I was planning to write another long post in which I would reveal some of my deepest thoughts and tell you all about some emotional moment from my past.
But then I decided to take a step back.
What exactly am I doing here? I've been revealing a lot about myself lately. I've posted emotional poetry, stories about my my wife and me, and I've been shamelessly plugging my YT videos about emotional/romantic moments in my life. I also seem to tell stories related to at least one of my failed attempts at romance in at least every other one of my posts. Most people are least a little bit circumspect about their IRL-life when they post stuff online, but I can't seem to reveal enough about myself - and I actually get kinda sad when I think nobody is listening.
Am I really that narcissistic about my life, or it there something else going on here?
Well, part of it has to do with the fact that basic details of my current IRL are not very interesting. As I wrote in one of my earliest posts, I kinda wished I could have written a blog about 20 years ago. There was so much more drama back then, and I enjoy writing about drama. So, in the absence of IRL drama, I guess I kinda find myself inventing drama by reflecting on events in my past. I mean - really - given a choice between reading about my high school crushes, or reading about my basement, which would you rather read?
However, I think the biggest reason why I blog/vlog the way I do has to do with a deep desire I have to be understood. Or perhaps it's a fear of being misunderstood. I've always felt a bit misunderstood, and I figure that the best way to avoid that is to give other people insight into my thought process. I want people to understand the events in my life that shaped me. I want people to really KNOW me, particularly people that I like. I certainly like a few people in my online world, and these blogs/vlogs are the best way to reach them all. Now of course, revealing all this stuff in a public forum means that plenty of people who I don't know could form opinions of me. Perhaps some of these opinions could be unflattering. However, I don't really care. I care very deeply about how I'm view by the people I like, but I could care less what the rest of the world think about me. If I can make a blog/vlog that helps a friend get to know me better, I could care less if that same blog/vlog makes 100 people go WTF.
So yeah - I guess what I'm saying is that my blogging style isn't really going to change anytime soon. I shall continue to reveal myself to you fine folks, and if you don't like that, well ...
... let's just say I beseech thee to kiss my posterior presently. :p
Rich
Saturday, January 31, 2009
Friday, January 30, 2009
Poetry and My Wife
If you check the comments on my last post, you'll see a question about poetry and my wife. The question was "have you ever written your wife poems?".
I figured that I might as well answer that question for the benefit of everyone who reads this blog.
So, in short, the answer is yes. However, they were all written in the first few months we were dating. I was as giddy as a man could be at the time, and as a result, the poems are so sappy that I'm embarrassed to show them. Sure, Ruth appreciated them quite a bit, but when I look at them now, I realize they are extremely crappy ( I'm sure you've heard the expression "A face only a mother could love". Well, these poems were "Poems only a girlfriend could love".) . Perhaps not everybody needs to be a "tortured artist" to produce good art, but I'm convinced that I'm incapable of producing good poetry unless I'm a little bit tormented.
So, that's the "short" answer, but it's not the whole story.
You may be wondering, "What about the time you were courting Ruth?". Surely there must have been a time in that courtship when I was not so giddy? Surely there must have been a time when I wasn't convinced she would be my girlfriend. Surely there was a time went I felt quite lovelorn, and spent my time wooing her?
Well, the answers to the questions above are "yes". There certainly was a period of lovelorn wooing. So, why didn't that period of my life produce some Ruth-inspired poetry? Why wasn't poetry part of the wooing process?
Well, to understand that your are going to have to understand more about how Ruth and I ultimately became a couple. In order to understand that, you are going to have to click on this link.
Seriously now, I mean it. Click this LINK NAO!
This link, which I will keep repeating until you actually click it, tells the story about how Ruth and I became a couple. It is filled with sweetness, and it is called "First Kiss". Admittedly, it will take up 6 minutes and 40 seconds of your valuable time, but if it doesn't evoke an "AWW!" out of you, then you have a heart of stone, my friend. I mean, hey - I married the girl I had my first kiss with. Isn't that concept inherently sweet?
In any case, I hope clicking was done above, because I would love your feedback on my story. However, for those who don't have the time to click now, I will help you out by giving you this little nugget from the story:
I found out ( from a reliable source ) that Ruth was interesting in me before I attempted to court her. However, my initial attempt at courting went so badly that she soon told me that the she would never date me under any circumstances.
So, there was period of time when I was feeling quite rejected and lovelorn. So why no poetry? Well, soon after she told me "I'll never date you", I wrote Ruth a love letter. This did not go well. The letter made her quite angry. She wrote me a letter back to tell me my letter made it even less likely ( and she'd already told me "never" ) that she'd date me.
So, at this point, I needed to change my strategy a bit. I was certainly thinking of writing her some love poems, but it now seemed that sending her such poems would hurt my chances rather than help my chances. So, I took a step back and decided to just try and be good friends with her ( She was quite willing to be friends with me, which certainly gave me a clue that all was not lost ). I wrote her some more letters, but these were not "love letter" letters, at least not in an overt way. The letters certainly didn't contain any sappy love poems, or even any sappy prose. They were friendly letters, which helped Ruth to get to know me better. The letters helped Ruth become more comfortable with me. In the letters, I apologized for my earlier love letter, and for the stupid things I said when I first attempted to court her. No, they weren't love letters, but those letters are what ultimately won her over. And what happened when she was finally won over? Well, if you don't know the answer to that yet, you will need to CLICK.
So, no poems to Ruth during the courtship, because that would have been counter-productive. However, even though I was feeling lovelorn, there also were not any "woe is me!"-type poems that I wrote for myself. I think that's because even though Ruth told me "never", I never really believed her. For the first time in my life, I had confidence that I could win a girl's heart.
So, I've blogged/vlogged quite a bit about this subject, but one question you might have still remains unanswered. It's a question I was too embarrassed/ashamed to answer in front of my much larger YouTube audience, but for you special folks who take the time to read my blog, I think I will answer it now. The question is: "What went so wrong when I was initially courting Ruth? How did I mess things up so badly that I almost lost the love of my life?".
Well, it all has to do with the very fine line between confidence and arrogance. You hear all the time (and I don't doubt that it's true ) that most women are attracted to confidence in a man. Well, Ruth is not "most women". Ruth hates even the slightest amount of cockiness in a man, and she pretty much considers any high degree of confidence to be the same thing as arrogance. To this day, she gets a little bit angry if she detects too much confidence in me. I don't want to spend too much time playing amateur psychologist here, and I won't go into specifics about Ruth's past relationships, but I do think that the way she feels about confidence in man has something to do with stuff that happened in the years before she met me. I actually heard a Maria Mena song recently ( Found it on one of my blog reader's YT page. Thank you, you know who you are. :) ), that has some lyrics which might just give a clue about the way Ruth feels about men with too much confidence.
In any case, I had been rejected by every other girl I had courted in the past. My self-esteem had dipped to a point where I didn't think any girl would ever be interested in me. Thus, when I found out that Ruth was interested in me, I was filled with lots of confidence. The confidence itself wasn't a bad thing, but I should have been smart enough not to let Ruth see too much of that confidence.
I took completely the wrong approach when I - um- approached her. I should have done everything in my power to hide that fact that I knew she was interested in me. Instead, I essentially told her ( not in these exact words ) "Hey, I hear you are interested in me.".
I know, I know. What an idiot I was.
There was so much I didn't understand about women at the time. There was so much I didn't understand about people at the time.
I should have understood that most women ( including Ruth ) want to feel like they being pursued during a courtship. I should have understood that all people want to be with somebody who makes them feel special. I certainly didn't make Ruth feel special when I first attempted to court her, and I'll always regret that. I'll always regret that I hurt her feelings. I'll always regret that her first memory of our courtship will probably always be a rather sad and disappointing one. I didn't make her feel special at all, and she certainly deserved to feel special. If I could go back and change anything in my life, it would be those first few moments when I started to court Ruth.
In any case, it's not exactly a great revelation that love can be a complex thing. We all know that. We've all lived that. All you can really do is stumble your way through life and hope things work out in the end.
Well, this blog has got me thinking about a lot of things that I don't have time to blog about right now. I've already got my idea for my next post. There's so much I know now, that I wish I knew way back when. I think I will call my next post "Things I learned after it was too late".
Rich
I figured that I might as well answer that question for the benefit of everyone who reads this blog.
So, in short, the answer is yes. However, they were all written in the first few months we were dating. I was as giddy as a man could be at the time, and as a result, the poems are so sappy that I'm embarrassed to show them. Sure, Ruth appreciated them quite a bit, but when I look at them now, I realize they are extremely crappy ( I'm sure you've heard the expression "A face only a mother could love". Well, these poems were "Poems only a girlfriend could love".) . Perhaps not everybody needs to be a "tortured artist" to produce good art, but I'm convinced that I'm incapable of producing good poetry unless I'm a little bit tormented.
So, that's the "short" answer, but it's not the whole story.
You may be wondering, "What about the time you were courting Ruth?". Surely there must have been a time in that courtship when I was not so giddy? Surely there must have been a time when I wasn't convinced she would be my girlfriend. Surely there was a time went I felt quite lovelorn, and spent my time wooing her?
Well, the answers to the questions above are "yes". There certainly was a period of lovelorn wooing. So, why didn't that period of my life produce some Ruth-inspired poetry? Why wasn't poetry part of the wooing process?
Well, to understand that your are going to have to understand more about how Ruth and I ultimately became a couple. In order to understand that, you are going to have to click on this link.
Seriously now, I mean it. Click this LINK NAO!
This link, which I will keep repeating until you actually click it, tells the story about how Ruth and I became a couple. It is filled with sweetness, and it is called "First Kiss". Admittedly, it will take up 6 minutes and 40 seconds of your valuable time, but if it doesn't evoke an "AWW!" out of you, then you have a heart of stone, my friend. I mean, hey - I married the girl I had my first kiss with. Isn't that concept inherently sweet?
In any case, I hope clicking was done above, because I would love your feedback on my story. However, for those who don't have the time to click now, I will help you out by giving you this little nugget from the story:
I found out ( from a reliable source ) that Ruth was interesting in me before I attempted to court her. However, my initial attempt at courting went so badly that she soon told me that the she would never date me under any circumstances.
So, there was period of time when I was feeling quite rejected and lovelorn. So why no poetry? Well, soon after she told me "I'll never date you", I wrote Ruth a love letter. This did not go well. The letter made her quite angry. She wrote me a letter back to tell me my letter made it even less likely ( and she'd already told me "never" ) that she'd date me.
So, at this point, I needed to change my strategy a bit. I was certainly thinking of writing her some love poems, but it now seemed that sending her such poems would hurt my chances rather than help my chances. So, I took a step back and decided to just try and be good friends with her ( She was quite willing to be friends with me, which certainly gave me a clue that all was not lost ). I wrote her some more letters, but these were not "love letter" letters, at least not in an overt way. The letters certainly didn't contain any sappy love poems, or even any sappy prose. They were friendly letters, which helped Ruth to get to know me better. The letters helped Ruth become more comfortable with me. In the letters, I apologized for my earlier love letter, and for the stupid things I said when I first attempted to court her. No, they weren't love letters, but those letters are what ultimately won her over. And what happened when she was finally won over? Well, if you don't know the answer to that yet, you will need to CLICK.
