Now it’s getting convoluted – 331.5

I was trying to decide whether to write about Aaron or Gerard first, and it gets tricky because they are so intertwined. I think I may have to alternate. I did decide that I hate calling him Gerard. At the time, I was trying to decide whether Gerard Butler was good-looking or not. Now I have decided his looks are not bad, but it is really more that he is charismatic than anything else. Regardless, when I needed a code name for someone tall, dark, and handsome, that’s what I went for. From now on I will call him Mitch. It’s still not his birth name, but it works better for me.

So, we know that I did not ask Mike to the prom, and that I was a little bit worried about getting a date. While this was going on, after his graduation Aaron had gone to play basketball at U of O. I went down to a game with his family, but I saw that my ticket was not actually from him—it was from Kevin. Aaron had a large family that was fairly local, and a lot of the players, including Kevin, were from California. I think each player only gets two tickets per game, so trading around was common, and I would presume that Aaron would give Kevin his tickets when they went down to UCLA or something.

Well, the next time I went down, I made cookies for both of them and Aaron’s roommate, Darin. I used to make pretty good cookies (though I am out of practice now). This happened as my prom concerns were growing. Talking to Aaron later, he passed along their thanks, and said that Kevin said the cookies were really good and he would like to meet me. I said that if he was free on this specific date, we could go out. Amazingly, he went for it. I would be attending prom with a college man! A really tall man, as it was. In the side by side picture we took, all you have is my head or we would have lost his.

Anyway, this changed things a lot for when I ended up at school. I looked Kevin up, and gradually started meeting all of the basketball team members, and then I started doing things for them because it felt like a natural continuation of what I had been doing in high school. I wasn’t the official manager, so I was not on the court bringing them water and towels, but I would bake them things and take posters to the games and was just kind of supportive.

I suppose it was weird. For one thing, there is a big difference between being on the team at a not particularly respected high school, and being a scholarship player at an NCAA university, so they might not need as much support. However, no one specifically acted like I was weird. Some were warmer, and more grateful than others, but everyone kind of took it stride. Eventually, after the football coaching class, I took an interest in the football team too, but I went to at least one game or meet of every official team—track, wrestling, volleyball, women’s basketball—all of them. (I specify official because there were club teams like hockey where we did not get the free tickets and have the games on campus. Sorry Cold Ducks.) For more details on all of that, refer back to “Spork and Basketball” and “Spork and Football”, from summer 2006.

This is all just background, and then I can start talking about the actual relationships, but I am going to throw in two more stories to make understanding Aaron easier.

One of the many Scotts I knew was interesting in that, going back to junior high, he would always start off a year or a class being kind of a jerk to me, and then he would thaw and we would get along okay, but it would all be done away over the summer.

A few months after quitting McDonald’s, I started working at K-Mart, and worked there through the rest of high school. Scott got a job there too, and we worked together for a while, and bonded again, and then he said he was quitting. I pointed out our pattern, and he realized he was right, and said something along the lines of how we were going to have to go through it again. I was like, no, just quit doing that! His pattern was foolish, but I had an issue there too in that when he was being cold and withholding of approval, I always felt compelled to earn it. I guess that makes him the first guy who really reminded me of my father.

You may remember my discussions of junior high, where I mentioned one of the guys I hung out with as being a sociopath. He was remarkably manipulative, and was always trying to trick you into saying something where he could prove you wrong and win. I remember him once asking me if I would be the lives of everyone in the universe on the existence of God. I said “yes”, but that was wrong because I don’t have the right to bet on other people’s lives. However, if I said “no”, that would have meant that I didn’t really believe, which was what he was going for and what I was resisting. That was relatively good behavior for him.

Anyway, I remember one time when he was accusing me of thinking that he liked me. I just said I didn’t want him to, which he said wasn’t his point, and that was true, but the problem was I could not express what I really felt about him. I did not understand it well enough yet.

Years later, I can articulate it. What I felt was that he wanted to be able to have control over me, so it would have been good if I liked him, or admired him, or even was scared of him. That is far from him liking me, and certainly doesn’t make me special because he wanted the same thing from lots of people. I could never have put it into words at fourteen.

Anyway, Aaron was like Scott in that I felt compelled to when him over when I should not have cared, like this guy in that I could not even explain to myself what was happening on all of the different levels, and going back to other blog entries, like Chris from Junior High whom I mentally worked myself into liking. Also, Aaron was like Bobby in that he had a grossly inflated idea of my affections.

Now that all of that is out of the way, I am confident that I can write about him tomorrow and it will all make sense. Whether I can finish the story before explaining about Mitch is a bit more debatable.

Mike – 333

I did not intentionally let so much time pass—things have just been busy. I am getting better at not wasting time and being more productive though, so we’ll see how that works out.

I feel safe considering Mike my first love, and it was very much love at first sight. I resisted that aspect of it less than I did with Gerard, though, because I was a sophomore in high school and just did not worry as much about logic. I saw him in the halls at school and was smitten. I don’t know that he had a remarkable first impression. We had seen each other around, and I knew I liked him, but the first time he spoke to me he was not really hitting on me.

I can be kind of clumsy at times, and maybe some of it is a poor grasp of spatial relations. The point of this is, as I was walking around a trophy case I didn’t quite make it, and clipped it with my shoulder. It was nothing unusual, and I my typical strategy was to pretend such things did not happen. (Admittedly, denial is not a great strategy. I still remember Amy looking at me in horror after, having given me a ride home, I leaned into the car to thank her, banged my forehead on the door, and kept talking.)

Anyway, my shoulder went bang and I would have kept going but I heard this voice behind me, “Watch out for that case!” and it was Mike. It wasn’t a brilliant response, but I said, “Thanks for deepening my embarrassment. I appreciate it,” to which he replied, “You’re welcome.” Well, smart alecks have never been a turnoff for me, and at least he had noticed me—no easy feat for a sophomore with a senior.

Still, it would not have gotten us anywhere, and once he graduated I could easily have never seen him again, but that job at McDonald’s came in handy. He came in a lot, and always ordered the same thing, a double cheeseburger plain. He was so consistent that one time when I was working drive-through the woman told me she couldn’t remember if her son wanted a double cheeseburger plain or a quarter-pounder plain. I said, “If your Mike Johnson’s mother, it’s the double cheeseburger.” There was stunned silence, like how did you know? She’s just lucky I was working that night.

Anyway, as he would come in we would talk more, but where we really started to bond was when I bought the drum set.

I have always loved music, and one of the hallmarks of getting your first regular paychecks is that you realize you can just buy things. You don’t need to ask your parents or anything. On 170th one family had put out a drum set one day, and I really wanted it, so I asked his advice. Mike took a look and helped me get them back to my house, and gave me advice for what else I would need.

The drums did not work out for me. When I did feel comfortable letting loose, I loved playing them and I believe with practice I could become good at them, but it was so hard to let loose. Even when there was no one else home, I would worry about disturbing the neighbors. We knew suppression was an issue for me. I’d like to give drums a try again if I could ever have a soundproof room, but I probably should have just used the drumsticks on cushions for a while, or stuck to practicing piano.

Still, even if I never became a great drummer, the set brought me closer to Mike, and that was totally worth it. That was when we really started talking and hanging out.

If I had not already been there, he would still have been so easy to fall for. Even if I am not great at playing music, I appreciate it really well, and I still think he is the most talented musician I have ever met. I knew he played drums from school, where he played in the band at basketball games, but he played and wrote the most beautiful songs on piano, and when he came over to my house he tuned and played my uncle’s guitar, which had been untouched for years, and even played some on the banjo that my father had impulsively bought and never learned (family trait apparently). Also, he met all of my shallow requirements, being relatively tall, having great hair, and nice arms. Of course he had great arms. He was a drummer!

I haven’t really had a boyfriend (other than Shawn and Stephen, if we are going to count absolutely everything), but there are ways in which it was like we were dating. We talked on the phone a lot, and would hang out at each other’s houses (more often it was me at his, because he lived right across from school, and had one sibling to my four), and occasionally we would go places together.

Also, he did things for me. He helped with the drum kit of course, but he would also give me rides to work sometimes, and sometimes I could just hang out at his place when having a father who was not speaking to me was too hard. On my birthday I wanted to do something different, so he picked up pizza for me and brought it to the school, and I had a pizza party with my friends on our lunch break. Also, my big goal for the SAT was to break 1500, and I got 1420 and was feeling down, and he was just so excited over the score that he was the reason I felt better about it. Really, he was pretty supportive.

For Mike, I am sure it was not at all like we were dating, because that would have involved sex. He had girlfriends on and off the entire time we were friends, and at least one of them knew we were friends, because he heard about something I did at school from her, and I had no idea who she was.

Eventually, he moved, and I was not seeing him as much, and I went off to college, and at some point I realized that he was never going to like me the way that I liked him. We had never discussed the inequality of our feelings. How could we? I was already a full compartmentalizer, where I kept my romantic feelings private and only displayed friendship feelings, ever. Still, that doesn’t mean he didn’t know, because there was another girl who liked him, and he got really frustrated with her. There were things to that story that I did not know, but it at least showed me that he was capable of discerning unstated romantic yearnings—and made me pretty nervous.

