Blind

OK, I'm in Portland and I have many updates about me and about my thoughts about stuff...

But there's this guy sitting at the table next to me with a girl and I'm tryng to decide if he's blind. He doesn't really look at her. But he moves his head more than my impression of blind people moves there head. If he's not, he's a dick. If he is, well, I guess I am. He moves his head to look at things. I am holding out judgment. to be continued.

Arbusto

Why has no one mentioned that "Arbusto" is a really dumb name for a company. I don't recall anyone--anyone!--mentioning it as a joke in any way during the first presidential election that Bush "won."

Yeah, yeah, it means "Bush" in Spanish. But why not call it Bush Oil? He's an American, dammit! Why translate into Spanish? But Arbusto also sounds like a pirate blackjack dealer... "23...Arrrrr Busto" Plus it sounds like "Bust." So why is anyone no surprised that someone whose biggest business venture was named "Bust" and failed is not really that good of a businessman, much less president?

Scary thought

From Slate.com:

"The vice president initiated kidnappings, secret detentions, and torture in Eastern European prisons of suspected international terrorists. This lawlessness has been answered in Germany and Italy with criminal charges against CIA operatives or agents. The legal precedent set by Cheney would justify a decision by Russian President Vladimir Putin to kidnap American tourists in Paris and to dispatch them to dungeons in Belarus if they were suspected of Chechen sympathies."

It's absolutely amazing to me that we are relying on the restraint of Vladimir Putin (and everyone else) to be more moral than we are.

Moab

Hangin' out in Moab. "Borrowing" some wireless. Perfect weather....

Moab is in the middle of nowhere. There's a town here because of uranium, mostly. It's on the Colorado river, but there's a lot of places on the river, when it gets down to it. Then the parks. Then mountain biking. But the town keeps growing. I guess it's kind of like Las Vegas, at some point there's a critical mass in a settlement, when enough services and human resources show up for the town to be appealing on its own.

More fun w/GOP

Come on, Mitt, say it … SAY THAT JESUS LIVED IN NORTH AMERICA!

Duncan wants the Reagan Democrats back. But the "Reagan Democrats" probably have realized those jobs they were promised back in 1980 probably aren't actually going to show up. They're still waiting.

Rudy seems to believe we have a government-run health-care system. EUROPE'S OVER THERE, DUMMY, TO THE EAST.

And Huckabee is going to change that. He boldly proposes that we should also have some kind of concern about humans after they get out of the uterus.

Why the right is screwed

The Karl Rove doctrine that when you dig yourself into a ditch, the best strategy is to dig deeper, has finally met the test of reality-based politics. It isn't going to be pretty.

These guys got away with these hawkish fantasies because they bamboozled the poor evangelicals into believing they would support public morality, and bamboozled poor conservatives into thinking they would uphold small government. Instead, they are hitching their wagons to a multi-trillion dollar quagmire abroad and don't give a rat's ass about evangelical values.

They will lose because their base is disheartened. They will lose because even their base hates this Iraq stuff. They will lose because their base will stay home in droves.

Current GOP Candidates and other comments

Science:
Gov. Huckabee was dismissive of the idea that it should matter whether a president believes in evolution. Me, I think that a president ought to be able to pass a junior high science class. I'm happy for him that he believes in God, but I'd just like to know if he believes in, you know, facts. Rudy appears to be laughing at him. I'm sure he and his gay dogwalkers believe in evolution, no problem.

Brownback says that if "faith and science are at odds with each other, check your faith or check your science." You can't really "check" faith, which is kind of the point of faith, but whatever: the world is clearly coming to an end anyway

Sens. John McCain of Arizona and Sam Brownback of Kansas both admitted Tuesday night they voted to authorize the U.S. military invasion of Iraq without reading the formal National Intelligence Estimate in advance. Nice. So I guess they admitted to reading everything else, right, even the minor legislation.

Signs of the times
Yesterday, Bush headlined a fundraiser for the New Jersey state GOP, where donors could pay $5,000 to pose for a photo with the Commander in Chief. Just a year ago for a grip and grin with Bush.GOP officials around the country charged at least $10,000 a pop for presidential photo op, a bargain compared to the $25,000-a-flash Bush commanded during some Republican National Committee fund-raisers back in 2000 and 2004. Maybe it's just a Jersey thing. Although Bush's poll numbers are low nationally, the president is particularly unpopular in New Jersey, where his approval rating is just 25 percent according to one recent poll. In fact, Bush hadn't campaigned in the state since 2005. Last summer, the GOP relied instead on other administration emissaries like Karl Rove, Vice President Dick Cheney and former President George H.W. Bush. They all campaigned for Tom Kean Jr., who ran for (and ultimately lost) New Jersey's U.S. Senate seat. For the record, a photo with Rove cost donors $1,000, while pictures with Cheney and Bush's dad were priced at $5,000. But that's peanuts. In June 2006, donors at a Kean fundraiser paid $10,000 a piece for a photo op with First Lady Laura Bush. At least President Bush can feel good about one thing: Wednesday's event took in about $675,000 for New Jersey Republicans, not a bad haul in a state where most people would rather get a souvenir pic of the president walking out the door.

types of people

So I've noticed a theory, I noticed something and now it's a theory. There are two types of people:
1. Those who put sliverware down in the drying rack with the handle up, and
2. Those who put it down with the business end up and handle down.

I've seem some people who really seem to care about it,
If you leave the fork up, you stand a chance to get the fork dirty,,, you'd never hand someone a dinner fork with their hands on the tines. I suppose there's also the small additional risk of having the sharp edge sticking out.

On the other hand, people who are silver downers say: If you put the fork up, you know it's a fork, so you get the tool you want easier.

I think it warrants further study.

Now I AM a Mac

First Mac post. That's all for now.

Bush: We'll leave as soon as they ask us!

So didn't President Bush go totally apeshit when John Kerry suggested that he would confer with our allies about international terrorism?

Tucker Carlson: I want to impeach Bush!

And so did George Pataki. I don't have a link to it, I just watched it on TV... But their gist was this: George Bush is an idiot. At his press conference, besides threatening David Gregory, he had two main messages:

1. We must stay in Iraq; it's life or death; we will lose to Terror if we leave Iraq
2. We're outta there as soon as the Iraqis ask

Yeah, one really follows from the others. We're going to allow 200 guys who make our congress seem an awesome tool of effective, decisive action to tell us when we're going to pull out. But our congress can't tell us the same thing. Hmmn.

Oh, and a bird pooped on him during the press conference.

Live Blogging/Tea Grotto

This is the same two people as before:

UDOT does have some funny practices in my book. I don't know if you noticed, but sometimes they pave a road, and then six months later, to the day, there's the utility company to tear it up again.
I like this place, enough to keep coming back here. [at this point, they're clearly running out of things to say. She badly wants to leave.]
I'd like to live in England. They're funny people. They're depressed. //You laugh at that? //Yeah
...
Oh, that's right, Australia's totally cosmopolitan... everyone is first or second generation.
When they speak, they're hard to understand they have a very strong accent. [He laughs uproariously] I couldn't make heads or tails of it.//OK, yeah//I can't even begin to describe it, to imitate it. [he laughs out loud again] [She's looking in her bag, fiddling with her watch band. Fiddling with her bag. Ya think she wants to leave??]
Even in Australia, there's something about Queensland. Everything there can kill you in Australia, but in Queensland it's even more.
I hate spiders.
Yeah, my big brother, he woke up one night and there was a big spider, and it was as big as his hand and figured he couldn't do anything, so he just turned off the light and went to sleep.
Was he telling me this story, about the big spider? Yeah.
We freaked out in our apartment once, it was like two in the morning, there was this giant spider it was this big. I was finishing a story, and I hear this blood curdling scream. It scared me! This girl had a herniated disc and she jumped up onto the stool and was screaming Kill it Kill it! But it was huge.
My information about Australia is about four years old.
I'm still waiting for my dad to call me. His truck's in the shop, so both my parents...
I had this car, the front end was messed up and I couldn't figure it out.
So occasionally, things will work, or they won't, and it will just click//weird//Yeah//Click click//Yeah//Click click and you flood the engine with gas
Toyotas are wonderful, they give them crappy bodies, but the engines are great. The body just rusts right off them.
My brother had one. [now she's looking out the window and gripping the edge of the table]
But Toyotas are ok.//Yeah, I like 4-runners
My cousin is an archeologist, he was working up in Montana for the forest service. So my dad said, tell me when it stops running. I know Toyotas stop running at 180,000 miles. But he rolled it.
My dad's a geologist. We go out to the desert where the Airforce owns it. And they take these landgraders and cut a big swath. So I go out with my dad, and it's yeah. Or get shot by a passing aircraft carrier [yeah, he said carrier]
...
I wish I remember how to buy a car. My understanding is that they'll give you an offer, you say no, then they'll give you a second, and you should say no to that, and then you take the third offer. But I've never done it.
That's really too bad.
...
Time to go.//Yeah//What time's your flight?//6:00. And I have to find my hotel on my own.//Dude, that place is insane.... [they walk out the door.]

