A Little Journalism Lesson
I remember sitting in my journalism classes listening to the professors talk about some of their most memorable reporting experiences. Sure, newbie reporters get the shit-end of the salary stick (I made a whole $7 an hour at my first newspaper reporting job), but there's nothing like being out on a beat to experience news as it happens. It can be electrifying, and it can be boring, and it can be downright funny.
During my second newspaper job as news editor of the Stewartville Star, I kept an ear glued to the scanner each day, listening for emergency rescue dispatches and other such tidbits. I was ticking away at an ancient Macintosh computer, circa 1990, with a monitor so old and so ready to cash in its chips it was actually yellow, like looking through a Mountain Dew bottle. The chain-smoking publisher and his wife were working on ad layout just outside my office, smoking away (apparently working around so much paper and flammable glue didn't register as a concern), and the smoke snaked its way into my nostrils, making me hope beyond hope the scanner would go off so I could get the hell outdoors and into the fresh air.
The journalism genie must have heard me, because my wish was granted. A flurry of activity broadcast over the scanner and in short order the streets of Stewartville came alive with sirens. In a blink, I had my notebook, pen and camera loaded up and I was out the door to pursue the nearest vehicle with flashing lights. I settled in behind a police cruiser and followed it down a dusty gravel road for about three miles, when we finally came upon a roadblock of other cruisers and two emergency response vehicles.
It was an odd scene, but only because there was nothing remarkable to report. A truck with a topper was pulled over to the side of the road, and emergency personnel were working to extricate an obviously dead man from the driver's side. A few yards away, a stricken-looking woman was giving a report to an officer. She was perhaps 45, maybe younger, but her crying had caused her make-up to run, so she looked pretty awful, like Alice Cooper only worse.
Suddenly, a hand dropped on my shoulder and I was whirled around by an Olmsted County deputy who obviously viewed his badge as a reason to puff out his chest and strut like he was something special. Most officers are down to earth good people. He was not.
"Just what the hell do you think you're doing here?" he asked. "This is an accident scene."
"Then where's the accident?" I said. "All I see is a truck pulled over and a dead guy being wheeled into an ambulance. I'm a reporter and I'm just trying to find out what happened."
"This doesn't concern reporters like you," he sniffed. "Now step back over there beyond that squad car before I escort you there myself."
"Well, can I take pictures?" I pressed, mostly trying to buy time so I could listen in on the report being given by the stricken woman I had mentally started referring to as Alice Cooper. "I was thinking a good action shot of the gurney being put in the ambulance would be great."
"Are you trying to be funny?" he asked, taking a very serious pose apparently meant to make as much sunshine reflect off his badge as possible. "Move it. Now!"
I had played with Mr. Muscle long enough, and I didn't want to push him any further, as fun as that could have been, so I walked slowly back to my car. What I had gathered from the Alice's report was that the dead individual was a former Mower County elected official of some sort, but that was about it. I didn't understand all the secrecy, which usually is never an issue for a vehicle "accident." And, besides, why the hell were they referring to it as an accident when obviously the truck hadn't suffered so much as a scratch? I couldn't help but think there was more to this guy's death than I was being told, and that always pisses a reporter off. It's bad enough that we're paid shit, but being stonewalled sucks more than anything else.
I wasn't beat yet. One of the cardinal rules about small town reporting is you simply must make nice early on with the people of local government and the law enforcement officials who spend the most time in town. I knew the local deputy (referred to as Ted here) extremely well and had done a ride along with him my second week on the job to make it known that I was not his enemy. He proved to be one of the best sources of information during the ten months I worked at that paper.
I tracked down Ted at a local Hardees, and he told me to meet him at his office where things weren't quite so public. I did as he asked, fully anticipating a juicy news story. I was envisioning a great tale of suspected murder of a former elected Mower County official. Oh, my scoop would be the envy of the local media outlets. This was my big break. Come on, Ted, feed me the details!
These were the details, all off the record of course:
Alice Cooper, who wasn't the loving wife of the former elected Mower County official, but an occasional on-the-side girlfriend, was performing an apparently stellar blowjob in the cab of the parked truck, when suddenly the former elected Mower County official suffered a heart attack and died. Although Ted and I laughed ourselves senseless, there was no way I was going to report on that.
