March 10, 2010

maybe i'm amazing

Young Lilly is scalp-deep in grad school. By text she wailed weepy, plaintive noises at me. I remember that feeling. Grad school was certainly the most transforming period of my life, but my god, did I ever hate it when I was there.

And thus did I send Lilly a huge care package of gourmet treats.

"You are amazing," read the subsequent text from her. It felt weird.

And I realized, with a jolt, that this was the first time a woman had ever directed these words at me without drips of sarcasm.

posted by john at 09:28 AM  •  permalink

February 24, 2010

waggot season

The site appears to be back up. Such is the mystery of my ISP.

• • •

Perusing Facebook, I saw that Mike had just fanned the group "Seattle Gay Scene." Specifically, it looked like this:

"Mike Pinkpoofter has become a fan of Seattle Gay Scene."

Seeking something to mock, I clicked the second link. It was then that I discovered that unlike with status updates or groups, the fan link does more than show you the item in question.

"You have become a fan of Seattle Gay Scene."

Ha, ha. Imagine my family's face when they see that. They've long suspected. I like cooking and Glee, after all, and no girlfriend has stuck around longer than six years. Something's seriously up with that.

And then I tried to un-fan Seattle Gay Scene. Took me a good 20 minutes of combing my configuration to figure out that you have to open the fan page you've never before opened, then click "Remove Me As a Fan." 20 increasingly less amused minutes. 20 costly minutes.

"Poor little waggot," Mike chided.

posted by john at 09:12 AM  •  permalink

February 19, 2010

two hours is a luxuriously long time to plan your friend's grisly murder

"Wanna smoke?"

Dirt knows I haven't taken a day off work in a month, so the offer was especially sweet to my ears. God, yes. I'll be right over.

"This is Brian," Dirt said, pointing to a stranger offering me a Cuban cigar.

"You're the computer guy?" Brian asked. "Got any degrees?"

Beware strangers bearing Cubans.

For the glacial next two hours, I smoked that Cuban and listened to Brian's business idea. He made me swear not to divulge it, but as you'll see in 29 words' time, absolutely nothing will come of my sharing it with a mass audience. Brian's big idea: people can use the Web to teach one another...around the world!

His patent was rejected, but he's resubmitting it.

"My friend the second-ranked quantum physicist in the world says this could be the first company in the world with a trillion-dollar market cap."

Maybe with a trillion dollars in venture capital, sure.

Over and over, he talked about the brilliance of his idea, about how he couldn't believe that he beat Bill Gates and Steve Jobs and Warren Buffet to it. Eventually Dirt just got up and went inside, abandoning me to listen to the unremitting drone of Brian's self-delusions. "We're gonna save the economy and change the world," he said, shaking his head meaningfully, at least a dozen times.

In fact, I have now shared every last thing Brian said in two hours during which he talked unremittingly. As you might imagine, there was some repetition. Finally, he concluded with "So what do you think of my business idea, John?"

"Enough about you, what do I think about you?" I replied.

"Right," he replied with no self-awareness.

posted by john at 09:01 AM  •  permalink

December 22, 2009

anything i can do to help

I was telling Terrell and Don about Avatar. "What's the name of the actress again?" she asked.

"Zoe Saldana," I said.

She couldn't place the name. Her husband chimed in. "She played Uhura in the new Star Trek movie."

The following dialogue then occurred simultaneously:

posted by john at 07:54 AM  •  permalink

December 10, 2009

i'll put you down for half, then?

I'm told it's nearly Christmastime, so I've started baking kolachi, a Polish pastry my grandmother made for the holidays. I always send a few to my grad-school friends in Spokane. Sue, now 80, doesn't eat a whole lot of anything anymore. Since kolachi is essentially melted butter in loaf form, I figured I should call and see if she wants a whole loaf, or just half.

"Hi, John."

"Hey, hon. How are you?"

