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Single Male Homemaker Tip From Me to You #1: Q: On occasion, I get thirsty. And I know that water is bland and flavorless, but it's the only thing I have in the house and it's too rainy to walk to the store. And I see the Kool-Aid packets in the cupboard, and sure, I don't have the sugar that the Kool-Aid packet tells you to add, but do you really need the sugar? I mean, the Kool-Aid's all powdery and sugary-looking all by itself, right? It smells pretty sweet, right? And I'm really, really thirsty. So, I mean, adding sugar to the Kool-Aid isn't absolutely necessary, is it? A: Oh yes, it sure as hell is necessary, you imbecile. Look at the instructions, and there's your first clue: "Step 1, chilled water. Step 2, three ounces of Kool-Aid powder. Step 3, fifteen pounds of sugar. More if you've got it." Somebody in a commercial may have told you once that Kool-Aid is better than soda because you can control or limit the sugar in your drink. This was a lie. Without it, the stuff is undrinkable. An ashtray would spit it out. It burns through the Tupperware. Kool-Aid:this stuff::Me:Lemur. Learn from my mistakes. Single Male Homemaker Tip From Me to You #2: Q: Candles are designed to be burned. You light the wick, the wax melts down the side, everybody's happy. Surely, it isn't possible to burn a candle wrong, is it? A: Well, of course it is! You see, my dear mother offered to spruce up my place a little bit with a centerpiece for the kitchen table. That centerpiece was a candle. Now, normally I don't think much of candles, but I wanted to be grateful and play along so I lit it. I figured it would melt down the sides a little and look nice to people who know the difference between things that look nice and things that don't. Some time later, I looked over at the candle to see that, instead of melting nicely like an ice cream cone, it was doing this weird ruined-soufflé thing. It was supposed to look like a birthday cake but instead looked like the Coliseum without the upkeep. When I mentioned this to someone a few days later, I was told that I had "burnt the candle wrong." This actually sums up what I dislike about candles rather succinctly. *** I need to get more organized about this. For the past few weeks, I've been "writing" in the most half-assed way possible. Rather than sitting down and telling a story in a decent fashion, or even rambling in a decent fashion, I've been jotting down whatever comes into my head at work and mailing it to myself. I thought this would make things more current and frequent on this site. Dead wrong. And boring, too. 9/30/99: Oh God. They want me to go to the @%#$& trade show again this year. And it's next flippin' week. There has to be someone else who can go in my place. Can't they hire one of those auto show models or something? Probably not. The auto show model would not be able to dazzle prospective clients with a mastery of our field. Not like me. Oh, no sir. I am an expert in my field. I'm one of probably 20 people on earth who know how to do the things I do. Why the hell would anyone want to know how to do the things I do? 10/01: all right: somebody sold our services to a client 1) who's doing just fine without us and doesn't need us at all and 2) does what we do. Not only does this make me incredibly nervous (because it means the guy's gonna spend the entire campaign calling me up and saying, "you're doing it all wrong!"), it also begs several questions. Are we trying to put ourselves out of business? Is our sales department being run by a monkey with a dart board? If you know how to do it, if you do it for a living, what do you need us for? Too busy competing with us to do your own site? Am I a web chauffeur now? Am I the maid? I'm reminded of the time I called a client, delighted because he was showing up at #3 in one of the search engines, and boasted of the success. So of course, he was irate. " #3?!! What is wrong with you, boy?!" "But... you're #3." "I was #3 before I hired you!" "Then... then why did you hire us?" "To be #1!" "Just how much power do you think I have? And do you think the nudge from #3 to #1 is really going to make that much of a difference in your life?" "Yes!" "I'll see about getting you your money back." 10/04: …It's definite. I'm off to the east coast for the rest of the week. I guess I can't complain. Not because I don't want to, and not because these trips aren't an experiment in sleep deprivation. I cannot complain because everyone will say, "You are so lucky to get to go on trips. You are so lucky to have your job. You are so lucky to be young and single and free. You are so lucky to be unencumbered by friends or people with common interests. You have it so good." F***in' spare me. There is nothing worse than being grouchy about something and hearing how great it is that you're stuck with it. Best thing to do is to just b**** about it quietly online and then leave town before all the envy mail comes in. By the time I read it, the trip will be over and I won't mind so much.