So, no poems to Ruth during the courtship, because that would have been counter-productive. However, even though I was feeling lovelorn, there also were not any "woe is me!"-type poems that I wrote for myself. I think that's because even though Ruth told me "never", I never really believed her. For the first time in my life, I had confidence that I could win a girl's heart.
So, I've blogged/vlogged quite a bit about this subject, but one question you might have still remains unanswered. It's a question I was too embarrassed/ashamed to answer in front of my much larger YouTube audience, but for you special folks who take the time to read my blog, I think I will answer it now. The question is: "What went so wrong when I was initially courting Ruth? How did I mess things up so badly that I almost lost the love of my life?".
Well, it all has to do with the very fine line between confidence and arrogance. You hear all the time (and I don't doubt that it's true ) that most women are attracted to confidence in a man. Well, Ruth is not "most women". Ruth hates even the slightest amount of cockiness in a man, and she pretty much considers any high degree of confidence to be the same thing as arrogance. To this day, she gets a little bit angry if she detects too much confidence in me. I don't want to spend too much time playing amateur psychologist here, and I won't go into specifics about Ruth's past relationships, but I do think that the way she feels about confidence in man has something to do with stuff that happened in the years before she met me. I actually heard a Maria Mena song recently ( Found it on one of my blog reader's YT page. Thank you, you know who you are. :) ), that has some lyrics which might just give a clue about the way Ruth feels about men with too much confidence.
In any case, I had been rejected by every other girl I had courted in the past. My self-esteem had dipped to a point where I didn't think any girl would ever be interested in me. Thus, when I found out that Ruth was interested in me, I was filled with lots of confidence. The confidence itself wasn't a bad thing, but I should have been smart enough not to let Ruth see too much of that confidence.
I took completely the wrong approach when I - um- approached her. I should have done everything in my power to hide that fact that I knew she was interested in me. Instead, I essentially told her ( not in these exact words ) "Hey, I hear you are interested in me.".
I know, I know. What an idiot I was.
There was so much I didn't understand about women at the time. There was so much I didn't understand about people at the time.
I should have understood that most women ( including Ruth ) want to feel like they being pursued during a courtship. I should have understood that all people want to be with somebody who makes them feel special. I certainly didn't make Ruth feel special when I first attempted to court her, and I'll always regret that. I'll always regret that I hurt her feelings. I'll always regret that her first memory of our courtship will probably always be a rather sad and disappointing one. I didn't make her feel special at all, and she certainly deserved to feel special. If I could go back and change anything in my life, it would be those first few moments when I started to court Ruth.
In any case, it's not exactly a great revelation that love can be a complex thing. We all know that. We've all lived that. All you can really do is stumble your way through life and hope things work out in the end.
Well, this blog has got me thinking about a lot of things that I don't have time to blog about right now. I've already got my idea for my next post. There's so much I know now, that I wish I knew way back when. I think I will call my next post "Things I learned after it was too late".
Rich
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Free Verse
I will have a fairly meaningful post coming soon ( A post in which I actually say something original ), but tonight I will be lazy and borrow from some stuff I wrote in high school and college. To follow up on my little rhyming poem yesterday, I'd thought I'd give you a little sample of some of my old free verse stuff.
I wrote the one below in high school. It was one of my first poems ever ( not counting stuff for school assignments ).
The Sigh
The cloud
is emitted
and I
imbibe it.
My heart
saturated
with dew drops
of your soul.
The mist
seeps forth
and I
understand.
I wrote the two below in college, during the "College Girl #1" phase of my life.
Black Coffee
The coffee cup
which lies
alone
(Lost
in the shadows
falling
over the table.
One
small
drop
stains
the surface
where
unseen cracks
break
through
as it slips
into a puddle
of cold
black
coffee.)
is empty.
Summer 1990
Sometimes,
I sit on the steps by the street.
They're nice steps.
I feel like they know me.
My bed knows me too,
as well as the kitchen table,
the LL train,
and those fluorescent lights in the hall.
(They know me all too well)
I feel like a drifter sometimes,
though truth be told,
I don't stray very far.
Wandering can be good for me ( I think ).
I think about lots of things -
things that only steps and fluorescent lights should know.
Serenity.
I guess you could call it that
(But would I?)
I fell stronger,
more at at peace than I've been in a while.
Yet sometimes it feels like I'll be writing
your name
forever.
By the steps,
On the table,
Under the fluorescent lights.
In pencil,
In pen,
On a foggy car window.
It's a nice name
I feel like it knows me.
But I'm a warrior now,
My strength won't fade,
And only the fluorescent lights know
that those five letters can still feel so good.
I wrote the one below in high school. It was one of my first poems ever ( not counting stuff for school assignments ).
The Sigh
The cloud
is emitted
and I
imbibe it.
My heart
saturated
with dew drops
of your soul.
The mist
seeps forth
and I
understand.
I wrote the two below in college, during the "College Girl #1" phase of my life.
Black Coffee
The coffee cup
which lies
alone
(Lost
in the shadows
falling
over the table.
One
small
drop
stains
the surface
where
unseen cracks
break
through
as it slips
into a puddle
of cold
black
coffee.)
is empty.
Summer 1990
Sometimes,
I sit on the steps by the street.
They're nice steps.
I feel like they know me.
My bed knows me too,
as well as the kitchen table,
the LL train,
and those fluorescent lights in the hall.
(They know me all too well)
I feel like a drifter sometimes,
though truth be told,
I don't stray very far.
Wandering can be good for me ( I think ).
I think about lots of things -
things that only steps and fluorescent lights should know.
Serenity.
I guess you could call it that
(But would I?)
I fell stronger,
more at at peace than I've been in a while.
Yet sometimes it feels like I'll be writing
your name
forever.
By the steps,
On the table,
Under the fluorescent lights.
In pencil,
In pen,
On a foggy car window.
It's a nice name
I feel like it knows me.
But I'm a warrior now,
My strength won't fade,
And only the fluorescent lights know
that those five letters can still feel so good.
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Just one person
Just one person,
The words they've spoken.
Just one person,
can leave you broken.
So many others
may think you're great,
but just one person
can devastate.
Just one person,
Just one name,
Just one person
doesn't feel the same.
It shouldn't matter,
and yet it does.
Why should it hurt so?
Just because ...
--------------------------------
Notes:
I apologize for the bad grammar in the second line. I know I shouldn't be using "they've" when referring to a single person, but people speak that way all the time, and it's not my fault that the English language doesn't have any gender-neutral pronouns that can refer to somebody in the 3rd person.
I wrote this on the train on the way to work this morning. I was planning to finish the poem on the way home. I was planning to change the direction of the poem (mood-wise) in the second half of the poem. However, I couldn't think of a graceful way to transition to a positive message, and after re-reading the 4 stanzas above, I decided that there actually already is a positive message buried in there.
The words they've spoken.
Just one person,
can leave you broken.
So many others
may think you're great,
but just one person
can devastate.
Just one person,
Just one name,
Just one person
doesn't feel the same.
It shouldn't matter,
and yet it does.
Why should it hurt so?
Just because ...
--------------------------------
Notes:
I apologize for the bad grammar in the second line. I know I shouldn't be using "they've" when referring to a single person, but people speak that way all the time, and it's not my fault that the English language doesn't have any gender-neutral pronouns that can refer to somebody in the 3rd person.
I wrote this on the train on the way to work this morning. I was planning to finish the poem on the way home. I was planning to change the direction of the poem (mood-wise) in the second half of the poem. However, I couldn't think of a graceful way to transition to a positive message, and after re-reading the 4 stanzas above, I decided that there actually already is a positive message buried in there.
Saturday, January 17, 2009
16 Random Facts
The facts below are in response to being tagged by Shweta in a facebook tag game. After spending all this time writing these facts, I decided to post this on both facebook and my blog.
1) I had really bad Asthma as a child - so bad that I was was once hospitalized for about 4 days. I was only 4 years old, so the only things I remember vividly are the following:
- Most on the time I was there, my hospital bed was surrounded by a big plastic bubble. I believe they were pumping high-oxygen-content air into the bubble to help me breathe better.
- When my Mom would visit me, she would bring me these huge slices of processed turkey to eat. I remember that the slices were round and they were about as big as my head.
- On the day I left the hospital, my parents almost lost me. While my parents were busy talking to the doctor, I heard the sound of Sesame Street in a nearby room. Somehow, I managed to wander into this room without my parents noticing that I had left. I watched about 15 minutes of Sesame Street before my panicked parents found me in the room.
2) Due to my bad Asthma, I forbidden from eating anything I was even slightly allergic to. Thus, between the ages of 4 and 14, I was not allowed to eat the following foods:
Beef
Pork
Chicken
Potatoes
Any product with wheat
Perhaps this would have been okay if I had grown up in an Asian family where rice and fish were common at mealtime, but my parents were real "meat and potatoes" people. They both hated the taste of fish, and rice was only an occasional side dish ( They bought rice in tiny little boxes rather than in huge bags ). My Dad would probably eat steak and potatoes every day if he could. My Mom tried her best to find food I could eat, but my meals didn't really have a lot of variety ( lots of turkey and fish sticks ).
It really sucked to have these allergies considering what typical American kids like to eat. If I ever found myself at a McDonald's ...
- I couldn't eat the burger
- I couldn't eat the fries
- I couldn't eat the bun.
I also couldn't eat at KFC (Kentucky Fried Chicken), and pizza was supposed to be a no-no. However, I do remember my Mom would let me have pizza occasionally, because I guess my wheat allergy wasn't too severe.
Snack time was the worst. I remember sitting in kindergarten while the other little kids ate cookies and cakes, and I ate *nothing*. This is another example where being Asian would have helped a lot. My parents where not aware of all the yummy riced-based treats available at any Chinese bakery. My teacher eventually told my Mom that riced-based cookies were available, but my Mom wound up getting rice cookies from a health food store. The package simply said "Rice Cookies" in plain black lettering on white paper, and there were six cookies to a pack. The cookies were plain, round, and tasted like sweet cardboard. Still, they were better than nothing, and I enjoyed them.
Finally, when I was 14, I was re-tested for my food allergies and was told I could eat anything I wanted. This also meant the end to my weekly allergy shots. Between the ages of 4 and 14, I needed to get an allergy shot every Friday afternoon. It was really scary to get shots when I was 4 years old, but I actually got used to it after a month or so.
3) As a little kid, I was what people would call a "crybaby". Actually, I was that way until I was about 13 or so, so as you might imagine the teasing got really bad at times. I got frustrated very easily as a child and tears came real easy. The tears would lead to teasing which would lead to more tears. It was really a vicious cycle, especially because bully-types knew they could get me to cry easily. I remember that kids used to taunt me with a chant that went something like this ...
Baby, Baby!
Stick your head in gravy!
Wrap it up in bubble gum,
and send it to the Navy!
I know the chant above doesn't make much sense, but it still hurt a lot. In any case, lucky enough for me, I grew up to be bigger and more athletic than most of those bullies, so nobody really bothered me once I reached my teens. I don't think it was because anybody thought I was going to kick their ass if they teased me, but bullies tend to pick on easy targets, and I ceased to be an easy target when I became more than 6 feet tall.