"I have the WORST diarrhea."

posted by john at 07:23 PM  •  permalink

November 26, 2009

what i'm stankful for

Even the breakups that I took hardest had their silver linings. No matter how much I was going to miss her, she undoubtedly brought someone into my life whom I wasn't going to miss in the least. On this Thanksgiving, it is for these latter assholes that I am stankful. Specifically, I'm stankful for their absence.

Iris (Celeste's mother)
My first in-law type was an unrepentant bitch. The first and only woman who ever predicted that I would be a wife-beater. She was a WWII British war bride whose husband upgraded, and she subsequently hated all men. When Celeste was a child, Iris told her sweet things like "Men are so revolting. They want to urinate inside you." Buh-bye.

Ken (Maddie's father)
He hated me for making him superfluous to his daughter. I hated him for being a racist piece of yak shit. One day, to Maddie's abject horror, this uneducated trailer-dweller was holding forth about the intellectual inferiority of minorities. Maddie tried to correct him, but he got angry. So I pointed out that my black best friend was (and remains) the smartest person I've ever met, with an IQ well above Einstein's. "She has some white in her. They all do," he declared effortlessly. Jesus H. Buh-bye, Cooter.

Donna (Fucking Amy's mother)
When I have to put a face to evil, hers is the one I conjure. She was my first experience with born-again Christianity as a despotic, anti-intellectual means of control, and it was a defining one. I will never forget her satisfied smirk as she destroyed my relationship and, for quite a while, my life. I don't miss her self-serving proselytizing, how what she wanted always happened to be what Jesus wanted, too. If there's ever an open season on ex-in-laws, she will be the first one I bag.

Christy (Phil's wife)
This list isn't restricted to romantic relationships. Christy was my first Yoko. The gang was me, Lynn, Sue, and Phil. Then she invited herself along. Despite the fact that she had nothing of remotest interest to say (truly, her only hobby was watching home shopping networks, which were always on), we grudgingly made our happy quartet an awkward quintet. Until they disappeared without comment and we became a trio. We all miss Phil, but it's never without a twinge of happiness about the silver lining. Christy was a social control rod, lowered into a nuclear reaction to stop it cold.

Khristi's monkey
Different Khristi. I dated this one. When your new, wildly erratic girlfriend speaks cautiously about how she "used to" be addicted to meth, just save yourself some time and bail.

Anyone Bubba 1 ever boinked
From his shrewish ex-wife to the proud loser for whom he left her, he never, ever dated anyone I could stand. The latter loser, especially, was indulgently moronic. She concocted preposterous narratives in which she was the master of the known universe, and he bought into them. As I watched her chip IQ points off him, I couldn't stand to be around him, either. Hence the invention of Bubba 2 for football weekend purposes. So much more enjoyable without a Yoko calling every twenty minutes to be sure my buddy was thinking of her. And Bubba 2 and his cell phone don't disappear for entire halves at a time. Bonus.

Happy Thanksgiving to all, and to all a good riddance.

posted by john at 09:17 AM  •  permalink

October 26, 2009

best served cold

My friends' kids, initially useless to me, have over time become indispensable conduits for annoying my friends. From Henry's drum set to Annalie's Steelers cap, the kids have become willing co-conspirators in my efforts to punish my friends for having had kids.

And thus did I take Silly String to Terrell's house last Saturday. It sprayed in all directions, into every orifice and crevice, and her girls could not have loved me more. "John, why would you DO something so horrib-"

Terrell stopped there, having apparently come up with the answer for herself. "Here, let mommy see it for a second," she said to the younger, more gullible child. And then I watched Terrell entomb my nearby iPhone in Silly String, like Cheez Whiz on a cracker, if you were trying to mummify the cracker by making sure no air could ever get to it again. Or cheese, for that matter.

The one and only button doesn't work right anymore, either.

posted by john at 08:22 AM  •  permalink

October 15, 2009

eep

An ex was telling me how annoyed she is by how all of her right-wing acquaintances are regurgitating the same AM radio joke. The joke: now that Obama has won the Nobel Peace Prize, he'll next win the Heisman Trophy. We rolled our eyes at how people parrot these things. Then I wondered something.

