Where's My Ring?

"How can you say that you're committed when you haven't even bought me a ring?"

It made no logical sense. He had moved hundreds of miles for her, after tiring of driving the hundreds of miles to see her every week, forsaken any friends he had made for the move, spent an entire day making her family authentic Jewish food so that she could see her mother, and offered to enroll in couples therapy in an effort to allow them to communicate better. But all of that was easily ignored, as it did not equal a ring. Irrespective of the fact that they had not yet been dating a year. Apparently a ring would have made things different, even though it wouldn't.

Their lives were hopelessly intertwined, objects at one another's lodgings, shared friends, shared moments, shared memories. Laughs, fights, tears, joy and sorrow were all shared together and experiences that could easily be referenced to the other. For better or worse. "You never stand up for me with your friends or family," he would complain. "You never say how pretty I am anymore," she would lament. They both looked at each other as habits that now needed to be broken.

The twisting and twirling of her hair as she drove was no longer cute. His love for discussion, cooking, and sex were no longer appreciated. Each were being overshadowed by the other insurmountable issues causing distress in their lives, and neither was able to completely communicate what they were feeling to the person that was closest to them. The ties that bonded them were slowly unraveling and each stood helpless to stop it.

He would retreat and she would mourn. He felt terribly conflicted and she appeared resolute, while inwards she was equally conflicted. New jobs, new towns, new lifestyle, new dynamics, and illnesses. It all came at once. It all came with the force of a meteor crashing to the ground and darkening all of the area that once glowed so brightly. Where was the light and where was the answer. It couldn't all be contained in a ring. There had to be more. Love was a not a ring.

It all ended rather abruptly for them both. There was talk that they would remain friends but such a desire was rather unrealistic. Her idea of friendship involved occasional text messages and dating other people. He couldn't quite get the hang of all of that, and didn't see the point to it anyway. It would never be what he wanted, and what was the point in fighting the tide. She drifted away and found port in other harbors.

"Do you ever think of her?"

"Yes, but I think of many people, daily. It's just something I do. Each, however, elicit different reactions as they cross my mind."

"Do you miss her?"

"I miss what we were and I often ponder how it all went to pieces, and how shocked all my friends had been when I expressed how unhappy I had been for so long. I never shared all of that with them because I never wanted it to influence their opinion of her."

"Were you able to take anything from it?"

"Yes. There will always be doubts and that's ok. There will always be others that look at you with affection and desire and while it is tempting to view it as desirable, it is an inadequate comparison. For you are only comparing what you have with something different and something you don't know. There will always be temptations and life is a series of gut checks. It also changed the way I offer people advice in a particular way."

...

"When my friend recently asked me if she should break up with her boyfriend, I asked her if she was happy with the type of person that he was and whether she felt it was something the two of them could work on, noting it was not for me to decide whether or not she should be with him. It was up to her if she liked him enough to stay with him, as she was the person that would have to wake up with him every morning. Sometimes, I can be more direct with my advice, depending on the situation. I have found that friends often don't like the people that hurt us, but that this opinion can quickly change when the hurting stops."

And ... Cut

"It was more like a cliche."

"I hate cliches."

"They really do suck until one of them actually comes true and then they can be profound. No longer is it happening in some silky sweet scene of flashing lights upon an expansive screen. Now you are suddenly the player and as amazing and intense as it feels, no one is really experiencing it with you, and if they are, they probably aren't partaking of popcorn and Coke as the scene unfolds."

"Oh, please, let me experience it with you. My heart is all a flutter."

"Your Ben Stein impressions are completely lost on me."

"That is most unfortunate. Maybe we should just go see a movie. That new James Bond flick is out. Eva Green is hot and I bet there will even be some daring cliffhangers."

"So there I was, in the middle of absolute chaos. I felt like the whole world was coming in on me at once. Phone calls, deadlines, demands on my time and everyone wanted everything immediately. And suddenly she appeared, melting everything and everyone else away and I knew it would be ok."

"You make me sick."

"It was like one of those scenes where the whole room is teaming with people as they swirl past the hero until suddenly his eyes land upon the woman across the room, and immediately nothing else is in focus or even matters."

"No wonder why I always feel sick after chic flicks. Couldn't you be simple and feel that way about a car?"

"It might get better mileage."

"Definitely more than you will out of that story. You don't share that one in mixed company, do you?"

Be Yourself

Despite what you might think, there was actually a point to my previous post. Other than it being one of my favorite mental pictures, it illustrates a point that I was trying to express to someone the other night. We were discussing dating and getting to know other people in general. Her position was that we should all be who we really are from the outset, which I think is a great ideal but one that I feel is rarely ever achieved. You simply are not going to know that other person through two dates or ten dates. It's going to be a process and this results from so many factors.

