On Karma, and (Of All Things) Poker

When stuff happens to me, I tend to wonder whether I'm suffering some sort of cosmic payback for something I've done wrong. Likewise, a selfish part of the reason I do nice things is to build up these points for when something goes horribly wrong.

But what sucks worse is when you don't even know what you're being screwed over in response to.

Last night I went to my usual poker game at a local bar. It's a free game, and the crowd is pretty chill, so I usually have a pretty decent time, win or lose. (Usually lose: I've started gauging my success for the night as how many minutes I last before I'm out of the tournament.)

Last night, though, was different. Don't get me wrong, the guys were still having a good time and relatively chill, but I couldn't catch a good hand all night long. By a certain point in time I couldn't tell remember whether I was in a bad mood before the game started, or whether the cards put me there. I do remember that these chill, fun guys talking all kinds of big talk around the table was starting to annoy me, and I remember wondering whether they would have been as annoying if I were actually catching the cards.

I literally folded every single hand I got for the first 45 minutes of the night. Granted, I was playing a little tight (perhaps too tight), folding a K-7 (off suit) at one point and a K-6 (off suit) at another, but most of my cards for the night were 2-4s or 3-6s. It was getting truly infuriating.

But here's where Karma (or whatever you call it) didn't stop at tweaking my nipple and saying "gotcha." Karma actually bent me over and said, "You deserve to be teased BEFORE being fucked." (Not that this is a bad thing in every context....)

So I finally decide to play a hand. (If I had more chips, I would not have, but when you're short-stacked, you'll play whatever's decent.) It was a K-9. My one opponent flips: pocket 4s.

So yeah, I was pretty much beat from the get-go, but I figured it was my time, and my luck wasn't going anywhere anyway. The flop: Q-Q-7. Great. He's got two pair, I got nothing. I need one of my hole cards to pair up.

Then the turn card, well, turns the tide: It's a 7. What this means is that there are two pair on the board, both HIGHER than the pocket 4s my opponent has, which means now my King kicker is prepared to WIN the hand.

Keep in mind that after the flop, I was thinking I had six outs in the deck (three Ks and three 7s), meaning that of 45 cards left "out there," six of them would have given me a win, which is about 13%. I had forgotten about pairing up the board, and my odds were closer to 20%. Odds of me winning: 20%.

With the turn, of course, I had the better hand. And there were only two cards in the deck which would have given my opponent the win: one of the other two fours. That, my friends, is 4.5% chance to suck me out. In addition, if another Q or 7 showed up on the board (making the board a full house), we would split the pot. The odds of that were 13.6%. Odds of me winning: 95.5%.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to guess what the showed up on the river. One of those two remaining 4s in the deck reared its ugly head, and my "wow, I might actually survive this hand" moment proved to be just that -- a moment. He made his full house, 4s full of Qs, and I was reduced to a simpering mass of Jell-O quivering on the floor.

All that was a way of talking about how I have no idea what I did to deserve such a smackdown. I don't think I've done anything so dramatically bad lately that I deserve this kind of payback. I lost some cash in Atlantic City recently; then lost a few bucks at a cash table with friends; and now I can't even do decently at a play money table.

In the immortal words of the Pet Shop Boys:

What have I
What have I
What have I done to deserve this?
What have I
What have I
What have I done to deserve this?

I guess sometimes all you can do is chalk it up to an extreme run of bad luck, and call it a day. Or fortnight.

Smithsonian

This weekend I tried to rekindle my relationship with Washington. Having lived here for 12 years now, I realize I seldom go out and see the "touristy" stuff the city has to offer, instead waiting until my friends come to visit to show them the sites. But the Mall has so much to offer even the natives that, well, I wanted to see it.



What drew me out this time was a desire to go see the Hokusai exhibit at the Sackler. Unfortunately, I wasn't allowed to take photos within the gallery, so all I'm left with is webpublished material. The man was quite talented -- he drew all kinds of subject matter, on different media, over the course of several decades. I was impressed with both his use of negative space as well as his attention to detail. If you're in the DC area, you have to check this exhibit out.

KOB (the man behind DC Blogs) and I wandered around the rest of the Freer, where I snapped this shot of the random courtyard. It reminded me of some of the fountains I've seen in Spain, so I snapped a quick shot. There's a small, potted bonsai tree in the courtyard there too, but my shot of it didn't come out all that well.

Then afterward, we spent the afternoon wandering around the Mall (where I overheard this comment). The weather was positively glorious: just the right amount of heat and very little humidity. And the sky was positively gorgeous, without a single cloud anywhere.

I took this picture more of less just because it's so beautifully framed against the pure blue cloudless sky.













The sprinkler water just looked so refreshing outside the Sackler. Unfortunately, I wasn't in a position to go running around in it to cool off. Not that it was all that hot, but still, it's one of those fun things you wish you could still do. If I were a kid again, I'd've probably loved it. Alas, the joys of youth are far too ephemeral.



As the day wore on, we headed over the Native American museum. Didn't get to see too much on the inside, but the structure itself is quite nice. And, again, there was a nice-looking scene outside.





I don't generally enjoy photoblogging, but these were kinda nice pics, and heck, I've got a decent digicam that I may as well use. Later this week I'll share some random shots from the Zoo, which was my Sunday excursion.

I Was Cheeked!

CHEEKED! Such is the course of my life.

Photo blog to come soon.

Heaven and Hell

One afternoon my mother and I were engaged in rather busy work folding special pieces of paper into shapes symbolising old Chinese money. We would later take them to a Buddhist temple to burn them, sending the ashes of said money to our ancestors. I was maybe in my early teens, probably in middle school. This is generally as close as I got to religion in my childhood: the one ritual at the Buddhist temple my mother actually engaged in from time to time.

In a room cluttered with paper bags filled with faux Chinese money, we heard a knock on the door. Somehow I knew before anyone got up who was there: it would have to be a Jehovah's Witness. We used to get those from time to time. I thought nothing of it, that whoever answered the door (it wasn't me) would just politely brush them off and we'd get back to work.

My father got to the door first. For some reason that still escapes me to ths day, instead of politely saying "no, no, no" like we usually did (I had been known to feign lack of English skills for this purpose), he invited her in. Before I knew it, a proseltyzing Jehovah's Witness was sitting on my couch, near my mother. I shot a quick "what-the-fuck?" glance at my father, but he must have missed it, for he never responded. Perhaps he had expected me to engage her in some deep philosophical religious discussion (especially seeing as I was the one of us in the room with the best command of the English language), but I had internally vowed to remain silent.

"So, what is this you're doing?" the Witness asked. I presume she was trying to be friendly while searching for a segue into a discussion about our salvation or whatever.

I kept mum, and continued to fold my papers. My mother, possibly equally befuddled (but more likely annoying and internally stewing), did the same.

"Folding papers," my father responded in this broken English. "See, papers kind of like money, we send them to ancestors."

Thing is, Jehovah's Witnesses don't subscribe to the concept of afterlife, nor would they do well with the traditional Chinese rituals of paying homage to ancestors. I don't know if my father knew this and told this woman this just to rile her, or if in some fit of exuberance he was just sharing.

"I see..." the Witness responded. I think she was getting up the courage to get into her spiel about the nonexistence of ghosts or ancestors or the corresponding utter lack of need to pay tribute them, but my father just continued.

"We burn them. When ancestors die, they ... go to hell.... So we burn this, the smoke, go to hell too, for ancestors!" He gestured upwards with his hands, indicating, I suppose, rising smoke.

It was at this point I fought hard to suppress what would have been a very audible groan. Yes, my father had just told a random stranger that my ancestors were in hell.

"Uh, I see...." the Witness said again, now looking visibly agitated. I could sense that she was frantically looking for a way to politely excuse herself, but how does one just ignore what my dad had just said? I'm told that spreading The Word is one of the highest callings for a Jehovah's Witness. I imagined an angel on one of this woman's shoulders and a devil on the other:

Angel: If there's any family in need of saving, it's this one. Save them! Turn them to the Path!
Devil: Just get the hell out of this place before they turn all The Hills Have Eyes on you.


Thankfully, my dad stopped talking for long enough for the woman to politely say, "Well, I can see you all are busy, so I won't take up any more of your time. It was ... nice... meeting you." And she stood up to leave.

I burst out laughing the moment she cleared the driveway. My dad's response to me: "What?"

The good thing is, she didn't even offer to leave some of that literature or anything.

Pop Quiz

Okay, Jon started it. I thought I'd have some fun imposing on you, my dear reader. Check out my quiz and let me know how you do!

Take My Quiz - on - QuizYourFriends.com!

Eavesdrop DC

It's not yet as big as Overheard in New York, but someone's finally created a rough equivalent for DC: Eavesdrop DC. I'm guessing the guy who does NY didn't want to relinquish the "Overheard in DC" domain name.

Anyway, it's still pretty funny. DC definitely has a unique flavor, though. Different, but not necessarily better or worse, than New York. Of course, this makes each blog just slightly nuanced.

Anne, I know you've wondered twice why I didn't start something like this up. Answer: I'm just plain lazy. But I'm glad it now exists.

Oh, and something I submitted was posted recently, though they didn't give me credit. As I think of it, though, I didn't ask for any. I suppose I should have.