My parents really didn't know how to deal with my crying, especially my Dad. He would make me feel guilty for being such a "sissy", which really only made things worse. It turns out that my son Michael has exactly the same personality as I did as child. I think I'm well prepared to deal with this. When he cries, I just tell him to try to think of happy thoughts, and I tell that I'm proud of him, and I that know he can be brave. I also give him lots of hugs. I re-assure my wife that Michael will be fine, and I make sure that I never do anything to make Michael feel guilty or more sad than he already is.
4) My Mom taught me how to tell time at the age of 4, and she almost immediately regretted it. A few weeks later, armed with this new knowledge, I noticed that the clock at the supermarket had a time of almost 4 o'clock. I knew that Batman ( the Adam West version ) came on at 4 PM each weekday ( "Same Bat Time, Same Bat Channel" ). I also remember that when the previous day's show ended, Batman and Robin were about to be eaten by a giant clam. Of course, even at that age, I knew they would escape, but I wanted to know how - and the only way to find out was to be in front of the TV at 4 PM that day. So, I did what most 4-year olds would do in that situation, I started to whine that we needed to go home to watch Batman. When my Mom tried to respond to my whining with logic ( "They repeat these shows all the time. You can see that episode another day" ), the full scale tantrum began.
I want Batman!
I WANT BATMAN!!!
I WANT BAAAAAAATTTTT - MAAAAAANNNNN!!!!!!
My poor Mom.
Eventually, my Mom couldn't take it anymore and simply walked away. She walked away, continued shopping with my baby brother, and left me crying in an aisle in the middle of the store ( It was a different world in 1974 - you could actually do that then. She was going to come back for me of course, but she wanted to make a point ). What she wasn't counting on was that less than one minute after she left me alone, my grandmother ( my Mom's mom ) walked into the aisle where I was crying ( Grandma had come separately - my Mom didn't know she was there ). Well, Grandma wasn't too happy to find her first grandchild left all alone crying in a supermarket. She gave my poor Mom hell for that, and I don't think she ever let my Mom forget it. In any case, I never did get to see Batman that day. I did eventually she that episode, but I think I was about 17 at the time.
5) 1984 is my favorite book of all time.
6) I think The Lord of the Rings ( the whole damn trilogy ) is the most overrated book of all time, especially among nerdy people like myself. I never bothered to read it when I was younger, but when it was announced that they were going to make Lord of the Rings movies, I figured that I'd better do my nerd-ly duty and read the thing before the movies came out.
Damn, I was almost angry by the time I finished the trilogy. I was angry when I though of all those hours of my life that I would never get back. Sure, I guess it was an okay saga, but I think the story could have been told in about 400 pages rather than the 1,200 pages I read. Seriously, it seems like the characters spent two thirds of the book just walking and eating. I know that mine is a minority opinion, because all nerdy folks seem to love that book, but I really hated it, and I don't care who I offend by saying it. OK, maybe I didn't hate it, but I just though reading it was a big waste of time ( Note: I played Dungeons and Dragons in high school, so I'm just the kind of person who is supposed to LOVE books like The Lord of the Rings ).
7) I was living in Manhattan, about 2 miles from ground zero on Sept 11, 2001. However, I slept through almost the whole thing. The night before, there was a work related "emergency" I needed to deal with, and I didn't get out of the office until about 4:30 AM on Sept 11th. I told my boss that I needed to get some sleep and would be getting work a few hours late the next day. I woke up at about 10:23 ( The second tower fell at 10:28 ). While I was brushing my teeth, the folks on the radio were talking about all the tunnels and bridges to New York being shut down. I listened while I was in the shower, still not sure what was going on. I was in the shower when they announced on the radio that second tower had collapsed. It was only then that I realized the magnitude of what was happening. Ruth ( she worked at a hospital near our apartment nowhere near downtown - so I knew she was safe ) and I were living on 23rd Street, on the 23rd floor or an apartment building. Our apartment had a small terrace which offered a good view of the World Trade Center. When I got out of the shower, I stepped out onto the terrace and looked south. All I could see was a giant cloud of dust where the World Trade Center had once been.
I actually still went to work that day ( Actually walked to work, because the subway was shut down ). My office was on 59th Street, far from horrible scene downtown. I was actually in the office until about midnight night, because we had to prepare for the possibility that all our servers in our downtown facility might lose power that day. So, it really wans't until the early morning hours of the Sept 12th, that everything began to sink in.
8) Ruth and I actually went to the same high school ( I graduated two years earlier than her, so we were in the school together for 2 years. Note that we went to the magnet school Styuvesant, so we didn't live anywhere near the same neighborhood - we both had long commutes to school ), but we actually never met in high school. We didn't meet until Ruth's first year at Cornell University.
9) I'm very lucky to have lived past the age of 18. Something happened more than 20 years ago, that probably should have killed me, but didn't. Some days when times are tough, or when I lack courage, I look back on that near-death experience, and realize that every day I have on this earth is a blessing that should be used to the fullest.
In August of 1988, about a week before I headed to college, 11 of my High School buddies and me got together at my friends Norman's house for a last night of hanging out. I remember we watched the movie "Fritz the Cat" that night, and that when Norman needed to run an errand, we managed to fit 12 people into his huge 1976 Buick ( 4 in the front, 5 in the back, 3 in the trunk. Why put 12 people in a car? Just because! ). Later that night after 4 of the guys needed to leave, we though it might be fun to take a random joy ride out to Long Island ( Norman lived in Brooklyn ). This time we took 2 cars, and put 4 people in each car. We drove out to some big tower at Jones Beach, hung out a bit, and then headed back to Brooklyn. By this time it had started to rain. It was probably about 3 in the morning, and the roads were kinda deserted. At some point Adam ( driving his car ) decided to blow by Norman ( in the huge Buick - I was in one of the back seats ) while the guy riding shotgun gave Norman the finger. Well, being an 18-year old male, Norman responded by accelerating past Adam. Then Adam accelerated past Norman, and Norman accelerated past Adam - well, you get the idea. Now, as I said earlier it was raining that night. It was also very dark on the roads - there were no streetlights at all on this stretch of road. So, I'm sitting there in the back seat ( as Norman inches closer to 100 miles an hour ) thinking "This really isn't a good idea. Maybe I should say something". Not only were we driving really fast on a wet and dark road, but nobody was wearing seat belts. Actually, the car was too old to have modern shoulder belts, and the lap belts were all buried in the thick seat cushions. What's worse was that the fella riding shotgun in Norman's car thought it was a good idea to keep hanging his body out the window. Luckily for him, his body was actually inside the car when the inevitable finally happened.
Just as I was about to open my mouth to beg Norman to slow down, Norman's car started to spin out of control. We had come to a sharp turn in the road at close to 100 miles an hour, and there was no way he could navigate that turn on the wet road. Norman screamed out "Oh Shit!", and I really thought those would be the last words I would ever hear. What a sad way it would have been to go. A bunch of teenage guys driving too fast. That kind of stuff happens all the time. I was just going to be another grim statistic. I was just going to be another reason why teenage guys have to pay such high car insurance rates. I ducked my head down and braced for impact. I was just hoping that a piece of steel wouldn't pierce my head in the next second. I was just hoping to have some chance to get out of that car alive. As we spun, I could feel the forces trying to pull the giant car off the ground. It felt like we might start tumbling end-over-end any second.
WHAM! We hit the a sturdy wooden highway divider/guardrail.
We spun some more and then ...
WHAM! We hit another divider ( probably the one on the other side ).
We spun and skidded some more, and then slowly came to a stop.
Amazingly, everybody was okay. There was lots of steam, but no fire. However, having watched enough movies to believe that cars ALWAYS blows up after a crash, we all hopped out of the car ( amazingly, the car doors were fine ) and ran away from the car as fast as we could. When we got out we saw Adam's car stopped ahead of us. He has been behind us when we spun out of control, but he somehow manage to avoid hitting us as he drove past us. We also saw a few hundred feet of car parts strewn on the road behind us.
The car?
Well, both the front and the back of the car looked very much like an accordion. Apparently, the front and back of the car had hit the guardrails, but the passenger compartment hardly had any damage. By some incredible stroke of luck ( The didn't design cars with front and back crumple zones in 1976 ), the front and back of the car had absorbed all the impact, and our seatbelt-less bodies were fine.
Well, the car never did blow up, and eventually a couple of guys who were driving by stopped to help ( Adam and the other 3 guys had come over by then ). They gave us some road flares, and asked if we wanted them to call the cops when they got to service station ( no cell phones back then ). We basically said , "Of course you should call the police. Why would you even ask us that?". They guys then told us, "I hope you realize that if the cops come, they are going to check your blood alcohol level.". We told them that none of us had been drinking ( which was true - we were a very nerdy bunch in that way ). One of the guys looked at the car, and then looked at us, and then looked at the car again, and then looked at us incredulously and said ...
"You did this straight!"
10) I accidentally killed my first pet. I couldn't have many pets because of my allergies, but at the age of 4 my parents got me a goldfish which I named Goldie. I used to love to watch when my Mom would clean Goldie's tank. She would use a tiny little net to transfer Goldie to a bowl of water, and then put Goldie back in the tank when she was done. This looked like fun, so one day when my Mom was upstairs ( the fish tank was in the kitchen downstairs ), I filled a bowl with water and tried to take Goldie out of the tank using the little net.
Well, as soon as the net emerged from that tank with Goldie ( the little net was on the end of a stick ), Goldie jumped out of the net and on the to kitchen floor. I tried to pick up Goldie ( now flopping violently ) with the net, but that didn't seem to work. I was afraid to pick to up Goldie with my bare hand ( it seems too icky ), so I ran upstairs crying to get my Mom's help. By the time my Mom got downstairs it was too late. Goldie was dead.
So anyway, that's kinda a tough way for a 4-year old to lose his first pet. I don't think I'm traumatized or anything, but I still do feel a little guilty.
11) I have a "phonographic memory". After a hear a song a few times ( assuming the song is at least a little catchy ), I generally have it memorized for life. Not just the lyrics, but every inflection in the singer's voice, and every sound made by every instrument.
For example, about a year ago Ruth bought a DVD of a Sesame Street Christmas special. It was a program that my brother I used to watch via VCR, but I had not seen it in about 27 years. The show had about 10 songs in it, and each time I heard the first few notes of a song, I found that I was able to remeber the rest of the song instantly.
This kind of stuff happens all the time, but it is both a blessing and curse. It's a blessing when it's time to do some Karaoke, but it's curse when I can't get the jingle from some crappy commercial out of my head. I often find myself singing random commercial jingles during the day.
12) I love to watch chick-flick type movies staring Hugh Grant. There's just something I love about his self-effacing charm. It's not that I'm personally charmed by him as a woman might be, it's just that I greatly admire his ability to be so charming ( Note: I really don't really like the movies in which he plays a cad, like the Bridget Jones Diary movies. I like the movies where he shows off his natural self-effacing charm like "Four Wedding and a Funeral", "Love Actually", "Music and Lyrics", and "Notting Hill" ( BTW, I just *LOVE* the Elvis Costello song "She" from "Notting Hill". If you've never heard the song, do yourself a big favor right NAO and click on this link. )).