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Well, the trip to New York has come and gone, and it looks like I'm going to live assuming I ever catch up on all the work I missed last week. ("All the work I missed last week." I got back and had about five e-mail messages, two of which were addressed to igqhfudf@mailinglist.com and offered me "the biggest breasts [I could] handle." Yes, I was much in demand in my absence.) "How was New York? Was it fun?" 1) The world has one city, one city with many faces. New York's face is prettier than St. Louis', but the only place I'm ever sad to leave is home. No matter how big a metropolis it is, I never did find any Boo Berry cereal, so it can't be that great. 2) I was on a business trip, and on business trips you can only have fun that doesn't interfere with the business. In this case, that means nothing during the day and nothing that will make it hard for you to get up early in the morning. But that time between 7:30 and 9:00 is all yours, baby! I had just enough time on the streets last week to wander a bit and wonder: how do people get robbed in New York City? When you talk to people in the midwest about NY, so many people look at you and say, "Oooh, I'd love to go there… but not alone. Were you scared?" And it's like, "I wasn't in Bosnia. There aren't snipers. A guy gave me a coupon for a strip club. That's about the most interaction I had." I mean, there was never a moment outside of my hotel room—this includes the elevator and the lobby—that I wasn't surrounded by at least a dozen people. There is no place in this city secluded enough for an armed robbery to take place. Even if someone did try to rob you, they wouldn't be able to do it, because it would entail standing still on the sidewalk for more than three seconds and that's a crime New Yorkers simply do not seem to tolerate.
The best way I can think to describe my typical business travel with my coworkers: Five of us went to represent our company at a trade show called Internet World, a huge gala event where all of the industry leaders come together for one week to desperately pretend that the internet is not the most boring f***ing thing Satan ever did with God's creation. All the big shots pay for these gigantic e-booths to hawk their wares and talk themselves up, and they stage elaborate e-spectacles to trick you into e-listening to them. They actually do sometimes hire those auto show models to work the booths; I can honestly say that this was not the first year that I was approached by a bottle blonde dressed as a giant blue M & M trying to interest me in getting ready for e-business. Even after a painfully lengthy conversation with the giant candy, I could not be coaxed into guessing what either blonde models or M & Ms have to do with e-business. (Actually, I could suggest what blonde models have to do with e-business, but the e-porn convention isn't in New York. It's in L.A. Why I know that, I again have no idea.) (Even more actually, blonde models have a lot to do with e-business because the people who actually know things about the internet could never engage most people in a conversation. Even disguised as candy.) Most people are content to populate their booths with e-models, but some go even farther. They hire fifty people to dress up as Santa and hand out leaflets and coupons. They hire stand-up comedians and motivational speakers to do the presentations for their products, none of which have anything to do with motivation or intentional humor. One booth even had this art whore who would put on a CD and—live, right there in front of an audience!!!—paint a portait of the singer by throwing paint at the canvas, ya know, all rock 'n' roll style. Someone would then come up and explain to the crowd how this amazing feat was just like what they did with IPs and routers, except without the paint and music. ("So, what? They throw your system against the wall? Hell, I do that myself!") Every few minutes, as the crowd began to doze, the presenter would use the phrase "e-business solutions" and then everyone would begin to nod, impressed. Those who sat through the presentation were given a free tee shirt, which rewarded them for their patience by allowing them to advertise the product on their bodies for free. Every hour, this would happen again. I remember the stand-up comic who was working the audience as I was on my way to grab lunch one day, the comic who shouted as I passed, "Don't ya just hate having