Can't stop the signal

Great moments in micro-reactions...

Two people. He's a nerdy hippie guy. Glasses, long hair, bad goatee. She's kind of dyke-y, short hair, kind of round, vaguely Hispanic. None of this technically has anything to do with it, but I think it's what the people call "setting the scene." In any case...

The body language is interesting, hard to explain the dynamic. Kind of like two acquaintances meeting up, where one of them (him?) kind of roped her into coming, although they arrived separately. Anyway, at some point, he decides to blow his nose. He pulls out one of those paisley-ish hippie bandanas (blue, not red). And he blows it. A good, thick one. She already had her hand close to her mouth. But for a second, she looked like someone seeing an autopsy. Total disgust. And not even at the act proper, but him--"How can he DO that?"

Old Hitchens

Continuing my line of copying others' words. I have added some ellipses and highlights only. I think it was published in Slate if anyone wants to see an original. I think Hitchens is mostly a nut-job, but this piece really hit me when I read it a few years ago.

Mommie Dearest
The pope beatifies Mother Teresa, a fanatic, a
fundamentalist, and a fraud.
By Christopher Hitchens
Monday, October 20,
2003

I think it was Macaulay who said that the Roman Catholic Church deserved great credit for, and owed its longevity to, its ability to handle and contain fanaticism. This rather oblique compliment belongs to a more serious age. What is so striking about the "beatification" of the woman who styled herself "Mother" Teresa is the abject surrender, on the part of the church, to the forces of showbiz, superstition, and populism.

...It used to be that a person could not even be nominated for "beatification," the first step to "sainthood," until five years after his or her death. This was to guard against local or popular enthusiasm in the promotion of dubious characters. The pope nominated MT a year after her death in 1997. It also used to be that an apparatus of inquiry was set in train, including the scrutiny of an advocatus diaboli or "devil's advocate," to test any extraordinary claims. The pope has abolished this office and has created more instant saints than all his predecessors combined as far back as the 16th century.

As for the "miracle" that had to be attested, what can one say? Surely any respectable Catholic cringes with shame at the obviousness of the fakery. A Bengali woman named Monica Besra claims that a beam of light emerged from a picture of MT, which she happened to have in her home, and relieved her of a cancerous tumor. Her physician, Dr. Ranjan Mustafi, says that she didn't have a cancerous tumor in the first place and that the tubercular cyst she did have was cured by a course of prescription medicine. Was he interviewed by the Vatican's investigators? No. (As it happens, I myself was interviewed by them but only in the most perfunctory way. The procedure still does demand a show of consultation with doubters, and a show of consultation was what, in this case, it got.)

...

During the deliberations over the Second Vatican Council, under the stewardship of Pope John XXIII, MT was to the fore in opposing all suggestions of reform. What was needed, she maintained, was more work and more faith, not doctrinal revision. Her position was ultra-reactionary and fundamentalist even in orthodox Catholic terms. Believers are indeed enjoined to abhor and eschew abortion and contraception, but they are not required to affirm that abortion and contraception are the greatest threat to world peace, as MT fantastically asserted to a dumbfounded audience when receiving the Nobel Peace Prize. Believers are likewise enjoined to abhor and eschew divorce, but they are not required to insist that a ban on divorce and remarriage be a part of the state constitution, as MT demanded in a referendum in Ireland (which her side narrowly lost) in 1996. Later in that same year, she told Ladies Home Journal that she was pleased by the divorce of her friend Princess Diana, because the marriage had so obviously been an unhappy one

This returns us to the medieval corruption of the church, which sold indulgences to the rich while preaching hellfire and continence to the poor. MT was not a friend of the poor. She was a friend of poverty. She said that suffering was a gift from God. She spent her life opposing the only known cure for poverty, which is the empowerment of women and the emancipation of them from a livestock version of compulsory reproduction. And she was a friend to the worst of the rich, taking misappropriated money from the atrocious Duvalier family in Haiti (whose rule she praised in return) and from Charles Keating of the Lincoln Savings and Loan. Where did that money, and all the other donations, go? The primitive hospice in Calcutta was as run down when she died as it always had been—she preferred California clinics when she got sick herself—and her order always refused to publish any audit. But we have her own claim that she opened 500 convents in more than a hundred countries, all bearing the name of her own order. Excuse me, but this is modesty and humility?

The rich world has a poor conscience, and many people liked to alleviate their own unease by sending money to a woman who seemed like an activist for "the poorest of the poor." People do not like to admit that they have been gulled or conned, so a vested interest in the myth was permitted to arise, and a lazy media never bothered to ask any follow-up questions. Many
volunteers who went to Calcutta came back abruptly disillusioned by the stern ideology and poverty-loving practice of the "Missionaries of Charity," but they had no audience for their story. George Orwell's admonition in his essay on Gandhi—that saints should always be presumed guilty until proved innocent—was drowned in a Niagara of soft-hearted, soft-headed, and uninquiring propaganda.

One of the curses of India, as of other poor countries, is the quack medicine man, who fleeces the sufferer by promises of
miraculous healing. Sunday was a great day for these parasites, who saw their crummy methods endorsed by his holiness and given a more or less free ride in the international press. Forgotten were the elementary rules of logic, that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence and that what can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence. More than that, we witnessed the elevation and consecration of extreme dogmatism, blinkered faith, and the cult of a mediocre human personality. Many more people are poor and sick because of the life of MT: Even more will be poor and sick if her example is followed. She was a fanatic, a fundamentalist, and a fraud, and a church that officially protects those who violate the innocent has given us another clear sign of where it truly stands on moral and ethical questions.

Others' thoughts on: Law, rape, and Duke

Ironically, what started as a boon for sexual harassment awareness and a call to arms to (re) crack down on sexual predators on campus has turned into a disaster. When those spoiled, snotty white boys were guilty, everyone, including the entire Duke student body plus the faculty was very happy to make examples of them. Marches, ads in the paper, the whole thing. I thought they were guilty (to tell the truth, I still do; something went down that night.)

But because of their (I'm going to just go ahead and blame everybody) inability to see shades in the story, because the media covers or it doesn't, well, here we are: now schools and counties are scared of bringing charges because of the reverse effect: they might be sued if they're wrong:

See, this is why one should look at the coming of hurricane season as a good thing. because every minute a cable news network spends watching some poor, windswept anchor get his tuchis handed to him by Mother Nature is one less minute they can spend on generally screwing up the world.

Writing for Poynter today, Al Tompkins introduces us to the term "Duke effect" and discusses how the Duke Lacrosse botch-up is having deleterious effects on sexual assault prosecutions everywhere. Citing an article on Law.com, Tompkins relates:
In Texas, one defense attorney recently cited the case during voir dire, and again in closing argument, in an assault case involving a teacher accused of pinning down a female student while other students beat her. The lawyer reminded jurors about what happened at Duke. The defendant was found not guilty in three minutes.

Now, one imagines that across the country, there are countless examples of tatty little criminal trials in which prosecutorial misrule leads to regrettable and embarrassing outcomes.

How is it that a run-of-the-mill case in Durham, North Carolina ended up impacting the voir dire of a trial half a world away? Why, it's almost as if someone put a megaphone in front of every stitch of Duke-related, sensationalized nonsense and amplified it out of all reasonable proportion!

So, media: How's that rush to judgement working out for ya?

Me.

I love being me. I loves me some me. Shockingly, no one else does. (Sad face)

Now I'm drinking green tea, typing away, being a nice little liberal. Talking bad about white trash, and Okies, and whatever else doesn't make my level of cool and culturally acceptable. Aren't I a snarky little man? I've managed not to do anything in my life that has affected others, have I? Or is the question, I haven't managed to do anything in my life? Or is it I've managed to do only things that haven't affected people?

So, enough of that. I drank most of a bottle of very good riesline last night. Back to being snarky.

Stealing thoughts of others...