"Do you even know what the Heisman Trophy is?" I asked.

She did. "And that's another thing. The last guy asked me the same condescending question. I was like...I hate you!"

Yikes. "And, by extension then, me. For asking you the same question."

She shook her head and waved her hand at me. "Nah, I don't hate you for that," she said, not remotely trying to be funny.

posted by john at 10:49 AM  •  permalink

October 13, 2009

she's got such a way with word

Leave it to Flo to crystallize the stupidity of my day perfectly:

"So in other words, you're getting up at 6am to go to the Hooters in Tacoma where fucking Sanjaya's sister used to work?"

posted by john at 07:29 AM  •  permalink

October 12, 2009

early bloomer

"This is so cute," Flo said to me over the phone. "My daughter is asking if we can visit you. She says she misses you."

At five years old, Mimi hasn't yet hit that wall where women are dying to get away from me. That happens at around eight.

"C'mon out!" I said.

"Mimi wants to know if we can spend the night."

"Of course. I'll make pizza."

"She says she wants king crab."

Jesus H. Okay.

CUT TO: EXTERIOR - BEACH -DAY

They have just arrived, and I'm sitting on the deck while Mimi and Flo gather seashells. Flo wants to go inside, but Mimi wants her to continue beachcombing. "I want company," Mimi whines.

"Well, maybe John will help you."

Mimi stared at her mother. "But he's not good company."

posted by john at 09:40 AM  •  permalink

October 08, 2009

calling a man about a horse

We'll do this story in B-C-A fashion.

I called Terrell's cell phone to discuss dinner plans. We hung up. Then she heard her husband's cell ringing and saw that it was me. She answered it.

"What, are you playing us?" she spat.

"Uh, no. I just forgot to tell you a funny story to pass on to Don, and I figured why call you back when I could just call him? Of course, I underestimated just how suspicious and controlling you are..."

She grumbled something and handed the phone to Don. She watched his laugh build and build until it concluded with a delighted "SERIOUSLY?!? What did the horse do?"

• • •

Now, nothing could actually be as funny as what she mentally filled in, there, but here's what had happened. The day before, Dex had annoyed Don (as she does everyone) by constantly sitting on his foot. His bare foot. "STOP IT!" he'd yelled, laughing, gently kicking her off. Then I went to Spokane, where Dex played with my friends' horses. They played nicely. At one point, Dex turned around to look at me and sat on the horse's hoof.

Cute, yes, but Terrell's imagination was way funnier.

posted by john at 11:52 AM  •  permalink

October 05, 2009

why i just set up my tripod and took a giant photo of my two extended middle fingers

A friend I've made recently is a high-energy, ultra-positive physical trainer. Not that that's how we met. God forbid. No, we work on the same small-town committee. She's both exhilarating and exhausting, but I like her anyway, and we've developed a comfortable star/slug rapport. Plus she's hot. Hot chicks flock together. You can never have too many hot chick friends.

Finally, after many months, she emailed me an invitation to do something outside of the committee's work. "Excellent," I thought. "Bring on the friendship." And then I read the email. It's an invitation to join the "Biggest Loser" weight-loss competition at her gym.

posted by john at 10:43 AM  •  permalink

September 07, 2009

labor day

My Labor Day has thus far consisted of preparations for my imminent trip. More on that later. My boss, Flo, and her new boyfriend will be house- and dog-sitting while I'm gone, so this morning I set about repairing the guest room toilet, which clearly was still using parts from '87. Specifically, 1887. There I was, standing in gray water, swearing at the ancient bolt I'd just stripped, when it hit me: even on Labor Day, I'm dealing with Flo's shit.

"This pleases me," she replied.

posted by john at 11:41 AM  •  permalink

August 28, 2009

the dorkass memorial ass dent

When I first considered trading in the Jeep, I got all weepy and sentimental. Fifteen years of adventures were had in that car. It was the car I purchased with my late, great dog Ed in mind. No fewer than three first kisses had taken place under its hardtop, and at least seven ex-girlfriends had driven it. I had rolled it in a ditch and it had come out without a scratch, which is more than I can say for its occupants. Yes, as I gazed upon it, the Jeep vibrated with history.