to pay for bandwidth in bunches? Imagine if ya had to pay for electricity like that…." I did not stay to hear him do his killer bandwidth routine, but I did wonder what stage a comedian's career is in when he finds himself at a booth in a trade show doing jokes about bandwidth. I then pondered what stage one's career is in, indeed what stage one's planet is in, when one finds oneself listening to e-standup. I also remember the Santas. I remember the in-your-face painter. I remember the sexpot M & M. I remember the BMW, the camper, the humvee, and the two volkswagen beetles that were parked at various booths for absolutely, utterly no reason whatsoever. (I can maaaaaaybe see the VWs if they were from the 2000 model year, and thus were millennium bugs, ha ha ha that'll be even funnier the 51st time I hear it. But I digress.) I remember the daring circus act that was apparently just like what one company does with your data, except without the danger, the circus performers, or any interesting characteristics whatsoever. I remember all of these amazing sights. What I do not remember is a single name of a single company who paid to put a single one of these things in the convention center last week. Assuming the other convention-goers were in the same state of mind, and considering my booth didn't even have any sexy giant candy, I obviously feel that the last week of my life was time well spent. Wait! Wait! I do remember one URL! The Santas wanted me to go visit I'veBeenGood.com. I went there as soon as I got home. The site wasn't up yet. Their booth was gorgeous, though. But I don't remember any of the other companies. Not even the one with the humvee. All I remember about the humvee is, turn left and there's the bathroom. This could be because I am an idiot. But I don't think that's it. I did learn a few things while in New York. I learn a lot of things at these trade shows. Last year, I learned Dan can have seven mixed drinks in an hour and still walk under his own power, often directly into traffic. This year, I learned that I hate the lowercase "e." I would have never guessed this about myself. For years, I have used the e in countless sentences and inarticulate squeals. But lately, so have a lot of other people. A lot of other evil people, most of whom have been sticking their e where it doesn't belong. From the good people at IBM (who say "e-business" the way the Smurfs said "smurfing") to the countless start-ups who wanted to help me with my e-commerce, e-solutions, and e-motional duress, there was some serious abuse of everybody's favorite vowel going on at this show. Any time anyone was flailing, they'd slap an e- in there. Miraculously, this actually causes you to gain credibility; I tried being an e-marketing specialist in a few conversations, and everyone who heard it was like, "Hey, this guy's really on top of things!" I found it a little bit e-rritating. Special penalties to anyone who uses the lowercase e followed by a capital letter instead of a dash (example: "We are a one-stop shop for all of your digital eCommerce solutions, as demonstrated by this juggling clown on a unicycle.") Penalties will also be handed out for:
I also learned that the nicest thing about business trips is that they allow you to go on scouting missions for future vacations. As you board the shuttle each morning to spend nine hours standing in a 10' X 10' trade show booth/human veal pen, you drive past a lot of things that look like they would be fun to do, even if your alternative was not standing in a 10' X 10' trade show booth. "Wow, Cats is still playing on Broadway? Seriously? Didn't that open in 1982? That might be interesting… good God, there's a concert every night of the week here!… It might be cool to see Conan before Andy Richter leaves… or Letterman…. Hey, the Chris Rock Show tapes on Fridays!… or Jon Stewart!… maybe next time I could go see Saturday Night Live!…" (That's me. Even when I'm on vacation, what intrigues me most are new and interesting ways to watch TV shows.)
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Okay. I believe it is time to make some lifestyle changes. Do you ever reach a point in your life where you feel like you have to say the same things to the same people so many times that you might as well just start numbering your conversations and responses to save time? It was always a running joke with my ex-, but lately I've been feeling like it's not such a bad idea. Orwell is smirking somewhere.