(with attribution).

from Matthew Yglesias:

Mark Helprin's gone and done us all the service of advocating the idea that dare not speak its name: Rather than endlessly retroactively extending copyrights, why not make them last forever?
Unfortunately, he doesn't consider any of the various reasons that make this a terrible idea. Is it, for example, really such a bad thing that community theaters and schools all throughout the country (and, indeed, the world) can put on productions of Shakespeare's plays without paying stiff licensing fees? What if his heir and his team of consultants (I recommend Marsh) determined that the profit-maximizing license fee was really, really high -- something only the world's major theaters could afford, and something that they'd be willing to pay since his work is, to say the least, kind of well regarded.

Alternatively, one can imagine a world in which Herman Melville's great-great grandson decides to release a "director's cut" version of Moby Dick and then embark on a campaign, à la George Lucas, to prevent the publication of the original version of the novel. He couldn't, of course, suppress the already existing print copies of the story which might continue to circulate, samizdat-style, for decades, but I still think there might be a problem. Melville fans and literary critics around the world would eagerly await Great-great-grandson Melville's demise and hope that his heir might be more reasonable.

You also already have an enormous problem of orphaned works, situations where nobody knows who owns the copyright to something, and where the person who owns the copyright may not even realize that the work exists. Obviously, the longer copyrights endure the worse this problem gets. Forever, meanwhile, is an extraordinarily long time -- we'd be drowning in orphaned works.

This last point is, in many ways, the crux of the matter. It would suck if my grandfather's novels -- or my grandmother's, or my dad's -- were to become orphaned in the future, or just unavailable because ownership of them passed into the hands of some jerk who didn't care about them. My grandparents are all people I know personally (or knew in the case of my late grandfather), but I couldn't so much as name all my great-grandparents.

Expecting N-th degree heirs to manage the oversight of cultural works properly is irresponsible. When things enter the public domain, by contrast, the practical impact is to put the fate of the work in the hands of whoever happens to know of and care about its existence. That, in turn, is a much healthier situation for world culture -- Shakespeare's works are whatever Shakespeare lovers make of them, which is how it should be.

One to remember.

Political Cartoons I found cleaning out my harddrive

Update

Weather: Raining.
Drinking: Pouchong Oolong tea, from Taiwan.

The guy is gone. My sampling is over. I almost miss him.

I saw a cartoon with a picture of Rumsfeld: It said, I almost miss hating him. I guess the same for me.

Some other political cartoons I have:

Please god pull my ears out

So this guy is talking. A lot. Loud. Every thought is worthy of everyone hearing it:

• Doug Fabrizio drives him crazy.
• They've changed how trains are driven. It's not as smooth as it used to be.
• His brother used to have a gun, because he found the cleaning kit
• There was a bat that was rabid, and the teacher's aide touched it. When did rabies shots get so expensive?
• He really likes The Office. He thinks Pam is cute, although he doesn't tell them to women. He also thinks Rainn Wilson's parents were hippies, who added an N to his name.
• When they were against the ERA, it was because they pretended it was because of unisex bathrooms, even though they already existed.
• He has a good imitation of LDS accents.
• He also like My Name is Earl. He really liked the one where that one woman played the manager of the white trash trailer park.
• He doesn't patronise Walgreens. When he used to go to City Council Meetings, he didn't like their attitude. He considers them to have bad architecture.

That was just a sampling. Oh. My. God.

I'm a Mac

I just bought a new computer. I'm writing this on my work computer, an IBM thinkpad. But I decided to buy a Macbook. Since I decided to buy one, however, I've come to hate those "I'm a PC, and I'm a Mac" commercials more than ever.

Parenting Advice

I read, by way of several people (I don't want to get in trouble!) some very good advice about raising children. It was about kids who grow up assholes. He said, "Only an asshole lets his children hang out with assholes."

Because if your kids are dicks, even if you're not, you've got something to do with it.

Weather update

I don't do them much these days... it's colossally nice out. I'm on my little balcony writing this, wearing tshirt and shorts. Things could be much much worse. Still, I badly need to shower!

Full Sail...

Somehow I got quite drunk last night on two (2) Full Sail Slip Knot IPA's. Granted, they were 22 ouncers, but still--two beers!

I think I'm finally feeling the effects of getting off my Wellbutrin. I'm not quite depressed, I just feel, well, the closest feeling is "needy." I emailed an old gf last night. I almost hit on another friend last night while watching the Jazz game. I thought about sending an email to FF. I spent part of the afternoon with my ex, and had to try very hard not to be sad when we didn't kiss afterwards.

I'm trying to muscle through it, but I'm not doing all that well. Well, more to the point, I'm not sure how to muscle through it. It's not muscle-able, as it were.

I also managed to send sarcastic, almost mean (though in a clearly joking manner) to two Portland contacts. Don't know what the hell that was about. Need to remember that teasing doesn't get me what I want... even if it's funny, it doesn't get me anything, and doesn't get them anything.

My sleep patterns are getting worse again. I'm sleeping a lot, but need to be taking lots (well, a full pill) of ambien. I thought I was getting better... maybe I am, this is just a little chemical detour.

I was able to finish this Sunday's Times Crossword. I also finished the week before's. But I had to put it down for a while and actually finished it Saturday night. I say this by way of mentioning that my brain is somewhat working, at least.

Another ambien fueled post

Let's see, second day of the tournament. Great weather, had to put on sunscreen.

Did have a guy bounce off me, and said "wow, you're big I ran right into you." That was fun, I didn't move. Saw many old friends, Amber, CV, Yvette, Sara Bennet. Drank a little. Back hurt a lot. And my skin's all dry from the air, the hot tub, and then from the shower.

Going over to my house to help R work on the yard. Good way to get something done, good way to spend a few moments together.

My day

My day could probably be covered with several different stories...

First, to get out of the way, saw Christy, looking good, although her ultimate game isn't what it used to be. I really wish I could figure out how to connect with her.

Also saw some old friends, some of whom I am either attracted to now or have been in the past. I went to watch the Jazz game, therefore missed the party where all my old (female) friends were. I would have struck out there if I somehow could make it. I will make sure that I hang with them tomorrow night if there's anything up.

I hate my life. I just can't connect with people and I so want to be able to...
Rachel: Called her today, I was listening to the radio, they were mentiong the derby. I know she likes horses, so I called her to remind her. "You're calling to remind me about the race?" she said. Wow, I missed you, too.

And CUT's playing in the regional finals tomorrow.

In Moab...

The last time I was in this house, Christy was with me. We’d already discussed that things were over, but she came down here and stayed in this house, my family’s house. We shared a bed, although it was chaste as can be. At the wedding, we kind of hung out, dancing to the extent that either of us dances. We took a walk down to the river. It was a cool night, it’d been raining, but the low-lying clouds were breaking, giving us a great view of the canyon and the moon above it. We walked out to the deck where the wedding took place. I didn’t know what to do. I was then, and still am amazed today, at her beauty. I hoped on some level that she was reaching out to me, that it was a chance to be alone, to have big ol’ me give her a big bear hug and get her warm. We eventually drove back from the wedding, just the two of us, the only ones staying at this house. We did a quick hot tub, we got ready for bed, we got into bed. We talked a little. I really wanted to kiss her, not from a romantic perspective, just from an affection, connection way. So I rolled over and kissed her on the cheek. I told her I felt like a little kid, stealing away a kiss. She said she felt the same way. Except I think she meant it the opposite, that I made her feel like a little kid by getting her wrapped up and tucked in and then kissing her goodnight.

In any case, she didn’t stay long in the morning. I needed pills just to fall asleep, so I wasn’t peppy when she needed to pull out. She left, quiet, not intending to be rude, but coming across slightly that way given my hopes for a moment of affection. Those hopes were left a little unfulfilled. So I went back to sleep, but I didn’t like it.

Christy in many ways is the best person I’ve been with in a long time, certainly a archetype of who I’d like to be with, one of the overall most attractive. We had lots of differences: age, religion, she doesn’t drink, and some level of chemistry that she didn’t feel. I can neither confirm nor deny its existence, other than she didn’t feel it, and that’s enough.

I still get occasional reminders. I was never in love with her, but I have flashes of “Why?!?!” where I reflect on what I liked about her—her personality, her sarcasm, her incredible smile, long legs, great hair, sweet personality, childlike in some ways, and very mature in others. I miss those things. I find that as I look for women to date since then, I’m comparing them to her. Doesn’t seem fair, does it?

Push comes to shove

Well, not really. But I'm quite troubled, so I'll tell my tale...

I was playing ultimate tonight. My ultimate history is another tale, but I still play a little. It was a lovely night, I have to say, and I needed the exercise besides.