I know he's an actor playing roles, but I really don't think his charm is an act. I became convinced of this after the Divine Brown incident. I certainly don't admire that fact that he cheated on his girlfriend with a hooker, but I can't help but be impressed that he never lost his ability to charm during the whole controversy over the incident. I remember that he was booked to be on Jay Leno on the week the Divine Brown thing happened. Most stars would have canceled their appearance, but Hugh just went on Jay's show, basically admitted he was an idiot in his charming self-effacing way, and charmed almost the entire world into forgiving him ( though I doubt Liz Hurley ever forgave him ). Hugh couldn't even turn off the charm when he was doing something as seedy as picking up a hooker. Reportedly, when he picked up Ms. Brown, she said "Hi, I'm Divine", and Hugh replied "You certainly are!".
Anyway, the reason I really love to watch Hugh Grant do his thing is that I really wish I'd had a little bit of that charm back in high school and college. Don't get me wrong, it's not that I wished I'd been some kind of Don Juan who used his charm to score with lots of girls. As I mentioned before in a blog post, I'm the type of guy who falls for only one girl at a time, and when I fall, I fall REALLY deeply ( and my intentions are very much on the romantic side rather than the booty-call side. ). I just wish I'd had just a little bit of that charm when I was trying to get the attentions of the few girls that I did fall for deeply. I was really clueless about how to talk to girls when I got to high school. I didn't have any older siblings, my Mom and Dad never spoke to me about that kinda stuff, and the only pop culture icon I had to look to was "The Fonz" from "Happy Days". Well, in the world of "The Fonz", girls were only attracted to guys who were macho and cool. Well, I knew I wasn't macho and cool, and I knew I never would be. Based on my misconception that "macho and cool" was the only way to go, I naturally had ZERO confidence around girls. If Hugh Grant movies had existed back in the days before I went to high school, things might have been different.
If I could have watched Hugh Grant movies as a young teen, I would have known that the macho guy isn't always the one who gets the girl. I would have realized that the sensitive guys do pretty well in the girl department as well. I would have learned about the magic of self-effacing charm. I would have learned that a guy could take his flaws and insecurities, and by using the magic judo-like techniques of self-effacing charm, he could flip those insecurities over and turn them into attributes.
I'm not saying that I could have been a master-charmer like Hugh Grant, but considering all my natural insecurities, the whole self-effacing charm thing would have SO worked for me back then.
And look, it's not as if I wish I 'd dated and married any of these pre-Ruth girls in my life. I'm happy with my life right now. However, a little charm in high school and college would have saved me from a lot of pain and damage to my self-esteem. The damage to my self-esteem was really bad at times, and I think it still affects me a little bit today.
I can still remember tremendous self-loathing I felt when I found I couldn't even gather up the courage to talk to a girl I had fallen for. This feeling was especially acute when I was going through the "High School Girl #1" period of my life ( I'm going to assume the small group of people reading this have already seen me refer to "High School Girl #1" in my previous blog posts. If you want to know more about this story, please watch the YouTube video at this link. The short story is that I fell for this girl early in my Sophomore year soon after we were paired up as Chemistry lab partners ). She was in my homeroom ( The short session at start of the school day were they made announcements and took attendance ), and because our last names started with the same letter, she sat right in front of me ( BTW, the girl who sat immediately behind me in homeroom eventually became "High School Girl #2". I guess I was easy to please. If a girl sat close enough to me for a long enough time, I guess I would eventually fall for her - but more on that later ). Well, each day in homeroom there were about 15 minutes of time when people just chatted before attendance was taken. Based on our proximity, I could have spoken to this girl every single school day. However, even though she was quite friendly and talkative, and often chatted with groups of friend that had come to her desk, I could never insert myself into a conversation. All I really had to do was OPEN MY FREAKIN' MOUTH, but I couldn't seem to do it. This went on day after day after day, and every day it killed me a little bit inside. I REALLY REALLY hated myself during this period of my life. My self-esteem and confidence plummeted day after day, and this went on for 16 months ( with a little break during the summer when school was out ) before I finally found the courage to let her know how I felt ( via a letter - I didn't even have the courage to approach her then ) .
So yeah, a little bit of Hugh Grant charm would have helped a lot back then. I'm not saying I would have wound up dating this girl, but I certainly would have felt a lot better about myself if I'd had the confidence to chat with her each day. To be honest, if I'd actually had a little bit of that Hugh Grant charm, I doubt I would have fallen for this girl at all. The fact that I fell for her when I fell for her is almost a direct result of my lack of confidence with girls. She was in my homeroom all of Freshmen year, and I had a few classes with her that year as well. So, I saw her almost every day Freshmen year, but there wasn't a single moment Freshmen year when I felt an ounce of romantic feelings for her. However, at the start of Sophomore year we became Chemistry lab partners. All of a sudden, I was spending time with her twice a week for about an hour at a time. All of a sudden, there was a girl in my life who was talking to me, there was a girl in my life who as joking with me, there was a girl in my life who was smiling at me. Sure, it was only in the context of Chem lab, but for a guy like me, it was a big deal. Anyway, as un-confident and vulnerable as I was, it was inevitable that I was going to fall for the first girl I really got to interact with. And look, I'm not saying there wasn't any legitimate reason for a guy to be attracted to this girl ( she was sweet, smart ( she eventually became a doctor ) and pretty ). I'm just saying that I wouldn't have focused on this girl like a laser beam for 16th months if I'd had more experience talking to girls. All I really needed was a wee bit of charm, and I could have avoided a lot of heartache ( and left high school with my self-confidence intact ).
Well, when my boys get old enough, I'm going to make them watch a bunch of Hugh Grant movies. Perhaps they won't really need the help with their bi-racial good-looks, but leaning a little bit about charm couldn't hurt.
13) Cary Grant is my favorite actor of all time, for the same sort of reasons that I love Hugh Grant. Of course, I would never think that I could ever have "Cary Grant charm". There's probably never been a more charming man on earth, and frankly, I've always just been in awe of the man.
14) I hate to make small talk. I really hate talking to people that are simply acquaintances rather than friends. I avoid small talk at all cost. From 1996 - 1998 ( just after we were married ) Ruth and I lived on the 4th floor of an apartment building. There was an elevator in the building, but if I noticed that there was somebody already in the elevator, I always took the stairs up. It's not that I don't like people - it's just that it feels un-genuine to chat with people that I really wouldn't choose to chat with if we were not riding an elevator together. I know we are supposed to be polite, but small talk just feels dishonest to be. Why should I ask "How are you doing?", when I really don't know the person and could care less about how they are doing? It's not that I wish random people any ill will, it's just that I don't really care, and it feels wrong to me to pretend that I care. However, I also don't want to hurt anybody's feeling by not talking to them, so I try to avoid situations where I need to talk to strangers/acquaintances.
15) Despite that fact that I don't like small talk, I'm one of those rare people who can really get along with anybody. I can think of a few examples in high school where I was friends with pairs of people who were basically enemies. I could get along with each person fine, even though these people didn't like each other at all. I need to REALLY REALLY like a person before he/she becomes a close friend, but I can become a "hang out" friend with just about anybody. I can enjoy somebody's company even if there are things I don't like about a person. I can find something positive in almost person I meet, and I choose to focus on the positive rather than the negative when I interact with somebody.
16) I really love computer adventure games like the "Monkey Island" series, "The Longest Journey", and "Grim Fandango". You know, the type of games were you walk around collecting objects and talking to people. Based on what the people tell you, you need to figure out what to do with the objects. I can really get lost in a game like that - it's kinda like being in a movie. Unfortunately, they don't seem to make too many good games like that anymore. Well, I guess it's just as well. I used to spend a lot of time on those type of games, but as a parent, I really don't have time now. My free time is limited, and I'd really rather spend time interacting with real people online than with fake people in a computer game.
Edit: Just to make sure I give credit where credit is due, the song "She" sung by Elvis Costello in "Notting Hill" was actually written by Charles Aznavour.
1) I had really bad Asthma as a child - so bad that I was was once hospitalized for about 4 days. I was only 4 years old, so the only things I remember vividly are the following:
- Most on the time I was there, my hospital bed was surrounded by a big plastic bubble. I believe they were pumping high-oxygen-content air into the bubble to help me breathe better.
- When my Mom would visit me, she would bring me these huge slices of processed turkey to eat. I remember that the slices were round and they were about as big as my head.
- On the day I left the hospital, my parents almost lost me. While my parents were busy talking to the doctor, I heard the sound of Sesame Street in a nearby room. Somehow, I managed to wander into this room without my parents noticing that I had left. I watched about 15 minutes of Sesame Street before my panicked parents found me in the room.
2) Due to my bad Asthma, I forbidden from eating anything I was even slightly allergic to. Thus, between the ages of 4 and 14, I was not allowed to eat the following foods:
Beef
Pork
Chicken
Potatoes
Any product with wheat
Perhaps this would have been okay if I had grown up in an Asian family where rice and fish were common at mealtime, but my parents were real "meat and potatoes" people. They both hated the taste of fish, and rice was only an occasional side dish ( They bought rice in tiny little boxes rather than in huge bags ). My Dad would probably eat steak and potatoes every day if he could. My Mom tried her best to find food I could eat, but my meals didn't really have a lot of variety ( lots of turkey and fish sticks ).
It really sucked to have these allergies considering what typical American kids like to eat. If I ever found myself at a McDonald's ...
- I couldn't eat the burger
- I couldn't eat the fries
- I couldn't eat the bun.
I also couldn't eat at KFC (Kentucky Fried Chicken), and pizza was supposed to be a no-no. However, I do remember my Mom would let me have pizza occasionally, because I guess my wheat allergy wasn't too severe.
Snack time was the worst. I remember sitting in kindergarten while the other little kids ate cookies and cakes, and I ate *nothing*. This is another example where being Asian would have helped a lot. My parents where not aware of all the yummy riced-based treats available at any Chinese bakery. My teacher eventually told my Mom that riced-based cookies were available, but my Mom wound up getting rice cookies from a health food store. The package simply said "Rice Cookies" in plain black lettering on white paper, and there were six cookies to a pack. The cookies were plain, round, and tasted like sweet cardboard. Still, they were better than nothing, and I enjoyed them.
Finally, when I was 14, I was re-tested for my food allergies and was told I could eat anything I wanted. This also meant the end to my weekly allergy shots. Between the ages of 4 and 14, I needed to get an allergy shot every Friday afternoon. It was really scary to get shots when I was 4 years old, but I actually got used to it after a month or so.
3) As a little kid, I was what people would call a "crybaby". Actually, I was that way until I was about 13 or so, so as you might imagine the teasing got really bad at times. I got frustrated very easily as a child and tears came real easy. The tears would lead to teasing which would lead to more tears. It was really a vicious cycle, especially because bully-types knew they could get me to cry easily. I remember that kids used to taunt me with a chant that went something like this ...
Baby, Baby!
Stick your head in gravy!
Wrap it up in bubble gum,
and send it to the Navy!
I know the chant above doesn't make much sense, but it still hurt a lot. In any case, lucky enough for me, I grew up to be bigger and more athletic than most of those bullies, so nobody really bothered me once I reached my teens. I don't think it was because anybody thought I was going to kick their ass if they teased me, but bullies tend to pick on easy targets, and I ceased to be an easy target when I became more than 6 feet tall.
My parents really didn't know how to deal with my crying, especially my Dad. He would make me feel guilty for being such a "sissy", which really only made things worse. It turns out that my son Michael has exactly the same personality as I did as child. I think I'm well prepared to deal with this. When he cries, I just tell him to try to think of happy thoughts, and I tell that I'm proud of him, and I that know he can be brave. I also give him lots of hugs. I re-assure my wife that Michael will be fine, and I make sure that I never do anything to make Michael feel guilty or more sad than he already is.