Views from a Subway

Sometimes – infrequently, but sometimes – I feel like I miss out on things by not having to get onto a Metro every day. Much as I love and enjoy my close-to-nonexistent "commute" of three blocks each way, I wonder what kind of stuff I'm missing out on by not having to join the throngs of sardine-packed subway riders on a regular basis. (At the very least, for example, it means very few people ever see me during rush hour commute time, which means I'm less likely to become the subject of a Craigslist Missed Connection.)

The one time I join the subway crowd is Tuesday nights, when I more-or-less regularly head out to Clarendon to play some poker. Last night's ride netted me a few stories:

Sandwiched in as we were, eavesdropping was absolutely unavoidable. At one point, a nice young woman (literally six inches from me) (go ahead, get the "six inches" jokes out of the way now; I'll wait) mentioned to her companion (a handsome young man who, alas, wore a wedding ring) a birthday lunch she had to go to tomorrow, at which point I let loose an involuntary "D'oh!" and smacked my hand over my mouth. She looked at me funny, obliging me to explain that I had forgotten to email a friend of mine, whose birthday was yesterday.

Later, at a different stop, people tried to jam their way into the doors. As the doors came to a close, I heard the unmistakable gutteral noises of a person who didn't quite make it all the way into the train before the doors hunkered down. I involuntarily laughed; the young woman laughed with me. Or at least I hope she laughed with me, and not at me.

A nice woman was reading to her daughter on the train. This is most welcome sound as compared to other, more obnoxious chatter one could have found on a train. So I got to hear a bit of Amelia Bedelia for a little bit. From what little I heard, that girl never is referred to as "Amelia"; it's always "Amelia Bedelia." What's up with that? By the way, if your last name is "Bedelia," I suggest that it's criminally cruel to name your child "Amelia," and facing a firing squad at sunrise is the only real acceptable punishment. Anyway, I digress: while it was nice that this woman was reading to her (very sweet and kind) child on the subway, man, she was boring at it. Very few vocal inflections, not a lot of animation to the story. And she was reading a bit fast, too. Really, the kid's supposed to enjoy that? I would suggest that the reader slow down and make it more fun for the listener. I know I wasn't terribly excited by her reading style. I could kick ass at reading to kids.

At some point, I managed to grab hold of one of the vertical poles that extends up from a seat back. Bored, I started to tap on it with my nails. I was tapping out a song, really, so I'll admit that this wasn't just some idle tapping. As if enchanted by Mrs. Piggle Wiggle (I'm deeply regressing to children's books now), a woman from the window seat looked up from her book then looked at me. Keep in mind, the train, while not exceedingly noisy, is not pin-drop silent at this point. I made it a point to avoid her gaze, but my peripheral vision picked it up and, well, I could feel her eyeballs descending upon me like a swarm of locusts. After maybe ten agonizing seconds of this game (me tapping the pole and looking away; she glaring at me), my eyes drifted to her. Without any actual sound coming from her mouth, the words "Could you stop that please?" formed on her lips. I made a quizzical face at her and mouthed back, "Huh?" Of course, while I did that, I stopped tapping, and she mouthed, "Thank you." Some people are so sensitive. I still have no idea why she couldn't actually speak the words. Apparently a significant sensitivity to, well, anything with an actual decibel level.

Eventually – because I was nice enough to move toward the center of the train instead of crowding around the doors like a veal before the slaughter – I had to push past about 8 people to get out of the train at my stop. Thankfully, most everyone accommodated my request to excuse me (ah, the power of "please"). Note I said "most" everyone. Because there's always one, isn't there?

And yet, as I checked today, I still don't think I made it into a Missed Connection.

Punch Drunk

My plan hit me on the way to the deli for lunch today. I must admit, I chuckled all the way to and from the deli as the plan played forward in my mind.

After getting my sandwich, I stopped by the Hot Dog Guy on my way back to the office to pick up a can of Hawaiian Punch.

Because I don't usually get Hawaiian Punch for lunch (or any drink for that matter, since my officemates and I appear to be singlehandedly keeping Coke Zero in business), my co-worker T. had to make reference to it as I sat down to eat. "Hawaiian Punch today, huh? Going for something different?" she asked.

"Sorta..." I responded. Then I launched into my insipid plan to plant a stupid and wildy irritating song into T.'s head. "I was on my way to get this sandwich," I told her, "when suddenly this popped into my head --"

And I sang:

I'ma get get get get some punch
Get some punch to drink with lunch.
My lunch my lunch, my lunch my lunch my lunch.
My lunch my lunch, I love Hawaiian Punch!

Check it out!

Okay, much more fun if you have the Black Eyed Peas stuck in your head.

Damn stuff is loaded with high fructose corn syrup, but it was oh so worth it to execute this joke.

Happy Emancipation Day!

Happy DC Emancipation Day!

From the information linked above (for those of you who didn't follow the link):

On [April 16,] 1862, President Abraham Lincoln signed the Compensated Emancipation Act, For the release of certain persons held to service or labor in the District of Columbia. The Act freed about 3,100 enslaved persons in DC nine months before President Lincoln issued his famous Emancipation Proclamation telegraphing the eventual end of slavery to the rest of the nation. The District of Columbia Compensated Emancipation Act represents the only example of compensation by the federal government to free enslaved persons.

I guess this is one instance where federal plenary authority over the District of Columbia wasn't a totally bad thing. But sitting around depending on the benevolence of unelected officials really shouldn't be the way things run in the nation's capital. DC Vote.

Some Clothes Should Not "Fit" Quite So "Well"

To the Two (TWO!) women at the sandwich place getting sandwiches before me today:

Let me start off first by just saying that I, as a not-anorexic gay male, am totally not going to be one to judge you for your weight. No, seriously. Things don't always go swimmingly for us not-skinny people, so I get it.

Oh, you don't think I know what I'm talking about. This is because you think I'm skinny. Let me tell you, though, it's all in how you dress and carry yourself. (There's a reason not many people get to see me naked, but I digress.)

But, see, therein lies my very point: dressing well is key when your body, standing alone, isn't drop-dead fantastic (as opposed to drop-dead-of-a-heart-attack). You, in particular, need someone to tell you that those pants do not look good on you.

First of all, they're white. Every larger-than-life person should know, black is the slimming color. So whenever possible -- even if it's kinda muggy out -- eschew white clothing, and try for a darker color (preferably in breathable fabric, for those summer months).

But most importantly -- oh honey! -- those pants hug way too well, if you know what I mean! (Well, perhaps you don't, because I would hope you did not decide to wear those things out today knowing what I mean.) Cameltoes are classless and out of place even at the beach. You should not be sporting cameltoe on what purports to be an at least semi-professional outfit.

Honestly, I don't even know the solution to this problem besides suggesting a whole new pair of pants. Control top underwear, maybe? Would that work? Maybe a fabric that's less likely to "hug" as much?

But no, seriously, just say "no" to cameltoe.

Sincerely,
Dennis!

** I'd offer up a google search result here, but I think it would be too inflammatory, so I'll leave that off. And I certainly wasn't going to snap a shot of your cameltoe while waiting for my burger.

Whaddya Know?

I suppose it's a matter of human nature. Me, I like to at least act like I know my limitations.

***

We had some computer issues at work recently. The server was acting funny, so my IT guy asked me to disconnect all the users from the server (everyone else had gone home) so that he could safely poke around remotely. I complied. At some point later, I went home.

The next day, everyone in my office was wondering what happened to the computers last night. I told them that I had shut them all down, because the IT guy asked me to. "Well, what did he do?" one of my co-workers asked me.

I have no idea what he did. I didn't ask, because I knew it would take me over my head. And I'm willing to bet that if I had told my co-worker that the IT guy "needed to verify that the WAN address was properly synched up to the PPP node vis-a-vis the antipodes diodes which feed lubricating oils through their sebaceous ducts to each of our monitors," she wouldn't have understood what I meant.

So why did she ask?

***

This morning, the same co-worker popped her head into my office. "If the phone rings more than twice, could you snag it? I'm going to be poke my head around the telephone closet real quick."

Uh, the telephone closet? I've been in there. It's a huge jumble of technicolor wires going from one panel in the wall to another panel in the wall. I have no idea where they start, or where they end, or for what purpose they start and end where they do. If there's a large dangling wire that starts at one panel and leads nowhere... well, hell, that might be because it's supposed to be like that.

I'm willing to bet my co-worker doesn't know anything about those wires either. So why is she checking to make sure everything's all right in the telephone closet? Would she recognize it if something was amiss? (At least, in the absence of a sign that says "Cut here to mess up the phone lines.")

***

Once the above-referenced co-worker asked me to look at another suitemate's computer to investigate why she wasn't getting sound out of her speakers. (For some reason, I'm kind of the office computer guru, which is sad.) I told her that I frankly wouldn't know what to look at, so I wasn't sure I'd be a very big help. She huffed at me and gave me an attitude for the rest of the afternoon.

Her reasoning: The other suitemate has done some very nice things for us over the years, so the least you could do is look into her problem.

My response: But I'm telling you now I won't be able to help. It's like asking me to diagnose her brain trauma. I know I won't be able to. You’re really just asking me to invest some of my time sitting in front of the computer poking around even though I pretty much know I won't get anywhere.

Eventually I gave in and looked that the damn computer. It's archaic. And sure enough, despite my best efforts, I could not get the speakers to work.

Go fig

I'm feeling better than I have for the past two weeks or so. I have no doubt that this is because I have a doctor's appointment tomorrow. My body hates me, and is probably laughing at me for the delicious irony. And were I to cancel my appointment for tomorrow, my temperature would spike to 104.3 immediately upon hanging up the phone.