On multiple occasions lately, I've had this conversation with the law school gang: (bad music plays; hundreds of inebriates revel in unison) "WHAT ARE WE DOING HERE?!" "WHAT?!" "WHAT ARE WE DOING HERE?!" "WE NEEDED TO GO SOMEPLACE WHERE WE COULD CHILL! YOU KNOW! JUST SIT AROUND AND TALK!" "WHAT?!" "I SAID, WE NEEDED A PLACE WHERE WE COULD TALK!" "WHAT?!...." And I always say something before we end up at the bar, although sometimes I don't even know why I bother. I guess it counts as evidence that I haven't lost hope. "Maybe this could be it. This could be the time when I finally make a case for intelligence. Maybe this time, the 1000th time I'm having this conversation, I will meander onto some tangent and finally say the thing that keeps me from having to go to the bar." I never do. Say the right thing, that is. But hope springs eternal. If nothing else, it's gotten to the point where the people I'm with know what I'm driving at. It's only a matter of time before we start numbering the arguments. I feel like I'm in a tape loop. The meal ends, and Chris says "Well, what do we want to do now? Where do we want to go?" and I say, "Why do we have to go anywhere?" and he says, "They're going to kick us out of here," and I say, "I've never been kicked out of a restaurant in my life, not even Steak 'n' Shake after curfew in high school," and he says, "Well, they have other people coming in to eat, and I'm sure they would like us to leave, so do we to go down to O'Rowdy's pub?" and I say, "Why? To do what?" and he says, "To just kinda relax, get a table, sit around and talk," and I say, "So, the exact precise thing we're doing at this very second right here?" and he says, "Yes, the exact precise thing we're doing at this very second right here," while looking at me like I was put on earth to test his religious fortitude, and I say, "Well, gosh, that's a great idea!" while looking at him as if to say, "I have nothing in common with any of my friends! Please kill me!" and then we all go to O'Rowdy's pub until I leave early. Later, someone calls to tell me how obnoxious the lounge singer got or about the soccer player Alexis almost beat up for setting his glass on our table, and then I don't make any other plans in the next six days so we do it all again the following week. (Run-on sentences: don't fear them. Befriend them.) The only thing that causes more controversy is when Chris calls me up and says we're going out, and I say, "Where to?" and he says, "We haven't decided yet, we're meeting at my house at 6:30," and I say, "I was just thinking maybe I could meet you at the place we're actually going to," and then he says, "No sense in taking half a dozen cars, let's just meet over here at 6:30," and then I go down south to his house at 6:30, and everyone else gets there at 6:50, and then we go someplace in the complete opposite direction, meaning we drive right past my apartment on the way, sometimes even eating dinner at the restaurant a block away from my apartment, then at the end of the evening we go away from my apartment so I can get my car and go back to my apartment. But that's just an inadvertent thing that's happened less often since I started b****ing about it incessantly. So, this afternoon, I got talked into going to a winery. I went for the company, and I had some time to enjoy the company, but so much of the day's enjoyment was dependent on my ability to remove myself from the situation. In order to have fun as I watched the rednecks around me chug-a-lug Missouri table wine and dance to "Brown-Eyed Girl" played on a Casio keyboard, I had to put on my Ironic Distance Helmet and take a few steps above these people I'd never met. And a breeze hit me, and I just looked around and thought, "I genuinely like the people I spend time with, but this is exactly, specifically the one-hundred-eighty-degree opposite of what I want my life to be. This. Right here. I've reached it. Time to tag the wall and go back the other way now." I don't belong a few steps above anyone. This Ironic Distance Helmet is chafing, and having fun by watching the stupid ways other people have fun is a poor substitute for having fun by actually doing things you enjoy. It could be a condition of being young, but I did a lot less in high school and had a lot more fun. There were nights when Ed Spinaio (the only one of us who could drive) would pull up in his 1968 Chevy Caprice, and we'd all pile in to Go Out and Do Something, and five hours later we would scurry home and barely make our curfews without ever having found anything to do but nevertheless weeping with laughter. Some nights, we never even found a plausible excuse to get out of the car at all. Especially after he got the CD player. Of course, there were some nights