Disconnect

People sometimes say things that are foreign to me. Most often, I feel it around the holiday times when people speak of how important family is and the special bond that connects them. "Blood is thicker than water," they say. I often find myself very resistant to these concepts, but it was not until recently I determined why. This concept just does not make sense to me and is completely opposite to what I have learned.

I am not what anyone would consider close to my family. The thought that people would actually look forward to seeing and being with their family for longer than an hour or two is shocking and ridiculous to me. Why would they possibly want to do this.? However, I know people who actually enjoy their family. They cannot wait to see their siblings and parents and spend time with them. It is not just something they say to sound cool and popular. Although, I also know many people that say these things just to say them. Meanwhile, in their hearts the actual act of spending time with their family makes them wish for death ... or at least morphine. They have been taught, and somewhere in their minds believe, that they enjoy it - deriving some perverse pleasure from the misery. Much like Stockholm's syndrome.

I wonder how many other things might be like this. I often find that I will tell people things that they have never heard or thought about and they are initially uncomfortable with the concept and dismiss it immediately. I know others that languish in relationships, of one form or another, that clearly have no hope of satisfying their needs or making them happy. People like to believe things that are comfortable familiar and I believe for me, it was comfortable to believe that no one really enjoys their families. However, I think the real answer is I just do not particularly enjoy most of mine and it is foreign to me to think that anyone else could.

Election Results

So, it turns out Obama is our new President. Did you know he's black? I didn't know because I don't see color. (I'm like Colbert.) I had heard some people talking but I try to ignore the gossip. Newspapers? You want me to read? That's just crazy talk.

I, actually, somehow feel really proud of my country even though it's completely messed up and greedy and I may lose my job and all of the rest, we finally elected a black man as President. It just makes me feel proud. Throughout history, it has always been a black man to break through a glass ceiling on big issues before women. (This was why I didn't think Hillary would be the Democratic nominee - it just did not follow the historical pattern.)

I am very proud that our nation took this step, a great step, towards equality. However, there is clearly a whole lot of work to be done. Obama beat McCain partially because McCain made several mistakes, the economy is terrible and Obama outspent McCain in huge amounts. It was almost like some sort of supernatural affirmative action at work, and I am glad that it all came together like that for him. However, it should not have been that hard. And we still have not had a female president. I hope I get to live to see that too. (Although, she may have policies that I will hate and I may regret these words in a number of years from now that is divisible by four.)

I hope this is just another small step down the road of true change and acceptance. (Although, based on the fact that all the anti-gay amendments passed, I am not sure we did not take one step back as we took another forward.)

The Land of Blog

After being at this blogging thing for a couple of years, I have a few notes to make. First, a lot of people do not seem to keep at it for more than a year or two. I am not sure if they just run out of things to say or if they run out of time. For example, a lot of bloggers seem to be recently out of relationships or doing something similarly exciting, giving them frequent things to write about. Ahhh , drama. Others are just in college or not working or doing something that gives them a decent amount of time in which to stare into the misty haze of their brains and pluck something entertaining out and set it into words.

In either event, most of the bloggers, if not all of the bloggers, I was reading when I started are now gone (it's really easy to become old as a blogger), with the notable exceptions of Stephanie Klein and Chris Diclerico. The former being a writer, I sort of would expect her to continue blogging. Not that I have any real basis for this assumption; lots of authors do not maintain blogs, but I just sort of take it for granted that she will. Until she finally has a nervous break down and cannot take all the crap anymore and calls it quits. Chris is more a finder of stuff he finds cool and throwing it up there, which I feel, makes the blogging process somewhat easier for him, but it is still cool to see a familiar face in my rss feeds still updating.

Still, there are some cool fucking people blogging. For example, through blogging, I got to ask a former stripper tons of stupid questions I had always wanted to ask a stripper, and given that I have never even been to a strip club, I probably would have had to wait a lot longer to ask any of these questions without this thing we call Internet and these things we call blogs. Today, this was reaffirmed when I found the blog of a former circus performer. Oh, yes, you heard me correctly, a fucking circus performer, like on a flying trapeze and shit. How unbelievably cool is that? I just find that to be so awesome. Almost as cool as the day I found out (and then proceeded to forget over and over again as though I am some eighty year old suffering from Alzheimer's) Kevin Smith has a blog.

I always wonder if I am doing my blog correctly - whether I am writing blog-worthy items or things others would find interesting, or even things I find interesting. Sometimes I write serious posts about things I feel uniquely capable of speaking about or think I can offer a perspective that has not been expressed fifty-million times by other bloggers and random pundits out there, and sometimes I just write random fiction that some people seem to really enjoy but that others seem to lack any interest in whatsoever. To an extent, though, I always feel that if I am writing anything, it is probably better than not writing at all. It keeps the cobwebs from getting too thick, but some days I really wish it all would flow as well as it used to. Although, I am still not sure if it was ever *that* easy. Maybe blogging is easier when your life isn't - when things in your life are dramatic, you have a reality show to set down into words.

Recently, Janet said that I should write more about the past and the future. I am not sure if she meant I should start writing about dinosaurs and spaceships, but it sounded definitely interesting and broad.

Weddings

I hate weddings. There, I said it. Almost every wedding I have ever attended, I have done so under duress, or with significant peer pressure. "C'mon, you have to go - you are in the wedding party." As if that is some valid excuse to allow someone to make me suffer. I also learned that being in the wedding party can actually be its own form of hell because you do not just get to show up for the wedding. Oh, no. You're in it for the long haul when you are in the party. Also, the whole "party" portion of the title should be dropped because it is not a party, unless by party you mean an excruciating painful ordeal that will haunt you for years to come.

Many people approach weddings with a much rosier attitude. In fact, I know people that actually enjoy going to them. I, however, experience only dread. I, actually, maintain a mental list of my friends who are likely marital candidates, and whose weddings I would have to attend. Every time one of their weddings is over, I breathe a sigh of relief and cross that name off my invisible list. Fortunately, the list has been growing smaller. For while I know many people, most of them are married and I can probably find a good excuse for missing many of the others' blissful days.