On an unrelated note, I'm bummed because I missed The Amazing Race this week. I did see a TON of commercials advertising the date change ("Good news, America! The Amazing Race has moved to a new day!") because I remember thinking, every single time it came on, "How is that good news? I have to rearrange my TV watching schedule now!"

Alternate Sexuality

I've noticed that some of my recent blogposts are tending toward a common theme: the imminent heterosexualization of Dennis!. It's like there's a toaster oven in it for someone or something if I convert. Like the universe is trying to send me a signal: Check out some boobies.

****

Steven Lynch is hot and funny. I've had this song for a long time, but I just found the video and damn, he's cute to boot! (Lyrics NSFW, btw.)



I suddenly want him.

****


So, because I'm exceedingly bored and because I've nothing better to do with my evening, I came up with my own version of this song. I dedicate this to all my heterosexual female friends. (Strangely, the phrase "heterosexual female friends" is like a huge exercise in redundancy when coming from me.) [WARNING: Wildly inappropriate language ahead.] The following lyrics are much better appreciated after you've heard the Stephen Lynch song above.

Here we are, just you and me.
It's Friday night and we're watching TV.
We really should be on dates with guys,
Instead we're at home sharing some fries.

And if I were straight, we would walk on the beach.
And if I were straight, for your arms I would reach.
If I were straight, we'd be all "Greatest Hits"
But I'm not straight, so I won't be touching your -- hair.

You know that we're good friends, for sure!
You're cute and smart, and so demure.
For some hot guy you'd be quite the catch,
He'd better appreciate that snatch.

And if I were straight, I would make out with you,
And if I were straight, I would tenderly touch you,
If I were straight, you would so do the trick.
But I'm not straight. You suffer from lack of a -- Y chromosome.

We've hugged before.
We've even kissed.
But it's never felt
Quite like this!
I renounce
My gay-boy sins...
Get over here and
Free -- the -- twins!

Decisions, Decisions

You know your life is completely pathetic beyond all redemption when you actually find yourself engaged in a thought process that goes something like this:

"Man, it's been a while.... I need to get off.... I could masturbate.... Okay, let's do that.... Hey, look, an unfinished sudoku!"

I'll leave it to you to guess which activity I ended up engaged in.

Under the Weather

Okay, I just have to whine a bit.

I've been fighting something or another for two weeks now. Two weeks! What the hell? I blame a woman from my office, who took a day off one day, then came back on the second day even though she didn't feel 100%. Though I tried to keep my distance from her, I seem to have nonetheless caught something.

So for the past two weeks, I have managed to alternate between all kinds of medications, some of which seem inconsistent:

- CVS generic Tussin: For cough and congestion. I literally feel like there's a tightness in my chest, and if I cough hard enough, something will emerge. You know that episode of South Park where everyone realizes that if you eat through your ass, you crap out your mouth? Yeah, I feel like at some point I would cough up something resembling a large piece of shit. I wish there were some device a doctor could use (preferably outpatient) for the purpose of shoving something into your throat or nostril and just sucking out all the crap accumulating in your lungs. Unfortunately, I don't think those exist. Anyone have any success with that Mucosamine stuff (the one with those commercials with the talking bog of phlegm)?

- CVS generic decongestant (sudafed type stuff): Despite the fact that the mucous in my chest felt thick (like something from The Blob), my nose was actually running. I've gone through two boxes of tissues already. It's gross the amount of wadded-up tissues randomly placed around my place (such as near my bed, where I hadn't bothered to put a trash receptacle). So while I was trying to loosen up the mucous in my chest, I was trying to dry up the mucous in my nose. This is a tricky balancing act.

- Advil LiquiGels: I took this when I felt like I had a fever. At one point, I took my temperature and found I had a 99.9 degree reading. I was also suffering from the chills. I have to say, Advil is now my fever reducer of choice. Damn, it worked well. Then, I figured, given how thick my chest phlegm was, there must be some element of fever involved, so I kept popping them.

- Asthma medication: All this has, of course, exacerbated my asthma, which makes some things next to impossible -- among them, breathing. A close second, sleeping through the night. The latter is also made difficult by having your nose not function all that well either.

All this is not good at all.

A colleague at my office suggested that I not see a doctor. "You're just suffering from a cold," she told me. "The doctor's going to give you antibiotics and you're just going to end up being resistant to them!" Silly me, I decided to actually listen to her, and did not go to a doctor.

But now it's just too much. It's been too long. I need to get a professional's opinion on this.

And I'm pretty much miserable much of the time.

John Basedow is a Marketing Genius

If you watch any amount of cable television at all, you know who John Basedow is.* He's the "celebrity fitness" guy who is all over basic cable networks with commercials hawking exercise videos. He's been around for a while, but I've noticed that recently (that is, up to maybe a year ago) he's really truly stepped it up. New bits in his commercials (I don't think he's actually done a full-scale infomercial yet) are:

- an annoying yet mildly catchy "theme song"
- a new icon/logo for his "Fitness Made Simple" programs
- new spokespeople ("it worked for me!")
- live appearances ("You too can meet John Basedow in person!")

But what really sets his new commercials apart -- and why I think he's such a marketing genius -- is the substance of some of his latest commercials. (All quotes from the commercials are paraphrased from memory.)

"I've lost weight using the program," one woman gushes, "and now I have even higher goals, because I know I can do anything." Basedow responds, "Because that is what it's all about, isn't it? Once you take control of your body, you take control of your life."

Indeed, his website proclaims: "Anything is possible once you believe in yourself and have the knowledge and determination to accomplish your goals."

This, my friends, is absolute genius. This is John Basedow latching on to the obnoxious popularity of self-help claptrap which has reached fever pitch under people like Dr. Phil. Basedow goes beyond just talking about losing weight and looking good. The physical body is now just an outward manifestation of something else for him (and therefore, for you). Focus on that, and you treat a deeper, psychological yearning which will affect the rest of your life as well.

Lose weight, and you'll be able to get a better job! Lose weight, and you'll get a raise! Lose weight, and suddenly you'll be able to speak four new languages! Lose weight, and master integral calculus!

Those other commercials -- for diet pills (like the one with that "new doctor") and even for Jenny Craig (starring Kirstie Alley) -- no longer hold a candle to John Basedow. Those commercials are so superficial. There's no chicken soup for the soul; all they do is pander to your outer looks. Basedow wants you to set your goals beyond your physical body.

Basedow cares.

"You definitely care. . . . You obviously care about helping as many people as you can at any point in time," another woman tells him in a commercial.

Because, of course, Basedow isn't trying make money. Hellz no! He cares. His goal is to make people feel good. The profit he makes off of selling these exercise regimens? Gravy, pure and simple.

Me, I think the lady must have misspoken. I think instead of saying Basedow wanted to help as many people as he can, she actually meant to say he cares about selling his product to as many people as possible. I know, there's a lot of verbal ledgerdemain involved in his slip of the tongue, but she apparently slipped up quite badly. You should hear her when she wants to order a Caesar salad and instead accidentally asks for a bacon double cheeseburger with the works and a side order of chili cheese fries.

There's a strange Richard Simmons-esque quality to Basedow's new advertising regime. Poor dear, both Richard and John tell their overweight viewers. It's not your fault. But if you get motivated, you can lose weight and love yourself again! And with that self-love, you can set new goals for yourself. I'm going to teach you how. Because I care.

(Richard Simmons was, of course, much, MUCH gayer about it.)

Even Basedow's theme song hints at this theme:

Here's John Basedow
He's gonna show you how
To reach your potential
And turn your whole life around!

Note the complete lack of anything referring to getting in shape. There's nothing in there about losing weight. Weight loss is a secondary by-product of the "reaching your potential" goal. If you knew nothing about Basedow and heard that song, you might think he was some sort of inspirational speaker, sort of like a present-day Norman Vincent Peale.

So, if I were wearing a hat, I'd take it off to John Basedow. Marketing genius, that one. I won't be buying his product, but I'm sure he's managed to get a huge number of the sheep of this country to go ahead and do just that. Dr. Phil would be proud too.


* I would link to him, but I don't want to drive any traffic to his site. Frankly, I think he's kind of freaky. And, for a "fitness celebrity," he's kind of ugly. But I will admit, some of "success stories" on his website are kinda hot. One guy, Jason, looks good, but then again, the idiocy of it all is, he looked good in his "before" picture too!

Butchy Day

This morning in the space of less than half an hour my wife came up in conversation twice.

Twice. What are the odds? Granted, neither person who made the comment knew me, and it's not unreasonable to just assume heterosexuality, but twice. Wow. I think the universe is trying to send me a signal.

The first reference took place as I was going through the metal detector at the courthouse. I was admonished to remove everything from my pockets, including my wallet. (I usually don't remove my wallet just because I don't think there's anything in there that should set off a metal detector.) Heeding the security guard's instruction, though, I removed my wallet and placed it in a plastic tub.

"Take your money back," the guy told me. I guess there was a fear that someone the other end would make off with my cash, which was visible, seeing as my wallet is actually a money clip. So I removed the lone one-dollar bill from the clip and put it in my pocket. (The rest of my money, change from the $20 I spent buying some breakfast, was in my pocket already.)

"Wife keeping you on a short leash there, huh?" the guard joked with me. I guess one sign of a wife's control over her husband is her not doling out an adequate sum for lunch money. I laughed with him and continued on my way.