I would even miss the Dorkass Memorial Ass Dent.

This is the only body damage the Jeep has ever sustained. One night we sat upon the hood with our backs against the window, and in the decade since, there's been a dent where her ass was. My side? Fine. Her side? Notably concave.

"I dented it?" she said when I shared these thoughts recently, probably wondering how, if this were possibly true, I hadn't posted about it already.

When I visited the dealer the next day, he marveled over the shape the Jeep was in. And then he saw the hood and paused. "Except for this dent."

posted by john at 07:45 AM  •  permalink

August 20, 2009

dream, um, girl

Allie called while the house-cleaners were here.

I was excited. "One of them named her dog 'Poindexter!'" I exclaimed. Previously, no woman hadn't at least loathed that name.

"Ooooh, we just might have your dream woman. Is she single?"

"She's 18."

"So much the better. Now if only she were married, she'd be your perfect match."

posted by john at 09:08 AM  •  permalink

August 17, 2009

a many splintered thing

There are several classes of I love yous, and subsequently I have several classes of reactions to them.

"I love you," says the family member who hasn't talked to me for more than an hour, total, in the last 20 years. They'll say it in the same way my mother did: leadingly, in order to hear a reciprocation. My response: "Really. Describe me."

There's the romantic, ostensibly the most rewarding I love you. And it certainly can be. It can make me positively dizzy. All too often, though, I end up wondering if that, too, was phony. My wondering-rate is an appalling 50%. Curiously, I still love 100% of the women I've ever said it to, even the frauds. Or at least I still love their fraudulent versions.

There's the feint. "Love ya!" says the ambiguous friend of the opposite sex, testing the waters. That "a" is crucial. It gives them deniability. If I deflect with a speech about what our friendship means to me, they can say, "No no no, you misunderstood. Jesus, John. How irresistible do you think you are?" And if I say "I love you, too" and move in for a kiss, she can deflect with a speech about what our friendship means to her.

The robo-iloveyou comes from my friends' kids. The toddler will be performing his bedtime ritual, brushing his teeth and smooching his parents good night.

"I love you," he says to Mom.
"I love you too."
Smooch.
"I love you," he says to Dad.
"I love you too."
Smooch.
"I love you," he says to me, whom he just met an hour earlier.
"Why?"

The cool, detached I love you is one I've often used, myself. You use it when your buddy throws a glass beer bottle at Superfan, or when the waitress brings you a bourbon that you did not order. It's not a particularly lasting romance, but for that immediate moment, you mean it with all your heart.

The pity I love you is the absolute worst. You have a disease, or your mom just died, or you were just ruthlessly dumped and you spend every minute of every day staring at the knife drawer. And a friend or, worse, a co-worker, not knowing what else to do about your depression, says "I love you" for the first time. It is at this moment that you realize that in addition to your original problem, you're now a whimpering, helpless loser on the brink. Get medicated.

My favorite I love you, bar none, is from a protege. This is no one with whom you're romantically entangled. This is no one contractually bound to say it. This is a promising human being whom you've taken under your wing and helped along, for no other reward than seeing them succeed in life. You've invested a lot of yourself in them, and sometimes a bond like no other forms. It's not paternal, fraternal, professional, or rivalrous, although it has elements of all those relationships. But man, when the kid sheepishly tells me they love me, it means more than all the other genres combined. It's pure. No one has an agenda. This one, it was earned. For all its potency, though, it does have its limits.

"John's a good name," I'll tell the newly pregnant protege.

"You know, really, it's not," she'll roll her eyes.

posted by john at 07:23 AM  •  permalink

August 11, 2009

fixer-downer

In a subsequent conversation about her mother's visit (and attempts to fix me up with her sister), Christy chortles, "Yeah, afterward I got to hear about what a thing you have for me, too."