Anyway, when I had this realization, I felt like I needed to break things off with him. I was probably feeling a little bitter, but I remember thinking that I was like a little dog following him around, and even if he was not treating me that way, for my dignity I needed to stop. And I think that’s where I messed up, in that I was worrying about my dignity. If I had just been focused on my ability to grow and find love, it probably would have been okay. As it was, I wrote him a letter explaining that kind of dumped him as a friend, and possibly hurt him. He didn’t write back, but it didn’t really invite a response.

Time went on, and maybe I had some regrets, or should have, but I don’t remember really thinking about it until I was at Washington Square and saw him. I just went cold, and fled the scene—I hope before he saw me, but I have doubts. So I wandered to a different area of the mall, and kind of collected myself, and then felt really stupid and went back in his direction. I didn’t know if he would be around, but I felt like I at least needed to try. Suddenly, he was right in front of me.

It was awkward, but it was good. Honestly, I would have deserved some coolness from him, but I guess he understood, and he was nice, and we could make small talk, and be okay, even if we were no longer going to actively keep in touch.

As the story continues, we will see that evicting Mike from my heart is what left room for Aaron, and as Aaron was replaced, well, I really learned to appreciate how good Mike had been to me. While I was on my mission I wrote him, and I just kind of thanked him for everything, and reaffirmed that he was a good guy. He didn’t write back to that either, but the one last time I saw him, he mentioned it, and it meant a lot to him. He actually mentioned it to his roommate, and his roommate asked, “Are you sure she means you?” “Yeah, I think so.”

That last time was at the funeral of another friend, Eric, who left us all way too soon. This was about eleven years ago. There were a lot of people I could have talked to there, but I did not feel up to it, so I visited with the family a bit, then stood off to the side, and suddenly Mike was walking by. We hugged and talked, and it was good. We did not exchange addresses, but we were on good terms and I was grateful for that chance. Even if I am no longer in love with him, I will always love him and wish him well.

I do have some regrets. One is that I was writing a lot of songs in high school, and I didn’t really share that with him. I kind of tried once, and immediately felt that they were so lame, and I could not go on, except collaboration and continued effort is how things get better, and I would have loved to have developed my musical talents, including songwriting more. Yes, he was going to be superior to me, but that would have given me a lot to learn.

Finally, I regret not asking him to my senior prom. I was at prom all three years. Sophomore year I was with Hung, and then my junior year I did not have a date and wasn’t going to go, but I was in charge of the chaperones and felt like I had to, so I went stag. I danced with friends, and although I did not dance with Mike, he was there. Someone else had asked him.

For my senior year, I really felt like I needed a date, and it was clear no one was going to ask me, and eventually I got fixed up with Kevin, and that directly affected some of the people I met during college, and we had a good time, and it was fine. However, I had been in love with Mike for three years—I should have at least tried asking him.

I guess I didn’t want to risk ruining the friendship, and I didn’t think he would really want to go to yet another prom, but it would have been a dream come true. And who knows? I don’t think we would have ended up together, but we might have kissed, or tried dating over the summer, or I could at least have felt confident enough in his regard for me that I did not dump him as a friend a few months later. It was just worth a shot.

There were two bad patterns I’ve had that I followed with Mike. One is always focusing on the guy that was not around. Yes, he was in town, and we did spend time together, but after he graduated, it might have been good to pay more attention to the boys I was actually around daily.

The other thing was maintaining complete secrecy on what is really important, from the guy and from other people. If people knew I liked Mike, then they should have known that I was not hung up on Bobby or Aaron, but one of my closest friends teased me about Aaron because even she thought I liked him. I was a little overprotective of my secrets, unlike now where I just post everything on the Internet.

That’s a good side note actually. I recently wrote a letter to the editor. It did not end up getting published, but if it had, the particular person who was involved is remarkably vindictive. However, my closet doesn’t really have any skeletons, and anything that is really painful or embarrassing has either been posted already or I will get to it soon. So in addition to my intended goals of working out emotional issues and becoming stronger, I am also basically blackmail proof.

Thank you, my six regular readers. You are an important part of my process.

High School Days – 329

The nice thing about high school is that I don’t have anything I really kick myself over. Yes, there were some fairly humiliating moments, some stupidity, and at least one regret, but in general, I got by okay. Maybe it’s because I don’t really remember hurting anyone.

Although I was still appreciative of good-looking males, I did end up being less boy-crazy. I think it was partly growing maturity, where I could develop deeper attachments, and also, I may have started sublimating, replacing attraction with service.

You see, I was a very smart kid, and this allowed me to coast quite a bit academically. I would go through cycles of occasionally putting off too much, getting some bad grades, and trying to apply myself again, but the point is that school was largely social for me. This may be why I am not quite sure that I was a nerd, though I certainly had some of the trappings.

Anyway, I remember going through this booklet of different activities that were available to students at Aloha before starting my sophomore year, and trying to calculate how many I could possibly fit in. At various times I was part of French Club, Spanish Club, Earth Club, Science Club, Amnesty International, Literary Journal staff, and Model United Nations, as well as helping with many dances and student events. The two that really stuck were Speech Team and sports management.

It’s the management part that directs the rest of the story. Don’t get me wrong—I have speech tournament stories too, like that guy at Monmouth who was totally coming on to me Friday night, and then completely ignored me Saturday, or Ted who was wonderful, but I was too immature to give him the proper encouragement, or running into Chris again after college and being horrified, but those are stories for another time. Let’s talk about sports. I’m going to have to sell out my friend Karen a little bit, but she’ll be okay.

It all started one day when the morning announcements mentioned that the men’s basketball team needed a manager. I thought about this, and decided to go for it. After all, I loved sports, despite not being very good at them, and basketball was my favorite sport at the time. I wasn’t sure exactly what was involved in management, but it turned out to primarily be folding warm-up suits, handing out water and towels, and later on included sweeping the gym floor before practices. I decided to go for it.

It got off to a rocky start. Remember how most of my friends had a flair for the dramatic? I told Karen, and she went into her next class and announced that Gina was managing the basketball team just so she could have a quickie with Bobby at halftime.

Well, that was patently untrue. Even if I was the kind of girl to have quickies, and if the coach would have stood for that kind of behavior, and the guys were free at halftime (which they were not), I wasn’t that into him anymore. Also, I assumed the men’s team meant varsity, and I had thought of Bobby but I assumed he would not make varsity before he was a senior. I had watched him play a few times. However, I was wrong on both counts. I managed both varsity and junior varsity, who played their games consecutively, and there were so few players that the only guys who did not play on both teams were the seniors (who couldn’t) and 6’7” Aaron who I initially assumed was a senior, but I guess they just reserved him because he was the star. We’ll talk more about him later.

Unfortunately, often in high school it doesn’t matter so much what is true as what is believed, and maybe what matters even more is the size of the mouth on who knows. There was a girl in Karen’s class who heard it, knew what it meant, and spread it like wildfire. Karen saw what was happening and felt horrible, and her confession explained to me why so many people whom I did not know at all were staring at me as I walked down the halls.

The old rule about not letting guys know you like them turned out to be very true, as despite me being around all the time, Bobby and I were never really able to bond. One thing that would be really helpful for teenagers is an understanding that these things are not really important. I’m not sure it is even possible to understand it while you are in it, but now I get it. Yes, two years ago, when I was an eighth grader and you were a ninth grader I thought you were the cutest boy in the school, out of about fifty who were considered cute. So what?

But at the time, it was not “so what”, and it started off kind of discouraging. The thing that really kept me hanging in there, besides my usual stubbornness, was the kindness of the seniors, especially Grant. I remember one night when we had played at Tigard. At home games I could leave pretty much as soon as the game ended, but for away games I would wait while they showered, and possibly got yelled at or talked to, depending on how the game had gone, and usually everyone else would have cleared out. I think maybe that night Grant was injured and had sat the game out; otherwise I’m not sure why we were along together. He asked me how I was liking it, and I had some doubts, and was feeling kind of down, but he was very encouraging. Maybe he talked to the others too. Anyway, it started getting better, and I did care a lot about Grant.

It was not exactly a crush. When I think about the first time I fell in love, I sometimes think it was Grant. Usually I end up deciding that Mike was the first one I can actually call “love”, but Grant was sort of a transition for me. It wasn’t about being the cutest, or anything like that. Technically, even if we looked at just the seniors, Darin was probably the handsomest, and Bob was the hottest, and Gary was the one who tugged on my heartstrings the most. I liked Grant because he was kind, and his eyes were clear and honest, and if he was good-looking it was secondary for me.

I made it through the season, and then one of the basketball coaches recommended me to the track coach for spring season. The primary duties here were score-keeping, and I got paid $12.00 a meet, so that was pretty cool, and then I got hired to run the clock for summer basketball too, which also paid. I enjoyed the sports jobs (except for my brief stint umpiring Little League Softball, which sucked horribly), but I was still undecided about going back for additional seasons. However, my other job was at McDonald’s, and the other guys from the team came in all the time, and asked if I was coming back, and I finally decided to give it a try, and also to manage men’s soccer.

We had some good times. The soccer team ended up going to the state championship, and the basketball team ended up in the final four—both of which were phenomenal. It was a big change for the basketball team. I don’t know how the soccer team did the previous year, but it was still pretty sweet. I’d like to say that it was because they all had such a great manager, but that’s probably a stretch. Still, it doesn’t hurt.

I did end up kind of liking two other nice guys from the team: Joe, who had not been on the team my first year, so there were no bad memories, and again he was very kind, and then John my senior year. And believe me, it was John I liked, not Jon—Jon drove me nuts! However, these were not really serious crushes, because I wasn’t thinking of them as potential dates. These guys were my responsibility and I wanted to take care of them and see good things happen to them, so that’s where the sublimation came in.