So much for making the big time.
And I Do This Why?
Today I'm sporting a slightly blackened right eye. Nothing major, just tiny shiner on the upper eye socket, the result of yet another enthusiastic night of hapkido.
There's really only one guy I work out with who is guaranteed to hurt me, and I'm guaranteed to hurt him back. He's my height and slightly heavier than me, and we both like to dish out the punishment against each other. We're not enemies or anything like that, we just know that the other guy can take the abuse so we try to work out as realistically as possible. Full speed, and with dangerous amounts of power. It's amazing we don't emerge far more wounded than we do.
When I work out with the girls in the class, dainty little high school seniors who weigh maybe 100 pounds, if that, I always have to be pretty careful. Granted, they're scrappy little vixens, and they can take loads upon loads of punishment, but only to a certain extent. They're technically superb, and chances are, if confronted by a novice on the street, they'd leave an attacker bruised and battered on the asphalt within a few seconds. They're quick, and they're mean, and they call me Puddles because I sweat so much. But, in class, they're small and they seem almost fragile at times. So, I don't get the best of workouts with them. The same goes for newbies and some of the older folks who wince before you even execute a move.
And then there's John. Any time I'm paired up with him, I'm both excited and terrified. I KNOW I'm going to get hurt, but at the same time I know the workout is going to be great. He's a flawless sparring partner, combining boxing, taekwondo and hapkido techniques into an arsenal that just tears me apart. When we grapple, however, he's in my world, and I exact as much revenge as I can.
Whereas sparring requires kicking and punching your opponent, grappling requires bringing your opponent to the ground, working them into a submission hold, and choking them unconscious. Usually they tap out before they go unconscious. It's a blast, but you're far more likely to be hurt grappling because the opponent will go to great lengths to avoid getting choked, including digging at pressure points and punching at any exposed body part, such as the eye. Which is how I earned my current shiner.
People ask why I do hapkido when I get hurt so often, and I usually fumble with the answer. It's hard to explain the appeal, but it really comes down to a love of one-on-one self-defense. Sparring with people, exploiting weaknesses in their defenses, grappling an opponent into a submission hold from which they can't escape, it's all so primitive but there's so much technique and skill involved. And you don't really realize you're learning anything until a friend jokingly throws a punch at you and you fold them over without even really thinking about it.
Beating up friends is so worth a black eye.
How Big is Just Right?
Am I the only person somewhat perpelexed by the explosion of penis enlargement advertisements and spam mail? There are even television commercials and informercials on the topic for crying out loud. Would somebody please tell me what the heck is going on?! When did the male population start looking downward and think, "That needs to be bigger?"
I won't go into the size of my own penis, because frankly there's not enough space on the entire world wide web to accommodate a detailed description of my wang. Suffice it to say, I'm pleased with my penis, and I have yet to get a complaint. And even if someone were to complain, I probably wouldn't believe them.
But apparently there's a major demand to embiggen the man muscle, and I can't for the life of me understand why. As it is, the male penis is kind of an uncomfortable piece of equipment to lug around. It dangles there, between the legs, a fleshy pendulum that toggles between the thighs. If God weren't so rusty with his genetic skills, he would have put the penis in a less obtrusive spot, like on the back of the head as a type of penis ponytail. Headbanging would be a type of mating display.
The penis's complementary attachments, the scrotum and testicles, are also not situated in the most convenient of spots. Together, all that male equipment shifts more than tectonic plates, and probably with as much friction. Why in the world would you want to make any of it even bigger? After all, I don't look at my airline luggage and think, "Man, I really wish I had more to carry."
But yet here we are with a consumer marketplace being flooded with creams, salves, pills, liquids, pumps and, if you can believe it, an entire magazine dedicated to the quest for a larger dong. Once upon a time, such penis enlargement options could only be found in the back of particularly dirty men's magazines like Hustler, and were only viewed by acne-ridden adolescents buried beneath their blankets late at night reading by flashlight. Now, you can just flip through the channels and see actual commercials touting a bigger boy.