Some people are exceptionally private, like the friend I was driving to the airport. She wasn't going to tell me what was wrong until it suddenly struck her that it was now ok and safe to tell me. Sometimes it's because the situation doesn't arise. I wouldn't have known she was afraid of flying unless I had driven her to the airport that day, or some other event triggered such a conversation. Other times, we just don't know the other person well enough yet. I'm not necessarily going to get into a huge religious or political discussion with someone on the first or second date because I don't even know if I like them yet and what's the point of wasting all of that effort and time. Besides, why discuss inherently controversial things. Often beginnings of relationships are calm because it's still easy not to rock the boat. We can let more things slide because we aren't even sure we'll talk to the other person again.

Again, this is all grey because it all depends on the two people in the situation. There's nothing that says the person sitting across from you on that first date won't be that soul that you just feel completely comfortable confiding every facet of your life to right then and there, but I would say the odds of that are fairly low - I can only be so many places, people. Secondly, even if you did all of that on the first night, where are you really? You're just two people that hung out one night that still might never talk again. The conditions that you met under may never replicate again. What if the next time you meet, you're stressed or tired or some other variation of your normal self. You can't be all of the subtle variations of yourself all at once.

Being yourself is not as easy as it often sounds because while we are who we are, we are not always who we are. "Though we share so many secrets, there are some we never tell."

Flying

She sat in the car and began adjusting the stereo. The music, quite obviously, did not suit her mood. However, the next selection only suited her briefly. In the interim, she began moving objects in my car, thoroughly distracting me from driving. I started to wonder if I had ever ridden in the same car with her before, as such constant fidgeting would normally have been punishable by death or at least avoidance of the same vehicle. Suddenly I realized that I had known her for a year; we went lots of places together; of course, I had ridden with her before, but she had never been like this. What the heck was wrong with her?

One cannot ask these questions of her because not only will you not get a response, you'll make it less likely that you'll ever actually find the answer you ultimately seek. No, with her it is much more like fishing, where you wait in the bitter, bitter cold, and hope that something bites. (In Florida the fishing is comparably warmer, but not at all what I am used to.)

Traffic was quite a nuisance and we were late as it was. Her flight was leaving in a couple of hours and I needed to get her there in time for check-in. In my world, check-in is merely a guideline and not a rule, as I've sailed through security in as little as ten minutes as the airport crew rush me through all the procedures. However, the hour minimum to her was mandatory and not to be deviated from. I had arrived to her house on-time but she, of course, was late. The story of her life, late for everything but always moving like a small tornado. Truly a marvel to watch.

She picked up my iPod. The nice thing about an iPod is that even if you have never touched one before in your life, you quickly figure out how to access everything on it without much direction. The cooing sounds of Norah Jones seemed to be calming her down, or maybe I had just gotten used to her colorful animation. No, she was slowing. Something was about to come out of her; she was getting to that stage where lucid communication was possible.

"I'm afraid of flying."

"What?"

...

"Well I guess that explains things."

The Results Are In

After I had finished my first round of physical therapy yesterday morning, I saw my doctor who reviewed my report and my MRI scans and informed me that I had not one, but two torn tendons. Yes, that's right, boys and girls. I don't do anything halfway. Actually, it is my belief that one of the tears occurred during college, which would explain the pain I have experienced ever since then with certain shoulder movements. However, I have no way of knowing for sure.

One of the tears is a complete tear and the other is a partial tear. However, because the pain has been lessening with time and because the tendons are in my shoulder, my doctor would like to try physical therapy through Christmas time to see if my shoulder improves. If it does then I don't need surgery. If it doesn't or if it worsens then he has to cut me. I'm not really looking forward to getting cut open, which is probably what will have to happen - at least for the complete tear, and I doubt my shoulder will ever really be the same again. However, I am happy that I don't work at Wal*Mart and at least have insurance that covers a portion of the cost of all of this.

As I'm injured and am involved in too many activities again, I haven't been able to work out as much and have devoted the marginal amount of time I do have to both cooking and discovering new and wonderful Websites to share with you. (I cooked, and surprised my friend who was just in the car accident with, a pumpkin pie from scratch (even the crust) because one of the last things she asked me to do before the accident was make her a pumpkin pie.)

One of the Websites I found is for a smallish nonprofit organization that provides a free phone number and voice mail for people that really need it. For example, a homeless person that's looking for a job - so that they can receive messages from potential employers and actually schedule interviews, or a woman with no money who is leaving a domestic violence situation and who needs a way to stay in contact with the people that actually care about her. It's a really cool organization, in my opinion, and Cisco seems to like them too, as they gave them a $2.5 million grant in 2003.