when we'd be racing somebody out in the middle of nowhere and I felt like a hostage by 9:30, but it never felt forced. Maybe it was because we were united by our youth and similarities: none of us had more than a passing interest in drinking or girls, we all wanted to get out of our houses, we all liked the music in the CD player, and we were all astounded and terrified that an adult would ever permit Ed to drive a car. A while back, about six weeks or so ago, I had a taste of those days with the legal gang (whom I think of as the law school crew despite the fact that half of the people in question aren't in school at all; it's just that the ones who are tend to be the planners.) Chris, Bart, and Alexis were my companions this particular evening; perhaps it was the all-guy vibe that was so reminiscent of my school days. Anyway, we were supposed to meet Alexis at Chris' house down south, so we could inevitably go do something up north. Unfortunately, I didn't know where Chris lived (he had recently moved) and Bart has no car. It was therefore decided that we would meet Bart at SLU and then I would follow Chris to his house, leave my car there, and then get into Alexis' van and go back where we just came from. There was a very good reason we executed this complicated, Mission: Impossible script of a plan. I have no idea what it was, but when I asked, I remember a Very Good Reason being explained to me, possibly with the aid of a chart. Bart would meet us at SLU. Alexis lives a block from SLU, but he would meet us at Chris' house. We would then drive away from Chris' house to do something, most likely something nearer to SLU or my apartment. There was a Very Good Reason. I don't remember the Very Good Reason, but I do remember the ride to the house was a hoot. I often forget, but re-learn occasionally, that Chris is one of those people who leads car convoys as if all the cars are attached to his with a chain… you know what I mean? You're supposed to be following them, and they drive like they're trying to outrun you? And as they breeze through the third yellow light of the evening, you start to ask yourself, "Are they trying to lose me? Am I not invited anymore?" Given that I was once voted by Ed Spinaio and the gang as "Most Likely To Get a Ticket Driving Below the Minimum on the Highway," I was not a fan of trying to follow Chris. I was on a tear by the time we pulled up to his place. I was not complaining so much as delivering an oration. "How can a law student, how can someone who devotes his entire life to the pursuit of adherence to The Law, how can such a person constantly and without fail break the simplest, most commonplace law facing an adult? You pass the signs 100 times a day! Very clearly, very legibly written! 'Speed Limit!'" "I've lived around this neighborhood a very long time, and..." "I mean, it's not that you speed. It's not that you just speed. It's that you never go the speed limit. Not even on accident. You don't drive as if you're going to get pulled over; you drive as though you might pull someone over yourself at any moment." "I've lived in this neighborhood a very long time, and trying to drive the speed limit down these streets will get you killed. Since I've started zipping through here, I haven't gotten into a single accident." "But... that doesn't mean the speeding is keeping you alive!" "Trust me." "That's like saying the leaves in your yard keep alligators away!" "Trust me." "Did you notice how you sped, and I didn't, and we both got here within seconds of one another?" "That's because I held back for you to catch us." "Bull S***, you did!" Alexis soon arrived, and I learned that we would not be taking the Love Wagon, his late-seventies conversion van with the colored lights and disco ball inside that said in almost every way possible "I Am A Serial Murderer" right down to the Wisconsin plates. Alexis had not cleaned out the van in months and announced that it was unlivable. The rest of us thought that it was rather unlivable when he allowed us in it, so we decided not to push our luck and got into Chris' car. The rest of the evening was something that evenings very rarely are, namely casual and spontaneous. We went out to eat, and Bart played a game of "hide the insulin syringe in the entree" that disturbed the waitress more than any tip could ever compensate for while I sat like an addled parent. Alexis drove afterwards, because Chris had gotten a margarita whereas Alexis had merely… gotten a margarita also. I don't recall exactly why Alexis had to drive, other than that there was a Very Good Reason involving time of first sip and time of last sip and illustrated, I believe, with a PowerPoint presentation until I just didn't care who was driving anymore. It was decided