I do not really understand the entire mindset behind the wedding. I know it is supposed to have something to do with having all the people that are important to you coming together to help celebrate the occasion and the bride and groom's new life together. However, I feel like they could easily accomplish all of that without me there. I do not really need to bear witness to the vows and endure the ceremony. Would it not be easier for the couple to go elope and then invite me to a big party at a later date so that we can celebrate then. I think it would save them a lot of money and angst that way. However, the rest of the world would probably not subscribe to my viewpoint.

I was recently invited to one of my good friend's weddings. (She is one of the few remaining people on my list.) She and I used to hang out quite a bit in college and I think her fiance is a pretty cool guy. This made receiving the invitation and deciding what to do with it a particular inner-struggle for me. (Think Superman III, but with much more mediocre special effects.) On the one hand, I am extremely happy that they are getting married to one another. I think they are a great match and I want to show my support and solidarity, but on the other, I hate weddings.

So, I asked my friend what she thought of my dilemma and she left it entirely up to me. In my heart, I am fairly sure I have to go to her wedding or I just will not feel right about it. However, I am still trying to work myself up to the requisite level of excitement that seems to be required for such a momentous day.

It's Not You; It's I

It took me a long time to learn of the concept of speaking in "I terms" when having any sort of relational discussion. It took me even longer to learn how to apply it, but I think it has been one of the single greatest things I have ever utilized, leading to more productive and simplified discussions.

The concept, as I understand it and apply it is fairly simple. When entering any sort of discussion that may be heated or volatile, instead of saying "you [do or don't do this behavior that's really annoying me right now]," you think of a way of starting that sentence with an "I". Often times, I now find myself pausing when in some sort of heated discussion, trying to find a way that I can begin the sentence with an "I feel". Because really, just like when I was in therapy, it is not about them, it is about me and how the actions of another person are affecting me and why.

This approach, I have found does so many fantastic things that may not otherwise be achievable. First, it helps to lessen the other person's defense mechanisms and makes them more approachable on the subject because you are conveying to them how you feel, and if they care about you, that is going to illicit a better reaction than something more accusing in nature. Second, it actually helps frame the discussion for you and the other person. Why the hell are you really upset or annoyed - what sort of affect is that person's behavior having on you and is it even rational. Third, the discussion has a much higher probability of being productive and finding some sort of solution to make it not happen again. Fourth, it usually shortens the process.

Oftentimes, I found in my past relationships that there would be a huge explosive fight that would drag on for a bit and then that would usually resolve in one of two ways. Either there would be a reconciliation with a mildly more rational conversation or there would just be a reconciliation with nothing actually resolved other than the fight was over and we could go back to the way things were, which really only meant we would prolong the unhappiness because we were still nowhere closer to understanding one another or why the other was unhappy; all we knew was that they were unhappy.

Overall, this often means that you just end up fighting less frequently because you both begin to completely understand one another and yourselves that much better. You begin to be able to sort of gauge everything just a little more cleanly and it makes for a smoother relationship overall, which is not to say it will be a perfect relationship, or even the right relationship, but it certainly makes the entire process much more fulfilling and enjoyable, for everyone concerned.

Twelve Days of Christmas

This year, I feel like Christmas is like the holiday that will just never end. It seems every time I turn around, I still need to get a gift for someone. Most of this is resulting from the fact that my best friend and my girlfriend both have birthdays that fall within weeks of the Christmas holiday and also by the fact that some of my friends are impossible to shop for and the older they get, the more restrictions are in place.

"Maybe I'll get you a bottle of wine."

"I am not allowed to really drink very much anymore."

"Maybe some good food."

"Yeah, not allowed to really eat very much anymore either. I will be able to again after all this medical stuff is over, but for now, I really have a bland and limited sort of diet."

"Dude, you suck."

"Yeah, I know."

One of my friends is a Jehovah's Witness and all I can think is that she gets off so light, never having to worry about picking out gifts for all her family and closest friends. Great gobbly googly. However, I feel like if I did not have the holidays to remind me to get people gifts, I would forget and then people would say, "He never gets me anything."

However, the more I shop and the more my friends and I shop for one another, the more I get confused as to the point. My friends and I often ask one another how much we are going to spend on the other person. After all, we "need" to get the other person something comparable in value. One of my friends had a guy buy her a $50 item and she had only planned on giving him something small. An extended conversation between us ensued. More and more, I am failing to see the point of spending a lot of money on someone if all they are going to do is spend a similar sum on you. Would it not have been easier if we had gotten each other cards and said, "Go buy yourself something nice."?

Some will say that is not very thoughtful, but I feel like it's plenty thoughtful. I mean, you did pick out the card, right? And what's the difference between that and a gift card? I have been using my gift cards to buy gifts for other people. At first, my friends saw this as flawed - "Those cards are for you". Yes, I know. I am using them so that I do not have to spend my own money - that is using them for me. It is almost like a gift of cash, except not as good as cash because you actually have to use it at the store that the card is for. If you ask me, cash is plenty thoughtful. However, if my friend gives me $50 and I give them $50, what have we really achieved? Same thing, for me, when it comes to gifts. If my friend gets me $200 worth of gifts and I get that friend $200 worth of gifts, what have we really achieved, other than spending each other's money - in a more indirect way.

At the end of the day, I think it should be the thought that matters the most, which is why a card and maybe a small token should be sufficient for almost everyone concerned because this attempt to match everyone with equally priced gifts is giving me an enormous headache.

I can see gift giving for a couple people in your life, but all of them just seems excessive and a recycling of currency. Getting gifts for children makes sense, as they are not going to get gifts of an equal value for you, and because how else are they going to get that really cool overpriced toy. And, of course, with your significant other and maybe a friend or two, you may be able to pick out something sweet and thoughtful, but when all you are doing is telling the person what you want and having them go buy it for you so that you can go buy them a similarly priced object, what is the point.