I met my boss and our client in the cafeteria and talked briefly about the case. I had never met this client before; my boss is the lead on her matter, so today was the first time we were introduced. The client, within three questions, asked whether I was married.

"Uh, excuse me?" I asked, now thrown by the second reference to my wife following so quickly on the heels of the first.

She explained that she was under the impression that "the other attorney" (the one not my boss) was married. We explained that for a little bit, our other associate worked on her matter, and that other associate was a married woman.

Sometimes I wonder what my life would be like if I were straight. Then I realize it wouldn't be terribly different from what it is now: seeing as I can't seem to get a date with a guy, there's no real reason to believe my luck would be any better with a woman.

Still, I think I'll take my newfound heterosexuality and hit a strip club this weekend. I can use those singles from my money clip.

Tomorrow Never Dies

I rented Tomorrow Never Dies over the weekend. I'd already seen it -- in the theaters as well as on FX over the weekend -- but I had forgotten to take it out of my queue at Netflix.

Besides, Michelle Yeoh was in it. She's hot in martial-arts style sequences. I love that stuff.

I do believe Ms. Yeoh was the first Asian Bond girl. (About frigging time.) And, though I cannot purport to be an expert on the subject, she's the first one I've seen in a long time who was on the "Good Guys'" side who could hold her own (i.e., kick some ass). The last woman I an recall who kicked ass in a Bond film was Grace Jones in A View to a Kill (and let's face it, she was somewhat freaky). All the other Bond chicks seem to have made their careers out of standing around going, "James! Help!" or "Ow! James!" Then they'd coo, "Ooooh, James!"

(Don't get me wrong, a lot of Bond chicks were smart. Like Dr. Goodhead (ahem) in Moonraker, just for one example. But generally... helpless tarts. Smart, but helpless.)

Anyway, back to Tomorrow Never Dies: there's just one scene I have got to vent about.

So Michelle Yeoh demonsrates in this movie her talent at movie martial arts repeatedly, and it's great to watch. Then at some point about three-quarters of the way through the movie, she gets caught by Bad Guy's minions, who then take her to him. So she's standing there with two goons holding her arms and two other goons with automatic weapons pointing at her. Then Bad Guy says something annoying and Michelle lashes out by trying to kick him (which we know would have hurt had she succeeded).

Then Bad Guy launches of this mock-martial arts tirade, complete with old-style Bruce Lee sound effects and exaggerated arm movements, ending with one word: "Pathetic." Now keep in mind, this is while Michelle Yeoh is being held in place with guns pointed at her.

So my one comment to the writers is this: Why could she not have said, at this point, "Get these goons to let me go and get these guns off of me and let's see just how pathetic I am, White Boy"? Please? Because Bad Guy was just such a racist asshole in that scene.

Cinderella

Congrats to George Mason University for making it to the Final Four in the NCAA Tourney!

I'm not really following the tournament much this year -- not that I usually do -- but with so many local teams playing this year I couldn't help hearing buzzes around town about our teams. I was sorry that GWU took such an early departure, and Georgetown's defeat was relatively hard fought, but at least Mason's in the Final Four.

We caught the last few seconds of the Mason game while I was at a friend's house. While no one in the room really had any connection to Mason, a few of us were rooting for them just because we wanted a good Cinderella story (bonus points for involving a local school). Besides, almost everyone's brackets got screwed up when Kansas and Carolina lost anyway.

Watching some of the news reports on the match-up tonight, I heard two things that disturbed me about the U-Conn team. First, they made some arrogant prediction last night that they would win the entire tournament. Me personally, I like a little bit of modesty in athletes, especially collegiate athletes. You don't just "win." You have to work at it. There are others involved (they're called your "opponents"); acknowledge it's not necesssarily automatic that you'll beat them.

Second -- good grief! -- after the national anthem, U-Conn actually declined to shake hands with the Mason team. That's wildly unsportsmanlike and definitely uncool to an extreme. Again, these guys are people and, whether you take them seriously or not, they will be playing against you. Does it take too much to treat them like human beings? They're as excited to be there as you are -- maybe even more so, since they've rarely made an appearance in the tournament at all, let alone make it to the Sweet Sixteen -- just be gentlemen and acknowledge them.

If for no other reason, after that kind of arrogant show I'm glad U-Conn didn't beat Mason. I'll just make it a good secondary reason (after the great Cinderella story) that I'm pretty happy for Mason right around now.

"Check It Out!"

Could there possibly be anything more annoying than having "My Humps," by the Black Eyed Peas, totally stuck in your head? Worse yet is that I only know the opening lyrics; the rest are a blur to me. And yet I hear this damn song all the freaking time, and now it's stuck my head.

And who in the name of all that is holy has ever been known to refer to their backside as "lovely lady lumps"? I'm gonna wager a quick guess here: no one.

Hockey and Wings

Overheard between two gay men, in Hooters of all places:

Guy 1: I love Dave and Buster's! Have you ever been?
Guy 2: No.
Guy 1: It's a lot of fun... but it's kinda dangerous. You can totally blow a wad there. Uh, of cash, I mean.


Okay, one of those guys was me. I'll leave you to figure out which one.

***

So Monday night was even straighter than my usual nights. I swear, if I don't watch out, I'm going to start finding boobies irresistably attractive.

It started with a hockey game. Watching it, not playing it. I love watching hockey games... it strikes me as such graceful savagery. I mean, one minute these guys are gliding across the ice, smooth as silk, the next, WHAM!, they're slammed up against a divider. I mean, hey, a legal way to stop a guy advancing with the puck is to body slam him, what can I say? Loads of fun. Also, it's one of the few sports where a fist fight is more exciting than the play of game itself.

During half time, they had these little tykes come out. Four of 'em, two goalies, two shooters. It was so cute watching them try to skate, let alone also maneuver the puck toward the goal (and to defend the goal). I think I cheered more for these kids than I did for any of the pro players. They were just so adorable! Although a part of me also feels bad, because when there's a six-year-old shooting a puck and a six-year-old defending, well, one of them is going to fail in their endeavor. You cheer for the kid who succeeds, but then at the same time you end up making the poor other kid feel bad.

After the game, my companion and I stepped out for food and ended up at Hooters. I've always wanted to go to check out their wings, but none of my friends ever wants to go with me. In truth, the place is pretty decent. The food is reasonably priced in comparison to any other bar/pub in the area, and the wings aren't half bad. Oh, and friendly chicks with huge boobs who make it point to bend over at the waist when taking your order -- classic.

Thing is, after this past weekend at the beach, I had told my friends that I really need to get my gay on after all that time at Starboard. And what do I do upon my return? Hit a live sporting event followed by dinner at Hooters. Niiiiice.

Just Beachy

I spent this weekend at a friend's place in Rehoboth/Dewey Beach. It's Dewey Beach's "opening weekend," so we hopped over to hit the bars. Well, a bar. And have a party of sorts.

First, let me take a moment to bitch about office machines. By office machines, I'm referring to my work computer, as well as the one belonging to my boss and the receptionist. I'm also referring to the office copier, which doubles as a printer at times. Why is it that when I'm in a rush all these things choose to freeze up on me en masse? There's a word for this: resistentialism. (Check out the definitions here and here.) I wasn't so much running up against deadlines, but I of course wanted to get things done in order to leave the office just a tad early. And wouldn't you know, just as my friends are calling to tell me they're on their way to pick me up, my machine will no longer print. Nor will my document print from a different machine. Suddenly I'm frustrated and rushed and stressed and blah. Thankfully, eventually everything got taken care of and I grabbed my stuff and ran down to get the hell out of Dodge.

We stayed at my friend Chris's house. He lives just a few miles from the popular Dewey Beaches and we insisted on hitting up the Starboard to "start off" the beach season. This despite the fact that it was still well under 40 degrees out and we were all wearing long sleeves and jeans. (There were, of course, the handful of idiots wearing shorts and short sleeves and even flip-flops, but they were clearly, well, out of their minds.)

Completely apropos of my last post on this subject, every time I walk into the Starboard I have to ask myself why I'm there at all. Aren't I too old for this?, I wonder. Twenty-something frat boys and their corresponding Tri-Delt sisters getting drunk, engaging in sexual banter, and making fools of themselves surrounded me. Do I really need that?

I always think that, then I always look around and come to realize that, in fact, many of the people around me aren't twenty-something. There are thirty-somethings and even forty-somethings here. This is a beach community where time, and the maturity it usually brings, stands still. People who probably hold down perfectly respectable jobs and who earn quite good livings doing what they do reacquaint themselves with the part of their brains that still clamor to get shit-faced in public for the fun of it:

Too-tight t-shirts (on both men and women)? Check.
Far too much visible cleavage (on both men and women)? Check.
Dry humping on the dance floor? Check.
Adults who should know better barely able to stay on their feet at 12:30 a.m.? Check.
Public emitus? Check, and check. (Watch where you walk.)

Compounding this question is the fact that the environment at all the Dewey Beach bars is insanely heterosexual. Sexual tension pervades the air, sometimes to predatory levels. The men here have one thing on their minds, and it's not scintillating conversation. No one is looking for "Ms. Right," just "Ms. Right Now." This dynamic would suffer from an immense imbalance were it not for the fact that the women here more or less seek the same thing. The words of Toby Keith apply to everyone here:

I'm not talkin' 'bout locking down forever, baby that would be too demanding.
I'm just talkin' 'bout two lonely people who might reach a little understanding.
I'm not talkin' 'bout knockin' out heaven with whether we're wrong or we're right.
I'm not talkin' 'bout hookin' up, and hangin' out,
I'm just talkin' 'bout tonight.

