getting back in touch

By being outwardly nice one often risks actually having to talk to people. I experienced this problem not long ago with a friend from elementary school and high school who found my name and e-mail listed on Google or somesuch internet locale and promptly e-mailed me the "hey buddy" missive. I responded amicably and was quickly swept up in a two-week, nearly unbearable fervor of "remember when we played football?" And "you remember how hot that one chick was, well she's a lesbian." And an all-around let's-relive-the-good-old-days extravaganza.

Eventually I declined to return his phone calls like a bad boyfriend. And he went away.

I'd be misleading you, though, if I painted myself as the guy who doesn't do that. Because, yes, indeed, I am that guy. Or have been at one point or another in my life. I once went out with a girl (Jennifer) in high school. She was pretty. I was a geek. I was too nervous to kiss her goodnight. I realized later in life that she took that as a sign I didn't like her and we never went out again.

A couple years after college, I run into her e-mail through a chain email somehow by chance, and I contacted her, thinking deep-down that I know how to handle myself so much better these days and maybe we could start over.

I was in Dallas, she in San Antonio. Perfect. I called my friend in law school in the town of the Alamo, and we hooked up with Jennifer and her friend for dinner. I have to say that the conversation that ensued was not unlike one that would occur between two people standing four places apart in line at an outdoor ATM during the cold heart of winter.

"Don't be that guy." The mantra still rings in my head.

lack of passion

Between Howard Dean and Mel Gibson, I'm reluctant to say that there remains room for the idea of passion in mainstream media. Whom we might consider in our everyday lives as passionate becomes angry or driven or lustful in the eyes of television news.

I'm not sure where I'm going with this other than to say that I feel like complex emotions like passion get dissected into their basest components and exploited. Dean was angry and (toward the end) looney, but certainly not a passionate man. Reporters struggle not to quantify Gibson as righteous and cultish despite the fact that his very emotion is the title of his film.

I know the logical mess I'm making here: what about Jerry Falwell. Maybe he's not an insensitive jackass. Maybe he's just passionate. Well, no. No, he's a jackass.

Last night in Barn.es and N.oble, I perused the recent non-fiction and I see books by people like that jerkoff from 20/20 who feels like he's singlehandedly defeating liberalism and Sean H.annity's pompous new book equating terrorism and liberalism and Bill O'R.eilly's "Who's looking out for you?" Mich.ael Moore, too. Political discourse and argumentation has been reduced to shouting and shock created by disembodied voices that we can only hear and read but never respond to. The Age of Information is not a Renaiss.ance of knowledge but an Inqu.isition. Information gets forced into us like shots of insulin and we cannot rebut or stand our ground.

It's early, I'm tired. So this type of stuff drives me to madness.

But on the other hand, there's this, and I think maybe it's all okay.

slow to respond

I'm one of those people that gets into an argument or discussion but cannot immediately retort with well-formed logic or factual evidence to support my side. It's like I'm on an FCC-mandated broadcast delay.

ARGUE MAN
So the Pa.triot Act, in fact, reinforces and broadens our basic human rights granted us by the Constitution.

HAPPIER MAN
I guess.... Since you put it that way.

[long pause; they sip their Diet Cokes and listen to a couple of songs on the radio; ARGUE MAN exits stage right; HAPPIER MAN watches the first two installments of "Lones.ome Dove" on TNT]

HAPPIER MAN
Hey! Wait a second!

Unfortunately, the world doesn't sit and wait for thinkers. Hence the blog, I suppose. Although, I don't know why a journal wouldn't be just as effective for someone who needs to write in order to fully express what one feels. Maybe it's the thought that other people are actually reading (all 3 of you) what one has written.

I empathize with the politician who answers every tough question with "I just want to do what's best for America," because who can blame them. I can barely come up with a quick reply to "It's your turn to feed the cats" let alone "I heard you had an affair with your interns."

debating vegetarianism

It started with the first big ma.d c.ow scare a few years back. While I'm the last guy to get into a panic over media alarmism, there exist a handful of acute phobias I have of extremely violent and/or horrifying deaths. Two of these are airplane crashes and ma.d c.ow disease (MCD). I'm scared of red meat and flying. Spiders, too, but that's neither here nor there.

Now we've got bir.d fl.u and pi.g ca.ncer and fish bronchitis and whatever else. My wife and I still don't eat red meat -- haven't since Christmas, anyway, except for one slip up I had with some free Swedish meatballs during a Patriots game. It's not so much that we think we're going to get MCD. But the impact of the effects of the disease certainly do drain my appetite for a steak. Plus, turkey or black bean burgers are delicious and more healthy anyway.

What concerns me, though, about eating meat is neither fear nor morality but maybe a strange hybrid of both. The way we mass feed, mass cultivate and mass kill animals seems to work against the food chain. I have no problem with killing an animal for food, even several animals, but I'm not surprised at the way nature fights back with disease. It's simple evolution at work (or "intellegent design" for those of you from the Georgia legislature): the strongest bacteria/virii survive through mutations that, over time, not only protect the germs from our large-scale medications and sprays but also thrive off of the chemicals we inject into animals.

I'm not suggesting that meat farms are bad or immoral or even unethical. I just wonder at what point will Darwinian law kick us in the ass.