Are You Still There?

"Have you been updating your blog?"

"Yes, once or twice per week, but I have not been writing the thoughtful introspective posts that you prefer."

"Why not?"

"I just have not had the time, or enough sleep to really let my brain wander onto such subjects."

I have had mild insomnia for years. I cannot really call it "insomnia", however, as I do sleep. I just have trouble staying asleep for extended periods of time, and then when I wake up, whenever I wake up, that's pretty much it. On rare occasions, my body finds a way to transport itself back to the land of dreams, but more often than not, I am met with nothing but hours of fatigued wakefulnesses.

I used to date a woman that often seemed to do nothing but sleep and, at the time, it drove me a little crazy. I have since stopped caring about such things. I now take pleasure in my girlfriend's uncanny ability to sleep for hours. She can sleep at least eight hours every night, and to me it's a marvel because I think I can count the number of days I have accomplished that feat in the last three months on one hand. Even more impressive to me is that if I accidentally wake her up, she simply rolls over and falls back to sleep, often never remembering ever being awakened, or even having a full conversation.

I frequently puzzle over how much I have changed in a matter of years. Things I have realized about myself or things that have just changed. Many of the items I instinctively knew would change; a coming of age that I was sure was upon me, but also in other ways that I never really saw coming. It also appears that I was not alone in my metamorphosis. Some of my friends have changed in significant ways, with religious awakenings (both toward and away), marriage, children, illness, death, etc. The lives of the people around me suddenly seem more complex, like prisms reflecting the light of their lives in a variety of colors.

Although, I sometimes feel a tiny fraction of my friends' changes are not necessarily for the best, or have the effect of making the person less appropriate for my life. For example, I have a friend for whom religion is nearly a cult, and it unnerves me slightly. For I often do not feel like he is the same person I knew. His opinions no longer feel like his own, but are more akin to a doctrine of sorts. Keeping the hard line. I suppose that is how it goes sometimes, but I wonder if an extreme of any religion, no matter the purity of intent, is the correct path to pursue. Many of his friends seem to be asking questions similar to this and I am not sure anyone has a good answer. Perhaps there is no answer. Perhaps the only answer is that sometimes you can no longer be the same with a person as you were before.

(This post sort of meandered on through my stream of consciousness, but I felt it got cumbersome and was unlikely to be read in full. So, I cut about half of it out.)

In That Kiss

I have heard countless women say that they can tell if a man is good in bed by the way he kisses or the way he moves his hips on the dance floor. Although, I now have at least one friend that can personally attest to the fact that a man's prowess with his lips bears no relation to his abilities in bed, and that apparently, hips do lie. Most recently, a girlfriend told me that it all depended on how a man hugs. I am not even sure I follow the logic there, but it is likely just as good of a system as any of the former ones discussed. A good way, perhaps, of separating the wheat from the chaff when you are out on the prowl - looking for love in all the wrong places.

I have never much bought into any of these theories about how you can tell if someone is a good lover based upon the way a person kisses, dances, or hugs. It all seems too unrelated to me. However, I do have a method for selecting who I kiss, or at least a way of immediately disqualifying promising candidates. I wait to see if they end up with a cigarette dangling from their hands; the telltale puff of smoke haloing their head as they coolly extract the cylinder from between their lips, exhaling with that cool, calculated, devil may care expression. It kills it for me.

However, this was not always a standard of mine. I was young and naive, out with the girl I was dating at the time. As she continued to consume copious amounts of alcohol, she lit up a cigarette, an act I had never seen her perform in the past. I will never forget the lingering taste as our lips met. It was like what I imagine kissing an ashtray would be like. The bitter acidic flavor permeated my entire body and it became a mission to escape from her embrace as quickly as possible. Please, dear God, let me go. From that night on, I was a devout follower of a new doctrine: no matter how hot she is, if there's something round and long between her lips, it better not be a cigarette.

To this day, I continue to marvel, not just at the fact that people continue to smoke, but that these people actually find other people willing to kiss them, let alone procreate with them. I cannot imagine having to suffer through that experience every day for any period of time, and I have dated women with some of the most devastating and debilitating halitosis of all time.

Really?

I had to read her words at least two times for them to really gain any recognition in my head. She was not telling me that my friend was sick or that he needed an operation or that he had been severely injured. No, her words were quite clear, explaining to me that my friend, her lover, had "passed away in a very serious and tragic accident". But she had to be kidding. None of my friends have just up and died, at least none my own age. Sure, there were a couple of people in high school, but I knew them mostly in passing. This was not just someone I knew tangentially. This was someone I kept up with on a fairly regular basis, and she was telling me that I would not be doing that anymore.

It was too much to take in on a Tuesday morning. Who the hell goes on vacation to the Grand Canyon and dies? I guess, my friend does (did). My brain is still getting used to the fact that my friend and I will never communicate again. It does not quite seem real that he and I will not just strike up casual conversations. That he won't be there to tell me about his misadventures and tell me about his great accomplishments. He made mead in his spare time. I know that may sound dumb, but he was really good at it. He won gold medals in national competitions. He really loved it. I love it when people love what they do. I think that is such a great thing.

He had lost so much weight in the last few years, almost a whole person. He was so proud of himself. I was really proud of him. He had found a woman that he loved and who loved him back. Things were going pretty well for the guy, and then that was it. The "Game Over" logo had flashed across the screen and he had no more quarters left in his pocket to continue.

Whenever I really think about it, which I try very hard not to do, I start thinking of how suddenly life can slip just beyond our grasp. Like a small wisp to which we struggle in vain to cling. I think, here was a man working so hard and getting his life together and doing such great stuff and now it is over. He was not at the end of his days. There was no indication that he was going to just stop breathing on the first Thursday of the month. It was so sudden, and it makes me sad to think of how hard he worked and how he likely planned in his mind for his future and now it is all over. I still cannot quite get my head around it.