I started slow, like I always do this early in the season, especially on a weeknight when I'd rather be writing about "Quo Vadimus" than out playing... in any case, I was covering this guy. He went to throw, upwind, breaking my mark. I didn't let him. I leaned my body over, and put out my arm. He threw it, I "caught" him, on the arm, across the shoulder a little. He was a little of balance and fell over. He got up, said something about my "arm being out" "over him." I said I had no idea what he was talking about. Then he said something about "shoving" him. I said something to the effect that he'd know it if I'd shoved him. I thought it was over.

Later that point, we got the disc back, I threw it, and he ran right into me and shoved me! I over-reacted asked him what the hell had happened. He said "I was just following through" after the disc. Then I really reacted, told him--yelled at him--that if he did it again, I'd rip his arm off. I kept on yelling longer than I should have, although I never should have yelled at all. I'm mad at myself, is the short of it.

Quo Vadimus

One of my favorite quotes:

The Stranger: Dana. I'm what the world considers to be a phenomenally successful man. And I've failed much more than I've succeeded. And each time I fail, I get my people together, and I say, "Where are we going?" And it starts to get better. And that's what you should do.

From Sports Night. The Stranger owns a company called Quo Vadimus. Where are we going? What a great way to face failure. Forget "It's a challenge, not a failure" Just... Where are we going? Quo Vadimus.

Here we are today. We've failed. I've certainly failed. But where are we going now?

harder than it looks

This blogging thing. Hard. Harder than it looks. I should carry a voice recorder around; my thoughts while I'm driving around always seem more interesting than what I end up writing here:
I hate "brushless" car washes. They don't get things as clean as washes that touch your car. Isn't that why we use a cloth or a sponge when we wash things?
I can't stand unnecessary lane changes. Folks who change lanes seemingly at random, and are going slow. It's one thing to change lanes because you have to turn, or see something that might slow you down.
Whenever I make a list, it's things I "hate" or, I guess, things I "can't stand" Why am I so negative? I hate it!
Ok, the lane change thing is lame. I need to remember the good thoughts I have. The interesting ones. Apparently I only have one so far.

SSRI's

Well, actually all anti-depressants. Or, well, actually, the two I'm on. I've reduced one by half to see what happens. So far, I'm very sleepy. Just tired. My brain's ok, I guess, not too stupid. Less hand-shaking. That is, shaking hands. My own, not greeting other people. So I've halved my Wellbutrin, with the plan of eliminating it from my system within two weeks. Well, no longer putting it into my system. My understanding is that it'll take another few weeks for it to get totally out. And then we'll see about that zoloft.

It's been supposed to rain, but it hasn't. Sort of a double-reverse Eli's Coming. It's windy, at least. I like wind. No, I don't. It blows so much dust around. So much, in fact, that if it does rain, things will be dirtier after the rain than they were before. I drive a black car, so I think that blows. No pun intended.

Things I should remember

What it sounds like when I sleep, or try to sleep.

Why I do what I do.

I want to tell her I love her.

I'm distant, I observe. But it doesn't mean I don't feel. How did it turn into a defense mechanism. Sometimes I observe things too closely and it hurts a true exchange. Even when I'm listening to the other person, it's like there's a voice repeating the words back to me.

I always work on owning my reactions now. I think I could write a book about that.

I am so much happier being Rachel's friend now, but I still want more, at least to experiment with.

What are my normal moods?

Why can I just say things? Some people can talk without an editor between brain and mouth. I'm all editor between brain and mouth.

I want to express to her things other than being lonely, that there are thing in my life I need help about even if I wasn't lonely.

I wish I'd asked for help. I couldn't figure out who wasn't part of the problem (everyone but me, of course) so I couldn't have asked for help, even if I'd known what for or who to ask.

I'm naturally observant and analytical, but that shouldn't get in the way of me opening up to people.

I edit things down so people don't think I'm stalking them.

What is it like in my brain? What do I see and hear in there?

6:30 am

I woke up, bed was totally messed up, which never happens; I'm a neat sleeper, or at least a fairly contained one.

I dreamed on and off about my (ex)wife all night. Mostly dreams of familiarity, dreams of what we were supposed to be, or dreams that seemed to recognize our loss. And to make it all cheesy enough, I have "Take your breath away" by Sarah Maclachlan going through my head, like a soundtrack to my apparently depressing life. Yeah, I know it's about stalkers, but it's also about..."And after I/dry away your tears/I'll take your breath away..."

I give her my help and support freely. I still take care of her. I feel better when I do. But I don't get the help I want from her. I feel close to panic attacks, I get overwhelming sadness and I just want a hug, some contact, and I can't get it. I feel like she loves me, but doesn't want to love me. I want to tell her her sadness is because she knows it. She needs a best friend. I feel like I give that to her. But I don't get my best friend.

Who's coming?

So, yeah, that Sports Night episode really stuck with me. I get that feeling sometimes--that there's a darkness just out of touch, nibbling away at things, that feeling if you're going to have any luck, it's going to be bad.

It's that feeling you get when you watch a play in sports and just know your team is done. When you know the other shoe is going to drop. That an existential storm is coming.

That's Eli.

Halberstam

This blows:
Journalist David Halberstam killed in car crash

"The Best and the Brightest" is one of my all-time favorites. It was one of the two main inspirations for my senior thesis and taught me a great deal about organizational behavior.

Cake/Pizza

From the same episode:

Casey: I'm particular about cake. And I have to say, it's been my experience that men buy better cake than women. I'vefound that women tend to get these yogurt-frosted low-cal things laced with a rum and fruit concoction that make eating cake into something you do to be polite. So that's why I was asking what kind of cake you were planning on getting.

Although I always had the same theory about pizza: Everyone says they'll eat the veggie pizza, but everyone actually eats the pepperoni. So always get more of that and less veggie.

OK, I liked I am to misbehave

And I'll probably like it again... next time I see Firefly or Serenity. But Eli's Coming has been with me for a long time.

Dan Rydell: Eli's Coming.

Casey McCall: Eli?

Dan Rydell: From the Three Dog Night song.

Casey McCall: Yes?

Dan Rydell: Eli is something bad, a darkness.

Casey McCall: "Eli's coming. Hide your heart, girl." Eli is a inveterate womanizer. I think you're getting the song wrong.

Dan Rydell: I know I'm getting the song wrong. But, when I first heard it, that's what I thought it meant. Things stick with you that way.

Yes, they do stick with you that way.

I might fall asleep typing this

I learned not to write while I'm on Ambien, but I took it already...

So I went to the local Apple store and checked out Mac Notebooks. Not sure if their various weaknesses make up for the extra cost, and for the strgentgh of the platform. The screens are kind of small.

THen had dinner with R. I don't know what I 'm doing. She wants to hang with me, I want to hang with her. It's just that she knows I have some kind of feelings left... and I guess she seems happy to just leave it be, as long as I'm nice to her. and don;t act too maudlin around her. I don't have an agenda. I don't have some kind of sense that I know we're destined to be together... Frankly, I wonder why we don't just date until I leave... gives us a break, we can se where we are and until then, help each other out, solves our dating problem(s)

I also drank two glasses of wine and a bottle of beer. I also did some surfing for some fun tshirts to order, something for my school identity at Lewis & Clark.




I had like 9 or 10 at Fiddler's last night.

And the jazz still sucked.

No news

No real news on the dating front. Had beers with AB last night. She was a wreck! Not my fault, of course... Except the waitress/server/restaurant employee was really cute and I think she thought I was, too. Except that I think that she thought that I was breaking up with AB. I'll have to go back!

Dating in SLC really does suck. We were at Fiddler's last night; not that I was studying the crowd the whole time, but I don't think I saw a single person introduce themselves to another person. By single, of course, I mean not one, not even a married guy hitting on young girls.

Our President is a Drunk

What other conclusion can be reached? He walks like someone who is pretending not to be drunk. He is completely incoherent. "Polls go poof" "There is ample time to debate this war."

He's fucking drunk. He's an idiot. He's a criminal. He has no clue what he's doing, what life is about, anything. He really believes his own shit... thinks that God talks to him. We're so screwed.

His best friend in the world is Gonzo Gonzales. That should be enough said.

The definition of insanity is trying the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. This is insane.

I am.

I am.

What's with the goddamn weather?

Snow??? This sucks ass.

I just realized

I just realized that MM is HG. So much for smart.

I also just realized that "Wait 'til we get our Hanes on you" is a pun on "wait til we get our hands on you." So much for really smart.

Formerly...

Formerly Trying Hard in SLC... Decided that although dating is part of my life, my venture through divorce, dating, not dating, a little frisbee, moving to Portland, and then going to law school all seemed more worthy than just stories (rapidly disappearing, I might add) about my dating life.