Just out of curiosity, how much further down the acting ladder can you possibly slide if you have to accept a commercial gig as "penis enlargement guy #1?" I can't imagine that's the type of resume padding that will land you in a soap opera any time soon. Everywhere you go, there's the danger that people will recognize you as the guy who uses penis enlargement aids.
But I'm getting off topic here. My main question still remains, "why would you really want to make your penis bigger?" Granted, there are some men out there that don't feel they measure up, men who fall short of the overall world average of six inches while erect. If they feel inadequate somehow, then sure, they have a legitimate reason to try and stretch their jimmies.
But, men seeking to extend beyond six or seven inches are just being unreasonable, and I would argue they're hopelessly vain and greedy. Some of the enlargement products show men holding on to specimens that look like soft forearms. A ten inch weiner? No thanks. What good could you possibly do with a ten inch penis? Except for repeatedly hitting the end of the road for practically every female not over six feet tall.
Besides, when you're not engaged in intercourse, you still have that ten inch wand to deal with. Myself, I probably am forced to adjust my package 20 times a day. I like my penis to rest on my right thigh. It's home there. Comfortable. But if I had a ten inch coiled behemoth to worry about, I think I'd go insane. It would get squeezed between your legs and, you know, there's a good chance you'd occasionally sit on it. Imagine sitting in on a meeting, when suddenly your penis slides down underneath your right buttock. Now you're just stuck there, sitting on your dink, trying to concentrate through a veil of tears, waiting for a break so you can adjust yourself. "A ten inch penis. What was I thinking?!"
If you're uncomfortable with your penis size, don't take drastic measures to get bigger, just date really small women. It's all relative.
Hardware of the Rich and Famous
My girlfriend works at a St. Paul Restoration Hardware outlet. Now, normally, the term "hardware" conjures images of handheld drills and circular saws and bins upon bins of nails, screws, nuts and bolts. Not so at Restoration Hardware. When I first followed my girlfriend into her place of work, I was taken aback by the staggering amounts of non-hardware crap for sale. Could I interest you in a Lomo Russian Camera?
I'm not bashing my girlfriend's line of work. Not at all. I'm mostly perturbed at the class distinction inherent in places like Restoration Hardware. It's the hardware store for people who are too good for Home Depot or Menards. Granted, Restoration does keep paint in stock and there are other items that could, theoretically, be considered hardware items. Perhaps a Digital Recording Tape Measure? Let's be honest, if you're enough of a yuppy to need a digital recording of your voice to note measurements, instead of a trusty pencil and paper, you probably have no business trying your hand at home improvement. Thankfully, Restoration also offers a German Tape Measure, for no apparent reason except to offer a German Tape Measure. Use it to see how low or heil your pictures should be hung. To be on the safe side, if you find yourself using either of these tape measures, you should also have Restoration's Pocket Medic First-Aid Kit on hand.
Ordinary Joes like me must rely on Ace Hardware for all our tool needs. But, if you're in a higher tax bracket, you can peruse Restoration Hardware for anything from furniture to Dog Bookends or Brooklyn Bridge Bookends. Sheesh, say that fast 10 times.
I'm somewhat kidding, of course. I realize that Restoration Hardware doesn't promote itself as a genuine hardware store. It openly embraces those with kitschy tastes. After all, only the Cleavers could truly find a use for The Family Band. If I remember my childhood correctly, and my particularly hyperactive self, I'm fairly certain The Family Band would find itself hopelessly scattered througout the house, and The Family Dog would have chewed the maracas into splinters within hours.
I really can't poke too much fun here, primarily because one of the nicest Christmas gifts I received this year came from Restoration Hardware. Okay, truth be told, virtually every gift from the girlfriend came from Restoration Hardware, due primarily to her 40 percent employee discount. Still, The Ultimate Game Box is probably the best chess board I've ever owned, even though you could probably find a much cheaper version at any number of less pretentious game shops.
Melissa has a sense of humor about Restoration Hardware, which is a good thing because I always make fun of it. But even she doesn't really fit in there. As a visual display designer, or whatever the hell her title is, she doesn't have to deal with customers, which she admittedly detests doing. That task is left to her co-workers, an impossibly coifed lot of women who probably spend eight hours in front of the mirror preparing for their work day. This is in major contrast to Melissa, who doesn't wear make-up and shows up 20 minutes late every day because she, like me, likes to sleep until the very last possible minute.
