Rambling Rhodes

Chewing Crushed Ice

There's this comic strip my managing editor gave me awhile back, and she did so to taunt me about my noisy officemate. It's a Dilbert strip, and it features the bald guy with glasses chewing crushed ice, just so the woman in the cubicle next to him would be annoyed through the roof. The final panel show the woman, fists clenched, shaking in rage, saying "Must. . . destroy all refridgeration facilities. . . on earth!"

Right now, my officemate is sitting over in her bizarre little world, loudly chewing her beloved baby carrots. I've talked about this before, and I'm doing it again because, right now, I'm so irritated and annoyed by the popping and crunching of those accursed baby carrots, I want to pound my fists through something. ANYTHING!

There's really no way to explain how irritating it is to hear her masticating over there. And the worst part is that she eats, nonstop, from around 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Every. Day. And everything she eats is just as loud and annoying as everything else she eats. From carrots, to peaches, to apples, to the gargantuan salads, to the Healthy Choice TV dinners she nukes across the hall and brings into the office to assail the nostrils.

I mean, she says she's on a diet, which is fine. But, seriously, I don't care if you limit your diet to fruits and vegetables: if you eat nonstop, pretty much all day freakin' long, you're kind of defeating the point, right?! RIGHT!? So, you only eat apples and carrots and oranges? Good for you. So, you say you eat 8 apples, 8 oranges and roughly 100 million carrots a day? What the hell is wrong with you?!

Oh, and when she breaks out the peaches, that's always such a treat, and I notice there's one on her extensive menu for today, so I just can't wait for that. First, there's the open mouth death bite into the pulpy flesh of the peach, followed by the most God-awful slurping sound you've ever heard as she sucks the juice from the fruity wound. AGH! It makes me want to scream. Scream I tell you!!

And then there's the fruit cups. Oh, let me tell you about those fruit cups. The fruit cups are quiet for awhile, but then she gets down to the end, and what ensues is the most frantic scraping of spoon on plastic container, which goes on for about five minutes or so. "Must. . . get. . . at. . . last bit of. . .fruit paste!"

I'm dying here. Dying!

Oh, and she just blew her nose three times, which must signal the next course or something. I totally hate having an officemate, particularly THIS officemate.

If

James Lileks, in his Newhouse column, regarding the 9/11 commission:

If. If. Maybe. If. If George W. Bush had phoned the Saudis on the first day of his administration and told them any act of Islamist terror would result in a mushroom cloud over Mecca, and that he would consider it "what we call in bowling a practice frame," it might have been different. It might have been different if B-52s had taken out the Taliban in February 2001 -- and we all know how Ted Kennedy et al. would have exploded in a rain of bile had Bush kicked off his term with a pre-emptive war. The articles of impeachment would have been drawn up before the first wave of bombers returned to base.

Relationships

I got into a familiar argument with a friend of mine last night. I tend to generally believe I'm right about all things, and generally I think that's proven correct about 88 percent of the time, so arguments with me lean toward the "don't be stupid" end of the spectrum.

Anyway.

The argument in question was about the duration of relationships, and what a decent stretch of time should pass before such massive steps as living together or marriage should enter the fray. I was more than a little surprised at how my friend, Marc, reacted. He actually got angry which, in turn, got me angry.

I come from the old school of relationships, I guess. I've been on, maybe, 30 or so dates in my life, most of them in college, with the word "dates" being a relative term here that also includes random bar pick-ups that end up being aimless groping in the backseat of a car.

Of that 30 or so number, perhaps 15 of those actually morphed into something longer, like, maybe a week or month or three of phone calls or dates or whatever.

Of that 15, only really four amounted to anything resembling a long term relationship in which I was actually interested enough in them to sniff around and find out more.

And only two of those lasted longer than a year. I'm in one of those right now with Melissa.

With that background in place, here's the heart of the argument I had last night: I basically believe that, before a relationship can move into the living together or marriage stage, an earth-shattering amount of time should pass. I'm talking, like, three years or more. Maybe two years.

I thought Marc was about to fly out of his chair when I said that, which surprised me just a little bit. I'm not sure why he had such a bizarre reaction, but whatever.