"I search for fine prince"

She's the one!

I the girl without harmful habits. I love dances, it is a little sports, and certainly to prepare. Benevolent, careful, lovely, sympathetic, jealous and quiet. Very much I love children, and in due course I want to have.

How can I resist this one?

KY

Here's a good one

KY woman looking for S...

I know she means Kentucky, but unfortunate nonetheless.

Then there's a Ms. "Gimme a Rimmer":

It Ain't gonna lick itself.
favorite things: cutlery. people who cough up blood. rim jobs. puppies. i
hate cats. hiking. cooking fish. they. road rash. music.

Count me in!

I know, this is kind of shooting ducks in a barrel.

Another winner!

Can't wait to meet her:

Just looking for a man that's not a lying pig. You know who you are. So many promises, so little follow-through. How typical. yeah... so anyway, have a nice life. I'll send back all your shit. The less reminders, the better. Now I see why you never bothered to call or type. Disclaimer: I am an unhappily MARRIED woman, but not really looking for anyone at this time. I've had all the complications I can handle.

dhb4u34f@Match.com has winked at you!

This is a winner...

The headline: I wont you

The rest seems to have been written by the Borat School of Matchmaking:

Intelligent, sensible, responsible, romantic, modern. I want to have children. I would like to be a good wife and excellent mother! I search for second half with which I could create strong, happy family. The person is necessary to me Which would love me and it was possible to rely on him a difficult minute. To me it is necessary hardworking Sincere, and cheerful the man. For me the main thing in men its love. I wish to find the man with Which to me will be well, easy, it is cheerful also our life will be only in understanding and the consent. I shall make all that we with it were happy also our love was eternal.

I'm in love!

This one is just... welll
About my life and what I'm looking for
I know it's clique to say this but I honestly never thought I'd be doing this. It's not that I think people who do are desperate and lonely; they're just more willing to put themselves out there than I am. Even though I would describe myself as very open and outgoing, I admit that I am somewhat guarded when it comes to letting just anyone get to know me. So without saying too much but still giving an overall picture I describe myself as follows: I'm an independent, well-educated, ambitious

Lying, revisited

Well, not really revisited. Just thought I'd talk about it. And spin. And selling yourself online. Selling figuratively, anyway.

The thing with these online systems is that they turn romance, chemistry, and the search for love into a game, and into a selling opportunity. Because you (ok, I mean, I) don't want to "lose," I cast my net wide and try to avoid saying things that might turn someone away from me. Which isn't what I'd want to do "in real life." I have my standards, and I have a personality that doesn't appeal to everyone, and someone who wants someone who does, say, country line dancing is not going to be a good match for me.

Maybe I should re-write my profile in a way that makes me seem more definitive. Rather than trying to not turn off women across the whole spectrum of acceptability, I could try to be bold and find someone who says "Holy Shit! This person is cool!" Screw everyone else, right?

So I'm not really talking about lying I guess. Just the choice of how to sell ourselves. My old rule of don't lie about anything I can verify on your profile or the first date is more important than I realized. It's not just hiding stuff. It's also positively reinforcing what it is that we want. I find myself, for example, pretending not to care how smart my potential dates are. But I do. And yet I find myself interacting with people who don't match that standard because I'm afraid to eliminate them. I would want them to do the same with me... wouldn't I? Unless they want to just hook up. But there's no box to check for that, so I can't ask.... "if you're dumb, it's ok as long as we screw. Otherwise, leave me alone."

The damn fear of rejection thing. Some people have fear of abandonment. I have fear of rejection. It's amazing what I'll go through just to avoid rejection from someone that I would reject if I didn't think they were going to reject me. That makes no sense.

Back to dating...

Weather report: Cold, partly sunny, but warmer than yesterday.
Mood: A little warmer than that, even.

So I told a friend about my theory of meeting people in SLC and she said that in some places, she actually gets approached by men. So maybe I'm just ugly. Or people in SLC are old-fashioned. There's an insight for me.

I had a date with someone the other week who had a rape fantasy. Really. I was hammered but didn't oblige. Not sure how one's supposed to handle that. She also talked dirty and said she hadn't had sex for two years. And she had had a child about 10 years ago with a player on the Jazz. So, overall, kind of a strange night. In hindsight, she also paid for drinks. Kind of a win/win. But not really. She hasn't re-contacted me and I can't say that I'm too heartbroken.

What should I drink tonight? Red? I had a beer last night, MM had to cancel. I bought a bottle of very cheap Zin last week ($3.95) so maybe I should try it. If it's halfway decent, I can buy more. If it sucks, it's not like it was going to get better with age!

Troop Levels

I did a little research and although I am still looking, here's the deal, which won't surprise anyone (except him): There were lots and lots of trained Iraqis. And the definition of "trained" varied a lot. But the level stayed around 100,000 men for a long time. But, somehow, it had always increased to 100,000. Interestingly, the number of "fully trained batallions" went down over the course of a year, but each time was reported as a step forward by the knee-pad wearing press.

By the way, if you Yahoo! "bush liar idiot" the first link is to the White House. Google is somewhat more intuitive, and gives us something about his approval falling to 33%.

Dating in SLC

Yahoo Personals is useless. It's a lower class of people than Match. I can't speak to other services, but there is a clear level of difference between the women on each site. I'd love to hear what folks think about that. Maybe I'll figure out some objective way of measuring it, though it would require some kind of subjective measure (i.e., can I put in some search criteria and see who "pops out"?)

Anyway, I let that service lapse. I will probably let Match lapse, but I'm not 100% yet.

What can I say about dating in Salt Lake?

* It's impossible to meet people
* Half of those you do meet are Mormon (not that there's anything wrong with that.)
* Apparently, almost half of the remainder are crazy, too. (no comment on the relative sanity of Mormons)
* No club/bar/place seems to exist for people over the age of 30 to meet people, or even interact. (Fiddler's Elbow, the Bayou are both great, but no one actually talks to people they don't know, do they?).

Here is what Citysearch lists under "Date" and Salt Lake City:
Zanzibar
The Bayou
Burt's Tiki Lounge
Port O' Call Social Club
Downtown Underground / Safari Club
Club Bambara
The Aerie Lounge (in Snowbird, good for dates, can't meet anyone there)
Circle Lounge
Paper Moon (gay club, probably good for meeting people)
Lumpy's (Reallly???)
Tavernacle Social Club
Area 51
Leprechaun Inn (DIVE)
Tap Room (DIVE 2)
Troll Hallen Lounge (Deer Valley???)

Soni

Oh yeah, Soni. She's nuts. Is everyone f-ing crazy?

One of the two guys she was dating (in addition to me) literally moved his shit over to her house and moved in. And she let him.

Don Imus

I don't know why I'm writing about him/this. Why do we have such a hard time balancing the fact that he's not necessarily racist... just an old-fashioned shit-head? I don't know if he's really a racist, but in this world, there are people who think bad things on a superficial level without thinking evil things. I don't know... I can categorically say that I am not racist, but I've caught myself thinking things I wouldn't want my minority friends to hear... I don't even agree with those things. I mean, I think some jokes are funny, some that are arguably racist or sexist. But I don't agree with them. I think some Jewish jokes are funny.

Someone just said something good on TV. To be a racist you have to hate black people. And he doesn't hate them. So, I don't know. I just don't want him to turn into a martyr or somesuch.

I'm smarter than you

That's right, I said it. I am. I won both my NCAA pools. I haven't lost at trivial pursuit in more than 15 years. I remember minor details about people I know--enough that I've had to learn to not mention them for fear the other person will think I have an unhealthy interest in them.

I can talk at a high level about politics, history, science. I read Wikipedia for fun. I can do the Sunday Times crossword.

So why am I mentioning this? I don't know, ironically. I think it's odd that I self edit and don't mention things that I know, or even pretend I never knew them. A few weeks ago, I was talking to a college friend who mentioned that she'd gone to private high school in Pennsylvania. What I didn't tell her was that I knew that. I knew the name of the school. Oddly, though, I don't know her birthday. Uh, that's not true, either. It's in August. So that's that. Another friend was mentioning to me her college room mate, who I'd met once, 17 years ago. I remembered her name. I don't have photographic memory or anything, things just stick with me.

Of course, I can't concentrate worth a damn and my hands shake and I can't sleep and I'm lonely and all that.