I'm Back

Yes, yes, I know, hold your applause and spontaneous eruptions of joy and jubilation at my return. We all know how much you missed my absence, waking up each morning and immediately firing up the computer to see if I had posted something with all my vacation time, only to find the same silly post sitting there, announcing my absence, forcing you to find some other reason to carry on with your life. It was a hard life for you, I'm sure.

However, I needed to get out there. I needed to explore. I needed to go the the Salvador Dali Museum in St. Petersburg. I needed to sip cocktails with my friends and cavort on the open waters looking for alligators for my girlfriend. Because, gosh, what could be cooler than to find some sort of reptilian creature that could kill you while on vacation? What, I ask you. I needed to wander around the silly towns that I live near and explore the various architectural styles that were present in each, become quickly bored with doing so and leave it up to my girlfriend to snap pictures and revel in the experience. I needed to sit on a beach and allow my skin to come to terms with this crazy thing they call sunlight.

Why did I need to do all of this, you might ask. Because I was on vacation, silly. What else are you going to do on vacation other than relax? Besides, if I hadn't been relaxing as hard as I had, I wouldn't have suddenly been so struck with the concept of pornography as to feel the need to write a post about it. No, I wasn't watching it. I was recalling one of the first times I ever watched a video and just being completely blown away by the idea that really attractive women would totally take their clothes off and have sex with some random guy for money. That still blows me away, no pun intended. Isn't that prostitution, by the way? I don't know. What do I look like, an attorney? Oh. Really? Well, never mind then.

I don't get it, though. Some women have said that it's empowering to take off your clothes and such. However, aren't men supposed to be the ones with all this "power" and you don't see us taking off our clothes to feel empowered. I guess some men must do it for that reason, but I doubt many of them would have the branding power of a Jenna Jameson or a Brianna Banks. I guess it just baffles me why women would do it. I would think attractive women willing to have sex for money could more easily find some really rich guy to have sex with and marry, rather than have sex with random guys they are cast with for millions of strangers to watch. I don't see how that becomes empowering. I don't see how I would view a woman that did that as empowered. I appreciate it. I think it's awful nice that someone would go ahead and do that, to satisfy all the men and/or women out there that want to see it, but the motivation for doing it completely eludes me.

My girlfriend and I watched some show one night, maybe it was on HBO, or maybe it originated on HBO and was edited for network television later, but it involved porn stars and following their lives. I remember one woman who was becoming rather famous for her career but who could not find a man to love her or want to be with her for anything other than sex. It frustrated her so much. I imagine it would be like dating a massage therapist and always wanting them to give you a massage - as if that is the only reason you are with them. However, this is above and beyond that. I guess most guys only want one thing when they are hitting on a girl, but when they are hitting on a porn star.... I understand where she is coming from, but in a way, I feel like it's like walking around in pants and a bra and then complaining that guys keet checking out your breasts.

All I can think is that the psychology behind it must be rather complex.

Bang

It seems to be everywhere I look - everyone seems to be discussing gun control laws and how we can keep this from happening again. What happened at Virginia Tech was a tragedy. There's quite simply no denying how horrible the events that recently occurred there were. They were, to say the very least, disturbing to our nation. It makes sense that people would now be discussing it and appalled by it. Every media outlet seems to be able to use the tragedy for something. Some are exploring the lives of those that were lost, interviewing their families. Others, are intensely arguing for and against gun control laws. Others are questioning whether the school officials failed to take adequate measures to prevent or minimize this tragedy.

In short, everyone seems to be grasping for answers and trying to make sense of the actions of someone that obviously was not thinking in sensible terms. People want to make sure that something like this never happens again. They want to insulate themselves from those people out there that may seek to do them harm. "There must be a way," they opine. I wonder if it makes things better or worse if they are able to solve this problem over a cup of coffee on a Wednesday morning.

I wonder what the lost children would have wanted us to take from this experience. I wonder if they would have wanted us more insulated or more exposed. Maybe they would have wanted someone to reach out to the kid that killed all of them before he went on his tirade. Maybe they would have wanted him arrested and locked away, given that several people did try to be friendly with the shooter before he became "the shooter". Maybe there really is no easy answer that will be derived over the cup of coffee this morning. Maybe the underlying problems run too deep and the questions of which liberties do we sacrifice and how we cope with other people.

I wrote a paper in law school about approaches to criminal justice. It was not really an area of law that I ever seriously considered practicing but it was something I found interesting. There was this new old approach to handling criminal offenders that was being applied in other countries (and certain areas of the United States) with surprisingly positive results, if you subscribe to the theory that criminal sanctions are meant to punish and rehabilitate. It was an approach called restorative justice. Unlike other punitive measures, this process was more holistic - involving the victim, the victim's family, the local community, everyone, in the entire punishment process. Not only did this approach have the statistical effect of rehabilitating the offenders (incidences of recidivism dropped dramatically), but the victims and the victims' families felt better with the process. Everyone actually seemed to feel more healed from it. Unfortunately, the approach did not comport with what Americans seemed to traditionally believe would solve crime, tougher sanctions, longer prison terms, and more laws. As such, these approaches were often never pitched by a politician running for election. I wonder what those students would have thought of my paper.

Please note that these are just my random musings and thoughts. It is not meant to be a political commentary or something to spark debate, even though I know it might.

Love Sucks

I know the few of you that still read my blog may be asking yourselves, "Where's J? What's he doing?" The simple answer to such questions would be, "fucking up my life with the speed normally reserved for bullet trains and shooting stars."

As some of you know, I met an amazing woman through this thing we call blog. She is beautiful, smart, funny, sweet, caring and everything I could want in a woman, plus she likes me too. I know you're all rejoicing and carrying on at this point, reveling in my new found bliss. Well, slow down a little here, folks. The drawback is that she lives about 2,000 miles away from me and I've only actually seen her twice. Granted, we have spoken on the phone for hours and hours on end. My voice has kept her company for six hour car rides, and comforted her in her sorrow, and I know her better than possibly anyone, but I have no idea what that makes us. Are we lovers? Are we friends? Are we dating? It all starts getting confusing and murky when I start throwing the hard questions out there.