Still, I encourage everyone to visit the Restoration Hardware Web site and peruse their offerings, if for no other reason but to get a really good laugh.
The Eyes of the Pharaohs and Bits of Randomness
Last Saturday, I went to the Minneapolis Institute of Arts to peruse their recently opened Egyptian exhibit, on loan from the British Museum until March 13. I'm one of those pathetic souls who can't absorb enough about ancient Egypt. If I'm flipping through the channels and I catch a glimpse of the pyramids, I'm stuck there, whether I've seen the program 10 times before or not. I've become adept at listening to Dr. Zahi Hawass and understanding him through his maddeningly thick accent.
Unfortunately, my exposure to the world of ancient Egypt has been entirely through the medium conjured by Philo T. Farnsworth: television. The chance to actually see 144 Egyptian artifacts up close was just too enticing to ignore. It truly is an woderful exhibit. For an hour-and-a-half, I absorbed 5,000 years worth of history, standing before works of art so brilliantly crafted, it was hard to believe they weren't created minutes ago rather than millennia.
Although you're not supposed to touch the artifacts, I really couldn't help myself. How can you stand an inch away from a carved relief and not touch it? How can you stay your hand from so much history? It was worth it. It's astounding how smooth and perfect the cold stone felt. The ancient Egyptians understood art and architecture to an extent that makes the rest of the ancient world seem like a troupe of doddering imbeciles. I mean, seriously, if you compare Stonehenge and the pyramids, which culture would you want to be associated with?
Moving on over to weather, with our weatherman, Ryan Rhodes, we see that much of Minnesota is enjoying temperatures in excess of 50 degrees today. It is freakishly unusual to see such temperatures in January. January is usually the month dedicated to the god of sweaters and the demi-god of shovels and ice-picks. But here it is 50 degrees! Unbelievable. It definitely makes the winter season bearable when there's no snow on the ground and jackets, if even for a short while, are optional. I think I'll leave work early today just so I can go for a run in the daylight and totally enjoy the weather.
And finally, I would be most remiss if I didn't give at least passing mention to the world of terrorism. It seems those wacky terrorists are dabbling in lethal toxins, although how they intend to use the toxic toys remains unclear. Granted, it's no big surprise that they're playing with toxins. After all, in their fundamentalist minds, any way you can kill an infidel is a good way. However, it really sheds some light on how totally fucking demented these people are that they want to expose people to a toxin so vile it actually causes people to shit themselves to death. Imagine, just imagine, that somewhere in the world, someone you have never met, and frankly could care less about, is cooking up a plan to expose you to a chemical that causes fever, stomach ache, diarrhea, vomiting and eventually death. Inhaling ricin often results in death from respiratory failure in 36 to 72 hours. Injected ricin causes death from multiple organ failure.
I'm not panicking here, I'm just pissed. Islamic fundamentalist terrorists honestly believe the West is out to destroy Islam, but they're the folks scheming to obliterate people by the thousands. If we truly wanted to eradicate Islam, we're more than capable of launching a nuclear salvo and reducing every Islamic country in the world to smoldering piles of turbans. But, we're not out to eradicate Islam. Islam is not our enemy. As far as we're concerned, you can worship however the fuck you want. Go ahead and become a Raelian for all we care. We're not against any religion. We're against those who use their own religious interpretation as justification for the indiscriminate killing of innocents. That's not a religion, it's a declaration of war.
"Deadly Conversations," c. Ryan Rhodes, Jan. 2, 2002
Consider, if you will, the following scenario.
A young man, perhaps 27-years old, who some would argue is a smoking hot specimen of male hunkiness, invites his girlfriend to Christmas dinner with his parents.
It's a relaxing atmosphere consisting of just four people, although there is the slight anxiety on the part of the young man ("do they like her"), and on the part of the girlfriend ("do they like me"), and on the part of the mother ("do they like my cooking"), and on the part of the father ("I wonder if I could get away with flatulence right now").
As the turkey makes its rounds and the wine is sipped, the parents start light conversation. This is expected, because light conversation is a good complement to turkey and wine. Eventually, however, the conversation spirals deeper and deeper, until finally the mother speaks.