What?

"Because you talked me up. There's only one reason a guy would praise a woman professionally, you know. You're in loooooooove with me."

And thus does my streak of not remotely understanding women's mothers continue unabated. It's a long streak.

posted by john at 10:44 AM  •  permalink

August 10, 2009

fixer-upper

Onetime protege Christy and her family came to visit. This trip was notable because for the first time, I was meeting Christy's mother, whose legend I've heard for 12 years but whose pathologies I've never actually witnessed first-hand. Christy took her kids down to the beach, leaving me alone with Mom and two really stiff drinks. I'm not sure if Mom was drinking.

"So, my grandchildren call you 'Uncle John' and refer to you as their 'other father.'"

I took a big gulp of bourbon.

Knowing she's from back East and had never before met a co-worker of Christy's, I decided to talk Christy up. "Do you have any idea what a big-shot your daughter is at Microsoft?"

"No, tell me."

And so I did. She's a huge shot. She went from my interview chair to being the boss within a year and a half, and then she continued her meteoric rise. She's enormously well-respected by both kool-aid guzzling twinkies and by people with actual abilities. In short, Mom, I've never been prouder of someone than I am of your daughter.

Mom was very pleased. And then she started talking about her other daughter. Actually, "pimp" is the more precise verb. I shifted uncomfortably in my seat.

This relative, too, I've heard lots about but never met. She's been briefly married twice, each time to an abusive "bad boy." Christy has long lamented her sister's taste in men, and Mom, I figured, saw me as the antithesis of her usual choices. I pretended I had no idea where she was going with this. So Mom made things more clear.

"Anyway, she's going through a divorce right now. I'm just saying you should think about it."

I tried to deflect gracefully. "I don't know. I don't think she'd be interested, since I don't really need to be fixed."

"LIKE HELL YOU DON'T!" yelled Christy, just coming up the beach steps.

posted by john at 09:39 AM  •  permalink

August 07, 2009

isometric exercise

I saw this picture the other day and immediately thought of Dorkass. "This is what managing you is like," I said.

She agreed. "Looks like you’re asleep when you’re supposed to be helping out."

posted by john at 11:44 AM  •  permalink

August 05, 2009

it's snowing neurons

Allie and I flicked the tears off our cheeks. She had just gotten off a good one, an immortal one even, at my expense. It was viciously funny. "Oh my god," I chortled. "I know what tomorrow's post is gonna be! Help me remember what you said!"

"Okay!"

18 hours later, we remember that conversation vividly. Her quote? Not so much. The only upside is that this woman no longer makes fun of my diminished mental capacity.

posted by john at 09:45 AM  •  permalink

August 04, 2009

and for the first time in hours, someone got a laugh.

Dirt and Kiki have a little tradition. Whenever their friends or relatives from back East come for a visit, everyone comes over to my house to eat $150 worth of crab. It's my fault, I realize. I like to entertain. I like crab boils. This equals trouble.

Kiki was wasted. My god, what an obnoxious drunk. Eventually we all stopped trying to make conversation, lest she interject something puerile. Someone whose sense of humor is that of a 14 year old ordinarily, Kiki plummeted to an 8 year old. An 8 year old boy. Volvos were "vulvas." A guest snacking on peanuts was repeatedly described as liking "to eat penises." When a guest asked me for a grocery sack for various odds and ends, Kiki snorted "you can just stuff them in my box!"

And so on. She would repeat each such witticism at least two more times, nudging us to get her "good one." I don't know that I've ever felt more sorry for another human being as I did for Dirt right then.

Mortified, I eventually tuned out. I stared into space and thought about how many opportunities I'd had for Kiki and Dirt to meet my own visiting friends, yet I had always opted not to. Good call, I thought as I stared forlornly into space. Fucking great call.

"JOHN'STH NOT EVEN LISTHENING TO ME RIGHT NOW!" Kiki correctly observed. "WHAT ARE YOU THINKING ABOUT, JOHN?"