One girlfriend of mine actually had the following "exchange" with a mildly attractive guy after a not-insignificant amount of time together dancing:

Guy: So would you be offended if I asked you to come back to my beach house?
Friend: I'm not offended, but the answer would be 'no.'
Guy: [Wordlessly walks off into the crowd, and is later spotted dancing with another good-looking woman.]

Don't get me wrong, there's usually some decent eye candy at these places. I swear, when you're 23 years old and remotely virile and masculine, sometimes it's not hard not to look totally doable. It doesn't take much (or maybe my standards are dropping the less sex I actually get). But these are straight boys we're talking about; much as I'd love to see them naked, I'm sure it's just not going to happen, and that's all for the best. I'd happily head over to the somewhat more gay-friendly Rehoboth Beach and hit the bar scene there, but the logistics of getting there and back to Chris's house is a bit more effort that I'm willing to coordinate.

Thankfully, at least one friend of mine this year agrees with me with respect to questioning why we keep going back to the Starboard over and over again despite our advancing years. Maybe next time she'll be willing to come with me to hang out at the gay bar(s).

On the flip side of that is my question about why my girlfriends still love going to the beach so much. They're usually not the type to really enjoy the hookup scene or the search for beach boys. By now they're really more interested in longer-term potential; why do they insist on continuing to go to a meat market set against the backdrop of the Atlantic Ocean? The mind kinda boggles.

In the end, though, the weekend for me was all about being with my friends, away from the city, in an environment that's bit more relaxing and away from the stress of city life. There wasn't much to worry about; we just hung out, enjoyed each others' company, ate a hell of a lot, had (quite) a few drinks, and relaxed. We'll be doing this again a few times this summer, I'm sure. Right now, though, I'm in it more for Chris's hot tub than the Starboard. I only wish he'd be willing to join me in it -- he's kinda cute.

Devotional Hints

I light this candle and watch it throw
Tears on my pillow
And if there is a Christ, he'll come tonight
To pray for Spanish eyes
And if I have nothing left to show
Tears on my pillow
What kind of life is this if God exists
Then help me pray for Spanish eyes

-- Madonna


From time to time, I hit Pulp on 14th Street for cute little trinkets. Among my favorite things to pick up there are devotional candles.

Unfortunately, they're not really all that "devotional." In fact, if you really care about the religious significance of these candles, they're somewhat sacrilegious. Because the images on them are faux religious.

The last time I went, I purchased two candles:



In case you can't read them, the candle on the left (red) is dedicated to finding "Abundant True Love." The one on the right (purple), "Our Lady of Perpetual Youth."

Now see, I tend to light both candles at the same time. I'm anal that way. No burning of one candle while the other one remains unlit. I also have a set of tea lights holders on my windowsill. If any one of them contains an actual candle, they all must. All candles are lit at the same time, or none of them at all.

I wonder what message my devotional candles are trying to send me:



Don't look now, but My Lady of Perpetual Youth is burning itself down substantially faster than Abundant True Love.

I guess that means that I'm getting older faster. No perpetual youth for me. But at least in my prematurely old age I'll still be capable of finding abundant true love.

But It's Time to Face the Truth. I Will Never Be With You.

I have this horrible habit of developing insta-crushes on guys who are taken or otherwise way out of my league. After a brief interaction, I will decide, "Wow, he's nice and smart and funny and cute." Then I start developing one of those silly little schoolgirl crushes, which in the end only sucks like all hell.

I met this one guy at a volunteer event close to a year ago. Despite the fact that I had only ever seen him a few times after that event, I never really forgot him. I didn't obsess over him and he didn't pop into my head daily, but when he showed up at sporadic events, I would remember that he was the guy with the cool cuff links. Heck, I even posted a Craigslist "Missed Connection" on him, despite the fact that I managed to snag his full name off of a form he was filling out near me.

I'm a terribly shy person in real life, but hot dang if I didn't start flirting with this guy from the very beginning. That says something, when even I start flirting. It started with talking about his cuff links. Then it was mild sexual innuendos. At one point I even made a joke to him that went something like: "It's kinda like the 'my side of the bed vs. your side of the bed' dispute. We can have that discussion later." And I winked. I freakin' winked.

I saw him again this weekend at an event we were both volunteering for. Our shift ended before the event did, so we decided to go get some alcohol. I grabbed him and one other volunteer (to lighten the pressure) and the three of us hit Halo.

Of course, in due time (I'm very patient at extracting this kind of information), I came to find out that this guy's had a boyfriend for something like over 10 years now. They met when he was freaking 18. Part of me is jealous just because they've been happy together for so long; another part of me is jealous of his boyfriend.

But if my stupid tendency to fall into mad crush-world at the drop of a hat has taught me anything at all, it has taught me how to come to expect this kind of disappointment. A lot of the best guys in this city are taken.

And I've learned to hide my disappointment well, not missing a beat and timing my response perfectly to the "I'm taken" hint-drop. I kick ass at not letting on that I would ever have been interested at all in something more than friendship.

So now I'm working on the third guy who came out with us that night. My bigger fear with him is that he kind of reminds me of my best friend's ex.

Thanks for the Warning

I walked into a colleague's office just now and was just about to say Hi when she greeted me with "Get out, go! Now!" She started waving her hands at me to get rid of me.

How rude, I thought, until I finally heard what else she was saying, a little softer than the rest of the words, by way of explanation:

"I just farted. Now get out!"

Alienation

It wasn't my first day at the new school, but I still felt like an outsider.

My parents had insisted that I attend a private prep school despite my desire to remain with my friends in the public school system. I was plucked from my comfortable surroundings and dropped into a new world, filled with new people, experiences, and worldviews, in the eighth grade.

Although the school taught kids from kindergarten through high school graduation, the largest influx of "new" students usually occurred at one of four distinct levels: kindergarten, fourth grade, seventh grade, or ninth grade. I and a handful of others provided exceptions to this situation. For all I know, I replaced some other kid who simply wasn't performing up to standards, or who had moved away due to some family tragedy.

Fitting in was difficult: everyone had already had at least a year to cultivate friendships and get to know each other. Painfully shy that I was (and to some extent still am), I found myself adrift, lost. For the first month, many was the day I went from 7:30 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. without speaking a word to anyone.

Making things still more difficult for me was the fact that I'm from a decidedly middle-class background, likely even a lower-middle class one. I did not grow up with many creature comforts; I did not live in a big house; I did not own nice clothes or any of the shiny gadgets that the cool (read: more well-off) kids had. In my public school district, in my group of friends, such externalities didn't really matter, for we all had a shared sense of what was "affordable" and what wasn't. Here, the bar on frivolous spending money was raised, and I was left behind in my JCPenney clothes while my peers paraded around in brand names.

After a while I made an effort. I reached out to a handful of other kids who seemed nice. My first distinct memory of doing so was talking to Todd from my English class, whom I observed furiously scribbling something or another on a piece of paper supported by his Trapper Keeper one morning before classes started. Somehow I recognized it to be an assignment that was due that day which I had not completed either ("We were supposed to do that? And it's due today?"). Had he not reminded me, I would have never done that Reader's Response. (Thanks, Todd.)

By mid-semester I had finally hit something of a comfort zone. I had some friends, I was mildly outgoing, and I was determined not to look like I was trying too hard to fit in. I smiled and acted friendly a lot. I suppose it was reasonable for someone observing from the outside to think that I was popular and outgoing, and had a lot of friends.

Mr. Harrison, my English teacher, apparently thought that of me.

I've long since forgotten the story that we had finished reading, but the memory of Mr. Harrison's enlightened "exercise" to illustrate a point still haunts me. The story had something to do with being an outcast, a misfit, a nobody. Someone in the story just didn't belong in the environment she was in.

Without explanation, Mr. Harrison picked me and three others to leave the room and wait in the hall for a bit. The only other person I remember who was selected with me was William, who was probably the most popular guy in the class. (Unlike me, he genuinely was pretty well-liked -- I think.)

When we eventually were summoned to return to the room, we found that the rest of the class had broken up into four groups, with their chairs turned toward each other in little circles. Each of us who had left the room joined one of the groups, and we were supposed to talk about something or another in these discussion groups. I took my seat (now with a group that was clear across the room from where I normally sat for class), pulled out my textbook, and waited for something to happen.

What happened was not what I expected. I started to speak, but was roundly ignored. I tried to listen, but it seemed like they were whispering to keep me out of the loop. Eventually I had to ask to be included in the discussion, at which point Kerry rather coldly told me to "just go read the book again." (I think this was literally the third sentence she uttered to me, ever.) For ten agonizing minutes, I was completely shut out, despite my efforts. I was transported back to my first day of classes, once again isolated, reminded anew that this world was not one in which I belonged.

With the force of Vesuvius, all my insecurities -- feelings which by that point I thought I had decently suppressed -- erupted to the surface. I could feel my cheeks flush bright red and worse yet, I found my eyes started to well up. I blinked once, twice, three times, four, seven, eleven, whatever it took; I was willing myself to stop, for I was certain I would never have been able to live down the indignity of crying in front of my peers so early in my career at this school. But I do remember thinking how much I now once again hated this school, the people, the pretension, the hypocrisy, the sense of entitlement. These kids were so mean.