Lying

Lies and the lying liars... I haven't done any research on this, but I have a better memory than most people, and this is what I remember:
In 2004, Presnint Bush told us in several speeches and debates that there were already more than 100,000 Iraqi soldiers trained and ready to go. And when Kerry said otherwise, the Presnint chided him for being anti-American. And then we heard again that there were 100,000. And then again. Why hasn't someone (and maybe that should be me) put this into a timeline, with each time that he said it and effectively contradicted himself. Aren't those lies? Even if it was an error at some point, when he keeps reciting the number, shouldn't he have just enough brain cells to remember that he just told us the same thing and therefore it wasn't right the first time?

Just asking.

OK, Now what?

Now what do I do? So, I haven't met anyone new in some time. MM got back from vacation late last week and I'm seeing her tonight for the first time in almost two weeks. I'm really not all that excited about it. It's really more something to do. I'm still in love with my wife. I don't know what to do about that. She clearly still has something for me, but she won't allow it to be love... So who the Hell knows?

Weather: Cold, windy.
Mood: Cold, windy.

Wine for the night: Sturdy, red.

What else is there?

What is normal?

Ok, so I've been separated since mid-June. I'd been on several medications before that, but June's when the real fun began. So now it's a few months later... I don't feel happy, I don't feel recovered. And I still take my medications. It occurred to me the other day I take FOUR fairly strongly psychoactive drugs on a daily or near-daily basis. Plus caffeine. I can't tell when I'm feeling blue if it's because I'm tired, or if it's something external, or something internal I'm not catching, or it's too many drugs, or not enough. I don't know where the bottom is. I can't tell what "normal" is... if I do experience it, it's so fleeting that I wouldn't know it... my moods don't last long these days. I wish more of them were positive, however.

I tried to sleep without Ambien the other night. Right after dinner I took 3 chlortrimetons. And 1 benedryl. And then at around 11:00, I took a rozarem. I was up 'til 3:00. And I don't think I felt tired at all.

It's not like it used to be--I'd be tired, but I'd start "churning" and I couldn't stop my mind. Now, I just don't get tired. I want to just click my heels three times and have the ambien kick in.

FF has pretty much disappeared. AB is still a pal, but nothing's going to happen. MM, well, she's on vacation and we've had no contact. I dont know how I feel about that. And R, I miss R. I want to cry when I think about her. Not to be overdramatic about it, but I really don't think I can live without her right now. I think that's one of the reasons I want a stable relationship, so I have that daily contact. Like I said to AB today in reference to MM, I'd rather have an hour a day with her, than nothing all week and a big friday or saturday date.

Shaky and Twingey

Yes, I meant to say Twingey. My hands are shaking. I know it's partially a side-effect of my zoloft. And I know it sometimes happens when I'm hungry or have too much sugar or caffeine. But I have a hard time telling what's "normal" these days. So I can't tell what it's from. I recently reduced my intake of the zoloft so maybe that will help. Of course, we'll see how I react emotionally!

Let's see, what else... I get Twingey. I don't know what else to call it. It's a momentary disorientation, a tiny little explosion in the middle of my brain. It doesn't really hurt. It is like, but not really, dizziness. And I've been that way recently, too.

OK, so here's another thing. I had a good time over the weekend. I'm winning one NCAA pool and I'm in the hunt for the other. I drank some good beer. I tried in vain to see FF. But on Sunday night, she told me that:

1. We talked Saturday night
2. I fell asleep during our conversation

Needless to say, at first I thought, oh, it was the ambien, I sometimes have slightly hazy memories after I take ambien. Sometimes I know I write emails that are a little "off" at that point. But I've never completely forgotten about sending one, or having a conversation. So I was a little surprised. So I checked my phone, nothing, incoming or outgoing after 10:00 pm Saturday night. I even logged into the Cingular website to check their call log. Same thing. Nothing. So either there's a global conspiracy, or she's lying. Neither really makes sense. It'd be too much of a concidence that the one time I completely forget about a phone call is also the one time somehow no record is made of the call.

So I don't know what to think. She might not be lying, just confusing me with someone else.

Not live blogging

It was fun, but I became self-concious when someone came over. So I stopped. I would say a tentatively successful experiment.

So, tonight, FF tells me that we talked last night and I fell asleep on the phone.
I don't remember talking to her.
My phone doesn't list any calls either two her or from her.
I guess she could have meant IM'ing.
But she seemed pretty sure.

So, am I crazy? Has my use of ambien gotten that far off the rails? Or is she slightly mistaken? Or way mistaken?

And there's sort of a new face on the horizon, Soni. She isn't going to be a romance, but a sexual thing with no strings and emotional attachments would be good for me as I count down towards my move to Portland.

#3

10:51... He said "Lost the ability to penetrate" Funny
10:54... Louisville up 23-10 on Stanford. Davidson up 5.

#2

10:42... They're up to 12 for 27.
10:42... Can I just say, thank god for wireless?
10:44... Say it "DeSensei Wright"
10:46.... Bob Knight doing what he does... look disgusted, blaming his players for his lousy coaching. Hey, he was choking players better than them before these bozos were even born.
10:48... Stupid Kevin Bacon/Michael Jordan shooting/blocking lame-ass commercial. Makes Bacon seem lame, Jordan like a prick.
10:50... Thing about the NCAA, it might be the only sport event where being on the east coast is better. Tip-off is already after beer time. Drinking before 11:30 is always questionable.

Live Blogging/NCAAs

OK, Is there any day ever better to work from home?

10:31... The Bud Light Rock Paper Scissors commercial. These guys play RPS like girls. What's the deal with the guy on the left? He looks like one of the kids from that Star Trek episode with Marvin Belli... Fire fire toil and smoke or whatever they said.
10:34... Tx Tech and BC. These guys are like 2 for 23. Can someone hit a shot? Please?
10:35... 7-2 after 5 minutes.
10:38... Maryland vs Davidson is the first "Can they do it?" game.

Is party affiliation a disease?

I'm pretty liberal. No, really, I am. And I vote very heavily democratic. I have to admit that I'm even registered as one. But, as any liberal in SLC knows, that's a bigger political statement in Utah than it is most places.

But anyway...
This week, some evangelical groups began to fight back on global warming... not that we should protect the world, but that, for some reason, to argue that accepting the concept of global warming was anti-evangelical.

This isn't really about evangelicals, however. Religion-as-disease will wait for another day.

How is it that anti-gay rights, cutting taxes, belief in a strong interpretation of the Second Amendment, pro-death penalty, against art funding, etc etc became one side of a single divide? Is there some kind of diagnosable condition here? Some kind of syndrome? How do gun rights and belief that welfare is bad come together? Is there some kind of bug that apparently makes strong belief in a vengeful Christian God and a strong belief in the sacred rights of hunters and hatred of the French all the same?

In the spirit of fairness, why does patchouli, white dreadlocks, and liberal social policy all end up in a bundle?

I guess I'm just a little confused sometimes.

I dress pretty conservatively. I have a conservative (and these are the old style of the word) haircut. I am in favor of gay marriage. I don't hate the French (well, at least not as a political statement.) I was against the Iraq War. I am pretty strongly pro-choice. I am in favor of the death penalty, although I think it's so poorly and unfairly applied as to be untenable in the current context. I try very hard not to follow a party line or orthodoxy. More importantly, how does half the country not like welfare as a whole? Immigration? Free choice about euthanasia? How do they make it consistent to favor draconian drug laws but only a minimum of food regulation? How can they with a straight face say that Scooter Libby committed purjury about something that didn't break the law, therefore it wasn't "real" purjury but not remember that they themselves thought President Clinton had committed purjury about something that wasn't against the law, and therefore deserved to be thrown out of office in a constitutional crisis?

What the hell?

Soooo

You know what frustrates me? People, well, women in particular, who refer to themselves as “independent” when what they mean is “selfish.”

And I have my faults. But it amazes me how many women will complain how they attract the wrong type of guy… whatever makes them “wrong.” Like the one who told me all her ex’s hung out too long and kept coming around, and how she’d been proposed to several times. You know what? She caused that. They aren’t all hanging around all of their ex’s. They’re hanging out with her. Or the one who talks about how guys seem to stalk her—because she makes contact and makes a connection, then pulls back ("independence," again).

Widening my purview

Is that spelled right?

I want to add additional subjects to this, since I only write about dating when I don't like it!