The other site was just too cool not to write about: Ever wanted to have an extramarital affair but couldn't figure out how to pull it off? Can't find that 'seminar' to attend so that you can sneak away and get the sweet lovin' you need? Well, these folks are here to help. (Note: the company's Website is down so you may need to visit Google's cached version).

Personal Injuries

In the not so distant past, I inflicted myself with two injuries, but only one of which is relevant for this post today. I went to the gym, and didn't even get the weight for my first set over my head before I felt excruciating pain in my shoulder. I had hoped that it would subside, that it was merely a strain, but the pain wouldn't go away. Even when I was in Italy, it was hurting. So I scheduled an appointment with a good orthopedic surgeon over here.

The meeting went a little like this. "You have damaged the bicep muscle that runs up into your shoulder. However, I cannot determine the severity. You don't appear to have extensive pain so it is possibly only frayed or has a small tear, in which case physical therapy will heal it. Alternately, you might have really ripped it, in which case you'll need surgery and physical therapy. Given that you don't appear to have extensive pain, I think we should try physical therapy first."

"It's popping too."

"Ok, MRI it is."

"But you just said 'physical therapy'."

"You just said 'popping'."

He had me there. I had just said 'popping'. Why had I said popping? Why, oh why? I did not like the thought of an MRI. I liked it even less when he told me I needed a special MRI where they would have to inject me first, as I hate needles, and I absolutely hated the concept of it when I learned that the injection fluid will make me burn inside. At this point, I really wondered why the hell I hadn't kept the whole popping business to myself, and why couldn't they give me a solution that wouldn't burn.

The MRI was scheduled for last week, but the night before I went, I received a phone call. The MRI room had sprung a leak that day during a ferocious rain storm we were experiencing and the machine was damaged. So my scan was delayed ... until today. In a couple of hours, I'll be going in, popping a Valium and preparing for something that I'm really not looking forward to. I was doing pretty well at feeling sorry for myself until I received a phone call yesterday from my friend, who informed me that our mutual friend had just been a really bad car accident. Now it's hard for me to feel squeamish and not feel guilty.

Italy Days 6 through 8 (Florence, Sienna, and Rome)

Because I just cannot take drawing this out any longer and because the last few days all sort of bunch together in my brain, with lots of interesting isolated events, but nothing I feel like really focusing on here, I will try to cover the final days of my trip in a more fast and loose, cursory style.

My remaining days in Italy went fairly smoothly, as I attempted to spend as little time as possible with my companion and as much time as I could doing my own thing. This really only worked in Florence, but once I was on my way to Sienna, I could see the light at the end of the tunnel and truly felt there was no challenge I could not face.

The day I spent on my own in Florence was rather uneventful. I went and found the post office, via the British Embassy (don't ask) and mailed the one post card I had been requested to send. Although, upon my return I was informed that I was supposed to send a magnet (not a post card) and that they had never actually received either. This was really irritating to me - not because I had someone complaining to me about what I hadn't given them, but more because I had spent so much time finding the darn post office and given up a visit to the palace gardens and the darn thing still hadn't gotten to where it was directed.

I visited another couple of museums and found what was allegedly the best gelato in Italy. It isn't, though. The best gelato I found in Italy is at a place called Gelato de Medici in Florence and it is tasty. It is also outside of the city proper and would not be easily located by most tourists. However, if you happen to get lost and stumble upon it in the northeastern area of the city, I highly recommend that you just stop whatever you are doing and eat because you will likely never have the opportunity to experience that flavor again. (Although, there are many other good gelato places in Italy.)

That night, we all went out to a bar where you would buy a single drink and then eat from this buffet for free until there was nothing left to eat. This was my kind of place. Although, there still wasn't very much meat to be had and I mostly ate pasta and risotto. We then wandered around for a bit and climbed to a summit located a little outside of the main city and admired the night view of the city below. I attempted to take a decent picture of the view, but my camera does not seem to be well suited for night photography and I was eventually forced to give up.

Once we got back down, the women were tired and went off to journey home, but the rest of us went to a local pub. It was pretty cool because almost everyone here were college students and they all spoke English. The majority of them seemed to be much younger than me and I didn't really have very much to discuss with them, but I at least understood the bulk of the words coming out of their mouths. It was nice to not feel so isolated and alone.

On our way up the road, away from the pub, the sole remaining girl in our group let out a shout. It appears some stranger behind me had taken his date's head and slammed it against the stone wall a couple of times. One of the guys in our group was already going after the attacker so the three other guys joined in. This seemed to be probably the coolest thing ever. I was about to get into my first Italian street brawl and I had three other chaps backing me up. It was foolproof. I remember thinking that I was never going to get back to the States and that I'd have to call the American Embassy before the night was over, but still feeling that it was totally worth it. I was also fairly sure that the guy might be able to take at least two of us.