4) My Mom taught me how to tell time at the age of 4, and she almost immediately regretted it. A few weeks later, armed with this new knowledge, I noticed that the clock at the supermarket had a time of almost 4 o'clock. I knew that Batman ( the Adam West version ) came on at 4 PM each weekday ( "Same Bat Time, Same Bat Channel" ). I also remember that when the previous day's show ended, Batman and Robin were about to be eaten by a giant clam. Of course, even at that age, I knew they would escape, but I wanted to know how - and the only way to find out was to be in front of the TV at 4 PM that day. So, I did what most 4-year olds would do in that situation, I started to whine that we needed to go home to watch Batman. When my Mom tried to respond to my whining with logic ( "They repeat these shows all the time. You can see that episode another day" ), the full scale tantrum began.
I want Batman!
I WANT BATMAN!!!
I WANT BAAAAAAATTTTT - MAAAAAANNNNN!!!!!!
My poor Mom.
Eventually, my Mom couldn't take it anymore and simply walked away. She walked away, continued shopping with my baby brother, and left me crying in an aisle in the middle of the store ( It was a different world in 1974 - you could actually do that then. She was going to come back for me of course, but she wanted to make a point ). What she wasn't counting on was that less than one minute after she left me alone, my grandmother ( my Mom's mom ) walked into the aisle where I was crying ( Grandma had come separately - my Mom didn't know she was there ). Well, Grandma wasn't too happy to find her first grandchild left all alone crying in a supermarket. She gave my poor Mom hell for that, and I don't think she ever let my Mom forget it. In any case, I never did get to see Batman that day. I did eventually she that episode, but I think I was about 17 at the time.
5) 1984 is my favorite book of all time.
6) I think The Lord of the Rings ( the whole damn trilogy ) is the most overrated book of all time, especially among nerdy people like myself. I never bothered to read it when I was younger, but when it was announced that they were going to make Lord of the Rings movies, I figured that I'd better do my nerd-ly duty and read the thing before the movies came out.
Damn, I was almost angry by the time I finished the trilogy. I was angry when I though of all those hours of my life that I would never get back. Sure, I guess it was an okay saga, but I think the story could have been told in about 400 pages rather than the 1,200 pages I read. Seriously, it seems like the characters spent two thirds of the book just walking and eating. I know that mine is a minority opinion, because all nerdy folks seem to love that book, but I really hated it, and I don't care who I offend by saying it. OK, maybe I didn't hate it, but I just though reading it was a big waste of time ( Note: I played Dungeons and Dragons in high school, so I'm just the kind of person who is supposed to LOVE books like The Lord of the Rings ).
7) I was living in Manhattan, about 2 miles from ground zero on Sept 11, 2001. However, I slept through almost the whole thing. The night before, there was a work related "emergency" I needed to deal with, and I didn't get out of the office until about 4:30 AM on Sept 11th. I told my boss that I needed to get some sleep and would be getting work a few hours late the next day. I woke up at about 10:23 ( The second tower fell at 10:28 ). While I was brushing my teeth, the folks on the radio were talking about all the tunnels and bridges to New York being shut down. I listened while I was in the shower, still not sure what was going on. I was in the shower when they announced on the radio that second tower had collapsed. It was only then that I realized the magnitude of what was happening. Ruth ( she worked at a hospital near our apartment nowhere near downtown - so I knew she was safe ) and I were living on 23rd Street, on the 23rd floor or an apartment building. Our apartment had a small terrace which offered a good view of the World Trade Center. When I got out of the shower, I stepped out onto the terrace and looked south. All I could see was a giant cloud of dust where the World Trade Center had once been.
I actually still went to work that day ( Actually walked to work, because the subway was shut down ). My office was on 59th Street, far from horrible scene downtown. I was actually in the office until about midnight night, because we had to prepare for the possibility that all our servers in our downtown facility might lose power that day. So, it really wans't until the early morning hours of the Sept 12th, that everything began to sink in.
8) Ruth and I actually went to the same high school ( I graduated two years earlier than her, so we were in the school together for 2 years. Note that we went to the magnet school Styuvesant, so we didn't live anywhere near the same neighborhood - we both had long commutes to school ), but we actually never met in high school. We didn't meet until Ruth's first year at Cornell University.
9) I'm very lucky to have lived past the age of 18. Something happened more than 20 years ago, that probably should have killed me, but didn't. Some days when times are tough, or when I lack courage, I look back on that near-death experience, and realize that every day I have on this earth is a blessing that should be used to the fullest.
In August of 1988, about a week before I headed to college, 11 of my High School buddies and me got together at my friends Norman's house for a last night of hanging out. I remember we watched the movie "Fritz the Cat" that night, and that when Norman needed to run an errand, we managed to fit 12 people into his huge 1976 Buick ( 4 in the front, 5 in the back, 3 in the trunk. Why put 12 people in a car? Just because! ). Later that night after 4 of the guys needed to leave, we though it might be fun to take a random joy ride out to Long Island ( Norman lived in Brooklyn ). This time we took 2 cars, and put 4 people in each car. We drove out to some big tower at Jones Beach, hung out a bit, and then headed back to Brooklyn. By this time it had started to rain. It was probably about 3 in the morning, and the roads were kinda deserted. At some point Adam ( driving his car ) decided to blow by Norman ( in the huge Buick - I was in one of the back seats ) while the guy riding shotgun gave Norman the finger. Well, being an 18-year old male, Norman responded by accelerating past Adam. Then Adam accelerated past Norman, and Norman accelerated past Adam - well, you get the idea. Now, as I said earlier it was raining that night. It was also very dark on the roads - there were no streetlights at all on this stretch of road. So, I'm sitting there in the back seat ( as Norman inches closer to 100 miles an hour ) thinking "This really isn't a good idea. Maybe I should say something". Not only were we driving really fast on a wet and dark road, but nobody was wearing seat belts. Actually, the car was too old to have modern shoulder belts, and the lap belts were all buried in the thick seat cushions. What's worse was that the fella riding shotgun in Norman's car thought it was a good idea to keep hanging his body out the window. Luckily for him, his body was actually inside the car when the inevitable finally happened.
Just as I was about to open my mouth to beg Norman to slow down, Norman's car started to spin out of control. We had come to a sharp turn in the road at close to 100 miles an hour, and there was no way he could navigate that turn on the wet road. Norman screamed out "Oh Shit!", and I really thought those would be the last words I would ever hear. What a sad way it would have been to go. A bunch of teenage guys driving too fast. That kind of stuff happens all the time. I was just going to be another grim statistic. I was just going to be another reason why teenage guys have to pay such high car insurance rates. I ducked my head down and braced for impact. I was just hoping that a piece of steel wouldn't pierce my head in the next second. I was just hoping to have some chance to get out of that car alive. As we spun, I could feel the forces trying to pull the giant car off the ground. It felt like we might start tumbling end-over-end any second.
WHAM! We hit the a sturdy wooden highway divider/guardrail.
We spun some more and then ...
WHAM! We hit another divider ( probably the one on the other side ).
We spun and skidded some more, and then slowly came to a stop.
Amazingly, everybody was okay. There was lots of steam, but no fire. However, having watched enough movies to believe that cars ALWAYS blows up after a crash, we all hopped out of the car ( amazingly, the car doors were fine ) and ran away from the car as fast as we could. When we got out we saw Adam's car stopped ahead of us. He has been behind us when we spun out of control, but he somehow manage to avoid hitting us as he drove past us. We also saw a few hundred feet of car parts strewn on the road behind us.
The car?
Well, both the front and the back of the car looked very much like an accordion. Apparently, the front and back of the car had hit the guardrails, but the passenger compartment hardly had any damage. By some incredible stroke of luck ( The didn't design cars with front and back crumple zones in 1976 ), the front and back of the car had absorbed all the impact, and our seatbelt-less bodies were fine.
Well, the car never did blow up, and eventually a couple of guys who were driving by stopped to help ( Adam and the other 3 guys had come over by then ). They gave us some road flares, and asked if we wanted them to call the cops when they got to service station ( no cell phones back then ). We basically said , "Of course you should call the police. Why would you even ask us that?". They guys then told us, "I hope you realize that if the cops come, they are going to check your blood alcohol level.". We told them that none of us had been drinking ( which was true - we were a very nerdy bunch in that way ). One of the guys looked at the car, and then looked at us, and then looked at the car again, and then looked at us incredulously and said ...
"You did this straight!"
10) I accidentally killed my first pet. I couldn't have many pets because of my allergies, but at the age of 4 my parents got me a goldfish which I named Goldie. I used to love to watch when my Mom would clean Goldie's tank. She would use a tiny little net to transfer Goldie to a bowl of water, and then put Goldie back in the tank when she was done. This looked like fun, so one day when my Mom was upstairs ( the fish tank was in the kitchen downstairs ), I filled a bowl with water and tried to take Goldie out of the tank using the little net.
Well, as soon as the net emerged from that tank with Goldie ( the little net was on the end of a stick ), Goldie jumped out of the net and on the to kitchen floor. I tried to pick up Goldie ( now flopping violently ) with the net, but that didn't seem to work. I was afraid to pick to up Goldie with my bare hand ( it seems too icky ), so I ran upstairs crying to get my Mom's help. By the time my Mom got downstairs it was too late. Goldie was dead.
So anyway, that's kinda a tough way for a 4-year old to lose his first pet. I don't think I'm traumatized or anything, but I still do feel a little guilty.
11) I have a "phonographic memory". After a hear a song a few times ( assuming the song is at least a little catchy ), I generally have it memorized for life. Not just the lyrics, but every inflection in the singer's voice, and every sound made by every instrument.
For example, about a year ago Ruth bought a DVD of a Sesame Street Christmas special. It was a program that my brother I used to watch via VCR, but I had not seen it in about 27 years. The show had about 10 songs in it, and each time I heard the first few notes of a song, I found that I was able to remeber the rest of the song instantly.
This kind of stuff happens all the time, but it is both a blessing and curse. It's a blessing when it's time to do some Karaoke, but it's curse when I can't get the jingle from some crappy commercial out of my head. I often find myself singing random commercial jingles during the day.
12) I love to watch chick-flick type movies staring Hugh Grant. There's just something I love about his self-effacing charm. It's not that I'm personally charmed by him as a woman might be, it's just that I greatly admire his ability to be so charming ( Note: I really don't really like the movies in which he plays a cad, like the Bridget Jones Diary movies. I like the movies where he shows off his natural self-effacing charm like "Four Wedding and a Funeral", "Love Actually", "Music and Lyrics", and "Notting Hill" ( BTW, I just *LOVE* the Elvis Costello song "She" from "Notting Hill". If you've never heard the song, do yourself a big favor right NAO and click on this link. )).
I know he's an actor playing roles, but I really don't think his charm is an act. I became convinced of this after the Divine Brown incident. I certainly don't admire that fact that he cheated on his girlfriend with a hooker, but I can't help but be impressed that he never lost his ability to charm during the whole controversy over the incident. I remember that he was booked to be on Jay Leno on the week the Divine Brown thing happened. Most stars would have canceled their appearance, but Hugh just went on Jay's show, basically admitted he was an idiot in his charming self-effacing way, and charmed almost the entire world into forgiving him ( though I doubt Liz Hurley ever forgave him ). Hugh couldn't even turn off the charm when he was doing something as seedy as picking up a hooker. Reportedly, when he picked up Ms. Brown, she said "Hi, I'm Divine", and Hugh replied "You certainly are!".