The reason I think two or three or more years should elapse is simple: it takes that long to discover all the issues lurking in the mind of the significant other and to decide whether you're okay with them. In turn, that amount of time gives the significant other a window to do the same.

There's a divorce epidemic in America today, due in no small part to a culture that hails romance over common sense. Everybody wants a relationship that leaves them tingly into perpetuity. But, here's the deal: that tingly feeling only really truly lasts about six months or so, maybe a year if you're lucky, or your significant other is actually gay and is overcompensating. But, people want to capitalize on the tingly feeling and try to trap it, like a butterfly, and so they move on to the next relationship stage way before it's time.

So, I'm of the opinion, and I think rightly so, that a relationship of two or three years before taking the next big step is alarmingly smart. A relationship should be a gradual investment, not a lump sum gamble on Red 36, let the wheel spin.

I love Melissa, and she's probably the only woman (family not included) I've actually truly loved. But, I'm sure as hell not ready to live with her, even after a year-and-a-half of dating. I mean, during her spring break, when she and I were around each other constantly for over a week, I wanted to scream. And so did she. But, it's gradual. Eventually, provided we stick together that long, we'll feel out each other's personal boundaries and be able to be around each other for longer and longer stretches. If, however, we were to jump in right now and start living together, it would only be a matter of time before we explode. To me, this is all just common sense thinking.

Like I said, I didn't expect Marc to get as bent out of shape as he did, which makes me wonder if there's something going on in his mind that he's not saying. Or, maybe the concept of waiting two to three years, for Marc, like most Americans, just seems like too long a time.

Not me. If forever is going to be forever, I'm damned well going to make sure my relationship has longevity first, and three years just doesn't seem that unreasonable of a trial period.

UPDATE: Oh, and there was also this, which still bothers me to this day.

UPDATE 2.0: Jennifer noted that there are some exceptions, and of course there are. I posted a comment on her site that I feel is relevant to this post:

There are, of course, exceptions to everything. I think I may just be adhering to a genetic propensity towards waiting: my mom and dad dated for almost seven years or so before getting married (so long, in fact, that my mother's sister said "it's time to shit or get off the pot."

I guess I'm just more comfortable with waiting. Cuts out a lot of the "well, shit, I didn't know THAT" moments once you're married or living together.

The Hobby Of blogging

I used to collect coins. I mean, I used to be really into collecting coins. My years between 12 and 17 years of age were largely devoted to my coin collection. I would sometimes stay up until 3 a.m., meticulously documenting my collection, calculating the quality of my coins, protecting them, learning about them.

And, I became aware of a lot of other people who collected coins. Numismatists we're called. I went to coin shows, and I read a newspaper called Numismatic News, and I thought coin collecting was the shit.

And I guess it probably was. After all, locked in a bank security box in my hometown lies probably over $10,000 worth of coins, and their value basically goes up a bit every day. I really don't know how much they're worth right now, because I haven't actively collected coins since I lived in Tokyo and then went on to college, and then went on to life. Oh, sure, I'll peruse the change I'm given each day to see if I recognize any rarities in the mix, but I haven't stepped foot inside a coin shop or coin show for over a decade.

This blogging thing, I think, is a lot like coin collecting, or any hobby for that matter, in that it seems a lot more important to people who actually have blogs. blogging has all the earmarks of a hobby.

I started blogging at the insistence of my officemate at the time, Jen. I acquiesced partly to shut her up, but also because I figured blogging would be a great way to strengthen my writing skills and, because I'm a writer by profession (even if it is journalism, with is, like, writing lite), it made sense that I wanted to become better at it. And I think I have.

But, then I started to notice something. I started visiting other blogs, and I realized there are a lot of bloggers out there who have an inflated view of their importance in the world, kind of like the coin collecters I used to run into who believed their influence in the hobby should be recognized by all. "I have a mint condition 1948 Ben Franklin 50 cent piece! Bow before me!!"

It's not that I think blogging is a marginal pursuit or anything. It isn't. I think blogging is an incredibly useful tool for a myriad of reasons. It's just that, right now, I think some bloggers really think more highly of themselves than is probably warranted.