So, here's my latest rant... anyone who knows anything about what I'm talking about will think I have no idea what I'm talking about in terms of "veil of ignorance":

The veil of ignorance/original position as applied to taxes and (more broadly) social justice. What is the appropriate level of taxes? Who knows? Is it 30%? Again, who knows? The fact is that if you just ask people if they should pay more or less, of course they say they should pay less. Why wouldn’t they? If you ask someone if they think $1.00 is a fair price for a can of soda, they may say yes. But they are more likely to say yes if the price is $.85, right? If someone offers you a bottle of wine for $10, your decision will be influenced by what you are getting. “Two Buck Chuck” is clearly not worth it. A bottle of 1989 Petrus clearly is. But as we get closer to which wines you’d pay $10 for, at some point, you’d have to consider how much money you have. The Chateau Petrus is worth thousands of dollars. And some people really think that’s worth it—but they have thousands to spare. Other people consider the $10 wine a splurge, perhaps because they have less to spare. If you’re loaded, you’d think that spending $1,000 on a bottle of wine every night is ok. If you’re slightly less loaded, you might splurge on a $1,000 bottle, and on down the scale. Since there are people all up and down the income scale, it makes sense for there to be wines that meet different folks’ budgets—just like there are cars, houses, chocolates, hotels, breads, coffees, etc etc.

So think, if you don’t know how much money you have, would you want every bottle of wine to be priced at $1,000? $100? $10? Yeah, I don’t know, either. My answer is, I want a spread. That’s a veil of ignorance applied to wine quality and wine prices--even if it's not the best possible solution, it's the least bad solution at every income level.

My theory is that we look at taxes backwards. Again, if I ask if you’d rather pay $1 or $.85 for a soda, you’d say $.85—all other things being equal. And that’s the way we’ve been thinking about taxes. Things aren’t equal, though. If I told you that $1 bought you a nice, cold Coke, but the $.85 bought you a warm generic cola, most of us would choose the $1 Coke.

Or, to look at it another way, imagine we start with $.50 for unsanitary tap water. Making it safe costs $.15. Fair? Of course. Sweetened, and with cola flavor, another $.15. Carbonated, $.05. So we’re up to $.85, no questions. But that’s for a warm, generic soda. Based on sales, Coke is clearly worth it to the vast majority of consumers, despite the “extra” $.15 in the cost. Throw in the chill, it’s a no brainer. And that’s how we should think about taxes. There are services that everyone—almost everyone—thinks are clearly worth it. But for some reason we’re starting with the price, not the services.

To draw out the analogy, some of us would be willing to pay $.01 for lime flavor, and another $.01 to ensure that it comes in a glass with ice, and so on. Those may be luxuries, or not. And that’s the only place that a discussion of numbers—of tax rates—should occur, discussion which services are “worth it” to the consumers of those services, the taxpayers.

When we start at a certain level, it always makes sense to reduced taxes. But if we start at zero—no services, no government, and create government services from scratch, like a menu, we might come to a very different conclusion about our tax burden.

So, at zero, we’re in a Hobbesian world—life is cheap, but it’s also nasty, brutish, and short. There are no police. Everyone hiring their own guards is too expensive—so we all agree to throw in, say, 1% of our income for taxes. No roads for the police to get to your house? Another 1%. Schools for your kids, 1%. Someone to protect our borders, at a minimum level that would please even the most ardent pacifist, another 1%. Making sure our food and water is safe, another 2%. And so on.

How about .01% to make sure everyone has health care? And another .01% for maintaining a minimal level of childcare so poor, two-income families can ensure that their children are being cared for and educated and mentored? We still don’t have a total. The question is, do we need one yet? The Republicans among us seem to argue that we do, that deciding whether to do anything requires knowing the total. But, what I am arguing, is that (setting aside the questions of government efficiency and private provision of certain services that a government could provide) as long as we’re still “adding value” by paying for additional services, services that reduce our costs of being safe, fulfilled, and happy, why shouldn’t we? At some point, we’re paying too much, and then the government has to buy everything for us in return. At some point, no private enterprise or spending hurts the economy. And, at some extreme point, there is no more money to be spent.

But we’re not there yet. How do I know? Because, given a “veil of ignorance” none of us would select a tax/government/economic system that didn’t ensure that everyone could be healthy and happy. So if the government comes to me and says, for an extra .01%, I can ensure that all children, regardless of their own incomes, will have health insurance, I will say yes. Would you? I have insurance, and if I had children, my employer would cover them as well. But I’d pay it. Maybe I wouldn’t at 5% of my income, but it wouldn’t be. Any rational, moral person should see that the marginal .01% is worth it at every level—it’s certainly a moral imperative to provide effective health care to everyone who needs it; it saves money in the long run, as preventative care prevents long-term costs of emergency healthcare later; healthy children grow up to be productive, tax-paying members of society, and so on.

So, when we cut taxes, what are we cutting? And when someone argues that a given service would increase taxes, so what? There is no divinely-established level of taxes. It’s an accident of history that we didn’t select a different “menu” of services from our government before today. (and, as an aside, if we keep cutting taxes, where does it stop? If cutting taxes is, by definition, good, and we cut taxes now, why shouldn’t we cut more taxes later? And then where does that stop? Back at nasty, brutish and short.) If the US had, say, a system of privately funded schools that covered 80% of children, and it was proposed that we create a public school system, would you argue against that, just because it would raise taxes? Because it would. But, imagine that world, though, where the members of the "church of tax cuts", arguing that taxes would go up, and therefore it’s a bad idea? Since when is paying for a valuable service bad?

Finally, there is the question of how much we should pay to cover others. Again, before the veil of ignorance is applied, we know there will be haves and have nots. How much extra would you pay as a potential “have” to ensure that you would receive basic services and protections as a “have not?” I’m not going to argue a specific level, but I know that I am not unusual in believing that I’d pay something. I know that I’d want health care, police, schools, roads, no matter how much I’d have. In other words, I know that if I’m going to get a random can of soda, I want it to be at least the $.75 generic cola. We probably can’t afford to give everyone a Coke in a tall, cold glass with lime, ice, and a straw. But I know I don’t want to take the chance on the rusty tap water. Would you?

An additional problem, of course, is when the government tries to do too much—give us a straw—when it can’t afford it. That’s called a deficit. We have one.

Anti-social drinking

So I had a date last night with MM. Went ok, like I said. But now it's Saturday, 5:55. I'm drinking alone.

Starting with some white wine. Nothing like an anti-social aperitif. Bitter, bitter, bitter. How can I spend a day essentially having no communications?

So here is the complete census of my interactions with humans...
1. Ordered some tea.
2. Talked to my ex. She was crying, I had to talk her down. Now that I'm alone, of course, here I am, talking to you.
3. Slight interaction with someone at Tea Grotto who asked out loud about free wireless (they have it.)
4. Does buying a plane ticket online count?
5. Paid for my tea. (I should point out they have a new cute girl working there.)
6. Bought something at PetCo or PetSmart.
7. Received a message from MM. Returned it. That was very nearly 1.5 hours ago.

Seven. Seven stinking interactions?

Oh, sent and received a total of 5 text messages between myself and AB and FF.

Wow. And I'm drinking???

There's a Doctor Who marathon on, that ends in 53 minutes. And then BBC has a new Robin Hood show. Which looks bad, but, you know, what the hell else am I going to do? I still have probably 2 glasses of white wine. And then probably 3 more of red. And I'm going to drink that, too. Because, again, what the hell else am I going to do?

I'm looking at this beautiful sunset and it's doing very little for me. I don't like being alone. I don't really care if drinking 5 glasses of wine is bad for me or not at this point. At least it's not crappy wine!

I'm moving

Probably didn't mention that. At the risk of revealing my secret identity, I'm moving some time this summer to Portland.

Which explains the situations with FF and MM. Neither wants to get into anything with someone who's leaving.

I can't imagine why. Both have kids and have a hard time separating love and sex. Too bad for me. Probably them, too.

Wow. A month.

I procrastinate, what can I say. I had a hard time being objective, got kind of sucked in. But here's the update:
AB: Still friends.
AM: Nutjob. Totally fucking crazy. When we met, she was really bitter about her ex, who was dating someone else in her office. I began to suspect her nuttiness, and lost track. One day I checked her Myspace page, and she's engaged to him again. She wanted to kill him six weeks ago.
MM: We are seeing each other, I'll probably have to give a longer update. Still not often enough.
FF: We met for the first time this week. She's got her doubts (and so do I).

Not sure there's anyone else on the horizon. Well, I met a friend of a friend who might work for hook-ups. But we'll see.

The third wave was a complete failure. Only one response, and she was just nice enough to write me to tell me she had met someone that she was going to see exclusively.

I haven't tried again. I generally get four or five contacts a week from Yahoo! but none of them are really interesting and most are, frankly, beneath me.

Sunday Sunday Sunday

Weather (outside): sunny and cold.
Weather (inside): A bit of haze.