"You remember Mildred Asner? Well, she had some pain in her neck so she went to the doctor. Turns out she had neck cancer. Entire neck, ridden with cancer. First known case ever. Doctors gave her five months. Three weeks later, she was dead."
"Well, don't forget Guy Richardson," says the father. "He was out one morning, getting the newspaper, when he stubbed his toe on the way back inside. He didn't want to take any chances with a stubbed toe, you know, so he went to the doctor. Doctor told him he had an advanced case of toe cancer. Gave him 12 hours to live. Poor Guy just rolled over dead right there in the doctor's office."
The conversation proceeds like this for the remainder of the dinner. As the turkey disappears, the tales of death and dying continue to roll forth in a torrent of Grim Reaper delight. The smoking hot young man notices his girlfriend turning pale, but smiling bravely. By this time, her thoughts of joyful Christmas delight are no doubt lost amidst a swirl of premonitions of her own ghastly demise, probably due to an obscure illness like belly button cancer.
Now, this was entirely a hypothetical scenario. It certainly had nothing to do with me, or my girlfriend, or my family. This was just a Joe Everybody tale, a common Christmas experience, a . . . okay, okay, it was about me, and about my girlfriend, and about my family.
I'm not sure when the evolution took place exactly, but at some point in their life my parents decided that the tales of death and woe of their friends and acquaintances somehow constitutes good, lively conversation.
Fun stories about parties and gatherings and life's little foibles are gradually being replaced by dark recollections of how people succumbed to illness or how they had to be amputated at the torso to stop the spread of leg hair cancer.
It's not so much the stories, as bleak as they are, that bother me. What bothers me is that I've heard all these stories before, many years before, coming from the mouths of my grandparents and the older relatives gathered around the dinner table.
I remember thinking, even then, that the discussions disturbed me for some reason. Perhaps it was the thirsty interest they seemed to share when talking about how Great Uncle Patterson died that summer after a freak shuffleboard accident, or how a third cousin, Hester, was bit by a rabid tree squirrel and died six weeks later after biting three neighbor girls who all, likewise, died (the Great Rabid Girl Plague of 1978). I'm exaggerating, of course (no, really, I am), but you get the idea.
Granted, the names have now changed, and the methods of demise reflect modern medicine's ability to stave off the deadlier diseases of yore, but the preoccupation with death and illness now seems to be overtaking my parents, and it's a nerve-wracking transformation to witness, particularly over Christmas dinner, with my girlfriend sitting across from me wondering if I was spawned by the Addams Family or the Munsters.
Great, now I have this vision of my father, dressed as Gomez, kissing his way up my mother's arm, draped in flowing black, saying, "Oh, my wife, *smooch* *smooch* *smooch* In this light, you remind me of Mildred Asner shortly before the neck cancer took her away."
Ba da da dum. Click, click. Ba da da dum. Snap, snap. Ba da da dum, ba da da dum, ba da da dum.
Oooh, Let's Fear the Wrath of Ventura
I'll admit it, I voted for Jesse Ventura. And I'm sorry. How was I to know?
Well, Jesse is gone, taking his feather boas with him, no doubt gearing up for a civilian life that will include all manner of attempts to inflate his already gargantuan ego. I'm not particularly sorry to see him go. Although he definitely put Minnesota on the map in a DD cup bra sort of way, his antics by and large were so monumentally self-serving and ultimately non-sensical, he left most Minnesotans shaking their heads saying, "Yah, he's a pretty odd governor, you betcha."
More than anything else, I took his constant media bashing personally, primarily because I'm a journalist by trade. When he called reporters "jackals," I couldn't help but feel the red glow of anger flush on my cheeks. Granted, he was mostly referring to those assigned to the state government beat, but I was guilty by association, a jackal on the fringe.
I don't disagree that there are a lot of unscrupulous journalists out there and, particularly in some of the local news outlets, lazy and sloppy journalism is rampant, but overall the media has a Democratic obligation and a right to investigate and report on what it can. Granted, reporting on the eating habits of Julia Roberts may seem pretty insignificant and useless, but reporters wouldn't be out there reporting on it if there weren't readers out there thirsting for the info. The media may be a big beast, but the whims and wishes of the public dictate where the beast goes. Well, for the most part.