that we'd go to the Aero Squadron Something-or-other, this bar (naturally) over by the airport that was converted from something aeronautical and military and which was famous for being a great place to relax and watch the planes take off and land. It was something we had never done, so I was all for it. Unfortunately, because it was something we had never done, nobody really knew where the place was, per se. Oh, plenty of people knew where it should be. Alexis, who is not a local, was particularly agitated that we couldn't find it: "It's by the airport! You just go to the airport, and there it is!" The angrier he got, the funnier it was to me; his contribution soon became to suggest turning at every turn we didn't take and then, once we arrived, saying, "I told you we should have turned here!" I was reminded of seeing the movie Scream with Nicole: "If you say 'he's the killer!' every time every character comes on screen, that doesn't mean you figured out who the killer was well in advance." Alexis was so infuriated by our mockery of his driving that I have only seen the Love Wagon once since, and only very recently. The wounds are still fresh. Of course, considering we almost got arrested and killed (although not necessarily in that order), I make no apologies. In the midst of our trek down the darkened side roads surrounding the airport, shortly after our stop at a gas station to beg for directions but shortly before our stop at a hotel where we pretended to be guests and asked for better directions, Alexis made an error in judgement. No matter what he may try to tell you now, that is what happened. Until the shouts of, "In Missouri, red means stop!" Alexis was running a red light. This prompted the kind of shouting match that is hilarious to the participants a few days later, assuming they survive. "What was that? What was that stop? What are you doing?" "I'm driving around in the dark trying to find an imaginary bar, that's what I'm doing!" "All right. Back up, for God's sake. We're out in the middle of the intersection." "We are not." "Wha… how can you think this is acceptable? We can't even see what color the light is from here! You're in the intersection! What is this, is it the margarita? I knew you shouldn't have had the grande!" "I didn't even finish that drink, and given that I first started drinking it at 7:30, my blood alcohol…" "I don't care! I don't care!" "I find drunk driving to be the most reprehensible…" "Back up the f***ing car!!!" "We're all right! We're on the line." "We're…? The rear tires are on the line, maybe! You need to… car! Car! Car coming right for us! Back now! Back now!" "All right, all right!" "That truck missed us by an inch and a half!" "He did not." "Two inches maybe." "He would have gone around us." "Are you insane?!" "Um, hey you guys, I wonder what that police officer behind us thinks of us." "Hey, Bart? That's the least funny thing you've ever said." "I'm serious! The car behind us is a police cruiser." "Oh, good! And we're in the intersection with a driver that smells of tequila!" "I had that drink over two hours ago!" "'It's all right, officer; it's old tequila! And we're on the line!'" The car then fell into the silence of desperate innocence, that eerie calm that befalls a vehicle when everyone in it thinks they should be pulled over but really, really doesn't want to be. The police car passed us. After much more confusion and apologies to Alexis, we finally found the bar, at which point being lost in the middle of nowhere became a lot funnier than it had been when we were lost in the middle of nowhere. The bar was dead. We sat outside and watched the planes land, and no one jostled us, and we didn't have to shout over anyone. I was amused by that; we were on an airport runway, and it was easier to talk than it is at most of the places we go. At about 12:30, somebody wanted some aspirin or something, so we went to Wal-Mart. Alexis bought $70 worth of Star Wars figures. I abstained; I've reached the point where I either have to lose my toy habit or buy another shelf, and I just don't think I'm ready for that kind of commitment. All in all, it was a pretty dorky evening. A little juvenile, definitely. But it was also a lot of fun, fun in a way that shone a spotlight on how un-fun a lot of things I normally do in my spare time have become. So, I think it's time to trim the fat a bit. I don't like it when I skim through my diary and all I see is "waah waah waah" for pages on end. I'm tired of making concessions for activities I don't condone without having any concessions made for me, and frankly I don't think I should be talking about concessions when I'm talking about a social life as limited as mine. If that isn't a Very Good Reason, I don't know what is.