Anyway, the reason I really love to watch Hugh Grant do his thing is that I really wish I'd had a little bit of that charm back in high school and college. Don't get me wrong, it's not that I wished I'd been some kind of Don Juan who used his charm to score with lots of girls. As I mentioned before in a blog post, I'm the type of guy who falls for only one girl at a time, and when I fall, I fall REALLY deeply ( and my intentions are very much on the romantic side rather than the booty-call side. ). I just wish I'd had just a little bit of that charm when I was trying to get the attentions of the few girls that I did fall for deeply. I was really clueless about how to talk to girls when I got to high school. I didn't have any older siblings, my Mom and Dad never spoke to me about that kinda stuff, and the only pop culture icon I had to look to was "The Fonz" from "Happy Days". Well, in the world of "The Fonz", girls were only attracted to guys who were macho and cool. Well, I knew I wasn't macho and cool, and I knew I never would be. Based on my misconception that "macho and cool" was the only way to go, I naturally had ZERO confidence around girls. If Hugh Grant movies had existed back in the days before I went to high school, things might have been different.
If I could have watched Hugh Grant movies as a young teen, I would have known that the macho guy isn't always the one who gets the girl. I would have realized that the sensitive guys do pretty well in the girl department as well. I would have learned about the magic of self-effacing charm. I would have learned that a guy could take his flaws and insecurities, and by using the magic judo-like techniques of self-effacing charm, he could flip those insecurities over and turn them into attributes.
I'm not saying that I could have been a master-charmer like Hugh Grant, but considering all my natural insecurities, the whole self-effacing charm thing would have SO worked for me back then.
And look, it's not as if I wish I 'd dated and married any of these pre-Ruth girls in my life. I'm happy with my life right now. However, a little charm in high school and college would have saved me from a lot of pain and damage to my self-esteem. The damage to my self-esteem was really bad at times, and I think it still affects me a little bit today.
I can still remember tremendous self-loathing I felt when I found I couldn't even gather up the courage to talk to a girl I had fallen for. This feeling was especially acute when I was going through the "High School Girl #1" period of my life ( I'm going to assume the small group of people reading this have already seen me refer to "High School Girl #1" in my previous blog posts. If you want to know more about this story, please watch the YouTube video at this link. The short story is that I fell for this girl early in my Sophomore year soon after we were paired up as Chemistry lab partners ). She was in my homeroom ( The short session at start of the school day were they made announcements and took attendance ), and because our last names started with the same letter, she sat right in front of me ( BTW, the girl who sat immediately behind me in homeroom eventually became "High School Girl #2". I guess I was easy to please. If a girl sat close enough to me for a long enough time, I guess I would eventually fall for her - but more on that later ). Well, each day in homeroom there were about 15 minutes of time when people just chatted before attendance was taken. Based on our proximity, I could have spoken to this girl every single school day. However, even though she was quite friendly and talkative, and often chatted with groups of friend that had come to her desk, I could never insert myself into a conversation. All I really had to do was OPEN MY FREAKIN' MOUTH, but I couldn't seem to do it. This went on day after day after day, and every day it killed me a little bit inside. I REALLY REALLY hated myself during this period of my life. My self-esteem and confidence plummeted day after day, and this went on for 16 months ( with a little break during the summer when school was out ) before I finally found the courage to let her know how I felt ( via a letter - I didn't even have the courage to approach her then ) .
So yeah, a little bit of Hugh Grant charm would have helped a lot back then. I'm not saying I would have wound up dating this girl, but I certainly would have felt a lot better about myself if I'd had the confidence to chat with her each day. To be honest, if I'd actually had a little bit of that Hugh Grant charm, I doubt I would have fallen for this girl at all. The fact that I fell for her when I fell for her is almost a direct result of my lack of confidence with girls. She was in my homeroom all of Freshmen year, and I had a few classes with her that year as well. So, I saw her almost every day Freshmen year, but there wasn't a single moment Freshmen year when I felt an ounce of romantic feelings for her. However, at the start of Sophomore year we became Chemistry lab partners. All of a sudden, I was spending time with her twice a week for about an hour at a time. All of a sudden, there was a girl in my life who was talking to me, there was a girl in my life who as joking with me, there was a girl in my life who was smiling at me. Sure, it was only in the context of Chem lab, but for a guy like me, it was a big deal. Anyway, as un-confident and vulnerable as I was, it was inevitable that I was going to fall for the first girl I really got to interact with. And look, I'm not saying there wasn't any legitimate reason for a guy to be attracted to this girl ( she was sweet, smart ( she eventually became a doctor ) and pretty ). I'm just saying that I wouldn't have focused on this girl like a laser beam for 16th months if I'd had more experience talking to girls. All I really needed was a wee bit of charm, and I could have avoided a lot of heartache ( and left high school with my self-confidence intact ).
Well, when my boys get old enough, I'm going to make them watch a bunch of Hugh Grant movies. Perhaps they won't really need the help with their bi-racial good-looks, but leaning a little bit about charm couldn't hurt.
13) Cary Grant is my favorite actor of all time, for the same sort of reasons that I love Hugh Grant. Of course, I would never think that I could ever have "Cary Grant charm". There's probably never been a more charming man on earth, and frankly, I've always just been in awe of the man.
14) I hate to make small talk. I really hate talking to people that are simply acquaintances rather than friends. I avoid small talk at all cost. From 1996 - 1998 ( just after we were married ) Ruth and I lived on the 4th floor of an apartment building. There was an elevator in the building, but if I noticed that there was somebody already in the elevator, I always took the stairs up. It's not that I don't like people - it's just that it feels un-genuine to chat with people that I really wouldn't choose to chat with if we were not riding an elevator together. I know we are supposed to be polite, but small talk just feels dishonest to be. Why should I ask "How are you doing?", when I really don't know the person and could care less about how they are doing? It's not that I wish random people any ill will, it's just that I don't really care, and it feels wrong to me to pretend that I care. However, I also don't want to hurt anybody's feeling by not talking to them, so I try to avoid situations where I need to talk to strangers/acquaintances.
15) Despite that fact that I don't like small talk, I'm one of those rare people who can really get along with anybody. I can think of a few examples in high school where I was friends with pairs of people who were basically enemies. I could get along with each person fine, even though these people didn't like each other at all. I need to REALLY REALLY like a person before he/she becomes a close friend, but I can become a "hang out" friend with just about anybody. I can enjoy somebody's company even if there are things I don't like about a person. I can find something positive in almost person I meet, and I choose to focus on the positive rather than the negative when I interact with somebody.
16) I really love computer adventure games like the "Monkey Island" series, "The Longest Journey", and "Grim Fandango". You know, the type of games were you walk around collecting objects and talking to people. Based on what the people tell you, you need to figure out what to do with the objects. I can really get lost in a game like that - it's kinda like being in a movie. Unfortunately, they don't seem to make too many good games like that anymore. Well, I guess it's just as well. I used to spend a lot of time on those type of games, but as a parent, I really don't have time now. My free time is limited, and I'd really rather spend time interacting with real people online than with fake people in a computer game.
Edit: Just to make sure I give credit where credit is due, the song "She" sung by Elvis Costello in "Notting Hill" was actually written by Charles Aznavour.
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Faith
This post is kinda a continuation of the "Faith" YouTube video I just made, so please click here if you have not watched that video yet.
I guess the first thing I should say is that I haven't had some kind of recent revelation about my faith ( or lack thereof ). I've always felt this way, but it's just not something I've always felt comfortable talking about. I think I'm not very different from a lot of people in that way. In survey after survey, most people ( especially in the USA ) will say that they believe in God, but the high percentage of people who live very secular lives ( Almost none of my Christian friends from my childhood still go to church, and my Dad almost never went to church when I was a kid (my Mom always took me ) ) contradicts what the surveys say about belief in God. There's definitely a stigma attached to atheism/agnosticism ( especially in the USA ), and most people will say they believe in God, even if they don't have 100% faith in that belief.
I still wouldn't say I'm agnostic ( though many would say my doubts about the existence of God make me by definition agnostic ). I still consider myself to be Christian. I don't think my doubts make me non-Christian, I just think they make me human.
I guess this all goes back to how I'm going to raise my kids. I won't have to worry about Peter for a few years, but Michael is already starting to ask questions, and as I've documented before, Michael is a really smart kid. Can I really sit there are tell him that ( as the George Carlin used to say ) "there is an invisible man in the sky" who watches us all the time, and will punish us if we don't behave in a certain way? He's so smart, and he's so interested in science already - how can I tell him that there is an invisible man in the sky that can do magic?
I'm not trying to belittle religion by saying this. I've encountered the Richard Dawkins types who belittle religion by saying that it is just a "delusion", and I don't really like those people much at all. Somewhere in my heart I've still a believer. In fact, I think I believe in God 100% in my heart - I'm just not sure about my head - I've never really been sure. As I said in my video, I believe in the Christian philosphy so much ( love your neighboor, love your enemies, turn the other cheek, don't seek revenge, forgive and love those who hurt you, do unto others as you would have them do unto you, etc. ) that I've always felt very comfortable in the Christian faith. I have a love for the Christian philosophy that would exist even if it was just a philosophy rather than a religion. Also, I must admit that I've always had a fear of death - I have a fear of simply not existing someday. So, the promise of an afterlife in the Christian relgion has always been appealing to me. If there is a God and a heavan, I certainly do want to go to heaven ( who wouldn't?).
So, because of my comfort with the Christian philosophy and my desire to go to heaven someday ( assuming there is a heaven ), I guess I've always just "gone through the motions" when it comes to believing in God - I'm not really sure if I've ever really believed on an intellectual level. I dunno - I want to believe in God - the thought of a world without God scares me. I wish I could have the faith that my Mom had. Even if there isn't a God, I would imagine that a sincere 100% faith in the existense of God would give somebody a tremendous amount of comfort in life, especially when the time comes to face death. I know my Mom had that comfort during her last years, but I'm not sure that I'll have that comfort when my time comes.
My faith ( as it is ) is really a gift from my Mom. I doubt I'd have any faith at all if my Mom had not taught me to pray and had not took me to church each week. I honestly have a hard time understanding people who are "born again" into the Christian faith as adults. The basic supernatural beliefs of almost any religion seem like they would be hard to believe unless they were drilled into your head as a child. People look at a "new" religion like Scientology and say stuff like "Those people are nuts! They believe in some wacky shit!". However, if you step outside your own religion and look at the supernatural beliefs of your own religion as an objective outsider, you'll probably find plenty of stuff that is "wacky" about your religion..
So, in any case, I've always been torn between my religious side and my scientific side. It's hard to reconcile the two sides. I've decided a long time ago that to try and think of religion in a scientific way is just pure folly. You always hear about Christians who are trying to "prove" the existence of God by doing things like ...
1) trying to find Noah's Ark.
2) making up crazy theories to prove that the Creation story in the Bible is literally true and that the theory of Evolution is wrong.
3) prove that the Shroud or Turin in authentic.
I've come the conclusion, that those people really don't understand faith. Faith is by definition the belief in something without evidence. If you need to go out looking for evidence, then you really don't have faith.