The point is, the media made Governor Ventura. If it weren't for the media covering the hulking mound of flesh and his bid for the governorship, he never would have been elected. Instead, we would have had everybody's favorite lazy grandpa (Skip Humphrey) or Mayor Quimby (Norm Coleman) at the helm for the past four years. You would expect a little gratitude on the part of "The Mind," but it was not to be.
Jesse just doesn't get it. He wants the fame without the notoriety. He wants adoration and praise and an adoring public chanting his name as he executes a flawless scissor kick from the top ropes of the wrestling ring. He treated the Minnesota governorship as his own personal WWF Raw Smackdown buffoon stage. We elected him to lead and he promptly did an interview for Playboy, where he made comments that were pretty much intended to piss off as many people as possible. He followed that up with some late show appearances where he insulted the Irish. He followed that up with a return to the world of professional wrestling as an announcer. He followed that up with a stint as an announcer for the horrid XFL. And we're somehow jackals for following the freak show around and reporting his exploits? Give me a break. I mean really.
Sadly, we're still stuck with Ventura in our own little way, as he has promised to be a watchdog over the media now that he's out of office. Oh, goody.
He pointed out that his 72nd and final judicial appointee, Terrence Walters of Rochester, had been an unsuccessful finalist for the bench several times before, and he likened him to a Navy sailor who vomited while doggedly trying to qualify for frogman duty.
Gee, that sounds like just the kind of man I want sitting on a judicial bench.
He also said he expects to have no future role in public affairs except as a voter. "I'd rather critique the media," he added, "because no one does that, and I think someone should. As of Monday, you will fear me."
I know I'm shaking in my Sketchers. Excuse me, but "no one" critiques the media? I think a quick perusal of the Letters to the Editor section of any newspaper worth its ink will refute that statement outright. The public is the most outspoken collective critic of the media. The last thing the public needs is a blowhole like Ventura leading the charge.
Regarding his send-off tribute last weekend, The invitation reads: "Come dressed as you like . . . from formal to outrageous. Feast on fabulous traditional Heartland Fare; Enjoy your favorite cocktails; Sample fine cigars at the cigar bar; Hear remarks from guest speakers. Rub elbows with local and national celebrities. Join us in a champagne toast and dance the night away." A disclaimer warns: "no cameras -- no autographs -- no media jackals!"
Let's see, "local and national celebrities." Yes, it's quite obvious Jesse was treated pretty shabbily by the media if he can entice local and national celebrities to sup at his going away bash. Must be rough, Guv. Sorry for being so hard on you.
"I'm looking forward to going back into private life," he said. "God bless everyone, and good luck in the future."
Except for us jackals, right Jesse?
Relationship Retrospective
Obviously, no two relationships are the same. Some are fast, shooting stars of passion and emotion and unrealistic dreams that seem realistic as hell, that eventually flare out as the dual lenses of common sense and just plain unfair life come into focus and you realize just how much is missing. Others are slow, happening almost by accident over time, a shared laugh here, an unexpected interim alone there, until one evening you end up kissing and making your way to the bedroom, and you're left thinking afterward, "how the hell did that happen?" Some are one night stands, and some are nightmares of unrequited emotions that leave you tossing and turning into the wee morning hours.
So far, I think I've done them all at least once.
As I drove back to Rochester from St. Paul this afternoon after a weekend with Melissa, I found my mind wandering back to when we first met and how unlikely our being together actually is. By all accounts, we shouldn't probably be together, due to a confluence of circumstances, not the least of which is the fact that, for a time, I was dating two other women in addition to Mel.
To put it mildly, I had a busy summer. A good summer, obviously, but a busy summer.
Starting in July, I began dating a nurse at the Mayo Cinic, a disturbingly cute nurse with an alluring intellectual capacity that made for some wonderful sarcastic exchanges between us. She was funny, smart and cute. In short, she was a tough act to surpass, and I really didn't expect that to happen.