Well, here we are. Update time. Not too many updates, really. Did some high level flirting with AB. We've clearly decided we aren't going to date, but we seem to have agreed to have sex. Not to be blunt in any way. I like the attitude... I'm still not super attracted to her, she needs to drop about 15-20 pounds. It's kind of a spare tire, too. Not to be mean. But she seems to want to and I decided early on that when a woman wants to come over, have a bottle of wine, screw, and then she'll leave, well, it's hard not to agree to that.

ML is gone. It's disappointing, but that's how it goes. Even though I think we could have had fun, I guess that we aren't going to. And if she reacted like that, there's something else--I can't have a relationship with someone with that kind of attitude about relationships.

HG... Well, saw HG on Thursday night. Had a really good time. We talked Saturday. I'm trying to figure it out. She's really easy for me to be with. She seems to find it easy to be with me. We have good kisses. She has her own life, which is good, but I'm not sure how I can fit into it. If my experiences over the last few months have taught me anything, I need to include my "special someone" into my life, and me into theirs. Not every day. Not all the time. I'm not 100% sure how to describe it--I want to be the default option? Not that I won't be with her... but I'm not now. I haven't been on Match in several days, I don't really want to, I think I could date just her, but only seeing her once a week isn't going to cut it for me.

But I also don't want to push her. It's still her life. With a kid and a very hard job, I expect she can't just incorporate me, even if she wanted to.

Yeah, and the irony of what I just said about AB isn't lost. I don't feel like I need the sex. But it would be fun. And I like the idea of being exclusive with HG. Can I be strong enough to do that, just for myself? I'm fairly certain she's not sleeping with anyone else, so should I pay her that respect and keep myself clean? Er, so to speak.

It's interesting who I've liked and who I haven't. At the same time, it's been interesting who has liked me and who hasn't. HG doesn't really fulfill my list of objective criteria--if I made a composite of "my type" she doesn't fall into those parameters. She doesn't fall very far outside them, however. When it gets down to it, I just feel comfortable with her. Our first kiss was nice but not too dramatic. I'm sexually attracted to her without lusting after her. We touch each other easily. We'll see if we can entertain each other for longer.

It's hard, I don't look at her and think "she's the one" in the way I thought I would. I don't know if it's because I've grown up, or she isn't. But if she's not, what is she?

Arrg.

Thursday

Well, Wave Three isn't really happening. I sent out 5 emails, have 3-4 more to do. But no real responses. Kind of a punch in the gut, but oh well. I had some hopes but who ever knows?

Just for fun, I'm going to start posting parts of people's profiles. It's not my intention to belittle anyone--no "ha ha you're fat" stuff. Just more commentary, especially on the fake ones...

I assumed all the fake ones were Russians, because the pictures have that look about them, but I'm of the opinion they're from all over. One is from Nigeria that I found, that was interesting.

Most of the fake ones I've read have some hallmarks. Sometimes hard to describe, but you know it when you see it.

Here's a picture:

And this is how she describes herself:

Hello, Not sure what to start from but will tell you a bit about myself, I am 29 years old, have never been merried and have not children. I live with my parents, very close to my family and like to spend my free time with my firends. I like sport and keep fit. I am looking for a man I will be able to start my own family and serious relationship with.

What the hell is wrong with you people?

Weather (outside): Sunny but presumably still bitterly cold
Weather (inside): Just bitter.

So, what the hell? Yes, I know I obsessed a little over the weekend, but ML doesn't know that! What I said over the weekend--two texts, three IM's, three calls, is right, and a three-day weekend to boot. And, I recall quite clearly, we said we were going to talk over the weekend, so trying to contact her wasn't like, out of the blue.

When did "independent" become a synonym for "mean" "rude" and "selfish." When did telling people about your expectations--especially, apparently, deal-killing ones--get so hard? Someone asked me once, "What are these 'games' people talk about not wanting to play?" and I didn't know how to answer, it seemed self-evident so I didn't feel like I needed an example. But now I have one. To wit:

I sent this note:

[ML's name]--

I thought I would send a note. Obviously, I'd like a response but if you'd rather not, I promise this is the last you'll hear from me.

I know it's only been a few days since we last talked, so I may just be over-reacting and you're just super busy or sick or gotten caught in a tsunami or been kidnapped by hotentots. I can be dense this way. Anyway, assuming that it's not one of those things (in which case, never mind!), I guess I'm a bit... curious.

If I've done anything in any way to scare you off, or upset you, I'm sorry, that wasn't my intention. We seemed to be hitting it off so well that maybe I tried to contact you too much. I assure you I'm not a crazed needy stalker lunatic guy... if I came off that way, again, sorry. If I got too personal too fast, sorry. This online dating thing, as you know, is not all it's cracked up to be... so yes, I did get excited when I met someone (finally!) who seemed both interesting and interested. If my enthusiasm was off-putting, I apologize, but, like I said, I don't really do "hard to get" and I thought we had enough in common to get along and enough differences to make things interesting. I don't say any of these things to fish for reassurance from you or to feel sorry for myself--but I'm big on honesty and feedback and so if there's something I could have done (or not done!) it would be great if you'd let me know. Or if you met someone else or just want me to calm the heck down and give you some time or...

Given all that, not sure if we can step back and try to use the "reset" button. I sure would like it. Anyway, if we don't talk, best of luck in all this.

[My name]

Because I wanted to stop wondering. Get it over with, since she apparently wasn't going to contact me. So one day we're talking about what we wear to bed and flirting and she called me "babe" and sent a text saying "You just made it into my phone :) " So I don't think I was being unreasonable in any way.

And this is what I got:

"You're a bit much for me [My name]. The phone calls, the instant messages, the text messages. I just am a really busy girl and very independant and, honestly, my biggest turn off is someone who is clingy or needy. I'm one of those girls that is quite satisified with a phone call once a week and maybe a date here and there, and then if there seems to be chemistry, great, next level. Anyway, take care, best of luck. M."

So I'm as pissed as I am disappointed. If she didn't want to talk this weekend, I didn't need to. Calling someone when you're supposed to is needy? And given that this was apparently a deal breaker, don't you think she could have mentioned it at some point????

So, I've started a third wave of contacts. Sent out about 3 or 4 emails, will send out 3 or 4 more. We'll what happens.

The verdict: Both!

Weather (outside): Cold and sunny, again.
Weather (inside): Cold and damp.

So, here's how it breaks down... still no contact from ML. So I was right that something was afoot. I called one last time Sunday night (it's Tuesday) and said "Hey, still want to talk with you, not sure what's going on, if you've just been occupied or if I ticked you off somehow..."

But for now, I'm working under the assumption that I did do something to tick her off. I just have no idea what it is. Pretty frustrating.

After a 10-day gap, HG and I had another date... lunch and a movie. We held hands in the movie and had a very nice goodbye kiss. She still keeps me at a distance and with her child, it might be another week or so before I see her again. It's a little frustrating.

So the theme of the day is "frustration." And to top it off, I have "You are so Beautiful" running through my head. I have no idea where from, it seems like it just popped into my head. I know I haven't heard it anywhere. Except.... IN MY HEAD!

...or maybe I'm not

Yeah, so still nothing. I called twice--trying desparately to not be a stalker. It might be something innocent. So who knows???

Do I keep calling? Yes, no? Text again? I know that not everyone goes places with their phones, but it's also almost 8:00 and ML's little girl will probably need to go to bed soon, no? I am tempted to write a "Just tell me if you're ignoring me" email, but those don't really do anything. Well, it might if she said "Take the hint, moron" but those emails can also be self-fulfilling.

I should be more confident, but I'm not right now.

I talked to HG briefly. She was tired and not very conversational, although she called me. We're still on for Monday; I was less excited when I thought that ML was into me. But now, well, something is better than nothing. Not that HG is nothing. But I hope she finds some inspiration soon... I can't do it all on my own!

I'm nuts

Yeah, I'm nuts. I don't know how I get into these ruts. I haven't heard from ML. Last time we talked--well, IM'd--she kind of dropped off all sudden like, saying she was tired. And she probably was. But then, as I mentioned, not much else since then. I texted her again about an hour ago, just asking when would be a good time to call. As soon as I did that, she took herself "offline" on Messenger and hasn't responded. She could be at a movie. She could be napping. She may not have taken herself offline, her computer may have gotten offline for a second and she's not there to respond. But I'm sitting here stewing. All I want to do is call. I don't even know her. But I'm feeling dramatic and sad and tired and miserable and don't know what to do. She actually just signed in. This might be interesting. She probably knows I'm on. Do I write something harmless? Pointed? Act like there's nothing amiss--there isn't, right? But I guess do I reference not getting a hold of her?

I sent a message, some idle comment. We'll see what happens.