I might have been better off not being a manager. For one thing, I had no idea how un-cool managers were. Most of the managers for other teams were disabled in some way, and they may have gotten into management due to a lack of other options. I know the Beaverton guy had been a football player, but he had a weight problem where it wasn’t safe for him to play. Granted, I’m no one to criticize there, but really, since I was going to be wanting scholarships, I really should have focused on my grades, do just two activities but really excel at them and try to hold office in them, and then do some volunteer work that would give me great testimonials and letters of recommendation. Socially, I probably should have tried befriending boys with common interests, and putting maternal instincts on hold for a decade. All I can say was it seemed like a good idea at the time.

The next installment will be about Mike, but let me quickly mention some minor things. We know my first date was Shawn. My second date was for prom when I was in tenth grade. I went with a friend from junior high, Hung, who was one year older, so this was his junior prom. He later turned out to be gay, but I did not know at the time, and we did have fun. I do have a minor regret though, which is that I let my mother talk me out of the dress I really wanted (satiny green strapless), and got the one she liked (pink taffeta with way too much lace). I know it makes sense for mothers to steer away from strapless, but I could have really looked good, and let’s face it, there weren’t going to be a lot more opportunities for that in my future.

Also, I might regret not taking the chance to kiss Dan in the student center that day. It might have been a good milestone for me, but maybe it is better that I didn’t.

Boys = crazy (me and them both) – 329.5

Maybe it was suddenly being in a bigger venue, but there were just a lot more boys to like once I was in junior high. Maybe as we aged they were also getting cuter. Hormones could possibly have been a factor too, though I don’t remember noticing that aspect until high school. I did develop a specific type that I liked, which was basically baby-faced basketball players. Yes, I liked them tall, gangly, and with cute boyish faces. I did not learn to appreciate a strong jaw line until later, though Scott had one, and he was the first boy I noticed. However, in general, they were more boyish looking and definitely tall. The epitome of this was Bobby.

Now, I have just named two people, and used their real names. I have sort have been working it so that high school graduation is the dividing line; with boys before we can use their real names, and after that we switch to fake names. I did not really make this decision actively, because with more recent people I was using fake names, but when I wrote about Mike I used his real name without even thinking about it. However, it also seems pretty safe. Remembering Five Oaks, I can think of three Kevins and five Scotts and more Jasons than you can shake a stick at. It wasn’t like today when parents try to prove how unique their child is, and so will inadvertently end up with a class full of Cadens and Madisons, except that some of them will have the spelling jacked up.

(I blame celebrities for that. We could also blame teen pregnancy, but then you can just blame that on celebrities too, so it’s all a circle.)

Now, from the posting about the terrible incident that happened in junior high, I have already covered that I liked a lot of boys, and that my friends and I were pretty zealous about assigning code names. This may have gone along with the need for ignorance (because you can’t let boys know that you like them), but also, we did have a flair for the dramatic. Generally, it was very innocent and fun, and led to more talk between us but no talk with the boys.

I did end up with another bad boy (drug dealer) I liked, and I got to talk to him a fair amount because our lockers were next to each other one year. It was also a time of trying new things, as I realized that I wasn’t going to get anywhere with drama, so quit drama club to join the yearbook staff and changed my drama class to beginning guitar. (I was a pretty good addition to the yearbook team, but was not good at guitar.) I had good friends, most of whom I am still in touch with today, and I pulled off straight A’s in 9th grade because I knew it would go on my transcript and figure it would be the one such year where doing so was possible.

Of course, I did pick up some deep psychological scars that took roughly twenty years to get past, but we knew that already. Where the additional personal analysis is needed is in three other mistakes I made that are worth review.

The peer pressure: Of all the boys I liked during that time period, the only one who stings now is Chris. This is partly because I think I was too obvious, but even more it is because I did not like him on my own—I was sort of talked into it. The other girls talked about how cute he was and smart and all those things, and I eventually kind of made myself like him, but this is stupid. If the chemistry is not there, let it lie. If I could have learned this then, the other Aaron thing might not have happened. Sure, my reasons for not liking Chris on my own were probably pretty shallow. I think it was largely due to the fact that he was short. Maybe he seemed a little snobbish and not lively, but yeah, knowing me it was probably mainly the height. Anyway, if you are going to put yourself out there for someone, make it count with someone you really think is great.

The peer group: I hung out with a great group of girls, but there were also boys who hung out with us, and not only was I not attracted to them, but I also didn’t really like them much as people. They were nerds, I guess, and probably we were too, but they seemed to have more superior attitudes about it, or something. Looking at them later, one is a complete sociopath (not homicidal, I think), one is incredibly bitter (with some really strange ideas), and man, I don’t even know how to describe the third one. I don’t know what happened to the fourth one. He was the nicest, but he was still pretty weird (and short). I just think that spending time with boys whom I found to be likable and good people might have been a good idea.

The missed opportunity: This is the one that I kick myself over. It didn’t happen at school, but at a church dance. Specifically, it was New Year’s Eve when I was 14, almost 15. And yes, the scarring incident had already happened, which was probably a factor. Anyway, at the dance I met a boy. He was nice, and I think cute, and we seemed to really hit it off. I knew that the New Year’s tradition was that you kissed whomever you were with at midnight, and I wanted to be with him at midnight. We had danced, and then he came up and found me again, talking to a different guy. It was still a lot before midnight, and I was afraid he would get tired of me by then, so I left him talking with Brian, and then my plan was to find him again. However, when the time came, I couldn’t find him. Maybe he left. He looked a bit hurt and confused when I left.

It was just so remarkably dumb, and it was possibly hurtful to someone else, and it happened because I couldn’t believe in myself even when the signs were there that he actually did want to spend time with me. For me, that’s the trifecta. I wish I had just asked him to go somewhere and talk. I never saw him again. Mystery guy—I hope you are not badly scarred, and that you know that sometimes people do stupid things that have nothing to do with you.

Apparently, much like at the end of elementary school, I was still too immature for a relationship. And you know, age is not a reliable predictor.

My first boyfriend (because Shawn went straight to fiancé) – 329

Although Casey left a scar on my heart, my outward behavior did not really change for the next few years. While I held it as a hard and fast rule that you do not reveal whom you like, I continued to notice whether or not boys were cute pretty regularly. I continued to play with boys a lot, primarily basketball, and Jennie and I were usually accompanied by boys when we would play on the tire trees. (We would pretend to be on flights with Graveyard Airlines. Yeah, I guess it was a little weird.)

I was also an avid participant in after-school sports, and when I got to pick teams, I would actually pick the cutest boys first, instead of the best athletes. To be fair, the first two picks were always the same, because JT and his friend (whose name I wish I could remember) were both good-looking and good at sports. It’s unfortunate that, as friends, they were rarely ever able to be on the same team, but it must be nice to be wanted. Anyway, there were plenty of boys around, but not really anyone significant until Stephen moved here in fifth grade.

I don’t know why I fell so hard, but I don’t think being new hurt his chances. We were in the TAG (talented and gifted) program together, and all of our classes were together, so we were able to bond that way, but he was not the only guy fitting that description. Of course, he was much taller than Josh, so it looks like that preference of mine started early.

If we remember back to first grade and Adam (the kind of weird guy who kissed me on the knee), there were guys who liked girls all the way back then, and by sixth grade there were boys who would talk about sex, though I think it was with very limited knowledge. Somewhere between those stages, “going with” people became all the rage. No one ever called it “going steady” or “going out”, and as fourth and fifth graders there was nowhere to go to, but still, it was very important.

Stephen hurt me greatly by going with Lora, but I stayed friends with him and was supportive when he was ignominiously dumped. However, the relationship did not really take off until we were at the end of sixth grade, and there was a special TAG outing. It was on a Friday, and we were going to hike from Hoyt Arboretum to the Pittock Mansion and picnic there, and we could all bring one guest.

Having extra students along, who were not TAG students, probably changed the dynamics a bit, and it was a picnic and the school year was ending, but somehow as Stephen and I were walking along carrying the picnic basket between us, jokes started flying about how it was like we were the parents and the others were our kids, and so there were other marriage and honeymoon and future jokes. I think I was able to get in some effective flirting, because later on the bus he awkwardly, but nonetheless sweetly, asked me if I meant it, and suddenly we were going with each other.

The euphoria was surprisingly short-lived. First of all, there were spectators and they were trying to get us to kiss, or at least each bite off the ends of the same pepperoni stick. (Shawna was involved again. She had come with Gabbie.) We went for the pepperoni, but I didn’t want to kiss him. Perhaps that should have been my first clue that my enthusiasm had waned.

Ultimately, I may have just waited too long for him. If he had asked me back in fifth grade, that would have been something, but now it was practically two years later, and I had let some other guys seep into my heart. There was a different Jason from church (who was very sweet and pretty cute and with whom I played basketball) and I had also started to like Geoff.

Geoff would have been my first official bad boy. I find it quite possible to believe that he has a criminal record of some kind now, but I don’t really know. I think I started liking him first when I loaned him lunch money. I’m not sure I ever got paid back, but he started treating me a bit more nicely, and I guess I was pretty easy. The point was, now that I had Stephen, I could not stop thinking about Jason and Geoff. Plus, Stephen called me over the weekend, and I should have found that sweet, but I found it annoying instead. He was getting a tad possessive for my taste.