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It's been a while since I wrote. Obviously. Last time I even tried, it was my sister's birthday, which I still have done nothing to commemorate. So at this point, failure to journal is the least of my worries. I met another neighbor upon arriving home from work today. He was an older man, for an apartment dweller, balding and gray in his forties. He was roaming the hall in running shoes, red running shorts, a tee shirt, and elegant long white gloves. The kind you might expect to see on Marilyn Monroe. He didn't seem to think there was anything unusual about it. I played along and turned my key a bit quicker than usual. Today was another one of those days that makes me grateful for the door between me and the rest of the world. I've had so much trouble communicating with people, it just seems better not to do it anymore. At work, for example. My coworker Steve has been getting really excited about the American theatrical release of Princess Mononoke, an anime film that was huge in Japan a few years ago. In discussing it today, though, we had a Typical Steve Conversation. STEVE: I can't wait to see how the dubbing comes out! ME: Well, the English was written by Neil Gaiman, and a lot of Western stars are doing the voice-overs. I think Minnie Driver's in it. STEVE: Who's that? ME: Ohhhhhhh let's see… what has Minnie Driver been in?… I'm blanking… oh! Did you see Good Will Hunting? STEVE: Yes…………….? (looks at me as if waiting for more information) ME: …She was in it. Good Will Hunting. (pause) STEVE: Well, who did she play? (long pause) ME: The… the only female in the movie. STEVE: confused stare ME: The girl. The woman in the movie. The only one. You saw the movie? STEVE (impatient): Yes! ME: She dated the main character… Will. Hunting. She was basically the whole impetus for everything he did at the end. STEVE: . ME: with the dark hair. STEVE (immediately): Oh, her. But that's just Steve. Once, he mentioned that he was going to see Philip Glass perform at Wash U. Quote, "Philip Glass is coming to Wash U, I can't wait to get tickets," end quote, never to be mentioned again. I mentioned that I lived near there. Two months later, he came up to me on the day of the concert and said, "The theater. Where is it?", expecting me to remember there was a concert, to know that the concert was that night, to know where the concert was being performed, and to know how to get there and where to park, based on a two-sentence exchange two months earlier. Only by summoning an intra-office team of linguists and performing a three-hour Pictionary tournament were we able to figure out what the hell he was asking. Until we did, he looked at me like I was the biggest moron to ever walk upright, and that was how I felt. I feel that way walking away from a lot of conversations lately, though. After work today, I had a dinner date with my parents and a friend of the family, the daughter of my godmother who recently started school in town. I agreed to go thinking it was just a friendly thing, but now I'm not so sure. It was the kind of dinner where you're all supposedly just hanging out, but then your mom asks the girl how her boyfriend's doing, and the girl says they're having some problems, and then Mom looks at you and you realize she knew they were having some problems before she even asked the question. Maybe I'm one of the only people who has these dinners. You keep waiting for Dad to bring up the dowry. (I was not very high on Dad-comfort tonight as it was. When they came to pick me up for dinner, Dad sat down on my couch and started flipping through the cable channels with a perplexed look. "What's wrong?" I asked. "We have the same cable system," he said, "but you don't have the hockey game, for some reason." "Oh!" I said. "That's just the way my VCR is set up. Since I'll never have any reason to watch them, I deleted all the sports channels from my auto-programming." He looked at me like I was mentally disabled. He let the moment pass and said, "I didn't mean to take you away from what you were watching. You weren't watching anything, were you?" "Not fervently," I said. "I was just watching the Simpsons." At this, upon hearing that I was watching the Simpsons, my father laughed out loud at me. As far as he was concerned, I might as well have said, "Oh, I was just watching Sesame Street. In my jammies, with my wooby." I gritted my teeth so hard I could taste flakes of enamel drifting down my throat. Funniest adult show on TV, a decade on the air, one of my all-time favorites, and my parents have never even given it five minutes because it's ink on paper. Just another one of those occasional moments when the adoptee looks at his caregivers and thinks, "Nature:1, Nurture: 0.") Dinner was pleasant with the exception of a brief conversational debate over my sister's roommate, who during a visit with my parents last week apparently mentioned being a nude model. (As I understood this debate, it was my mother's point "Who the hell cares?" versus my father's counterpoint "Living with an art class nude model will spontaneously transform your sister into a promiscuous intravenous drug user.") As we were saying our goodbyes, however, I totally lost my ability to talk politely to other people. I know this because my mom called to make fun of me as soon as she got home. At issue was the young lady's attempt to make plans with me, which I apparently missed.