Mr. Harrison possibly saw what was going on with me, because the exercise terminated very quickly thereafter. We all turned our chairs back to face the front of the room, which was good because it meant no one could see my just-this-close-to-utterly-losing-it face.

Mr. Harrison explained his little game: the kids in the room were instructed to be as standoffish as possible with the effect of excluding those of us who had been sent outside. This exercise was meant to demonstrate the feelings of alienation so that we could sympathize with whatever the woman in the story felt or did.

It worked. I felt alone and rejected.

We were called upon to talk about the experience. Thankfully, William (who had more confidence and social skills in the eighth grade than I possess today) survived his ordeal intact, and was able to talk about how he felt and what he was thinking. Had I attempted to open my mouth, I probably would have burst into tears. Some other kids even managed to mention how hard it was to be the exclusionary ones and act so rudely to the Selected Four. (It made me feel marginally better to see Kerry nodding her head in agreement to this comment.)

In the end, Mr. Harrison explained that he had selected the four of us because he had pegged us as some of the more outgoing and friendly kids in the class, who probably would be able to handle the rejection best. I resisted the urge to tell him just how wrong he was.

Mr. Harrison asked the class to give a hand to the Selected Four for "being good sports" and participating in this exercise (as if we had any choice in the matter). Never mind that I wanted to wring his neck.

** Epilogue: I eventually came out of my shell, made a solid core of friends, endured five years of academic hell and graduated. There are many other, much happier memories of my alma mater that I carry with me to this day. But this one anchors me to a place in my life that I don't ever want to return to.

Rise of the Machines

I got into a fight with an obstinate inanimate (yet interactive) machine this past weekend. We're not talking about a simple disagreement; I mean an actual shouting match. Well, I guess in truth I was really the only one shouting, but still.

On my way to a party this weekend, I ducked into the Harris Teeter to purchase a dessert. That's all I wanted was a dessert, nothing special, nothing fancy, just a quick few bucks on decent food to share. I figured rather than wait in a line, I would use one of those self-checkout lanes.

Yeah. Those things are less fun or efficient than one would think they are.

First, there is literally no way to do it as fast as the checkout people do it. You can't just take your stuff and go BEEPBEEPBEEP and have all your items rung up quickly (if you have more than one item). As the artificially patient computer voice tells you, after scanning an item, you must place it in a bag at the bagging area right next to the scanner. You may not scan another item until it senses that you've placed the first item down in the bagging area. (There's clearly a scale or something there.)

I figured with just one item it couldn't be that much of a hassle, right?

Wrong.

I picked what appeared to be a nice sized chiffon cake with some cherry drizzle on top. I forget now what it actually was (that's not important to this story now is it?). I didn't plan to eat any of it, so hey, I grabbed what looked pretty and was reasonably priced. Then HAL 9000 decided to pick a fight with me.

After I "touched here to start,"* then decided I neither had nor would be able to scam someone's discount card from them (oh, the pain of an additional $2!), I was ready to rock. I placed the cake on the scanner and let it do its magic.

Okay, at first yes, it was my fault for not realizing that the bar code wasn't facing either of the two scanning surfaces. "What the heck?" I found myself thinking. Why isn't it going BEEP? I'm used to the Whole Foods, where they put the bar codes on the bottom of containers so that the cashiers can just run it over the scanner. There was no bar code on the bottom of this plate. I had to turn the thing until the code was in the right spot on the side of the packaging. Okay, no biggie.

Then the fight began in earnest. "Please place your item in a bag," HAL told me.** I dutifully placed the cake on the area near the bags (it didn't fit in a standard bag so I figured I'd take care of it later, after having paid).

"Please remove any additional items from the bag and place them on the scanner." Uh, what additional items? But HAL was adamant. I was to take something or another from the bag and put it through the scanner.

So I took the cake off the bagging area again. "Please scan your item," HAL told me.

"But I've already scanned this!" I told it. (Yes, I actually started talking to it.) I could see it on the screen: there was already a line item on the receipt for this cake. I would be damned if I was going to scan it again.

So I put it back on the bagging area. Apparently this was not what I was supposed to do.

"Please remove any additional items from the bag and place them on the scanner."

"There are no additional items!" I exclaimed, starting to get a little annoyed. So once again, I removed the cake from the bagging area.

"Please scan your item."

"No! No! I will not be charged double for this damn cake!" I cried. I refused to scan the item again, knowing full well that if I double-scanned it, I would only have to call over a manager, and that would be, well, extremely embarrassing. I suppose I should have thought of this before I started screaming at a machine.

I put the cake back on the bagging area and, of course, was predictably met with an all-too-calm request to take the item off of the bagging area so that it could be scanned.

This happened three times. What's the definition of stupidity? Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Yeah, that's me. HAL, 1; Me, 0.

Finally, I noted a button on the screen that said something to the effect of "No More Items." Shrewdly keeping my cake off the bagging area, and knowing that the cake had already been rung up, I pressed that button.

Thankfully, the rest of the process resolved itself without a hitch. The machine even successfully accepted three pieces of paper currency without once spitting any of it back, which I found most impressive.

I then split, heading off to my little party, cake happily in hand. Then it promptly got blown away by some gale-force winds. It bounced three times before I caught up to it and by then the cherry icing was slathered all over the inside of the container. Lovely.


* That would make a great intro to foreplay. Like, on a person instead of an automated checkout machine.

** Even though I call it HAL, the voice was female, which is good. Because if it had been a male voice, I think I would have freaked.

It's All About the Money

I had a strange dream last night. It involved money -- specifically my money -- so it freaked me out a little.

I dreamt that I logged on to my bank account and found that both my savings and my checking account were completely depleted. Empty. Balance: zero (squared). I had no money to my name. In my dream, I hunted down the source of the error: a payment that I had intended to send out for $100 somehow got recorded as $21,000. Really. Uh, lemme tell ya, I don't have that much money to my name. (I still remember the one time when I did actually have a check for a very large sum of money made out to me in my hands. Then the mean people at the mortgage company made me endorse the back of it and hand it over to them.)

Needless to say, the first chance after waking up I logged back on to the Internets to double-check on the status of my account. I didn't want to find that I had somehow or another been strangely prescient in my dream; and if I was, I planned to (a) freak out about my psychic abilities; and (b) call the bank pronto.

Thankfully, there was still money in my accounts.

Not that my accounts were still error-free.

Among the many, many things you don't ever want to see as an entry on your bank account statement is "TRANSACTION CANCELLED DUE TO LOW BALANCE." Immediately following that entry is another one you don't particularly welcome: the entry telling you that they've charged you a fee for that cancellation.

See, I have an intricate yet perfectly-timed system for paying bills on line. My paychecks get deposited on pay day to my savings account. After the funds clear in two to three days, I transfer the money to my checking account. A day after that, I instruct my bank to send out a huge slew of checks (or however they get money to other institutions; I don't care as long as it gets there) to my various bloodsuckers creditors. As long as the value of the checks I send doesn't exceed the amount I've transferred, I'm good to go. As a safeguard, I also have in place that system where they take money from my savings in the event you my fingers write checks my checking account can't cash (for another additional fee, of course).

Mind you, I've been doing this for years. It works great. Online banking rules. You don't have to write all these checks by hand; you don't have to take care of those dumb return envelopes or make sure that the return address appears properly in the window; you don't have to deal with those snide reminders that "The Post Office will not deliver mail without the proper postage" (duh!).

For some reason, this past time, I managed to ask the bank to transfer funds -- funds required for these payments to go out properly -- FROM my checking TO my savings. Needless to say, of course, there's no money in the checking to transfer to the savings. So, of course, the computer system (in its infinite wisdom) automatically transferred funds from my savings account -- at additional cost to me -- for the purposes of executing this screwed-up transfer. Yep: the bank took money from my savings account and put it in my checking acount so that my checking account would have sufficient funds... to transfer to my savings account. There's a very O. Henry quality to that logic.

Apparently my bank also is set to transfer a small amount ($25.00) from my checking to my savings every month. The type of accounts I have requires me to do this. This transfer is the amount that was cancelled (for a small service fee!) because after transferring that mammoth amount to my savings (after taking it from my savings) there was nothing more to transfer on top of that. Urg.

Well everything seems to be straightened out now. Thankfully, none of the creditors had posted my payments yet, so nothing "bounced" again. I just transferred the money back to my checking again, and everything (save for two service fees) should be right with my money again.

Oh the joys of being a responsible adult with bills to pay.

Lyang Nyan

Two years ago on this date More Than My Luggage debuted in this space. It ain't much, but it's fun for me to write, and it's nice to know there are people out there who read this and actually enjoy it.

If you're reading this, thanks. And be sure to leave a comment.

What's My Age Again?

Lately I feel like I'm stuck in some strange limbo. Actually, I've felt like this for a long time, which is odd given the subject matter of this odd limbo. I think I've always been an "old soul"; classic youthful pecadillos weren't ever my thing, and I never did undertake those "youthful indiscretions" that I often hear others talking about.