Now, there had been boundary changes for the school districts the year before, and I ended up in Aloha Park boundaries. A few kids transferred already, but sixth-graders had the option to finish our last year of grade school at Chehalem. Four of us chose that, but were going to go to Five Oaks while everybody else went to Mountain View for junior high. Since we knew this, I had set an expiration date on our relationship, where we would just go together until the end of the school year, and then part amicably.

I should have stuck it out. Instead, I did what may be the most embarrassing thing I will ever confess on this blog. Monday, I went to Stephen on the playground. He was lined up for Four Square or Wall Ball—one of those games I never played because I was always playing basketball, and I told him that I knew we said we would go together until the end of the school year, but oh, I was having second thoughts or something. I don’t remember the reason I gave him, but I do remember saying, “…so consider yourself dumped.”

It was just rude and unnecessarily cruel, especially after I had seen how Lora’s dumping broke him up. I should have stayed with him for that last month, or just handled it better. As it was, I was disgusted with myself, not that I shared that with Stephen. I decided that I was just way too immature to date anyone, and that I would be for a while. Honestly, observing the other playground relationships, we probably all were, but at the time I really thought that the problem was me. That’s always my first guess anyway.

In the end he seems to have recovered fine. When we met up again in high school, he did not even seem to remember that we had ever been involved, and even if that is merely a memory block due to psychological pain, I’ll take it. He went to senior prom with Jennie, and I believe he has his own business now.

For myself, I did pick up a strong fear of hurting others, and it did lead to some relationship avoidance, because if he is not the one, then we are only getting together now to break up later, and why would we do that? Now I realize that learning how to behave in a relationship usually takes a few failures, and that’s why you do it, and you should do it, including breakups.

I actually kind of started to hate Meg Ryan after seeing parts of both Sleepless in Seattle and You’ve Got Mail on television, and in both cases I saw the breakup moments. They both felt exactly the same way, and it was a perfectly fine, painless breakup, and my twisted mind decided that this was a concession to Meg’s image, like…

· I can’t be a cheater or heartbreaker because I am too sweet.
· He wouldn’t cheat on me or get tired of me because I am so adorable.
· I wouldn’t just be single, because there is nothing wrong with me to keep me single.

Therefore, the only solution to the inescapable complication of plotting a romantic comedy around a sweet adorable catch like Meg Ryan is spontaneous amicable breakups. It worked on a Seinfeld episode, but they treated it differently. (Also, she cheated on the roguishly charming Dennis Quaid with Russell Crowe, who is enormously talented and fairly handsome, but seems to have some real ego and anger issues. That’s okay, I’m sure it was really just that Meg and Dennis spontaneously grew apart.)

Anyway daters, you may have to hurt someone in the course of figuring out the relationship issue. However, if you always remember both honesty (so you do not lead people on) and kindness (for obvious reasons), maybe it doesn’t end up that badly. This doesn’t mean that you date people for the sole purpose of breaking up with them, though that would be interesting. It’s just that being interested in a relationship may be enough of a reason to pursue it without certainty that it will work out.
Of course, this is largely theoretical for me, as further postings will make obvious. Stephen was my last boyfriend as well as my first. Yes, fear of hurting someone based on that experience was a lingering issue as I started junior high, but once there I acquired much worse ones.

The very beginning, and a debut – 329

First off, today was a pretty fun world premiere, for what it is worth. Although what I should really be working on is my second movie script, I took on a fun little distraction. A random conversation at work led to speculating about various members of the team taking on superpowers. As each person became either a hero or a villain, it reached this point where I really felt like I needed to write it down. I started doing that, and it was really only about four nights work because the thing practically wrote itself.

I targeted today for its debut, since I just finished giving the quarterly presentation yesterday, and Cheryl’s birthday is tomorrow, so it seemed like good timing, and it kind of turned into a party, with pizza and cake. I saved the Final Draft version as a pdf at home, sent it to my work e-mail address, and forwarded it to everyone when I got in. I had some concerns about whether it would live up to the hype, because people had really been looking forward to it, but as I kept hearing bits of laughter erupting around me, I was reassured. It was frustrating never knowing who was at which part though.

Although it was initially conceived as a comic book, I did not have the time (or the talent) to do the graphics, so it was written as a screenplay, and could easily be adapted into a television pilot. I mean, its brilliance is as an inside joke, but maybe it could stand on its own. Anyway, now I really need to get back to Line Dancing Cinderella. (I have no skill at developing titles. Even my working titles sound stupid.) I hope to make good progress this weekend. I have promised to continue the adventures of the Bigg City Heroes, but I can’t let it take over everything. Still, it is nice being in a creative period.

Regardless, I said I would explore my romantic history, and that’s what I’m going to do. I already went over most of this in my writing therapy, but I feel like I need to do it again. Maybe part of it is that there are some differences in the writing you put out there and the writing you do in private, and so being willing to publicly air this could be significant, but also there are probably some benefits to going over things a second time, after some time has passed. We’ll see how it goes.

I started out with very traditional, possibly destructive, views. I was strongly drawn to the fairy tale construct, with the prince swooping in and rescuing the princess and then living happily ever after, except that I often then had her falling into additional peril. Maybe I was a bit of a drama/adrenaline junkie. Certainly, I was always creating stories in my head as a child, just like I do now. They were just less sophisticated. At some point I started realizing that you can’t count on anyone to rescue you, ever, and maybe I started also wanting to be the hero a little do, and do the rescuing myself.

Another part of my personality was a desire to have everything planned out, and just know how everything was going to go. So, combining that with my possibly rather arbitrary ideas about how things should be, I was going to marry the boy next door when I was twenty, and we were going to have a child every two years until I was forty, thus ending up with ten kids.

I’m embarrassed because I can’t even remember for sure how to spell his name. It was either Shawn or Shaun, but definitely not Sean. Anyway, he agreed that we were an item, so really, I was engaged when I was three, and this is also when I had my first kiss. My older sister and I were over at his place, and I told her to turn around and I kissed him on the cheek. Moving at that fast a pace, it’s amazing how much I slowed down, but we will get to that.

I truly did care for him—it’s not like he was the only boy I knew. There was another contender actually. I knew Jason from church, and I did think he was good-looking, but he was born on January 18th, and I was born on January 17th, and one of the things that I believed was that the boy should be older.

Shaun’s family moved from Wilsonville to Donald, but we still visited them sometimes. Then we moved to Aloha, and we visited less. Visits generally consisted of playing with Legos or Battleship, incidentally, we really only kissed that one time.

The thing is, even though Aloha was still somewhat rural when we moved there (there was a small cow pasture next to the cul-de-sac, and you only needed to go a few blocks to find horses or sheep), it was still a lot more stimulating than Donald. I will never forget going to visit them one time and driving by a small group watching a guy get his hair cut on the porch. Talk about your wild and crazy Saturday nights! Maybe it was the different environments, or the lack of regular contact, of just different personalities in general, but we grew apart.

Shortly before my 16th birthday, his mother called my mother to have me accompany him to a basketball game and school dance. It was going to be the night before my birthday, so technically I would not quite be 16 yet (which was our dating age), but yes, I could go, and I was excited. That’s when I learned that he was a nerd.

Technically it shouldn’t have mattered. I could easily have been considered a nerd too. Maybe it was the hick aspect. I don’t know, but we no longer had any chemistry. I did kind of start hitting it off with his friend, but then the friend’s girlfriend suddenly developed a headache, and they left. I was really ready for the night to be over. After that, I knew for sure that we were never going to get married, even though my target age was still 20.

So that was my first date, and he would still have been significant anyway, because I used him as a backup all through elementary school at least, and maybe even a little into junior high. It helped knowing that there was someone somewhere who was kind of like a boyfriend, or who had been a boyfriend once, meaning that it was always still possible. Of course, maybe that’s where I picked up the pattern of liking the one who was not around. That way, you can always look to see who is cute, but you don’t need to get involved with them and maybe you shouldn’t even get involved with them.

I did actually have one other major crush during this time period, Casey. He was in my first grade class and I thought he was very cute. We played together a lot; mainly imagination games based on Star Wars and Buck Rogers. When my family threw a Halloween party that year, he came. I would say things were going very well, but then I did something stupid. I wrote down that I liked him, and I put the paper in my desk. I don’t know why Shawna ended up snooping around inside my desk, but she did, and she told people, and from then on Casey avoided me.

Now, this had happened after I got the mean girls treatment and developed my weight insecurity, so it was easy to take it as an issue with me personally, and learn that you never let a boy know that you like him, on pain of death. Now, I am not sure that it was so personal. I mean, he did like me before, and we were first graders. Maybe it would have been the same with any girl, because girls still had cooties.

As it was, it did not change much about my outer life. I still played mainly with boys, because the girls were pretty mean and cliquish, until Jennie moved here in third grade and became my first best friend. I still was always looking at who was cute, and who wasn’t, and generally got along pretty well with most people. I was even sort of willing to try at romance again, though cautiously, and not until sixth grade. Next time: The Story of Stephen!

Okay, it’s not that exciting.

Oh no, what have I done? – 329.5

The last time I was out with my friend Karen (as opposed to talking by phone), she was telling me about something NPR did with six word life stories, and since at the time I had been impulsively doing crazy things, then having horrified second thoughts, I think this would be my title.