So do I have faith? Well, certainly not like my Mom did, but I certainly have something like it. I guess what I have is closer to Hope than Faith. I certainly Hope there is a God. I Hope there is a heaven, and I Hope to see my loved ones after I die. I also do have Faith that if there is a God, he/she/it is a loving God who will judge us based on our deeds rather than our specific beliefs. So, even though my faith is shaky at times, I will continue to live my life as if there is a loving God, and I will do my best to live a good life.
I guess more than anything else, I want my kids to live a good life. I do have my doubts about organized religion, but perhaps it is a good framework for living a good life, because it certainly worked out okay for me. So, I guess I will be bringing up my kids in my "faith", though I certainly won't be upset at all if they decide to take a different path someday.
Yes, I know - perhaps that's not very Christian attitude, but it is human - and that's really all I can be.
Rich
I guess the first thing I should say is that I haven't had some kind of recent revelation about my faith ( or lack thereof ). I've always felt this way, but it's just not something I've always felt comfortable talking about. I think I'm not very different from a lot of people in that way. In survey after survey, most people ( especially in the USA ) will say that they believe in God, but the high percentage of people who live very secular lives ( Almost none of my Christian friends from my childhood still go to church, and my Dad almost never went to church when I was a kid (my Mom always took me ) ) contradicts what the surveys say about belief in God. There's definitely a stigma attached to atheism/agnosticism ( especially in the USA ), and most people will say they believe in God, even if they don't have 100% faith in that belief.
I still wouldn't say I'm agnostic ( though many would say my doubts about the existence of God make me by definition agnostic ). I still consider myself to be Christian. I don't think my doubts make me non-Christian, I just think they make me human.
I guess this all goes back to how I'm going to raise my kids. I won't have to worry about Peter for a few years, but Michael is already starting to ask questions, and as I've documented before, Michael is a really smart kid. Can I really sit there are tell him that ( as the George Carlin used to say ) "there is an invisible man in the sky" who watches us all the time, and will punish us if we don't behave in a certain way? He's so smart, and he's so interested in science already - how can I tell him that there is an invisible man in the sky that can do magic?
I'm not trying to belittle religion by saying this. I've encountered the Richard Dawkins types who belittle religion by saying that it is just a "delusion", and I don't really like those people much at all. Somewhere in my heart I've still a believer. In fact, I think I believe in God 100% in my heart - I'm just not sure about my head - I've never really been sure. As I said in my video, I believe in the Christian philosphy so much ( love your neighboor, love your enemies, turn the other cheek, don't seek revenge, forgive and love those who hurt you, do unto others as you would have them do unto you, etc. ) that I've always felt very comfortable in the Christian faith. I have a love for the Christian philosophy that would exist even if it was just a philosophy rather than a religion. Also, I must admit that I've always had a fear of death - I have a fear of simply not existing someday. So, the promise of an afterlife in the Christian relgion has always been appealing to me. If there is a God and a heavan, I certainly do want to go to heaven ( who wouldn't?).
So, because of my comfort with the Christian philosophy and my desire to go to heaven someday ( assuming there is a heaven ), I guess I've always just "gone through the motions" when it comes to believing in God - I'm not really sure if I've ever really believed on an intellectual level. I dunno - I want to believe in God - the thought of a world without God scares me. I wish I could have the faith that my Mom had. Even if there isn't a God, I would imagine that a sincere 100% faith in the existense of God would give somebody a tremendous amount of comfort in life, especially when the time comes to face death. I know my Mom had that comfort during her last years, but I'm not sure that I'll have that comfort when my time comes.
My faith ( as it is ) is really a gift from my Mom. I doubt I'd have any faith at all if my Mom had not taught me to pray and had not took me to church each week. I honestly have a hard time understanding people who are "born again" into the Christian faith as adults. The basic supernatural beliefs of almost any religion seem like they would be hard to believe unless they were drilled into your head as a child. People look at a "new" religion like Scientology and say stuff like "Those people are nuts! They believe in some wacky shit!". However, if you step outside your own religion and look at the supernatural beliefs of your own religion as an objective outsider, you'll probably find plenty of stuff that is "wacky" about your religion..
So, in any case, I've always been torn between my religious side and my scientific side. It's hard to reconcile the two sides. I've decided a long time ago that to try and think of religion in a scientific way is just pure folly. You always hear about Christians who are trying to "prove" the existence of God by doing things like ...
1) trying to find Noah's Ark.
2) making up crazy theories to prove that the Creation story in the Bible is literally true and that the theory of Evolution is wrong.
3) prove that the Shroud or Turin in authentic.
I've come the conclusion, that those people really don't understand faith. Faith is by definition the belief in something without evidence. If you need to go out looking for evidence, then you really don't have faith.
So do I have faith? Well, certainly not like my Mom did, but I certainly have something like it. I guess what I have is closer to Hope than Faith. I certainly Hope there is a God. I Hope there is a heaven, and I Hope to see my loved ones after I die. I also do have Faith that if there is a God, he/she/it is a loving God who will judge us based on our deeds rather than our specific beliefs. So, even though my faith is shaky at times, I will continue to live my life as if there is a loving God, and I will do my best to live a good life.
I guess more than anything else, I want my kids to live a good life. I do have my doubts about organized religion, but perhaps it is a good framework for living a good life, because it certainly worked out okay for me. So, I guess I will be bringing up my kids in my "faith", though I certainly won't be upset at all if they decide to take a different path someday.
Yes, I know - perhaps that's not very Christian attitude, but it is human - and that's really all I can be.
Rich
Thursday, January 8, 2009
So Sweet <3
Michael: Excuse me Daddy, excuse me. Excuse me Daddy, excuse me.
( I walk from the living room and find Michael sitting about halfway up the steps )
Me: Yes, Michael. What is it?
Michael: I need to give you a goodnight kiss.
<3
My heart is happy. :)
Rich
( I walk from the living room and find Michael sitting about halfway up the steps )
Me: Yes, Michael. What is it?
Michael: I need to give you a goodnight kiss.
<3
My heart is happy. :)
Rich
Sunday, January 4, 2009
So Sad :(
I am quite sad right now. Well, perhaps I shouldn't be. I really should try to put things in perspective, after all. I really do live quite a blessed life. I've got a wonderful wife and two wonderful kids. I've got a nice home in a nice neighborhood, and I have a relatively stable, relatively well-paying job in this horrible economy. So, I guess I'm lucky in many ways. I've got no right to whine about my life. However, all that being said, nobody can feel happy all the time, and at the moment I feel sad.
Why?
Well, the primary reason has to do with this rapidly approaching time:
6:07 AM, Janurary 5, 2009
That's the time my alarm will go off tomorrow morning, and I'll have to start getting ready for my first day of work since December 23rd.
Yes, I guess I'm lucky to have a job to go to at all, but after 12 days off, this is really going to be a shock to my system. I've gotten used to hanging out with my kids all day. I've gotten used to lounging on the couch in a t-shirt and sweatpants at 3 in the afternoon. I've gotten used to playing with my kids new toys. :)
So, yes I'm lucky to have a good job with good pay and cool peanut butter machine, but going to work tomorrow is really going to bite. So many projects that need to be done. So many things people are leaning on me for. So many ultra-tight deadlines. I'm not going to enjoy this.
The second thing that is getting me sad is my basement. We'd eventually like to get the basement finished, but we have some water seeping through the cinder-block walls. No matter what we do to get it fixed, it's going to be quite expensive, and it's been incredible stressful to figure out the best course of action to take. But beyond all that, what is really stressing me out is what we need to do to get the basement organized. Our basement is a mess. My kids have gotten load of toys from relatives over the years, Ruth buys all sorts of stuff that we wind up storing in the basement, and lots of of my older relatives ( who have moved into small retirement-type homes ) are using our basement to store all sorts of heirlooms/junk. We've given away what we could to charity ( can't give away my relative's stuff - actually mostly my Dad's stuff ), but it really has barely made a dent in the basement mess (no pictures, BTW - the mess is too embarrassing ). We have a bunch of shelving up against most of the walls. The shelves are packed, and each shelf has about 4 feet worth of loose bags/toys/boxes/junk/etc. on the floor in front of it. We need to get waterproofing work done on the basement walls, which means that everything that is on the walls needs to come off the walls. This is not going to be easy. We have more stuff than we have shelf-space, and we have to take all the stuff off the shelves before we can move the shelves off the walls to another location. There really isn't enough room in the basement to accommodate all this stuff and the room for the waterproofing folks to work, so I'm going to have to move lots of stuff from the basement to other rooms in the house.
I spent all day working on the basement today, and I barely made a dent. I am every much exhausted. Not really physically exhausted, but mentally exhausted ( I actually ran on the treadmill after doing the basement work today in order to get a mental break ). The job is just so overwhelming that my brain is all tied up in knots.
What's also going to suck is that all this basement will definitely cut into my oh-so-fun online time. So, let me apologize in advance if the blogs/videos don't come quite as often.
Actually, I am aware that the YouTube videos haven't been coming that often for a while now. I used to do about one or two a week and I would rarely go more than 7 days without doing a video. Unfortunately, I think those days are over, even after the basement work is done. There are certain IRL reasons while I'll have to cut back on how many YT videos I do. I don't think I should going into those reasons in a public blog, but lets just say that the reasons why I'll need to cut back on YT videos makes me more sad than the fact that I'll be making less YT videos.
Well, once again, sad is a relative term here. It's not like I'm terminally ill or homeless or starving or anything like that. I'm just feeling a wee bit down - perhaps not justifyably - but I am down a bit.
However, posting a blog post always makes me happy, so I'll be a little bit happier in a few seconds.
Rich
P.S. Oh, and blog comments make me quite happy as well ( hint, hint ).
Why?
Well, the primary reason has to do with this rapidly approaching time:
6:07 AM, Janurary 5, 2009
That's the time my alarm will go off tomorrow morning, and I'll have to start getting ready for my first day of work since December 23rd.
Yes, I guess I'm lucky to have a job to go to at all, but after 12 days off, this is really going to be a shock to my system. I've gotten used to hanging out with my kids all day. I've gotten used to lounging on the couch in a t-shirt and sweatpants at 3 in the afternoon. I've gotten used to playing with my kids new toys. :)
So, yes I'm lucky to have a good job with good pay and cool peanut butter machine, but going to work tomorrow is really going to bite. So many projects that need to be done. So many things people are leaning on me for. So many ultra-tight deadlines. I'm not going to enjoy this.
The second thing that is getting me sad is my basement. We'd eventually like to get the basement finished, but we have some water seeping through the cinder-block walls. No matter what we do to get it fixed, it's going to be quite expensive, and it's been incredible stressful to figure out the best course of action to take. But beyond all that, what is really stressing me out is what we need to do to get the basement organized. Our basement is a mess. My kids have gotten load of toys from relatives over the years, Ruth buys all sorts of stuff that we wind up storing in the basement, and lots of of my older relatives ( who have moved into small retirement-type homes ) are using our basement to store all sorts of heirlooms/junk. We've given away what we could to charity ( can't give away my relative's stuff - actually mostly my Dad's stuff ), but it really has barely made a dent in the basement mess (no pictures, BTW - the mess is too embarrassing ). We have a bunch of shelving up against most of the walls. The shelves are packed, and each shelf has about 4 feet worth of loose bags/toys/boxes/junk/etc. on the floor in front of it. We need to get waterproofing work done on the basement walls, which means that everything that is on the walls needs to come off the walls. This is not going to be easy. We have more stuff than we have shelf-space, and we have to take all the stuff off the shelves before we can move the shelves off the walls to another location. There really isn't enough room in the basement to accommodate all this stuff and the room for the waterproofing folks to work, so I'm going to have to move lots of stuff from the basement to other rooms in the house.