Enter, stage left, Girl Number 2. She is cute, actually lives near me and, quite obviously, likes me. Maybe I should not be in a relationship with a woman that lives so far from me. Licensed professionals have repeatedly told me that long distance relationships are not real relationships. That they only truly become real when the two people are near each other and that closeness cannot be fostered by some phone calls. They would get tired of me avoiding real relationships by getting into long distance ones. I feared that maybe what I was doing was wrong. The promises from my long distance lover that she would move here and be near me in six months did nothing to assuage my guilt. Why would she be moving here now suddenly except for me? I could not handle that responsibility. What if things did not work out? What if she moved here and we broke up and she was alone in some state that she only moved to for me.

My friends were split on this other woman dillema, some saying: "Well, you've only met the girl twice. Granted, you've been talking for a little while, but that is not really enough. I think you should explore Girl Number 2. It is better that you know now than later." I did not know if I could do that. I would feel terrible. I would feel like I was violating a trust. I have never done anything like that. Then again, I normally date in my own zip code now and would normally not be in a full blown relationship so quickly - I would have explored this Girl Number 2 early on, figured it out and decided without all this doubt and angst. But wait, am I even in a relationship? God, this is so fucking confusing. What the hell am I doing? Other friends told me, "Well, you should probably not do anything with Girl Number 2 because you love the other one, but if you do fool around with Girl Number 2, just don't tell the other one." There's some advice, don't do it, but if you do do it, lie about it. I felt like a slimy politician was giving me the advice.

So being the stupid idiot that I am, I thought, "I will just talk to this other girl. I will tell her that I am already involved and that this just isn't going to work - that we can be friends, but nothing more. This will resolve things." (I have to see this girl every day, so resolution was important to me.) As we hugged goodbye, she kissed me and I kissed her back and I knew, right then and there, that I was in love with someone other than the woman I had just touched lips with. It was just about then that my entire universe collapsed in upon itself. I could not forgive myself for what I had done. I had had good motives. I had wanted to be sure. I had wanted to know for certain that I did not like this Girl Number 2. The last thing I would want is for more months to pass or for my lover to move down here, only for me to then realize that I don't love her or that I have feelings for someone else. This would have never happened if we had actually dated like I normally date now. Dammit. Why couldn't this just be easy? Why the hell did she have to live so far away? Why the heck did I have to meet this Girl Number 2 when things were still weird and new between my lover and I, instead of when things were established and settled.

All I ever wanted was a safe and stable relationship. Why the fuck did this have to be so hard? Why couldn't I have ...? It didn't matter anymore. It was done. Now I knew who I wanted. Now all doubt was cast aside, and now I couldn't even begin to forgive myself for what I had done. Even though, most of my friends agreed that I had not really done anything terribly wrong. Most of them still felt it was better that I did it now and know for certain than to constantly wonder about some random girl, and most of them still saw it as something that is normal in the beginning of a relationship. "You would normally be dating other people now still, making sure that this is the person you want to be with. Why the hell are you beating yourself up for this?" Of course, I also had a friend say, "I would breakup with you. I don't believe in dating multiple people ever." Then again, she doesn't believe in long distance relationships either so I don't suppose she would ever be in my position.

I confessed my wrongs to my lover. I couldn't bear to lie to her. I felt like a fraud or a charlatan, letting her believe that I was so wonderful when I had done this thing. She was stunned, but understood. She forgave me, with the understanding that it would never happen again. And yet, I cannot bring myself to forgive. I know that if the situation had been reversed, I would easily forgive her. I have even been in her situation, and quite easily forgave the woman I was with, knowing that long distance is weird and hard and wanting the woman I am with to be secure and confident in her decision that I am who she wants to be with. And then the questions start swirling in my head again, what the hell are we? Should I be in a relationship with her? Should we just be friends, let her carve out her life as she wants it, with or without me and then, if things work out and she decides she really wants to live in Florida, we look into dating then? Do I stay with her, accept her forgiveness, somehow find a way to forgive myself and move on, happier than ever because I now have resolution and closure on the only lingering doubt I had remaining?

I have no answer. The only answer I have is that I love this woman and I cannot imagine my days and nights without her, and I cannot imagine how I am going to forgive myself.

Let It Snow

I grew up walking a quarter of a mile to my bus stop, past the lake, in 80 below wind-chill factors in sneakers and jeans. Sure there was the winter coat that I would zip up and dig my face into, but a hat was rarely an accessory any of us wore. If I can swim in the lake while there is still ice on it, why the hell would I need a hat?

When I moved to Florida, I found it sweltering and oppressive. Then again, I also didn't have air conditioning and it was the middle of summer. I used to sit and pray for it to get cooler. It never worked. I'd be sitting there hoping that the heat would forget I was there, so that I could move without risking the production of additional sweat. Sooner or later the sun would set and it would only be 80 and maybe then I could sleep. Oh, sleep. Wouldn't that be nice. Why would anyone live here? Where had my mother dragged me to?

Then I started college. There is something to be said for living in a part of the country that allows for women to walk around scantily clad all year long. There was also something to be said for never having to worry about wearing boots, tracking in snow, slipping on ice, walking around the lake in the middle of the night, in the dead of winter, without anything more than a light jacket. And air conditioning helped immensely.

I remember going to visit one of my friends at the University of Massachusetts over a winter break and having to concern ourselves with whether the car would make it to the top of the icy steep hill. First of all, what the hell is ice, and second of all, what's a hill? It was quite the adventure, but I feel that if I'm going to take my life into my own hands, I should be doing it while jumping out of a plane, not driving around a university campus.

"But don't you miss the seasons?"

When I went to get my third advanced degree, I moved to northern Florida. They actually had days there when it wouldn't get above 40. Can you imagine? Not only that, but the humidity would drop to something less than fifty percent. Insanity, I tell you. I had to get a humidifier in an attempt to stop my then persistent nose bleeds and had to use moisturizers on my hands every day so that they wouldn't crack and bleed. This was in addition to the thick ski jacket I had to buy. How the hell is someone supposed to live in 30 and 40 degree weather? I couldn't wait for December to be over, so we could get back to warmth.