The fight never actually happened, and all we really did was distract him long enough to allow her to retreat back down the road, where there were more people. This, however, seemed to be an acceptable solution to us, as he wasn't likely going to be allowed to beat her up in front of even more people. So our work was done, even though two of us still wanted to go kick his ass. Half of me just wanted to do it to see how it would all work out.

The next day (day seven), we boarded our train to Sienna and bid adieu to all of the wonders and delights of Florence.

We arrived and upon learning our first choice hotel was full, proceeded to the nearest convent. I felt we had to stay with the nuns for our last stop in Italy. After all, had it not been a nun that had helped us so much in Assisi? Plus, it was close and had forty rooms. They couldn't possibly all be filled we figured. Fortunately, our logic appeared to be correct and a room was acquired. Once in our room, we learned that the showers here didn't even have doors, which we felt should make showering even more exciting the next morning.

We then set out to explore the main attractions of the city, which included a large bell tower (with approximately 500 steps). The city was a really pretty place, but kind of an annoying one to walk around in because you could not really go anywhere without walking up and down enormous hills. It was like Assisi in that respect, but not as scenic (in my opinion) and was more eclectic in its elevations. However, we were able to quickly cover the main sites in a very short amount of time in our first and second (day eight) days there. After a little sightseeing on day eight, I finished the rest of my shopping and we found our way back to the train station and to Rome. My companion had used her frequent flier miles (she accrues through work) to book us a room at the Hilton adjacent to the airport in Rome so that we wouldn't have to wake up too early to get to our early morning flight the next day. It wouldn't have matter, though, as I could not sleep at all that night and was up and ready to go well before any alarm was set to go off.

We met some cool Americans for our flight home (day nine) and helped the teenager with them get her passport stamped and get through security. It was pretty cool to be able to socialize with random people again. We landed, made it through security twice (once in Rome and once in Paris because somehow even though you never leave the secured area, they have to check you again), caught our connecting flight, which departed an hour late, and flew home. I dropped my companion off at her apartment and haven't spoken to her since.

Italy Day 5 (Florence)

We arrived at the Florence train station and set out to locate the people that would be letting us stay with them. My traveling companion's father had some folks he knew (around our age) that had offered to let us stay with them. I would be staying with a guy and she would be staying with a woman. I thought this was owing to our sexual orientations, but learned upon our arrival that they had been expecting two women.

Locating our hosts proved to be a little difficult, and my companion became irritated that I had decided to exit on the left side of the train station, when the parking lot was located on the right. Note that there was no way for either of us to know which side of the station the parking lot was on, and we didn't actually need the lot to meet our hosts anyway, as they parked away from the station anyway. This did not keep her from becoming irate and lecturing me on the art of meeting people. In retrospect, I'm still surprised that I never lost my temper with her the entire time I was on the trip.

Once we were settled in, we set out for some lunch and then visited the Duomo and Medici Chapel. They were both very impressive. We even hiked up the over 400 stairs to the top of the Duomo to gaze upon the city below. The view was beautiful, and a cold front had just pushed through the day before, forcing all of the haze out of the atmosphere and making the view absolutely crystal clear. Finally, we eventually wandered back to where were to meet our hosts and found a cool souvenir shop where I was able to acquire nearly all of my gift souvenirs for the folks at home.

At this point, I was fairly sure that I really couldn't take any more sacred art. In my opinion, there were only so many different ways you could paint the cross and various scenes from the Bible, and I was fairly sure that I had seen them all, or at least as many as I could take. This seems somewhat understandable, after I had spent five days doing practically nothing but staring at sacred art and architecture. My companion was driving me a little crazy and I was getting pretty tired of eating starch every day for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. It wasn't that I didn't like it. I just wanted more (or any) meat for my money.

Our hosts came home and we eventually walked to dinner. The person leading us (the woman my companion was to stay with) had a fairly terrible sense of direction and we got lost for at least an hour. My companion never complained once, but I knew it was driving her absolutely nuts. I thought it was somehow fitting that she was to be staying, and led home, by this directionless woman.

My companion informed me that she was going to Pisa the next day, but I had opted to forgo this city, as I was told by many that the only real item of note there was the Leaning Tower and I didn't want to spend a bunch of Euros and time on a train with my travelling mate to go see a silly tower that I knew would be leaning.

Dinner was really good. We ate with a few other Italians that worked with our hosts and I had one of the largest calzones I had ever had in my life. It was really good and then we spent the remainder of the night playing soccer and volleyball in the middle of the square outside. It had a ton of other locals there and they were all singing (I distinctly remember Pearl Jam) and drinking until after we went home at about 1am. Bear in mind that this was in the middle of the week. Those Italians sure do know how to have fun.