Also in July, however, as I was enjoying a late afternoon jog around the local lake, I came up behind another jogger, a tall female specimen with an impossibly tight behind. I started passing her without thinking anything of it, but I gradually became aware that she was matching my strides, keeping up alongside me, escalating things into an outright foot race. The long and the short of it, without going into who won, was that we exchanged phone numbers and started talking to each other on and off. Eventually, we went on two dates, during which time I realized that, although she had a stellar body, she was dumb as a stump, and that's actually being pretty damned mean to stumps. This girl didn't know what the word "cinema" was, and she once referred to a menu as a "men-ooh." Whether it was intentional or not, I don't know, but it gave me a headache.
Into this mix entered Melissa, a friend of a friend, Lisa, who thought we may have a chance together. Truth be told, if it hadn't been for Lisa feeding the two of lies about each other, we probably never would have gotten together. Lisa told Mel that I really liked her, when in reality I mostly tolerated her. On the other side of the coin, Lisa told me that Mel thought I was really cute and nice, when in actuality Mel says that she thought I was probably a player, which I guess I was a little bit in college, but not any more. I did think Mel was cute, and her dark red, naturally curly hair gave her a playful and innocent quality that made me feel comfortable around her.
Oh, yes, also briefly interjected into the month of July was a phone call from an ex-girlfriend of about three years ago. Despite an incessent pounding in my chest telling me to rekindle things, I allowed my mental reasoning to point out all the bad crap that got between us in the first place. I decided not to pursue anything with her further, although I spent about three sleepless nights making that decision.
So, there I was, in July, dating three different women and making excuses why I couldn't see one while I saw a different one. There was a certain amount of fun involved, due primarily to the appeal of danger of being discovered. Gradually, however, I realized that I couldn't play the game any more, and not just because I felt bad that feelings were involved. Quite simply, I was becoming pooped and irritable. It's exhausting to lie in perpetuity.
The first to go was the runner. This was an easy decision to make because she was so intellectually non-stimulating, and her sense of humor, if you can call it that, centered around gossip about her friends, none of whom I had ever met, so the jokes constantly escaped me. It was a simple matter of not calling her any more. She called once or twice when I was out, and I never called back. Case closed.
Which left the nurse and Mel. The biggest drawback with Mel, initially, was that she just never seemed to talked. I joked with her over dinner once that she was a "conversational black hole." I tried different conversational topics with her, I tried jokes, I tried everything, but to no avail. Despite my best efforts, she acted as though she was being interrogated by the FBI. It was frustrating, and I very nearly ended it.
The nurse, on the other hand, was a conversational fountain, always talking and joking and making insightful comments. So, it seemed like a no-brainer. The nurse was the girl to go with, hands down. Well, until Mel and I went for a 20 mile rollerblading sojourn in late August that is. The trek took us into the countryside, and it was quiet, and suddenly Mel was not. She talked freely and openly and, most importantly, she was delightfully funny. And she totally got my jokes, and she laughed with the most intoxicating giggle I had ever heard. For a few hours that afternoon, I found myself not thinking about the nurse. I thought about Mel, and I enjoyed her company thoroughly.
>From there, it came down to chemistry.
With the nurse, I always felt a stilted intimacy, as if we were secretly consulting mental intimacy books and going through the step-by-step instructions. I remember coming up with lame excuses not to go to the bedroom with her. Even though my groin was yelling "hey, what about me?!" my head was thinking, "this isn't right; something's not there."
Mel and I, however, had intimate chemistry. Tons of intimate chemistry. Ridiculous excesses of intimate chemistry. Contact came easy, fluid. Kissing was passionate and unabashed. We became those icky people you see in malls with arms around each other. Yes, that's us. Bedroom time is every time. Right now is the best possible time to have sex. I focused on Mel and extricated myself from the nurse. By the way, if anybody out there knows a good way to break up, please let me know your method. You know, just in case.
For six months now, Mel and I have been going out, making pilgrimmages to see each other on the weekends, and stealing time when possible during the week. We have yet to fight, and we have no problem with the other wanting to do something different and without them occasionally. It's a good relationship, and a healthy one. It's been a gradual process of getting to know one another, with both of use apparently sharing the belief that relationships are not lighting, they are work. Lightning blinds, and lightning numbs, and that's no environment to expose your most precious feelings.
And on Christmas Eve, after six months, I told her I loved her. And it only took me 1.5 bottles of wine to do it. I was figuring three bottles, easy.
