August 21st 2008
I found myself conducting imaginary conversations with her, usually late at night, offering asides to the starless sky. I was selfish enough to miss her but sane enough to know we had never really been together. I was fully prepared to forget about her.
I just wasn’t prepared to see her again.
May 14th 2008
Bitch Ph.D. and Margaret Lyons at Chicagoist.com cover why John Kass’s column is offensive to women, so I won’t bother adding my perspective on that.
I certainly don’t require a newspaper columnist to absolve him of the “sin” of not seeing a movie I’d prefer avoiding. What sort of relationship do you have where you can’t say “maybe you’d have more fun seeing this with your girlfriends,” anyway? I know that’s sort of a dodge, but I can see how saying “I don’t want to see that. How about you see it with $Friend1 => $FriendN?” would be stupid. Wait. No. I can’t see that.
There’s also the Equality sitting over there in the corner, feeling lonesome and a bit ashamed of every man who’s thinking about how to get out of seeing Sex and the City. Equality would really like to kick you in the shins (maybe higher, depending on how much of a jerk you’re being about it) for every Male Viewpoint Movie you’ve ever ‘forced’ a girlfriend to see. Rudy counts, and so does Field of Dreams. It counts even if your girlfriend ended up enjoying the movie. Equality’s really a nice anthropomorphized concept, so you get one less kick for every movie a girlfriend has ‘made’ you see.
For some reason, I have a lingering feeling that if you though Kass’ column had some good ideas in it or that it was funny you’ll have some sore shins. Don’t be an asshole, watch the movie with your loved one if she wants to see it. If it’s really as horrible as you think it’ll be, think about how awesome it is that the D-Rays are 3.5 games up on the Yankees in the AL East and the Cubs have the lead in the NL Central. That should make everything better.
April 20th 2008
I just checked my Last.fm page to gander at the listening stats of last week and I was momentarily flummoxed to discover that I’d listened to Hayes Carll song 695 times. Then I remembered two of the goals I’d had for myself this past week:
I should have known this, but it turns out that those are contraindicated goals.
The original idea was to make a preview CD for the Old 97’s/Hayes Carll show at The Metro on June 5th, and I cranked that one right out, but then the person for whom I’d made the disc decided she couldn’t make it. Because I enjoy getting people to listen to moderately obscure artists they ought to like, and because I was really starting to get into the ten tracks I grabbed of his from eMusic, I downloaded the two available albums with the intention of making a mix CD for each artist on the bill. I’m crazy. It’s a fun kind of crazy, though.
April 15th 2008
There were times during the bowling season where I’d know from the first practice ball that things were going to work out pretty well. I’d stand in my neutral starting spot, a bit right of center, get the ball to cross the arrows at about the 13th board while sending it out the the 6th at the farthest point and it’d just come right back into the pocket. It’d be like a week hadn’t passed, like I was still locked in from the last time.
I’d know where I’d have to move as the lanes broke down. I knew all the adjustments I’d have to make with speed and line and release positions. Those were the days when shooting mid-sixes were easy. It was a walk. It was fun.
Today was like that. The email that I thought was hard to write and that I was a little worried about went just fine. I got a little more out of it than I’d expected. It was a day I felt more engaged in the process of being alive, of enjoying being alive more than I’d felt in a while. Maybe it was the second day in a row of glorious sunshine and passably warm temperatures. Maybe it was thinking through the email as I walked to work one last time and deciding that It Was Good.
But probably it was that even though writing it was hard, it actually kind of ran on rails. I knew before I had it proofread the changes that I might want to consider. I’m really glad I wasn’t left staring at a ringing 10.
April 15th 2008
This is directly related to the overly self absorbed and emo post a few days back. I was up until after 3:00 this morning writing an email that was one of the hardest things I’ve ever written. Of course, I’m generally an avoidant wuss, so there really aren’t all that many hard emails I’ve had to write. Continue Reading »
April 3rd 2008
First, for his Reader Request Week, Scalzi says smart thing about meeting famous people, after which Wil Wheaton said What Scalzi Said, and then I saw a link to Cherie Priest saying some folks honestly believe that they are best-friends-and-practically-family with people they met just now, purely because they’ve been reading that person’s blog and/or books.
Since I have a near zero probability of achieving even a nominal level of fame, the advice mostly reinforces the belief that people I admire are people, and the fact that I admire them has more to do with me than them. To unpack that a bit, while the things they’ve done (written, performed, said, etc) are what makes me admire them, that relationship is entirely uni-directional. I admire them. They don’t know me, but there’s at least a vague possibility that they could, assuming that I treat them like people when/if I meet them.
What Cherie Priest mentions, though, is something I find annoying in my own life. I realize that I’m pretty far away from a normal level of openness (I’m a very private person), but I have no idea what makes anyone imagine that asking about plans for FutureKids or marriage or even if I’m dating anyone are legitimate topics of conversation when they’ve just met me. Aren’t there more interesting questions? Questions More relevant? Less invasive? More promoting of a general sense of workplace camaraderie?
It’s the last part that really confuses me. At a couple different jobs I’ve had coworkers ask, within minutes of meeting, questions that I consider to be mightily personal and mightily none of their immediate business. Questions about books, music, movies, and educational status are all starters of potentially good conversations. Odds are decent that with continued co-employment the other, more personal stuff will come out eventually if you’re just a bit patient. And really, if you’re a new person, don’t you have better things to do than start grilling your new coworkers about their non-work lives? Wouldn’t learning your freaking job be a bit more on the line?