ME: Lately, I find myself spending an awful lot of time at the movies. HER: Well, the next time you're looking for some company, by all means give me a call. I'm always looking for someone to go with. ME: Yes! We could go together! That would be pleasant. I will do that. HER: Please do. ME: All right, I will.
ME: Lately, I find myself spending an awful lot of time at the movies. HER: Well, the next time you're looking for some company, by all means give me a call. I'm always looking for someone to go with. ME: Actually, a lot of people feel that way about going to the movies alone, but if you think about it, you really don't need company to go sit in the dark and be quiet, you know? I go by myself all the time. It can be nice. If the guy behind you's being a jerk, you can get up and switch seats without having a committee meeting. It's not as bad as all that.
HER: Please call me. I am lonely, and I am reaching out to you right now. ME: I would rather go out alone!! You should try it; it should help you get used to being such a friendless loser!!! Also, you are ugly and stupid! It would probably be best not to talk to anyone for the rest of the week. |
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This morning I was reading about the huge, seemingly unstoppable boom in our economy right now, about how unemployed people are now so rare they're being hoarded and sold on eBay. It occurred to me that the only people in real danger of losing their jobs are the people working at the unemployment office. I wonder what it would be like to have to go on welfare after being fired from the welfare office. Pardon the pointlessness. I use this space to lean heavily on whatever nuggets of Funny I have in my life, but the buzzword for the last several days has been Grim Grim Grim. Last week, one of my oldest friends told me that his dad, who has been fighting a losing battle with his health for many years now, will most likely not be with us for much longer. Since I've known and admired his dad for many years now, the news was quite a blow even though we have long known that his illness was one from which he would not recover. Unfortunately, around the same time I got that news, my boss' dad died from cancer. Step 1, he doesn't feel well. Step 2, they tell him he has six months to live. Step 3, he dies three weeks later. The end. Unfortunately, around the same time I got that news, a cousin of mine—a nun, actually—experienced some weird heart problem and now finds herself awaiting open heart surgery in an attempt to prevent her death. Unfortunately, around the same time I got that news, one of the women who works for me had to leave town in the middle of the day because her grandmother was going to die and she needed to go say goodbye. Unfortunately, around the same time I got that news, one of the women who works for me was told at the age of 23 that she appears to have herself some cancer. Is it serious? They don't know. They're only doctors. Should I feel lucky that none of these things are really, strictly speaking, happening to me? Because I don't. What I do feel is an unexpected amount of empathy as all of these individual horrors weave themselves into an elaborate straitjacket around me. It's just unrelenting. By the time I heard about the cancer, I just wanted to cry out, "Good God!" but it started sounding like an oxymoron. These are the times when the supposedly ordered universe seems to taunt, "Eat it, Christian! Bad Things! Good People! Two great tastes that taste great together! Hey, Christian: do you like apples?…" Like I said, I don't really have a role in any of this, just a source of awkward consolation. But there are those who would say I should be taking something out of all of it, either frustration and despair at the bleak offhandedness of it all or gratitude for the relative blessings of my own life. At the moment, I'm getting more from column A than column B. Getting out of bed isn't getting any easier. A bunch of us from work (except for those of us who had surgery that day) went to the wake for our boss' dad, and it really seemed to bring a lot of things to the surface. We spotted her across the room, talking to some people and smiling politely about something or another, and she seemed tired but otherwise fine. But as we approached, she glanced up mid-smile, looked into my eyes, and suddenly burst into tears. We had no idea what to do, so we got into an impromptu line and gave her some hugs. "Seeing you guys just seemed to bring it all home," she said into my ear as we hugged. "Thanks for being here." "I dunno," I joked lamely, "We might have stayed away if I'd known you found us that upsetting." She wiped her eyes and smiled. "Sorry, seeing you just makes me break down." "It's all right," I said, "I have that effect on a lot of women." She laughed for what looked like the first time in a while. "Oh, you always know just what to say." "Oh, you have no idea how wrong you are."
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