Back in my coin collecting days, I came to recognize some big names in the realm, and I'd recognize some Numismatic News writers at coin shows and I'd be left in a mild state of awe. The same thing, I think, would happen today if I bumped into, say, Glenn Reynolds, or James Lileks, or Andrew Sullivan, or Tammy (okay, I just threw Tammy in because she e-mailed me today).

But, those are the exceptions. The big name bloggers have transcended blogging into something else. They actually make money doing it, and their writing and links can actually occastionally influence the more established mass media (think Jayson Blair). Other bloggers, myself included, are just basically background noise, cogs in the machine that is blogging.

I'm not sure why I'm pondering all of this. I think it comes down to the whole flap about Kos, and the Jello fight between Michele and Wonkette, and numerous other blogging phenomenons as of late. The thing is, that stuff only really matters to bloggers, and maybe those people who don't have blogs but read them instead of doing actual work.

I used to get frustrated with people during my coin collecting days. I couldn't understand when people didn't know about coin collecting. How could they not know? Coin collecting was the biggest and bestest thing ever to happen in the world.

Some bloggers, I think, suffer from the same dillusion, letting their site meter fool them into thinking that they're so influential that they simply must be recognized by the world. A lot of political blogs have almost a desperate air about them, as if their every word is being scrutinized by the New York Times, just in case they're being scooped.

I'm not trying to poop on the importance of blogging. I mean, it's important, to be sure, and in its most valuable form it encourages rational discussion between rational people and I, for one, have gained immense insight into a range of issues.

But, generally, I don't take blogging that seriously. I mean, hell, I was on Blogger for over two years and didn't really care until someone actually had to drag me to a more funtional format. Still, I watch stuff like the big Kos explosion, and I'm left thinking, "get a life, people." And yet, there's a part of me that thinks Kos totally deserved to be run over the coals for saying something so incredibly stupid.

I don't know what the point of this post it. Just getting some stuff out of my head and in print before it disappears into my neural wasteland.

Which, again, I suppose may be the most valuable aspect of the hobby of blogging.

UPDATE: I meant to wrap this up with a tie-in to coin collecting, but work intervened. Anyway, I asked my brother once to name a well-known coin collecter, and of course I just got a blank stare. Now, I ask myself, if I were to approach somebody on the street and ask them to name a well-known blogger, I'm willing to bet I'd get the same blank stare. I guess I'm just questioning the overall influence of the blogosphere, such as it is.

Obligatory Pain Pic

So, I'm fascinated by crap like this. I'm a sicko. Sue me.

Home Ownership Is 11 Days Away

This weekend was spent driving by my house to be, followed by rollerblading past my house to be. I think I could tell you everything about the outside of the house, right down to the number of trees, right down to the types of bushes, right down to the insane landscaping that will be a gargantuan bitch to mow.

The inevitability of financial brokeness that will ensue come the closing day April 16 has pretty much sunk in. I've been pinching pennies so hard, copper wire practically spews from my butt like Dairy Queen soft serve. More than anything, I want to be able to afford, at least, the paint required to bring the inside of the house out of the 1950s.

I find myself toggling between emotional extremes. On the one hand, I'm so excited about moving in, I can barely contain myself. On the other hand, I have so many nightmare scenarios jostling in my mind, Freddy Krueger seems like Mickey Mouse. I can just imagine, come a few strong spring rains, that my basement will become a swimming pool, and large mutant rats will be drifting along on some rat-made Ark.

But, no, I'm mostly excited. Especially given the realization over the weekend that my house is about a block away from Rochester's newest man-made lake, which is slated to have a sprawling park and trail system built around it. Melissa was totally adorable about everything, getting all excited when she found out about the big sledding hill located about a half block away. Somehow, the thought of two almost-30-year-olds dragging sleds up a hill to go sledding seemed goofy to me, but she thought it was among the coolest things EVER.

Actually, there are all sorts of little and bigger-than-little projects springing up all over my soon-to-be neighborhood, which should make for an exciting few months coming up. Everywhere I look, it seems, there are indications that my property value is going to go nowhere but up, up and up, and the general consensus from everyone I talk to is that I got a steal at $125,000. I hope they're right.