So I've considered going vegetarian for a month just to see what it's like. The only hurdle: I need to learn to like vegetables.

Bad advice

Despite musical advice to the contrary, you should not, in fact, "shake it like a Polaroid picture."

workin' the job front

The state of Massachusetts finally dropped all that gay stuff and actually processed my teacher licensure. I am now officially certified to teach middle school math in the Bay State. Hoo-ah!

So, I spent part of yesterday evening putting together my resume and some cover letters for the handful of job positions I've seen already advertised around here. Ultimately, I would rather teach in Spri.ngfield (New England's answer to Com.pton or Souths.ide Chicago) than continue doing fundraising, but I still have my fingers crossed for a gig at the new Perfor.ming Arts Chart.er school in Hadley.

We're down to two people in the Development department (me, the lowest man; and my boss, who is six months younger than I), and I have barely survived the last two months here given the avalanche of work that has swept over me. My boss even commented to me yesterday that she wouldn't be surprised if I had considered quitting during these past several difficult weeks. I thought (but did not say, of course) that if there were any jobs to be had right now I would have.

I still miss teaching. My job isn't horrible by any stretch. But I really miss the kids, and I miss having a direct impact on what I'm doing -- not just sitting in front of a database all day or mailing solicitation letters or calling and asking for money. That's not my bit. Call me crazy, but give me pre-teens and set theory any day of the week. Except.... um... Saturdays and Sundays and holidays and the whole summer....

creative drain

I spent about 3 1/2 hours of my day (as compared to the normal 2) today driving to and from work. It's the woes of having multiple gigs to pay the rent. At my regular full-time job I have a difficult time discerning between the bullshit on my desk and the bullshit on my paycheck. So I've taken to freelance database and web design work. Most of that work, just like my day job, is for non-profit arts companies. Likely you've guessed (quite correctly) that these projects do not ease my bank account so much as they challenge my calendar.

But while driving today I kept thinking about my next play. This activity - thinking about writing a play - consumes me most mornings and evenings during my drive across Massachusetts, but I'm so worn down from the driving and the thinking that I've yet to write much down other than a post-it that says: "To Do: Write your goddamned play already."

Despite the vehemence of the little, yellow sticky, I'm still doing nothing but writing about how little energy I have to write. Whatever, I'm an idiot.

bad mood

I really can't explain why, but I'm cranky today. This Saturday morning bitterness seems to be a recurring theme in my life, made no easier by marriage nor by the pretty decent pancake breakfast I had. Sadly, Wife has nothing to do with my anger, and I do my best to not take it out on her. I think it might have something to do with the combination of wine and TV news I had last night, though.

During a particularly agitating episode of 20/20 last night I stopped short of slitting my wrists, realizing that it would be selfish to do so the night before Valentine's Day. But it was that guy.... that really aggravating greasy-haired man with the motorcycle cop moustache. He just recently wrote a book, too, about how there's no problem with the environment.

Yes, he's that annoying.

The story last night was how the producers and director of Monster (the serial killer pic starring Charlize Theron) failed to not only tell the entire true story as it actually happened, but they insulted the real-life victims of convicted murderer Aileen Whatsherface by portraying her as the real victim... of society

I've got news for you, Village Person: it's called "based on a true story." There is a such thing as artistic license. Plus, I don't know what movie you were watching, but I can't imagine someone leaving the theater thinking "You go girl, shoot that sonofabitch!"

While none of the men she killed deserved to die (unless the film's producers are correct in assuming that her first victim was a brutal rapist), I wouldn't call any of them saints. They were all killed while buying a prostitute (except her final victim, who truly was a nice guy only trying to help Aileen by giving her a ride), so if I'm the family member of one of her victim or if I'm an unctuous tv-news "journalist" I tread cautiously around the idea of revisionist history.

So you can see why I'm a little edgy today, a little snippy. Maybe I shouldn't even touch the remote.

Your boss should not dress sexily

Is “sexily” a word? My boss totally ho’ed out on Wednesday at our fundraiser in NYC. I nearly stumbled in surprise as I walked into the restaurant and spied her all-black dress suit with short skirt, knee-high patent leather boots with black hose, low-cut jacket top, and full side-boob view. We're talking tape was most surely required to keep nipples in check. Sorry to be graphic, but it startled me!

Let me say that the only real atrocity committed was her being my boss. Keep in mind that K is a very attractive woman in her late twenties, and had I just seen her and not known her I would have had a mildly impure thought and gone back to what I was doing. But no matter how young and good-looking your boss may be, it just never quite seems appropriate to see her dressing for sex.

It’s like seeing your cousin or step-sister half naked. It’s the bizarre conundrum of pretty lady vs. mental, moral roadblocks. It’s sexual ambivalence at it’s most baffling.

new place for expression

So I didn't exactly abandon my old blog. I just started this one so that I could have a safer place to write. Everyone I know knew about the old place: wife, parents, in-laws, boss, etc. I just didn't feel like it was an appropriate place anymore to sound off on my life. How can you complain about your job when your director could pull up your blog whenever. How can you talk personally about your marriage when your mother-in-law might want to read what you've got.

Happier Man should help me with those problems.