What crazy things, you might ask? Well, admitting my weight on-line was definitely one. Having second thoughts doesn’t mean that it wasn’t a good thing to do, but it’s a bit of pressure. You know, even women who are much less overweight are unlikely to be truthful about it. How many people do you know who aren’t lying on their driver’s license?

So that was one, for sure, but there was another even bigger one, and this story culminates in that Monday night two weeks ago when I was teetering on the edge of wanting to throw up.

I have mentioned Gerard, and will mention him more in later posts, but at one point there was a job opening, and it occurred to me that I should let him know. My first thought was, That’s silly—
he’s in California, but I could not shake the thought. Okay, I have to follow up on this, how do I do it?

My first move was to email his father, as I happened to be aware of his father’s web site. He confirmed that Gerard was in Oregon, in fact, but he did not have his phone number. He then put me in touch with Gerard’s brother.

Now, this leads to a predicament, because this story is about the brother, and I need to call him something. I feel silly making up a code name for him, but since I have stuck to Gerard’s code name, it doesn’t seem right to use his real name either. I could set up a poll, but I think I will just compromise and call him E. After all, it’s how he signs his emails.

Anyway, email went back and forth, and one phone call with E, and finally I heard back from Gerard, and he actually was not a match for the job and seemed somewhat annoyed to have heard from me, so the whole thing could have been a colossal waste. However, I had really enjoyed my talk with E, and wished to talk to him more.

I started debating about this. Will we ever run into each other? No. I’m in Aloha, he’s in Lake Oswego, we are not likely to cross paths. Can I hire him for landscaping or refer someone to him? No, that’s not really a viable option either. Then it occurred to me, perhaps I could just email him and say, hey, I enjoyed talking to you. Would you like to talk some more?

It was a bold strategy unlike anything I had ever tried, so I sent that email, and then heard nothing. Oh no, what have I done? Except, people like me check their email several times a day, and not everyone is like that. Sometimes, people may go an entire four-day weekend without checking once. Monday he wrote back, “Boy would I!”

Ecstasy. I was thrilled to have a response, and an enthusiastic one at that. However, follow through was a bit of an issue because we didn’t really end up having a phone conversation until recently, and then meeting two weeks ago.

It was fun, if not a breakthrough. I am pretty sure that we are not making a real love connection because we greeted by shaking hands and we said goodbye with a handshake, and my instincts tell me that if we were really getting anywhere it would have escalated to a hug. That’s logical, right? Realistically, both of us are probably best off single right now, though for different reasons.

On the other hand, I think I may be able to help some with his band, and he says he can get Gus Van Sant to read my script, and even though I don’t think what I have is nearly artistic or meaningful enough for Gus to be interested, that is still pretty major.

I just re-read “The Sad Ballad of Cute Cafeteria Guy” (December 2007), and I wrote about romantically being about fourteen years old, but probably having aged to sixteen, and not being able to imagine myself ever not being a dork, and that is probably still true. I don’t think I have progressed beyond 16 yet (probably because that would involve actually having done something since then), and I am still not smooth. So, on the ride downtown I was alternating between feeling sick to my stomach and talking myself down from the ledge and then letting my nerves rise up again. However, I did make it there, I did talk to him, honestly, and I have opened myself up to new opportunities. On that level, I have grown a lot.

Perhaps soon I will be romantically 17 and I can get ready for prom. Of course, the problem with waiting so long for this development is that the dating pool has shrunk considerably from what it was. Still, I believe that things will work out to be great, one way or another. As so much increased development has evolved from public display, the next series of posts will be covering my romantic history, or lack thereof, from precocious three year old to present.

In the meantime I will keep acting on impulses, even though it is sometimes scary and sometimes just weird, like asking a stranger on the train if he needs money, or telling someone you hardly ever speak to about the dream you had. It’s just the only way to avoid regretting not doing it.

Procrastinator’s Lament – 331.5

I had previously mentioned that I would really be sorry about procrastinating when I got to Mitt Romney, because it just wouldn’t be timely anymore. There was going to be an interesting twist though, and now my thunder has been stolen on that as well.

Please remember, my mind is always running. If I am not plotting out stories then I am having analytical dialogues or mentally writing my blog. Obviously, not everything gets entered via the keyboard and posted. Going back in time, we shall trace the evolution of the post that never was.

It started with a presidential candidate, Mitt Romney. I first heard of him during the Salt Lake City Olympics, as he was responsible for cleaning up the mess that corruption in the IOCC had created. Those went well, and he seemed okay. Later on when he became governor of Massachusetts, he seemed to be doing well. Remember, I am not really that liberal. I am just becoming more and more of a democrat because the GOP keeps forgetting that conservative is not supposed to be an exact synonym for evil. Therefore, it is not impossible for me to vote for a republican or feel like one is doing a good job—it just doesn’t happen very often. Romney was getting good reports, especially for some plans he had for getting more people health insurance coverage, and I thought, okay, this let’s see what happens.

If Governor Romney had been the same person as Presidential Candidate Romney, I might have been tempted, but he changed, and not in a good way. He turned his back on everything that I liked about him, but it wasn’t so much the changing as that it seemed to be a race to become as conservative as possible to win votes. More to the point, it wasn’t even done in a measured, intelligent way, which is why he still stands as the only candidate to suggest doubling Guantanamo. (Seriously, it’s not even smooth.)

It did get him painted as a flip-flopper, but it’s hard to run for president without that happening anyway. I don’t completely agree with Barney Frank calling him the “most intellectually dishonest human being in the history of politics” though. First of all, that is one long history right there, but also that comment to me seems to imply some cold calculation, and I don’t think Romney is calculating. If he is, he’s really bad at it.

Instead, I think what we have is someone who is so easily influenced in pursuit of his goal that the result is no spine, and no useful integrity. This would be a concern in any candidate, but especially in a member of the true church. So I wanted to write about that, and the title was going to be, “Why I worry that Mitt Romney is the Anti-Christ”.

The problem is that if you are going to take on a topic like that it just seems to lead to all these other places that you need to go, like following up on the true church thing, and also probably the Anti-Christ topic because when people say that they really mean the Beast, generally speaking. So. I procrastinated and he started losing, and then Mike Huckabee became really scary because he believed he was ordained of God, and I was sure he wasn’t, but at some point in there I had an interesting conversation.

I was helping out at a robotics tournament and talking to an old acquaintance, and somehow the Anti-Christ came up, I guess, and I shared my concerns about Romney, but Dan was sure that it was Oprah, because the key would be popularity, and who is more popular than Oprah? Our conversation was derailed by an apparent eavesdropper who said it would actually be someone clever enough to explain what happened to all the people who suddenly disappeared, lulling people into a false sense of security. She thus revealed to us that she is waiting for the rapture, and did not do anything to dissuade Dan away from his Oprah theory.

Well, that was interesting. True, she doesn’t seem evil, but they never really do now, do they? It’s hard to believe that she could have unleashed both “Doctor” Phil and Rachel Ray on the world without some secret malevolence.
At the time it resonated a bit because a friend of Maria’s was all excited over The Secret, and was going to use her mind power to focus on flushing the fat from her body so she could just drink lots of water instead of dieting and exercising. (I will confess to not having read The Secret, so it is certainly possible that the friend took the book the wrong way, but she certainly hasn’t lost any weight.)

The book was really popular though, and I heard many people talking about how it changed their lives, and it was kind of irritating at how obvious these things should be. Really, gratitude makes you happier? Well how about that! Who knew? (/sarcasm)

Seriously, the things that you get from Oprah are things that I get from religion. I’m not saying that I wouldn’t want to attend a taping of her show given the opportunity, because I understand that she gives away things and I love free stuff. However, I don’t think she really has that much too teach.

Perhaps I am being unfair, because a lot of people don’t have religion, or religion with any depth, and some people have such twisted religion that the closest it gets them to joy is smug satisfaction at being better than everyone else, but if she is set up in such a way that having a watered down set of answers dressed up attractively halts people there, instead of proceeding on to greater truth, then it is reasonable to call her anti-Christ, even if she is not the Beast.

So I came up with a new title, “I feared Mitt Romney was the Anti-Christ, but maybe it’s Oprah”, but there were still other things to explore, and I wasn’t writing that regularly anyway, and yes, I procrastinate. Anyway, other groups have beat me to the punch, criticizing Oprah for promoting a false, watered-down spirituality. When will I learn?

Their primary complaint appears to be her belief that there is more than one way to be saved, thus she is clearly not consigning enough people to Hell. Again, this is a topic that should be explored, and it is really an age-old theological conflict. God gives commandments, which we are supposed to follow, but not everyone has knowledge of them, so people are caught between the cruelty of some people having no chance, or the contradiction that His mercy would mean you can be saved without obedience, and then they come up with weird rationalizations like predestination to make it right.

None of the above. There is a plan in place to cover for all eventualities and where every person can end up with as great a level of blessing as they are capable of receiving, and the more you know about that the more you realize how great God is, and loving, and it makes everything better, but going into that becomes several blog posts and I still want to write about Italy, and my romantic history, and what happened Monday night when most of my regular readers already share the same religious beliefs anyway (it’s not a prerequisite of any kind—that’s just how it’s worked out).

So, although it is a strange way to end a post, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is the only true church, not meaning that no other church has any truth which would be ludicrous, but that it is led by living prophets so has continuing and updated truth, and that by the Holy Ghost anyone and everyone can know the truth. And the truth is good. I think sometimes people get scared away from knowing more, but the more you know the better it gets.