I spent all day working on the basement today, and I barely made a dent. I am every much exhausted. Not really physically exhausted, but mentally exhausted ( I actually ran on the treadmill after doing the basement work today in order to get a mental break ). The job is just so overwhelming that my brain is all tied up in knots.
What's also going to suck is that all this basement will definitely cut into my oh-so-fun online time. So, let me apologize in advance if the blogs/videos don't come quite as often.
Actually, I am aware that the YouTube videos haven't been coming that often for a while now. I used to do about one or two a week and I would rarely go more than 7 days without doing a video. Unfortunately, I think those days are over, even after the basement work is done. There are certain IRL reasons while I'll have to cut back on how many YT videos I do. I don't think I should going into those reasons in a public blog, but lets just say that the reasons why I'll need to cut back on YT videos makes me more sad than the fact that I'll be making less YT videos.
Well, once again, sad is a relative term here. It's not like I'm terminally ill or homeless or starving or anything like that. I'm just feeling a wee bit down - perhaps not justifyably - but I am down a bit.
However, posting a blog post always makes me happy, so I'll be a little bit happier in a few seconds.
Rich
P.S. Oh, and blog comments make me quite happy as well ( hint, hint ).
Thursday, January 1, 2009
The Hangover
I owe my existence to a hangover. If not for a hangover that occurred back in 1966, you would not be reading this blog post right now.
My recent vlog about how Ruth and I became a couple got me thinking about how my parents met. My mom told me the story a long time ago, but I hadn't thought about it in a while. When I think about it now, I realize that I'm pretty lucky to even exist.
My Mom and Dad met at a ski lodge. My Mom was there with a bunch of her female co-workers from the bank she worked at. They were looking to have some fun. My Dad was there on a weekend leave with a bunch of his Air Force buddies. They were looking for - well, you know. In any case, my Dad and his buddies had gotten there the night before, and my Dad had gotten completely smashed. My Dad had an awful hangover the next day, and he was in no mood to drink that day. When my Dad approached my Mom that day, he was one of the few guys in the lodge who wasn't rowdy and drunk. This gave my Mom the impression that my Dad was a really nice guy, so she agreed to spend some time with him that day. If my Dad had been drinking that day, there was no way my Mom would have even talked to him. Thus, I owe my existence to a hangover.
This got me thinking about all sorts of "Back to the Future"-type scenarios. What if something changed in the space-time continuum that made my Dad decide not to drink that night? I could see myself going back in time to that night, and trying to goad my Dad into a drinking contest.
Me: Come on Rich! Have another Jack Daniels! What are you, some kind of pussy!" ( My Dad is also named Rich ) C'mon, my grandma can drink more than you!
In any case, I haven't really been a drinker since learning a few lessons in college, but thank you alcohol, I owe you a lot.
Speaking of my Dad, I just found out that he has a facebook page, under his real name. We have the same name, which of course means that there is a facebook page out there with my real name. I found this out because my Dad just sent a facebook friends request to Ruth, who has a facebook page under her real name. Ruth isn't really into social networking at all, but she got a facebook page a few months ago because she wanted to view photos of one her friend's kids. Considering that she doesn't really want to do social networking, I should have advised her to create a facebook account under a fake last name ( as I did ). As soon as she created an account and became facebook friends with this friend of hers, she started to get all sorts of friends requests from both her friends and my friends. She also found herself getting tagged in photos, including a photo from 8th grade that she was not happy to see online. Now that my real name is showing up on Ruth's facebook friends list, I'm afraid that my Dad is going to get flooded with facebook friends requests from my friends ( well perhaps not, but if his profile doesn't have a picture of him, he certainly will ). If my Dad doesn't confirm these requests, my friends are going to think that I'm being some kind of stuck-up jerk. Well, I'm sure they'll figure out it's not my page eventually, but I don't want anyone to get a false impression even for a little bit. Anyway, at this point, I really don't want my IRL friends to know I have a facebook page under a fake name. I really prefer to have an online life which is distinct from my IRL life. I think a lot of this feeling is rooted in YouTube. My online life really started with YT, and I've always had a desire to build my YT subscriber list without soliciting a lot of help from IRL friends. I also feel like I get to see my IRL friends as much as I need to IRL, and if my IRL friends entered my online life, they might dominate it so much that I wouldn't meet as many new people online. I like meeting new people, so for now IRL and online life will remain separate.
Anyway, the two lessons from the story above are ...
1) C'mon guys, don't name your son after yourself. It's really just an ego trip if you do this, and it leads to all sorts of confusion for the rest of your life.
2) If you don't want to get attention on the Internet, don't use your real name.
Lesson number two reminds me of a funny story. Sometime in late 1997 or early 1998, Ruth was putting together a resume to apply for residency programs. She had once worked on a research project with somebody named Francisco Garcia, and wanted to contact him to see if she could cite the work she did for the project on her resume. Unfortunately, see didn't have his email address, so she did an internet search which yielded about 100 email addresses attached to the name "Francisco Garcia". When I got home one day, I found her frantically typing emails into our email application. She told me that she needed to send out 100 identical emails to 100 difference addresses. I watched her for a minute and noticed that she was actually typing out the full message for each email. So, at this point, I needed to explain to Ruth how "Copy and Paste" works in windows applications. Apparently, she wasn't aware that she could do this.
In any case, while I found it funny that somebody on the verge of graduating from medical school didn't know how to use "Copy and Paste", what happened next was even more funny ( inevitable, but still quite funny ). Within a day of sending out the 100 emails, Ruth started to get responses. None of them were from the right Francisco, but at least 5 of them were offers to have sexual relations. My favorite one said something along the following lines ...
"I am not the Francisco you are looking for. I am better than the other Francisco. I am the ultimate male in the world."
What makes this even more interesting is that while Ruth did give her real name on the email, the email address had my real name on it. Thus, these fellows were propositioning Ruth via email, even though they knew it was quite likely that her husband/boyfriend would be reading the email.
Well, I kinda gotta give some of those Francisco Gracia's credit. They certainly have a lot of balls!
Geez, I can see why the Internet can be such a scary place for woman sometimes. It's amazing the more women don't get scared off.
Rich
My recent vlog about how Ruth and I became a couple got me thinking about how my parents met. My mom told me the story a long time ago, but I hadn't thought about it in a while. When I think about it now, I realize that I'm pretty lucky to even exist.
My Mom and Dad met at a ski lodge. My Mom was there with a bunch of her female co-workers from the bank she worked at. They were looking to have some fun. My Dad was there on a weekend leave with a bunch of his Air Force buddies. They were looking for - well, you know. In any case, my Dad and his buddies had gotten there the night before, and my Dad had gotten completely smashed. My Dad had an awful hangover the next day, and he was in no mood to drink that day. When my Dad approached my Mom that day, he was one of the few guys in the lodge who wasn't rowdy and drunk. This gave my Mom the impression that my Dad was a really nice guy, so she agreed to spend some time with him that day. If my Dad had been drinking that day, there was no way my Mom would have even talked to him. Thus, I owe my existence to a hangover.
This got me thinking about all sorts of "Back to the Future"-type scenarios. What if something changed in the space-time continuum that made my Dad decide not to drink that night? I could see myself going back in time to that night, and trying to goad my Dad into a drinking contest.
Me: Come on Rich! Have another Jack Daniels! What are you, some kind of pussy!" ( My Dad is also named Rich ) C'mon, my grandma can drink more than you!
In any case, I haven't really been a drinker since learning a few lessons in college, but thank you alcohol, I owe you a lot.
Speaking of my Dad, I just found out that he has a facebook page, under his real name. We have the same name, which of course means that there is a facebook page out there with my real name. I found this out because my Dad just sent a facebook friends request to Ruth, who has a facebook page under her real name. Ruth isn't really into social networking at all, but she got a facebook page a few months ago because she wanted to view photos of one her friend's kids. Considering that she doesn't really want to do social networking, I should have advised her to create a facebook account under a fake last name ( as I did ). As soon as she created an account and became facebook friends with this friend of hers, she started to get all sorts of friends requests from both her friends and my friends. She also found herself getting tagged in photos, including a photo from 8th grade that she was not happy to see online. Now that my real name is showing up on Ruth's facebook friends list, I'm afraid that my Dad is going to get flooded with facebook friends requests from my friends ( well perhaps not, but if his profile doesn't have a picture of him, he certainly will ). If my Dad doesn't confirm these requests, my friends are going to think that I'm being some kind of stuck-up jerk. Well, I'm sure they'll figure out it's not my page eventually, but I don't want anyone to get a false impression even for a little bit. Anyway, at this point, I really don't want my IRL friends to know I have a facebook page under a fake name. I really prefer to have an online life which is distinct from my IRL life. I think a lot of this feeling is rooted in YouTube. My online life really started with YT, and I've always had a desire to build my YT subscriber list without soliciting a lot of help from IRL friends. I also feel like I get to see my IRL friends as much as I need to IRL, and if my IRL friends entered my online life, they might dominate it so much that I wouldn't meet as many new people online. I like meeting new people, so for now IRL and online life will remain separate.
Anyway, the two lessons from the story above are ...
1) C'mon guys, don't name your son after yourself. It's really just an ego trip if you do this, and it leads to all sorts of confusion for the rest of your life.
2) If you don't want to get attention on the Internet, don't use your real name.
Lesson number two reminds me of a funny story. Sometime in late 1997 or early 1998, Ruth was putting together a resume to apply for residency programs. She had once worked on a research project with somebody named Francisco Garcia, and wanted to contact him to see if she could cite the work she did for the project on her resume. Unfortunately, see didn't have his email address, so she did an internet search which yielded about 100 email addresses attached to the name "Francisco Garcia". When I got home one day, I found her frantically typing emails into our email application. She told me that she needed to send out 100 identical emails to 100 difference addresses. I watched her for a minute and noticed that she was actually typing out the full message for each email. So, at this point, I needed to explain to Ruth how "Copy and Paste" works in windows applications. Apparently, she wasn't aware that she could do this.
In any case, while I found it funny that somebody on the verge of graduating from medical school didn't know how to use "Copy and Paste", what happened next was even more funny ( inevitable, but still quite funny ). Within a day of sending out the 100 emails, Ruth started to get responses. None of them were from the right Francisco, but at least 5 of them were offers to have sexual relations. My favorite one said something along the following lines ...
"I am not the Francisco you are looking for. I am better than the other Francisco. I am the ultimate male in the world."
What makes this even more interesting is that while Ruth did give her real name on the email, the email address had my real name on it. Thus, these fellows were propositioning Ruth via email, even though they knew it was quite likely that her husband/boyfriend would be reading the email.
Well, I kinda gotta give some of those Francisco Gracia's credit. They certainly have a lot of balls!
Geez, I can see why the Internet can be such a scary place for woman sometimes. It's amazing the more women don't get scared off.
Rich
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