Attending a birthday celebration this weekend for a friend of mine at an Adams Morgan bar, I noticed how the event quickly focused almost solely on the alcohol. Now don't get me wrong, I'm all about the hooch, and as adults we've pretty much earned the right to imbibe what we want to in this patronizing, paternalistic country. But when the birthday girl's busy doing shots of Jaeger on top of her beers and then having to get walked home... well, really, how old am I? And is it strange that this happening to adults, practicing lawyers among them? Shouldn't we have learned by now to moderate our alcohol intake? (For the record, I didn't have that much and woke up hangover-free the next day. In my own bed.*)

Oddly enough, with my other set of friends, I flip the other way. I'm the immature one. The one who still laughs at wildly inappropriate jokes; the one who finds adventure in strange and different things. Once I suggested going to a "Quiet Party" that was somewhat popular at the time. (At "Quiet Parties," you're not allowed the speak. You exchange notes all night. I hear it's an interesting experience. Never made it because none of my friends wanted to go.) I also once suggested "Dining the Dark," where you pay for the privilege of meeting people you can't see, because you're led blindfolded into a dark room at which time you're served food you can't see. You have be adventurous enough both to eat what you can't see, and to talk to others at your table (whom you also can't see) about it. Again, this idea got no takers.

That's me in a nutshell: responsible (coughcoughahem) attorney by day, random strange person by night. This is why I never do well at any of those Myers Briggs tests: I can answer any question either way just based on my whims.

This is also why finding a long-term dating companion is well-nigh impossible.


* Not that I didn't try for an alternate circumstance. At a straight bar. Yeah.

Dead Giveaway

I realized recently that one of the reasons I hate to clean my apartment is that there's so much stuff that needs to be thrown out, and I simply don't have the heart to do so. Even completely defective items tend to make their home in my home; if I paid money for it, I want the product, dammit, even if it doesn't work.

Last night I finally began the process of instituting a purge on some of my more useless gadgets. On reflection, though, I decided that some of the still-functioning (and even one not-so-functioning) product may find decent homes elsewhere. (The dead DVD player, the archaic old computer from which I had already harvested the hard drive, and a dead VCR, however, will make their way to a trash bin very very soon.) So where else does a boy with things to give away turn? You got it: Craigslist.

I decided to give away:

(1) a bathroom lighting fixture. I replaced it with another one, but since the old one works fine, I didn't want to junk heap it.

(2) a cheap-ass digital camera. Seriously, it's so ghetto it doesn't even have a "preview picture" function. In that way, it's really no different at all from a 35mm camera, though I guess you don't need to pay to develop your crappy-ass pictures. Oh, I also don't know how much memory it holds on its own, but there's no room in it for any SD card or other external memory storage device.

(3) a wireless router. I swear, it doesn't work. I said as much in my ad! I set it up in my apartment, and my laptop -- a mere three inches from the antenna -- wouldn't pick up the signal. This despite the fact that my laptop will happily latch on to the signal coming from some neighbor named "Mike." But I figured if someone wanted to fiddle with it, more power to them. I wash my hands of it.

I posted the above ads just before and after midnight. As of 9:00 the next morning, I had received close to 80 emails. This includes emails wanting the wireless router (which I specifically said doesn't work!). CLers can be desperate, I guess. I mean, I expected someone would still be interested in these crappy stuff (okay, well, the light fixture really isn't all that crappy), but for people to be clamoring for them... wow. Two or three people actually wrote mini-essays on why they wanted the camera: one was a photojournalist who needed it for a work (if snapping photos is your career, you're gonna want a real camera, dude); another was a grad student in need of digital photos of something or another (I forget what, but it sounded legit), or wanted it for a charity. (Unfortunately, the charity ones came too late or I seriously would have considered them before giving them away to some random person.)

In any event, all these items left my hands within 48 hours after I clicked "Post" on CL. Hopefully the router won't become someone else's grand paper weight.

I wonder whether there's any interest out there in a dead DVD player, a dead VCR, and an archaic old computer shell with no hard drive.

Quirky Much?

Some time ago, Blueberry Pie tagged me with the meme that I've been ruminating on. The meme itself is simple. It's the answers that always get to me.

Meme: List five "weird habits" about yourself, then tag five other bloggers to do the same thing. Here's my list:

1. I talk to myself. I have seriously been known to carry on entire conversations with myself. Sometimes I laugh -- sometimes out loud in public places -- at my own silly responses to myself. Other times I actually chastise myself for being stupid enough to even think certain things. I provide checks and balances for myself this way. I could write entire dialogs which are, in reality, monologues. (Why are those two words spelled differently? That's just weird.)

2. I make strange noises -- out loud -- when I'm frustrated or annoyed. It started as "grrrr," which slowly evolved to an annoyed "aaaaarrrrr," which turned into a pirate-like "aaaaarh!" (sometimes i'll even toss in the "matey!"), and at some point this noise further (d)evolved into something sounding like "raaaah-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba." I have no idea where those last syllables came from. But it's fun to make that sound, so it kinda diffuses the stress that led to it, because I will laugh at myself for making that stupid noise.

3. I am absolutely awful when it comes to laundry. I'll do it only when I run out clothes (usually dress shirts for work). Then even when it's done, I'm terrible and hanging them back up or otherwise returning them to a spot properly designated for clean clothes. Frequently, my laundry basket is actually being used to house clean clothes while the dirty ones accumulate in a pile in my bathroom.

4. I still sleep with two of my stuffed animals. Well, at least they're still sitting on the bed. Sometimes I talk to them. And they talk back. This is only slightly different from #1, but in a material way.

5. I develop silly little schoolgirl crushes very quickly. There used to be a time when they were really awful, because I would also get upset when I realized the object of my crush didn't return the feeling. Now I just recognize them as stupid little crushes, never act on them, and let them run their course. This is particularly helpful when I develop silly little crushes on straight boys.

Full disclosure: There are probably much weirder things in my life worth sharing, but I'm just too lazy to think of them now. Hey, maybe that's a #6: I am lazy as all get out. But then #3 pretty much adequately demonstrates that too, doesn't it?

I'm supposed to tag five people for this meme, but I just don't feel like it (laziness again?), so I won't. But don't let that stop you from playing along now that you've read this.

Reveal Yourself!

On February 11, someone found this blog by searching for "Dennis Spain." S/he then proceeded to spend close to two hours poking around this site, touching upon some 59 pages.

Not that this is a problem, but...

If this is you and you're a friend of mine, reveal yourself now!

February 14, Redux

Sorry for the double-post, but I just saw this on Modigli's blog and figured it was a fun thing to post, so:

Your Candy Heart Says "Cutie Pie"

You always seem to have a hot date, even though you never try to meet anyone. A total charmer, you have a natural appeal that keeps you in high demand. Your ideal Valentine's Day date: multiple dates with multiple people Your flirting style: 100% natural What turns you off: serious relationship talks Why you're hot: you're totally addicting

What Does Your Candy Heart Say?

If only they knew how totally wrong they are.

February 14

I wanted to come up with some cheesy, schmaltzy post about love on Valentine's Day, but I'm just unable.

How about this: Not that anyone cares, but I've pulled my profile off of match.com. Well, at least I think I have. I've asked them to, but when I log in, I can still see it, which makes me doubt.

I took advantage of their three-day free trial offer once recently and sent off a spate of "winks" just for fun. One guy told me he wasn't interested. Unfortunately, that was a guy I had met before. Oh well. I'm hoping he just somehow doesn't realize that I'm the guy from the brunch.

In the end, match.com just way too expensive for it to be realistically worth it to have a profile up at all. When I first signed up, any paying member could send an email, and the recipient could read and respond to it after that. Now, a paying member sends an email, and the recipient must also pay to read it and respond. I know I'm not willing to shell out that kind of dough, so I may as well remove myself from that particular search engine.

Oh, and one more random point of interest: While on this day we tend to talk about "Cupid's Arrow" and blah blah blah, it's funny that the word "cupidity" is defined as "excessive greed with respect to material wealth." Food for thought.

Happy Valentine's Day.

On Theft and Racial Stereotyping

The one bad thing that did happen to me during my recent 48-hour trip to Los Angeles: I had my man-bag stolen. It contained, among other things, a digital camera and probably a little over $100 in cash. (My wallet and cell phone were still in my pockets.)

Somehow I can't help thinking of a grander significance to this event.

My family and I (there were 15 of us around two tables) were just winding down dinner when I pulled out my camera and snapped a few shots, then tucked the camera back into the bag, which was at my feet. Our table was near the entrance to the restaurant, and it was a fairly wide-open area with no real reservation/reception area to speak of. There was also one of those coin-operated games right by the front door, where you operated a claw to grab stuffed animals and hope the claw doesn't drop them before it reaches the escape hatch.

I actually saw the thief. The one guy I noticed most was, for whatever reason, a tall guy wearing a white oversized sports jersey, some bling around his neck, and a red baseball cap turned backwards. I believe he was latino. For some reason, I was turning around to observe the door often, and saw him there for a few minutes.

I honestly thought nothing of him. At one point he made his way over to that dorky stuffed-animal game and I remember thinking how funny it was that that machine was so attractive. (We had watched a guy with his kids playing with it before dinner started too.) I did not think "This guy looks sketchy" or "This guy looks like a thug" or even "What the hell is a latino guy doing in a Vietnamese restaurant (where the menus aren't even in English)?"

Perhaps this was my (first) mistake.

Before I knew it, I noticed the guy go running out the door. A buddy of his also hightailed it out at the same time. I didn't see my man-bag in his hand. Only about a minute later did I notice it was no longer on the floor: It was far too late for me to even dream of recovering it.