Someday it would be nice to go over my entire political philosophy, and what I would do as president, and all the aspects of my testimony, and how many Christians (even my kind) get so badly twisted, and even my theories about the timing of the Apocalypse (which are fascinating), but I’m not done being shallow yet, and it’s my blog.

That being said, I am always open for conversations, and will generally answer questions freely. Even if we do not yet know each other.

Ups and Downs – 333

I know how it looks, like I have gained back half of the weight I lost in Italy, but in reality it is much more complicated than that. I went down a little, and then back up as high as 339, and then down to 330 again, and so on. I am fluctuating.

Clearly, not everything here is fat, and I know that bloating was probably a factor on at least some of those days, so I have questioned whether weighing daily is truly helpful. My friend Karen is sure it is, and I tend to agree. For one thing, although some of the fluctuations may be mystifying, they are sometimes traceable to things I did or didn’t do, and that is good to know. It looks like I should swear off pop forever, which is hard in the summer, but it is probably for the best. Lack of sleep is a killer, but eating apples helps. Ultimately, I am still learning about what is best for my body, and my life.

There are still high points. Some clothes are actually fitting better, though there are still many others on deck. My blood sugar is doing pretty well. One symptom I had been having for several months cleared up. Those are all good things. Also, I kind of feel like I am now settling around 330 instead of 345, which is an improvement, if not my final destination.

One aspect that is hard is that I feel like I cannot give as much time to exercise as I would like. I am really trying to establish myself as a writer. It is a huge time commitment, but I feel like I need to make that my priority, so even though there are a lot of good things I could be doing, this is where I need to focus my time now. Fortunately, for women it appears that dieting is more effective for losing weight, although exercise is more effective for maintaining weight loss. Ideally I will have gotten the writing established before I am in the maintenance stage, and will have more time for other things.

For the writing itself, I finally went through and got the completed screenplay into the proper format. That was an amazingly tedious job, which, along with some other things, convinced me that I really needed to invest in screenwriting software. I was reluctant because I am cheap, and because when I had tried a trial some time ago, I hated it.

I can’t remember what that demo was, but this time I downloaded demos for both Final Draft 7 and Movie Magic Screenwriter. They turned out to be pretty similar, and neither was horrible. Maybe they have improved over time, or going through the formatting process increased my understanding, making me better able to use it. I liked the look of Final Draft a little better, and after downloading the demo they sent me a promo code for $30.00 off, so it was the obvious choice. I have now started my second script in Final Draft.

I had decided Monday that I really ought to try writing ten pages per day, and that I would start that night. Monday I wrote 0 pages, Tuesday I wrote 0 pages, and Wednesday I wrote 9. Clearly, I am still a work in progress. I think I may be able to do better tonight. Part of the problem was that I was hung up on finding the right last name for the female lead, and so I was doing searches on German last names and finally I just changed her first name too, and then it was okay. That should not be a problem tonight, but who knows what weird hang-up I will pick up on next.

Regardless of the frustrations, this is what I want to do. I feel good after I have written, and usually while I am writing too (depending on how crazy I am driving myself in a given moment). My day job just becomes more frustrating all the time, and that will probably get worse, but it isn’t even about that. It is more just about not falling into a rut.

I have been basically doing the same thing since I graduated from college. Sure, I completed that novel and sent it around, and I have completed other short stories and things, but I have never been really consistent. I am trying to act like the things that I feel are most important really are most important. Because I don’t really think watching another Law & Order episode is more important than a satisfying career, but on some nights you might not be able to tell.
It isn’t all laziness or exhaustion either. A lot of it has been a lack of faith in myself, that I even could have anything good happen to me, beyond a normal existence where I worked and survived. I had these dreams, or I probably would never have written anything at all. I certainly dreamed of romance often, but I don’t think that I believed in them enough to see where I could try harder or approach things differently.

Now, after much time, I think I know that my worst fears about myself are not true (you will notice the lack of certainty), but there is the accumulation of bad habits, and also starting to do new things that do not quite come naturally. I’m happier this way, but I am also feeling scared all the time. This is why I spent about an hour and a half Monday night vacillating between calming myself and feeling like I needed to throw up. But more on that later.

In recovery – 330

I am starting to feel a bit better. I am able to breathe through my nose again, anyway, so that is nice.

It is amazing to me how debilitating a bad cold/sinus infection can be. I just feel so lazy, and yet lazy is not exactly the right word. I have things I want to do, and I feel a strong need to get them done, but the strongly overriding urge is to just lay still with my eyes closed until the headache goes away, pretty much lending itself to sleep. Almost any food that crosses my mind sounds delicious, but half of my meals have been cold cereal because it is the least effort. When I had soup, the Italian vegetable sounded better, but I chose the chicken noodle because it had a pop-top and I could not bear the thought of having to get out and use the can opener.

This is bad because I have just come back from two weeks vacation and I had a lot of work to do, and did not get much done at all. Monday I was pretty productive, and Tuesday was starting to go downhill, but was not horrible. Wednesday it was strongly suggested that I go home and take care of this. I suppose it was the horrible sound effects, but I do work with a pregnant woman and with a woman who, if she contracts anything, will have it turn into pneumonia. I was probably already well past the contagious stage, but going home sounded good. I should have held out though, because Thursday I had a (preexisting) doctor’s appointment in the middle of the day, and it wasn’t worth going in at all. Today I went back, and got some things done, but not everything I had hoped for.
Now I have a three-day weekend to recover, which is good, but getting everything caught up in four days will be a challenge.

I should just be grateful that I don’t get sick more often, especially with my compromised immune system. I don’t remember the last time I had a cold, but I probably hated it as much then.

The funny thing is, I do better with a more serious illness. Like when I had the 104-degree fever, I was typing like lightning. I enter this sort of dream-state, where anything seems possible, like maybe if I go up one more degree, I will start to move things with my mind. Sure, I know there is some hallucination built in, but I am still very productive. So serious diseases have a certain glamour to them, and are great motivators, but it is hard to be heroic with a head cold.

On a related note, I took in doughnuts Tuesday to make up for being gone and because I had a coupon. Jill was knocking on me for that (as an evil pastry temptress) and for the illness, referencing ebola. Well let me just say, if I was spreading ebola, it would totally cancel out the doughnuts.

Poetry Corner – 330.5

I returned to the States safely, but sickly. I feel pretty gross right now, and mainly just want to lie low until it all goes away, but thought I would make a short post to immortalize my poem.

I bought my coworker Jill and sister Julie word-of-the-day calendars for Christmas, and by complete coincidence another coworker has the same one. When I visit Jill’s cubicle, we have built up a tradition of me glancing at the word of the day and using it in a sentence that somehow relates to the conversation, even if it is pretty thin.

Recently she told me there was one I was going to love, but it turned out to be one day further out than she had realized. I did use it in a sentence, but she said that did not get me off the hook because it was too early. I took that as a challenge to go all out, and that would mean using all different forms of the word, and maybe making it rhyme.

On the appropriate day, I tapped out my poem. It is not great poetry, and it is low concept enough that it is not worth improving, but it gets the job done and cleverly ties in some inside jokes about an unsatisfying job interview and Rosetta Stone. (You’ll just have to trust me.)

I actually did do a second draft that day, after realizing I had left out vituperative.

Ode to the word of the day, or Jill’s poem

Without excuse you came in late,
Then giggled, filling me with hate.
You are not hired at this date.
Be glad I don’t vituperate.

For when you sit annoying us
It makes us feel vituperous.

I can’t but think, since you are grating,
‘Tis time to start vituperating.

When our thirst for blood is sated
You will have been vituperated.

Wrath might be my language native
When I feel vituperative.
You’ll still be crying hours later
For you have crossed the Vituperator.

I really do want to edit it, but I won’t. Anyway, when I reentered my office this morning, there were old word sheets taped to everything. Vituperate was on my keyboard. I have recycled the others (sacrosanct was on my recycle bin; am I too preachy about that?), but I am keeping vituperate. It inspired me.

The 2008 Democratic Slate –336.5

Man, I have not been reaching my writing goals at all, and now I will be away from the PC for two weeks. Still, I should get something up here, so I am doing that now, and I can leave up my views on the Democratic candidates for two weeks, instead of my reasons for hating Bush.

(That’s the other bad thing about my identity being out. As against the current administration as I am, what if I end up on the no-fly list or something? I know it’s a little paranoid, but it could happen.)

Anyway, I believe I already mentioned initially supporting John Edwards, but I am throwing my support behind Hillary Clinton. My family, who is primarily supporting Obama, are surprised, but hey, as registered Republicans all they can do right now is vote for Ron Paul, so ha!

I think there are a few things that are not great about how we administer democracy, in that often you are basing decisions on how people campaign, not on how they would govern, and campaigning seems to bring out the worst in people. Hillary has been a bit polarizing all along, and it’s not uncommon for people to dislike her a lot, but ultimately, I think she will do a better job.

My previous posting should have made clear how I feel about misguided feelings of entitlement. Although I definitely find Obama’s political philosophies more palatable than those of George W. Bush, and I in no way think Obama is evil, I think it is really presumptuous of him to be running for president now.

What is his past experience? Six years in the state legislature is not a bad start, but I don’t like the way he got in there (which was by getting the other candidates’ petitions ruled out legally so he basically ran unopposed). It is perfectly legal, but feels wrong. He hasn’t completed a full Senate term—not even close really. Basically, he made a speech that got a lot of press, largely due to Oprah. Okay, making compelling speeches is a good presidential quality, but there needs to be more.

