE MYSELF CLEAR?” more than once.  

I was calm by the time she got home half an hour later.  I was no less angry.

She was very upset.  I sat her down and told her I was disappointed, mainly that she’d lied to me about how bad she felt that morning, and that she should have known that permission to stay home from school was not permission to go to the mall.

She said, “I didn’t think we’d be gone so long.  I thought I’d be home before you got home.”

That was the part that hurt.  She didn’t just lie, she put some thought into it.  She weighed the consequences of her actions.

I’m not looking forward to talking to her mother this evening, because I’ve never known her mother to go along with any decision of mine, and I suspect that I’ll have to endure a lecture about parenting skills.

Because she’s Dr. Bloody Spock.

This leads me to the lesson in all of this for me.  Lisa wrote about regrets recently, and though I fully agree with her, I do have one major regret this evening (and for a long time to come).

I regret that I am a single dad.  

I regret that I have to be the hardass and the nice guy, that I have to straddle the line between good cop and bad cop.  

And if I have ever taught my daughter that it’s okay to be dishonest as long as you don’t get caught, I regret that, too.

HCOD

A friend and former shipmate had a thing on deployment that he called the “PCOD”.  It’s pronounced “pea cod”, and it means, “Pussy Cut-Off Date”.  He defined it as the last date he could get laid, catch something, realize he’s caught something, get it treated, and be clear of it before getting home to his wife.

Now, I’m not going to debate the relative morality of the concept, and anyone who wants to know where I stand on the subject of infidelity can just browse around in my blog for a while to find that particular answer.  Also, this was clearly in the days before enjoying a piece of strange could net you a disease that guaranteed an ugly death.

No, I’m actually extending the concept to my current situation, namely that I’m facing the eighth Christmas of solitude since my marriage ended.  I realized this morning that it’s well past the Holiday Cut-Off Date today, three weeks until Christmas.  Anything less than six weeks and including each other in family plans on the Big Morning are uncomfortable and weird.  Everyone will just end up trying to be polite while sitting unshaven, unwashed, and unkempt in their slightly-fuggy PJs, and that’s too much pressure to put on the family.  

And if I were to opt out of the Christmas Eve or Christmas Morning festivities (nog or coffee, as appropriate), in favor of someone my family hasn’t met, I’ll get the Third Degree, beginning with the editorial question, “So you’ve known this woman, what?  Three weeks?  And you’re spending your Christmas with her?”

If I were to say that I was indulging myself in the possibility of Christmas Morning Sex (or the fantasy of it, at least), something I have not had in oh, say, ten years, I’d have to deal with the disapprobation of my parents, who have said on a number of occasions that I shouldn’t “get serious” for at least a year.

Don’t get me wrong.  My family wants me to find someone to be with, but not three weeks before Christmas.

The problem is that when you find someone who really trips your trigger, you really want to be with them as much as possible.  You don’t want to miss a single second of the process of getting to know them.  You hope that this is the person you’re going to spend the rest of your life with and you want the rest of your life to start right now.

The truth is that you’re in danger of being more lonely on Christmas day if you’re in a truly new relationship than you are if you just accept that this is the eighth time you’ve been a fifth wheel for the family holiday celebrations.  You can’t be with your new love, and you can’t not be with them, so you slip quietly into spare rooms to make furtive phone calls in the hope of getting to say, “Merry Christmas,” without having to endure any ridicule.

And then there’s the whole problem of what to give your new love as a Christmas gift.  It should have meaning…it’s the first Christmas Gift Ever for the two of you.  Sweet, thoughtful and non-committal; it’s a hard combination to come by.  

Some years ago, I gave a new girlfriend a book entitled “All About Me”, which was simply thought-provoking questions and blanks for my answers.  I spent several evenings on that book, and answered every question truthfully.  After all, I have nothing to hide, and if she was going to be with me in the long term, I wanted her to know that I would always be honest with her.  The message of this gift was not that I was giving myself to her, but that I was willing and able to open myself up to her.

When she broke up with me a month later, she said that my Christmas gift was one of the things that killed it for her.  I was too honest.  Romance lives in a world of illusion, she said, and that simple, heartfelt book had filled in blanks that she wanted left to her imagination.

So for now, I’m resigning myself to the fact that this will be another Singleton Christmas.  

Maybe next year.

“No way November will see our goodbye
When it comes to December, it’s obvious why
No one wants to be alone at Christmas time.
And come January, we’re frozen inside
Making new resolutions a hundred times.
February, won’t you be my Valentine?

And we’ll both be safe ‘til St. Patrick’s Day.”

-- John Mayer