"Florida has made you weak."

I know I could live in the cold. I grew up in the cold. We used to get so much snow, the National Guard was called in every year to plow us out. We'd be trapped in our houses, waiting for the Guardsmen to arrive and rescue us from out own private prisons. I know all about boots and electric blankets, thermal underwear and Thinsulate gloves, hats, and scarves. I'm sure that if I took the time, I could recondition my body and be jumping into partially frozen lakes in no time. I could get used to starting my car in the morning to make it warm enough for my drive twenty minutes later, and shoveling the driveway. But why the hell would I want to? Especially when I can live in a lush tropical location where I look out my window and see palm trees and where I never, ever have to worry about lacing up my boots or donning my winter coat.

Write Something

"Write something, dammit."

"I know, I know, but what do I write?"

I have drafts of posts sitting in my brain and in my Google account. I tease at them and toy with them hoping that they will take shape and become something pretty, but they just sort of seem to languish there and fall to pieces, slipping through my hands as I watch helplessly. I don't know if it's a result of my impending surgery or just the state of my brain. Not all the parts of my body have been playing nicely with one another, as of late. I keep thinking there will be a civil war, but I'm hopeful an accord will be struck before anyone does anything too hasty.

Recently, I've been considering the blogger landscape, or at least the one that I have been a part of and watched over the past year. So many bloggers that I read when I started are no longer around. I don't think writing is the easiest thing to do for a lot of people, and I think, oftentimes, life has a habit of getting in the way of creativity. People run out of ideas or think that what they have to say is no longer unique or exciting. They, like me, get tired of sitting in front of a phosphorous screen hoping that they can say something new, that the words will form and bend to their will.

I have been thinking about changing the format of my blog. Maybe I could just talk about random things. Or perhaps I could write miniature scenes to illustrate ideas in my head. I think about the possibilities and I get stuck on repeat. Then I go read other people's material and marvel at their ability to write every single damn day. I have to remind myself that some of these people are writers - they actually write for a living, and writing on a blog is just an extension of what they do anyway. I write for a living, but my writing goes more like this: "Each beneficiary shall have the right to withdraw from the Trust the maximum amount over which the lapse of a power to withdraw is not considered a release of such power under Sections 2041 and 2514 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, as amended (hereinafter the “Base Withdrawal Amount”)." Wasn't that fun? No? Oh, never mind then. Go read Jill. Oh no wait, she's on vacation. Go read Stephanie. She writes a lot more about motherhood and breast feeding now, and oftentimes, I think only women still read her, but she's got some game. Go read Scott. He's smart and is likely to say something interesting.

Blogs are also not really like books. I have written a lot of stuff here, but the average person only reads page one. That's it. That's me. That's what they get, and if they "follow me", they get from that day forward, maybe. There's all this other material that I've written that people will never look at. If you read a book by an author you really like, you'd probably check out his previous works. When I read Me Talk Pretty One Day, I went out and got Naked. (That's pretty funny when you read it.) I read little articles and stories he'd written that appeared in the media. Why don't I do this with blogs?

Recently, I came upon a blog that I thought was really cool. (She doesn't have comments turned on because she's a punk and you should tell her how ridiculous she's being for not allowing comments right here.) I actually went through and read every single one of her posts. It was different because I'd never done that before. I didn't have to wait for her to post something new because there was always something new to me to be read, and the writing was really touching and poignant - very thoughtful. But then I ran out of material. It was like finishing a Harry Potter book. Now I had to wait. "I hate waiting." - Inigo Montoya. But it got me to thinking. Maybe I should read other people's archives. I mean here these people have taken the time to pour themselves - or an aspect of themselves - into the virtual pages that spring to life before your eyes. Maybe I should actually take the time to give it a look. At least then I wouldn't have to wait for them to write something new for me to be able to read something new. Or maybe I should just work on actually reading the Jasper Fforde book I started.

Put It On

When I was in school, we had health education. The most uncomfortable portion of the whole class, of course, was sex education. All sorts of inaccurate, yet clinical sounding, information was floated about once we had exceeded the teacher's knowledge, and of course there was the banana. After all, that's what you're going to need to put a condom on, right, a yellowish curved fruit that will one day over-ripen and turn into an odd colored mush in your hands. (Hmm, maybe they were on to something.)

One of the fundamental principals that we had drummed into us during these classes was directed at the ladies, as they were constantly instructed that men wouldn't want to wear a condom. They would come up with all sorts of excuses about sensitivity and lack of pleasure and the woman was to disregard these obviously false statements and insist on him wearing it, and not worry about whether or not he was still going to love or stay with them. If the man really cared, he'd wear the condom. Men were, of course, instructed to wear protection and that it was important, but mostly only because it made the woman's job easier. Ultimately, the woman was put in place as the gate keeper. We'd watch those stupid health class videos where the guy would come up with all the excuses our teachers said they would and the woman would triumphantly insist on the man wearing the condom. We, as men, were trained to assume that women wouldn't sleep with us unless we wore condoms, or if they did, we'd have to come up with some sneaky way around it.

Since then, I learned that women often do not perform their role as gate keeper in this, or often any other, area. I have had far more women insist that I don't wear a condom than ever ask me to put one on. "Do you really have to wear that?" "It doesn't feel the same when you have one of those on." Wait a second, why were these ladies using all the lines men were supposed to use. In school, they had taught us that we were the ones that would fight not to put one on, not the other way around. I felt wholly unprepared. The videos all taught us that men wouldn't want to wear a condom and that really we were only supposed to wear them so that the woman wouldn't feel uncomfortable. Now, it seemed that the only thing that would make them uncomfortable was if I actually heeded the words that had been imparted to me in health class.