This guy had somehow or another managed to make his way pretty damn close to me and my cousin (sitting next to me), reach down to the floor, and get my man-bag away from me. How I did not sense or notice his presence or the movement of my bag still baffles me. How this could have happened with fifteen pairs eyes at the table -- not to mention restaurant staff and other patrons -- flabbergasts me. And how someone can come up with the unmitigated gall to even attempt to pull that off in those circumstances chills me. Would he have been willing to confront me if I had noticed? Would he have pulled out a weapon of some sort if I had put up some resistance? We'll never know.

But the larger ramifications of the event still haunt me in odd ways.

If this were some Jean Valjean who was really down on his luck and desperate, perhaps it would be easier for me to understand his motivations. But he looked like he had everything he really needed; either he just wanted more, or theft was fun for him.

Of course, I was a fool for not paying attention to my surroundings, and, frankly, for ignoring the fact that I had seen him loitering in the entranceway without making an effort to kick my bag further under the table or to loop the strap under a leg of my chair. I suppose waaaaaay deep down inside I thought something was in fact amiss, given the number of times I made eye contact with this guy before he pulled off his stunt.

And then there's the broader implications still. This guy was latino. I refuse to say that all latinos are crooks or anything, but a part of me will probably always carry that with me now. This guy is now "The latino guy who stole my camera from right under me". And then I can't help thinking how he does himself and his entire race a disservice that way. As a latino man, he should probably by now realize that stereotypes do not work in his favor in this country. Sure, he's just one individual, but when he goes around stealing -- even once -- does that at all help the reputation of latino men, at least in my eyes?

Contrast, for example, his background to mine. Outside of gang-related activity, Asians don't have much of a reputation for hooliganism or otherwise running outside of the law. If I were to go about committing crimes, I'm going to guess that most of the rest of the American population wouldn't leap to a larger conclusion about Asian men in general.

But this guy was latino, and he does have that stigma attached to him. So even if someone (like me) were to approach him as a completely blank slate without racial bias, his actions could tilt them toward believing the stereotypes. Why would you do stuff like that which can only further hurt the reputation of everyone who shares your skin tone and/or background?

In the end, of course, there are no answers, only questions which I cannot possibly wrap my feeble mind around. I am confident that I will not be generalizing this one experience to all latino men -- I live in an area with far too many latinos around for me to start fearing them all now.

At the same time, like other victims of crimes perpetuated by stereotyped ethnic minorities, I will always carry a memory of this incident. I hope and resolve that it won't bleed into my life in any way that matters.

The Balance of Two Evils

Andrew Clark: What do they [your parents] do to you?
Allison Reynolds: They ignore me.

-- The Breakfast Club (1985)


I recently had a conversation with my friend Mark about some mutual friend we had whom we both had lost touch with. Thing is, neither of us so much "lost touch" with her so much as we no longer really cared to keep her company. Since that conversation I've come to realize that that decision -- the conscious decision to just stop making efforts to keep in someone's company -- more than once in my life. (Most prominent example here.)

Which is when I got to thinking: is there a difference between "hating" someone (or even "really disliking" someone), and just no longer really caring about them?

It seems that objectively, there is an actual difference between "just losing touch" and having a full-on falling-out. But for the person whose being involuntarily "dumped," does that make much of a difference?

Dee, for example, still doesn't really realize what happened between us that caused me to decide to stop really including her in my life. She's never inquired and I've never bothered to fill her in. As far as I can tell, she doesn't know whether my decision is based upon a one-time (and one-sided) falling-out, or whether we just drifted apart. Does this make a functional difference to her?

Possibly.

Joanne and I pretty much suffered from a similar fate. We were friends in high school and through a little of college, but eventually -- at least the way I characterize it -- we drifted apart. We weren't that interested in keeping up with each other's lives anymore. We just gradually stopped calling, stopped writing or exchanging emails, and even stopped the once-a-year holiday card exchange. Even though I've been in one place for over 10 years now, she hasn't seen the need to inform me when she moves to a new city. (Even when that new city is Alexandria, Virginia, just outside of DC.) And I don't fault her for that.

Mark does keep in touch with her, though, and the real truth of the matter is that she feels about me the same way I feel about Dee -- there are certain characteristics of mine that she doesn't care for, and these don't outweigh any of the pros of keeping in touch with me. Hm, is this a karmic payback, or just the way life goes? (Is there even a difference between the two?)

Does this distinction make a difference for me? It kinda does, if for no other reason than I'm one of those people who just likes to be liked. Even though I know you can't please all of the people all of the time, it distresses me when I think that people -- particularly people I've shared some really good times with as friends -- actually don't like me anymore, as opposed to just drifted away from me. (Though it's getting easier and easier for me to put aside the "need-to-be-liked" mentality and just ask that people accept me for who and how I am.)

But is that just me? Perhaps in Dee's mind, she and I have "just drifted apart," and she's perfectly okay with that, the same was as I am okay with my former relationship with Joanne. Or perhaps Dee knows that there was actually a precipitating event (though she can't place her finger on it); if she does, does this change anything about her perception of our former relationship?

Someone once said something to the effect of "It's better to be talked about badly, than to not be talked about at all." It's kind a turn of "there's no such thing as bad publicity." Is the same true for situations like the one I'm rambling about? Is it better to be thought of and disliked, or to not be thought of at all?

The Ties That Bind

Some things I picked up from this quick weekend jaunt to Los Angeles to see the 'rents (and others):

- Expect the worst. If for no other reason than, when it doesn't come to pass, what you get instead is a surprisingly pleasant time.

- My family has some deep-seated animosities toward the spouses of some of my cousins. I mean DEEEEP. Yikes.

- My Uncle Tim has a strange dynamic in his family: you can tell he really cares for them, but hot damn, he can be a dictator.

- I'm sooooo glad my mom and my Uncle Randy have mended their rift. It's nice to see them together again.

- What my family considers "fun" and what I consider "fun" differ wildly.

- My cousin (in the 7th grade) has some fascinating reading material. I picked some random young adult book I found in the car (because we weren't doing anything and I was bored) and couldn't put the book down. Well, that's also because I wanted to finish it before I left town again, and it's 260 pages. Even with young adult books, I'm not a very fast reader.

- "Istanbul (Not Constantinople)", a song I originally heard on the Flood album by They Might Be Giants (1990), is actually a cover of the same song by The Four Lads from 1953. Which is a little disappointing for me, because I though that song was just so wonderfully characteristic of TMBG's quirkiness, but it apparently wasn't unique. Ah well.

- I feel kinda bad now for those times I went to Los Angeles and didn't tell anyone in my family I was going. Mostly it was because I didn't want to feel obligated to call my relatives in the area, and besides, I had plans with friends that would have made carving out time for family difficult. But just the same, I feel bad for thinking bad things about why I didn't want to hang out with them.

Oh, and here's a photo of the infamous pool. If you see anyone in it, please tell me immediately, because I'm told that my cousin Bob asked Brandon to leave (politely, I hope). If he's still there, we'll have to have Bob come back and, well, ask again.

Unrefined

I'm participating in an online poetry "reading" organized by Reya. Unfortunately, I am neither the deep, sensitive soul nor the literary connoisseur, so my entry seems rather banal. But it's fun, and rather astute.


the boys i mean are not refined, by e.e. cummings

the boys i mean are not refined
they go with girls who buck and bite
they do not give a fuck for luck
they hump them thirteen times a night

one hangs a hat upon her tit
one carves a cross on her behind
they do not give a shit for wit
the boys i mean are not refined

they come with girls who bite and buck
who cannot read and cannot write
who laugh like they would fall apart
and masturbate with dynamite

the boys i mean are not refined
they cannot chat of that and this
they do not give a fart for art
they kill like you would take a piss

they speak whatever's on their mind
they do whatever's in their pants
the boys i mean are not refined
they shake the mountains when they dance

Photo Op

I've had blogger-block lately. It's awful. I sit there at my computer and type away only to discard the product as crap, not even blogworthy (and we all know I've put up some pretty bad stuff here).

So I'm taking still more days off from everything this month. Tomorrow (early morning) I head out to LA to see some family for the weekend. Originally it was to be Las Vegas, but that plan got nixed becuase Super Bowl fans everywhere seem to have booked up the city solid.

My parents, whom I have not seen in several years (it seems) will be there and will undoubtedly yell at me for whatever (I'm fat, I've got bad breath, I packed too much, I packed too little, my nose is running/stuffed, my hair looks stupid, my clothes are wrinkly, blah blah blah) and I will undoubtedly grin and bear it, as I always seem to. The uncle we're staying with (I do so wish I could credibly assert the need to stay in a hotel) I've never really gotten along well with, even though there's a thawing out in progress lately.* And his son is only about twelve or something, and I have nothing in common with him.

But this is also the house with the infamous Brandon pool. I plan to take a few pictures just to see how they turn out on my camera, just to see if I can spot the hoodie. Wish me luck.

Yeah, I'm looking forward to this trip. Uh huh.


* By the way, as an update to that post about "Letting Go," my mother and her brother Randy have, for the past several months now (more or less since my grandmother's passing) actually been speaking to each other, and on pleasant terms. I find this both astounding and wonderful at the same time. I'm proud that my mother, despite all the years between them, is capable of FINALLY letting go of whatever grudge existed between them, swallow her pride (she has an inordinately strong sense of pride) and "let go."