True, Hillary has not spent a lot of time in the Senate either, but it has been more, and she did win a real election. Also, being First Lady is decent preparation for the presidency, because you are very involved in the diplomatic side of things. In addition, she was more involved in things than traditional first ladies. I know some people have derided that her only accomplishment from that was a health plan that did not get approved, but I think that had more to do with the political environment at the time than deficiencies in the plan. People seem to be coming around more to realize that the current health system is not working, and that should make us more willing to consider alternatives.

I don’t agree with her on everything, but that never happens anyway. Like the gas tax holiday, for example, I think will do more harm than good. I understand the appeal, but I think the tax part is $.18 per gallon, and to really feel relief the price has to go down much further than that, but the highway department will feel it. Nonetheless, I think she can do a good job.
Obama could probably be okay too, and if he wins the nomination I will vote for him. And if he could end up being her running mate, then I would also consider serving as vice president to be a reasonably good training ground for a future president. I don’t know if he can see himself in that role, but really, he should be paying more dues, and it’s not like he has one foot in the grave and needs to be rushing.

One thing that I believe has also been unfortunate in this election is the role of the media. I feel like the early coverage was skewed, and I don’t think it was even a deliberate attempt to control the public, but more that their predictions would be way off base, and then they would be confounded and try and explain why things were going a certain way, and stayed off base. Maybe it was that they were trying too hard to simplify things, but I think tagging John Edwards as angry hurt his chances, and I don’t think angry is accurate. It creates an image of someone really hot under the collar, ready to foam at the mouth, as opposed to just caring about social injustice.

Honestly, I think the issue has corrected itself a bit, if for no other reason than that they got tired of continually being wrong, but there are a few flaps that I would like to address.

Reverend Wright: He is not a reason to not vote for Obama. A lot of different factors can go into people’s decisions of where to go to church, and a socially involved dynamic organization where the preacher would sometimes get fiery is not an unreasonable choice. I believe the way Obama handled the initial controversy was fair and respectful, and also that distancing himself more as the Reverend flames out in a spiral of ever more embarrassing narcissism is correct.

Bittergate: I think when the news media was making it sound like Obama could not lose, it was easy for him to be mellow and gracious, and Hillary, perpetually cast as the underdog, was a bit more desperate and appeared worse. As a clear victory continues to elude him, he starts making mistakes too, and this was a big one.

He started out okay, “You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton Administration, and the Bush Administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. And it's not surprising, then, they get bitter,” and if he had just made a little change here, and said something like that it makes sense that they will vote for whoever seems most likely to help, but I know that I can do the job. We can grow the economy, we can come through the hard times, and we can have a working class who knows prosperity again, he would have been fine.

Instead he said, “they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.” Unfortunately, this translates as, “Well you now uneducated rednecks won’t vote for a black man,” and it is insulting.

Honestly, I don’t think any good can come from telling people why they didn’t vote for you. If you are right, you reinforced their thinking, and if you are wrong, you’ve offended them. With luck, you can probably do both. Let the media do that.

Geraldine Ferraro: I’m not a big fan, but I think her comments were accurate. Even with a great speech, I don’t believe Obama could have captured the public’s imagination the same way if he were white. I equally believe that if she was a man she would not have been the running mate in her year. Was she really that distinguished otherwise?

It is nonetheless incredible that we do have a black man and a woman as viable candidates, and very few people are having a problem with that. That is huge growth from the 80’s. So many times when voting I feel like I am choosing the lesser of two evils, and this was nice in that not only do I feel okay about either one in November (but more so Hillary), but also between Novick/Merkeley and Kroger/McPherson, I will be comfortable supporting either candidate in November. It’s kind of cool.

Sure, there are still plenty of problems out there. Diebold can still muck up everything, and McCain could throw a wrench into it all by selecting Condi as his running mate, but we will just have to wait and see.

Actually, I would kind of love it if Hillary won the primary, and then chose Jesse Jackson Jr. as her running mate, though I believe at this time he is supporting Obama. However, even as a way of sidelining him, I could not support anyone who brought Ralph Nader onto his or her ticket.

Left from Center – 336.5

Although I gave my reasons for becoming a Democrat, I had always considered myself to be moderate, and I would look at both parties for candidates. As time progressed, I found that I was pretty much always voting for the Democrat though, and feeling more and more contempt for the GOP.

Was I becoming more Liberal? I don’t think so. I was just reacting to a trend away from those things that might be positive about conservative politics. I can see the value of reducing government spending, even if I think it is often more practical to have some programs run by the government than leaving everyone to work out education or retirement on their own. Really, how many improvements has deregulation brought?

That is not my point, though. My point was that there seemed to be a strong trend away from the proposed platform of moral values and fiscal conservancy and small government, primarily towards nothing being more important than favoring the rich—not so much in the speeches and campaigns, but in actions. This has been most obvious with George W. Bush, whom I despise.

It started out with a “What?” when he first ran. Conventional wisdom always indicated that the next Bush to run for the presidency would be Jeb. As it was, all I really knew about him was that he ran a pretty slimy campaign against Ann Richards for governor, and that is was effective. It wasn’t promising, but slimy campaigns are pretty common.

As more things came out, my image of him worsened. No, it was not so much the National Guard or alcohol issues. It was more the decline of the environment in Texas during his governorship, and the increase in the death penalty, even for the mentally handicapped. He was not a good governor. Granted, he was not much of a businessman, or much of a student, and that never stopped him, but it seemed pretty presumptuous of him to be running for president based on his qualifications.

That was my big concern right there—his sense of entitlement. I couldn’t see what he felt he had to offer to the people, and he didn’t care about that anyway. He just wanted the prestige and power and why shouldn’t he have it? His father had been president, he was rich, and his desires had been gratified over and over again with no other merit.

Really, he has been exactly the president that you would expect from that beginning. If the impropriety of having the person in charge of the election in a key state as your campaign manager does not throw you, than why would you be concerned about putting cronies and yes men into important offices, handing big contracts over to Halliburton without bids, or allowing energy companies to set the energy policy? Why not invade two countries, and why shouldn’t you lie and falsify data to get the second one justified?

There’s really so much that could be covered here, and it’s all been covered before. There is probably some wonderful site with it all in one place, but that’s a lot of data. Rape the environment, trample the Bill of Rights, and cut taxes for the rich. Don’t get me wrong—I think the party trend was to head in this direction anyway—but he just took everything and amplified it to the Nth degree.

I keep feeling like nothing will surprise me anymore, and it really shouldn’t, but I do still get appalled on a regular basis. Some of us were joking the other day about how much he can do in the time between now and the next inauguration (invade Iran and North Korea?), and one person suggested that he will probably declare martial law and prevent the switch. It’s a joke, but dang, you almost wonder.

Perhaps he will not need to do so if he feels comfortable handing the reins over to John McCain. This is where I hurt a little. I used to really like him. Once upon a time I seriously considered voting for him. That was in 2000, and he seemed promising, what with his Straight Talk Express and work on McCain-Feingold, not just because it was anti-corruption but it was also a bipartisan effort. However, someone with a history of slimy campaigning went after him, using his time as a POW to question his mental health. I’ve got to admit, it is kind of impressive to turn being a war hero into a drawback.

(Funny how most of his W’s achievements are so dubious. I think his greatest accomplishment may be making his father look like a better president in retrospect.)

This is the part that hurts me. Bush has the lowest presidential approval rating of all time and it keeps dropping. He has a personal history of wronging McCain. He is not truly fiscally conservative, but in other ways does not really depart from party lines regardless of world opinion, scientific data, or common decency. So…

WHY IS MR. MAVERICK REPUBLICAN SETTING HIMSELF UP AS MCBUSH, SYCOPHANT EXTRAORDINAIRE?

It makes me question his mental health.

I don’t really even want to get into that. Suffice it to say, I will not be voting Republican this year. I will go over the Democratic candidates in my next post, but I will close on this note.

A documentary that I really appreciated was “The Fog of War”, which is basically just an interview of Robert McNamara, US Secretary of Defense under Kennedy and Johnson. It focuses quite a bit on the Vietnam War. Johnson and McNamara disagreed on what to do, but I really feel that they were both trying to do the right thing. (Maybe there wasn’t a right thing at the point that it became their problem, because troop buildup there started under Eisenhower.)

We can’t expect our leaders to be infallible, but they should at least feel answerable to the greater good. This has been sadly lacking in the current administration. They may present themselves as religious, but their actions contradict it over and over again.

Will she ever get to the current election? – 332.5

Well, I’ve been outed at work. One of my coworkers made a comment about my hiding the blog from them, and so I sent him the link, and he returned a minute later saying he had forwarded it to everyone. In retrospect, I should have seen it coming.

It’s not truly a big deal, as I never really dished any workplace dirt here, but now I feel like the option is off the table. There’s always in person though. Next time you see me, ask me about Jim’s dead father. It is horrible, but not the way it sounds.

One downside of being a habitual procrastinator is that often I want to write about things, but when I get to them they aren’t really relevant anymore. I am really going to feel bad about this when I get to my section on Romney, but first I want to divert a little and talk about Robobrawl.

www.robobrawl.com

The site is really designed to convince you that you need Xeon processors in your servers, which is true, but they way they get there, and I don’t blame you if you don’t see the correlation, is robot brawls. Six robots enter, but by the end of the match five are just scorch marks and some springs and cogs.