So while there seems to be much debate about whether there is too much health (and sex) education in our schools. I happen to feel there isn't anywhere near enough. I know I certainly wouldn't have minded being more prepared for the inevitable time that all that training was about to be put to excellent use. Although, I still question the wisdom of the banana.

Alone at Last

I sometimes will hear the familiar refrain, "If you don't [insert verb here], you'll be alone for a very long time." I even received an anonymous comment on one of my recent posts suggesting this. (Don't look for it because as with most anonymous comments, I responded to it and then deleted it.) Every time someone offers this lesson in romance, they usually say it like being alone is the equivalent of catching Ebola.

At one point in my life, statements like this would have haunted me and given me night sweats and terrors. The fear of being alone was enough to strike fear into my heart. It didn't matter whether the judgmental person throwing this statement out there was right or not. Somehow my brain skipped the step of any type of analysis of the character of the speaker. All that mattered was that someone had found something in me wanting and if I ever wanted to be happy, I needed to change.

"Wait, what was that?"

"Right, if I want to be happy, I need to change."

"But that's not what they said. What they - this anonymous speaker who suddenly feels that they have sufficient insight into you, life, and love - said was if you don't change, you'll be alone. When did alone become synonymous with unhappiness? When did you let those two concepts connect in your brain and rule your life? When did you allow your entire concept of happiness become controlled by another and tied to whether or not someone else finds value in you?"

"Um ... since ever? Isn't that what happiness is? Having that person that loves you and understands you? What's the point in living if you have to do it alone? I don't want to be alone. In the movies the people that are alone are always sad. They're always missing something."

"Great, now you have movies controlling your self image. How independent of you. Have you noticed that you're never alone? Have you noticed the friends that you have and the things that you do? Why is your self-esteem and self-worth coming from external sources instead of from within, where it's supposed to originate? I mean, it's in the name, after all - self-worth, self-esteem."

"Just lucky, I guess."

It took me years of therapy to make all of these connections, to line up all the pieces and connect all the dots, and to come to the conclusion that being alone is not the worst thing in the world. It is not a fate worse than death and that happiness truly comes from within. I learned that while I would love to be in a relationship with the right person, I'm still just as good without one. I now find it rather humorous when I hear someone say, "Your standards are too high," or "You wonder why you're alone." The truth is I don't care whether anyone thinks my standards are too high and I don't wonder why I'm alone. Usually the person saying these things is the type to wonder at such things but I simply cannot be bothered. Because all of that inner peace and happiness that I kept expecting to find in someone else ended up being within myself all the time.

Free at Last

Every now and again, I'll catch a flicker of just the right hair color or just the right body type and I'll be instantly reminded of an ex. Sometimes it will be a fond recollection and other times it will be a bitter fleeting thought that I would just as soon forget. There are also the rare occasions where I will suddenly be filled with remorse and regret. The thought creeps in that perhaps I made the biggest mistake ever. Perhaps she was the one for me. No faith in my own decision making - it was an issue I had to address in therapy. "What do you mean that's a bad thing?"

I remember she used to ask me, and her other friends, for hours on end what we thought of Fred's behavior. It was a terrible exercise in futility, as we would all validate her feelings and tell her how right she was to be feeling the way she did, but then she would confront him and her entire self-esteem and boundaries would immediately crumble. We simply believed in her more than she believed in herself, a terribly unfortunate way to live. "He's not like you. He doesn't understand me the way you do. It's not his fault. I just need to be better. You don't understand him the way I do. You don't see how much potential he has." It's always frightening when you see others' dysfunctions in yourself. However, it's also relieving because it's that recognition and admission that can lead to recovery or behavior modification (as they like to call it).

However, there were other issues that I also had to address and, at times, it's difficult for me to look back and discern whether I got in the way of myself somewhere along the line. This self-doubt and concern can haunt me for days, as I reevaluate and reassess. But every now and again, something spectacular happens where the ex does something so annoying that I am immediately reminded of all the reasons she made me miserable and I am instantly glad to be away, with no regrets to ever haunt me again.

"She really did that?"

"Yeah. Pretty crazy, huh?"

"I can't believe you stayed with her for as long as you did."

"I was too busy being afraid that leaving would be a bigger mistake than staying to see just how unfulfilled I was. I kept thinking someone else would make the decision for me. I kept hoping that someone would say the magic words that finally gave me the courage and freedom to leave. What it took me time to learn was that I always had that freedom and only I could see it through."

I've Heard That Before

If I told you what was really going on in my life, you'd never believe me. I did a very long journal entry about it. It's really impressive and probably would make some great blog material. I even worked a reference to Heidi Klum into it. (That alone makes it worth it's weight in gold.) It's almost a tragedy to keep it simply in journal form. However, now after all that buildup, it would never meet your expectations. So I'm likely better off just going with something a bit less personal.

"He said I should go to law school."

If I had a $1,000.00 for every time I heard a person say that, I'd be rich. (I say $1,000.00 because really, what can you get for a bunch of nickels nowadays. Besides, if we're going to discuss in hypotheticals, I might as well make it worth my while - I thought $1,000,000.00 might be greedy.) Every person I talk to seems to have been told, at one point or another, by some mentor type figure - you should go to law school. I sometimes think that perhaps this line is just thrown out there as a compliment - "You're so smart, you should go to law school." The person doesn't actually have to believe what they are saying, they're just throwing the compliment out there. Other times, I think the person offering the statement simply has no damn clue what law school is like. They've never experienced it. They figure it's just one of those things people do. Just go to law school. Like it's as easy as breathing or climbing Mr. Everest; a walk in the park.

I have always done everything in my power to discourage every person I meet from going to law school. From my experience, only people that really want to learn law and how to be an attorney should go to law school. They shouldn't do it for money because lots of attorneys don't make a lot of it. They shouldn't do it for respect because almost everyone I meet immediately looks at me sideways when they find out I'm one of those scum sucking, bottom feeding, attorney bastards. They shouldn't, necessarily, pigeon hole themselves into any one area of law they would like to practice because often, they won't get to practice in the area they so choose. And law school is no picnic. Unless you really like law, you likely are not going to enjoy law school at all. It's going to be stressful and miserable, threatening your relationships and your sanity, as you undergo the metamorphosis from an ordinary person to a person that thinks like an attorney. Sound like fun yet? (I did have a friend that went to Harvard who found it a fairly easy experience, much easier than her physics classes in undergrad. As a general rule, the higher ranked schools are easier, and after first year, you can sometimes find ways around the difficult professors - especially if you do not actually care about learning.)