I love it so much, and I am surprisingly good at it. When you are having a rough day, just taking a break to go and kill some robots feels really great. Even if you don’t win, but can still get a few kills in, it feels good, but also I won a lot. As Deathspork, I finished 117 out of 16704. With more effort I probably could have cracked the top 100, but there was always this nagging voice saying, completely accurately, that this is not the best use of my time.

I wanted to direct people to it, but then I was not writing or writing about other things, and the deadline was coming close. Now the contest has ended, but it is still up. I am sure it won’t last forever, but you do still have a chance to brawl if you want. There is an option to invite friends also, so try it, and if you like it, give me a nudge. I will destroy you.

Anyway, now that I am done focusing on improving my ranking, I think it is time to put a more focused effort into my writing, so I think the trick is to do it every other day for the next two weeks. Covering the election would be at least four posts, and I have been meaning to write about the end of my book club and different sites I like for ages. Oh, and maybe I should write about my adventures in impulsiveness, but if I do it will probably be on a whim.

Unlucky in politics – 334

Before I comment too much on the current race, I’ll just point out that I have a long history of backing losers. It goes as far back as 1980, when I was only eight years old. I don’t think I was even that political, but for some reason I really wanted Anderson to win. Looking back at his credentials, I can see some things that were good about him and some that give me pause, but the point is that I was totally out of step with the Reagan-mania that swept the country.

I had still not warmed up to Reagan in 1984, but Mondale never really captured my imagination either, so I didn’t really have a stake in that one. Naturally I favored Dukakis in 1988, but of course all of this occurred before I was of age. In 1990 I turned 18, and was able to register for the vote.

I registered as a Democrat—at the time I was the only one in the family. Most of my family has since moved left, but they have kept their original party registrations, so on the books I am still the only Democrat, unless my father changed.

It was primarily about two issues for me. One was that I do favor gun regulation. I don’t favor a complete ban, but I would not be against licensing and registration, similar to cars. I was briefly a member of the NRA, when my older sister was selling memberships so she could get this ring, and the magazine subscription that came with that revealed a lot of paranoia (in my opinion). Based on current events, it just seemed to me that people were too quick to fire a gun if they had one, and so I don’t think their ownership should be taken lightly.

The other issue was economics. At the time, I could not in any way see how supply-side economics could work. I understand the philosophy better now, so I can see where some people might expect it to work, but I still do not believe it works, and I think most of the people who promote it don’t really believe in it either, they just want the tax cuts.

Anyway, it was ultimately the party that would line up more with my personal beliefs, and personality, because I have a sympathetic, if not bleeding, heart, and am liberal in the sense of being generous, and I am really not about greed or condemning other people in any way. I suppose I could be called a hippie, but I’m really too square for that. I would say I am a populist, but that’s usually just something people call themselves as a ploy to win votes, and I’m not that cynical (though my sense of humor is).

I guess what I am trying to explain is that the first candidate I supported was Jerry Brown. I even saw him speak. He came to U of O, and Ken Kesey introduced him.

I know a lot of people considered him to be a bit of a space cadet (literally), but at the time I was looking for intelligence and integrity, and I believed he had those. Naturally, by the time the primary came around he was not even on the Oregon ballot, but I did end up voting for Clinton and feeling like he did a good job. I wasn’t happy about the whole Lewinsky thing, but I really don’t think we needed a special investigator for it. I was glad to see the deficit going down, and to feel like my family was making ground economically again, because things had really started to go downhill for us during the second term of Reaganomics, followed by Bush’s voodoo economics.

I did support Gore, though honestly I like him better now than I did then, but I really hated Bush. I remember going to bed on election night just unable to believe that I was going to wake up under a Bush presidency. As it was, hope was kept alive for a little bit longer, but you know how that came out.

Sadly, at this point I don’t even remember whom I initially wanted in 2004. It wasn’t Kerry, but I could live with him. I did not vote for him in the primary, though. I voted for Kucinich to remind Kerry that he did not have a strong mandate, and he should consider being a little more radical. It was Sean Penn’s idea, actually. He left me a phone message. Obviously, I still wish Kerry had won.

Finally, I started off 2008 wishing for Edwards. He had some good moments, but this has not been a typical campaign, and I don’t see how he could have been able to generate enough excitement.

In summary, politics is an area of perpetual disappointment for me, but I am not able to quit caring. So with mingled passion and dread, I will be taking on the 2008 election in my next few posts.

Feelings. Whoa! – 338.5

Last time I wrote, I mentioned that I had been busy, and that was true. What I hadn’t admitted was that I was starting to enter a real down period, and I could have at least partially predicted it. I wrote on the 18th, and the day before we had just put Forrest to sleep.

Forrest was one of our greyhounds, and we had him for about ten years. They are all sweet and wonderful and special, so if I try and write about that, I will keep thinking about other dogs, and feel like I am short-changing them, but nonetheless, he was sweet and wonderful and special. He was prone to loving you so hard it was like he was trying to burrow into your side, and if he did occasionally goose guests, they were usually pretty good-natured about it.

Saturday morning he had some swelling around his left back hock that looked like a sprain, and the vet agreed. There definitely wasn’t a break, or a fever, or any reason to suspect anything else, until the swelling kept spreading. An abdominal x-ray revealed a tumor the size of a grapefruit that was still growing, and it was impeding his blood flow from the leg, which is where the swelling came from, and it was also growing into his bladder and lower intestine.

It turns out you can’t really cut things out of the bladder and sew it back up. Even if you could, cutting open a senior dog is not really recommended, and we hadn’t put him under anesthesia since he nearly didn’t wake up from a dental cleaning nine years ago. Really, it was a pretty clear decision, and the vet was able to do it at our house Monday evening so everyone had a chance to say goodbye, including the other dogs.

Losing a dog is sad, and even though I believe in the immortality of animals just as much as I believe in the immortality of people, goodbyes are still sad. Also, when you have had a dog for such a long time, there are habits and the adjustment period is longer. Coming home the first time and seeing Jack in the window, and not Forrest, caused a pang. Opening up the leash drawer every morning stops you, because it doesn’t look right and then you realize that the green one is missing, but seeing the green one there would be worse.

So there is that sadness, but also I noticed how much I was picking up on all the sad emotions around me. Mom was particularly stressed, which is to be expected, but I just felt it weighing down on me. Then, after about a week of that, we got news that a friend of my sisters who had been struggling with cancer for about two years, suddenly took a turn for the worse, and although it is not as immediate as the dog that I lived with, the impact will be bigger, and there is nothing to do except wait.

I have just been really down, and on edge. Really, almost everyone at work who has even been a thorn in my side is gone, but the replacement for one is a lot like the old one, and there are a lot of stupid questions. Every time I received one of these, I just wanted to scream, and that is not like me. There was just this black cloud over my head, and I was always really close to anger, and I was not able to shake it off.

I suppose maybe that is why I went with the pet peeves entry, because it is a little bit angry but still fairly light, and so maybe that felt more comfortable. Still, I don’t like being so gloomy, and touchy, and also, I kept flashing back to losing other dogs and going through all of those memories, and I was frustrated with myself for not being able to shake it off, like I had before.

That, I think, was the key right there. I did always shake things off in the past, probably prematurely, and feelings were safely locked up. I don’t function that way anymore, but I am still not at all used to the new way. Apparently, you sometimes have to feel bad for a while, and it lasts.

There was a kid from grade school, Jonathan, who would always call me Spock because I was so logical. I took it kind of as an insult, because I felt like emotions were important, but maybe it did end up being a little bit accurate. Anyway, I am practical, and sensible, but I am no Vulcan.

There was one moment that was kind of revealing to me. Maria helped pay part of Forrest’s adoption fee, so she tended to call him her dog, and felt pretty close to him. When she was saying goodbye to him, it was so sad, and she was so devastated and I just ached for her. My first instinct was to wish that I could take it away from her, and this has been my bad habit as a longtime overfunctioner—I always want to fix things for people. However, in that moment I realized that no, that would be wrong. It is going through sadness that makes you tender, and that would be a loss. The lesson is two-fold. One part is that just fixing things for everybody would not be good, even if it were possible (and believe me, it isn’t). The other is that I need to let myself feel these things, even if I am never going to enjoy it.

One of my problems with Buddhism is that it teaches that you need to rise above these sufferings by ceasing to care for them (oversimplification acknowledged), but if you give up the aching you also give up the euphoria when something goes right. Honestly, as much as I care about things in general, I’m not sure how I was able to successfully suppress so much for so long, but I am choosing passion.

I am not suggesting that you shouldn’t mitigate sorrow. So things that I have found are important are taking good care of myself with adequate sleep and good nutrition, and other needs. Sometimes I am just starved for music. Also, I am not happy with myself if I am not accomplishing things, so writing and getting things done at work is very important.

I probably do need to go through and feel more things, so my journal assignment will be to go through and write about all of the pets we have lost. I won’t post that, as the gallery of dead dogs will be a little too depressing. Well, thirteen dogs, five cats, four hamsters, and a lizard. If I do all of that in one sitting I am going to need some sort of pills.

Don’t worry though. I am recovered quite a bit, and feeling better. I am also gratified that with a few Google searches that there are many others who hate the Family Circus (only a small minority joins me on the fluffy towel issue, but I still know that I am right). I still don’t want Amy to die so young, and while her daughter is so young, but that will heal too, even knowing that it will be accompanied by pain. It is just life.

I do feel pretty comfortable hating tumors.