You want money? Go work on Wall Street or do something entrepreneurial. There's far more money in either of those fields, and you probably won't have people looking at you with utter disgust and hatred when you announce what you do at dinner parties. Do you have any idea how many attorneys leave the practice of law so that they can work on the investment banking side of things? Or how many unhappy attorneys are out there?

Generally, people have listened to this advice from me. I've actually talked people out of going to law school in one sitting. I think it's because I'm just so matter of fact about it. I remove all of those romantic notions about law school and tell people real stories about real people that I've known, and of my own experiences. (And most of mine were good, for law school.) However, I really think people have to stop with the whole, "So and so told me I should go to law school." Because, really, everyone seems to have been told at one point or another that they should go to law school, and it's clearly not a career for everyone.

Face Value

Often movies or stories try to teach us not to judge a book by its cover. When this mantra is applied to people it is often illustrated with the less attractive women being really just an amazing catch and a beautiful person on the inside, and people have just never taken the time to get to know her so they just don't see how wonderful she really is. I once had a discussion with my friends about this cliche that the movie Shallow Hal memorably illustrated.

What we all agreed on is that this is a great concept and is possibly applicable in a certain number of cases, as we all have known that guy or girl that is really just an amazing person but never has much luck with landing that very physically attractive person of the opposite sex. However, we have also all met a lot of really mean, jaded, angry, miserable unattractive people. Whether their personality is a byproduct of not being anyone's object of affection frequently enough or if it's because they just don't feel terribly good about themselves or their parents didn't hold them or something as a child, I don't know. But they are ugly as sin, inside and out.

In fact, we all agreed, it's actually more common that the physically unattractive women are just as unattractive on the inside as they are on the outside. So instead of that woman in the movie looking like Gwyneth Paltrow (or Heidi Klum - yes, I know she was never in a movie like that but this is my blog and we will talk about Heidi Klum as much as I want), she is more likely to look Rosanne Barr. Not that Rosanne Barr is ugly, but she's certainly no Gwyneth Heidi Klum.

As I've noted above, this is not to say that there aren't some tremendously cool people out there that just don't have the looks of George Clooney or Natalie Portman, but there are also a lot of mediocre people out there with this condition. And, I'm assuming, a good amount of very attractive people that are positively atrocious on the inside. Which brings us back to the original cliche of, Don't judge a book by its cover. However, one would be served well to keep in mind that just because the cover isn't very attractive does not mean that the story will be any better.

Orbital Patterns

"Let me get this straight. He told you that he has still been seeing his ex-girlfriend and they have a trip planned to Jamaica together for New Years, and you want to know what you should do?"

"He swears they aren't sleeping together."

"Have you asked any of your other friends about this?"

"Well one of them said that maybe I should give him a chance, and noted that he had been honest enough to tell me about all of it."

"He really only came clean after you finally got him to talk about your relationship, a concept that you were completely resistant to, as you didn't want to seem 'needy'. Out of curiosity, is this woman telling you to 'give him a chance' the same friend that is now married to the man that pushed her out of the moving vehicle while they were dating?"

"Yeah."

Women amaze me with their uncanny ability to stay with men that are completely terrible to them for extended periods of time. I have often found that the worse I am to a girl and the less I care, the more likely they are to stay around. Alternately, if I am actually nice to them and show how much I care for them, they usually tend to walk all over me and breakup with me. I'm told women often grow out of this condition at around fifty. Figuring that I couldn't really afford to wait that long, I decided to find a mix that I was comfortable with - nice to a point.

It strikes me as odd that women blame men for being terrible or for being pigs or for this or that. As though they were suddenly betrayed by men who never gave the slightest indication that they might not be everything the women dreamed of. However, I have always found the signs as being fairly evident from the beginning. Clearly, the man that thrusts you out of a moving vehicle may have some anger management problems that might creep into your relationship in the future. The man that clings to you and follows you about the room like a lost puppy, may have some insecurity issues of his own that are bound to compound and manifest themselves in such colorful ways in the future. All of these signs will be quite clear and evident and yet the women will often stay. They all have their reasons, I'm sure. Often, there seems to be some amazing power of hope coursing through their bodies. What, exactly, they are hoping for remains a complete mystery. Perhaps they hope that he will change, or that it was an isolated incident, or that something equally magical is at play. Perhaps they are fearful of change or of being alone or of admitting that someone got the better of them.

One of my best friends has taken to using a different approach with women. He uses honesty like sword. "I am not looking for a relationship. I really like spending time with you, and I love having sex with you but there is absolutely no way I can be with just you. I'm simply not ready for anything like that right now." He's been giving this speech for the last four years to countless women and yet they stay. Eventually, each woman he dates often gets angry and frustrated with him, as he simply continues to date and sleep with other women. "I almost had sex with seven different women last week, but I got too tired and went to bed for two days. Apparently, five is now my limit." And yet, even though the women get mad, even though they might get frustrated and angry and walk away, they always seem to come back for more, like he is the sun and they all sort of orbit about him.

To the women that blame the men for being this way, I'll tell you exactly what my best friend has confided to me numerous times, and which I have also found to be true. "I would love to be honest with a woman and just totally be there for them and do all of those nice things that women profess they want. Like one of those sweet, sappy romantic movies. I think it would be nice, and certainly a hell of a lot easier than the crap I have to deal with now. However, if I do that, the women leave and go after some other guy that will treat them exactly the way I'm treating them now. We don't make the rules; as guys, we'll do just about anything for sex. This seems to be the way I have to act to get it."