"Oh, nothing really. I was just missing my real friends."

posted by john at 09:12 AM  •  permalink

July 29, 2009

knobby thing

Dorkass is stunningly lazy. When I was her manager, this had two manifestations: 1) my having to figure out what, exactly, comprehensive migration tools were migrating comprehensively, and 2) my handling tasks so that she didn't have to.

On a day when the latter symptom compelled her to visit my office dozens of times, I grew impatient with what I deemed stupid requests. "Are we done?" I snapped. She turned to leave, and I growled some more: "Let me know if you need help working the knobby thing on the door."

Mere days later...

She and I were walking into a store and I did that humiliating thing where you don’t quite unlatch the door and you face-plant into it. I hit it HARD, too. I saw stars. Dorkass glided past me, cooing “knoooobby thing” as she opened the door and walked through.

Seldom in life is vindication so utterly devastating.

posted by john at 08:42 AM  •  permalink

July 28, 2009

homelessness

So first, I published this photo of my house.

Seeing this, d'Andre remarked "The heterosexual community misses you."

Seeing that comment, gay buddy Mike adds "Hell no. You're not getting foisted off on us."

posted by john at 08:20 AM  •  permalink

July 24, 2009

role model

Dirt and Kiki's kid, Ava, is severely autistic. At a year and a half, she was a normal, happy-go-lucky kid. Alert, chatty, bright, engaging. At two, she entered the fog of autism. She withdrew. She spoke no more. She wouldn't make eye contact, let alone interact with anyone. If you made a loud noise, she wouldn't even react. It was devastating to witness.

Now three, she's slowly starting to respond to changes in her diet and treatment. She's still vastly less engaged than she was at half this age, but it's an improvement nonetheless. First she started interacting with Mom. Then Dad. Then Uncle John. That's pretty much the list for now, but hey, at least there's a list. You wouldn't believe how thrilled everyone is that she high-fives me on request 30% of the time.

This week, there's something new. I suddenly enjoy a unique status in Ava's life: she tries to imitate the words she hears me say. "Fire," "Dex," "cracker," and "tardwit" have all made appearances on her lips this week. Does she imitate her parents? Not yet. Just me.

"Not my first choice," moans Dirt. "Not anyone's first choice for their kid's linguistic role model."

"Fuck you. Fuck your mother. Fuck your mother's horse."

"I stand corrected."

posted by john at 09:29 AM  •  permalink

June 30, 2009

mission accomplished

Two years ago, I took my brightest student ever out for beers. I was about to offer her an editing gig for Microsoft. First, though, I would follow my custom and pump her full of Bud Truth Serum. It didn't take her long to lament that she'd had to withdraw her applications to grad school. She was flat broke.

"You haven't withdrawn them yet, have you?" I replied, aghast.

And thus did my mentoring of Lilly commence as these things should: in a sleazy bar.

I adored Lilly. She was exactly why I still dabble in teaching. A great person, warm, brilliant, full of light and promise. To help her go to grad school would doubtless be one of my greatest accomplishments in life. I was excited. And then a friend had to go and mention a nightmarish and all-too-likely scenario.

"So how will you feel if she ends up staying with Microsoft, doesn't go to grad school, marries a soulless Microsoft loser, and bit by bit you see all those great qualities sucked out of her like they are the rest of us? If you become the agent of Lilly's destruction?"

Utterly. Mortifying.

"Okay, so here's the deal," I barked at Lilly later that day. "After a year, you're fired. And if you date a co-worker, you're fired."

"You can't do that!"

"Try me."

Even though she ended up working for two years, I was hyper-protective of her. She never met management. She never went to a meeting on campus. She never met a co-worker who wasn't a middle-aged woman. My proudest moment came when Lilly met a guy in a bar and he asked her out. Seeing his Microsoft badge, she turned him down flat. "My mentor would kill me."

"I don't believe Lilly really exists," a handsome young writer told me just last week.

"Fuck off," I replied. I almost have this cow in the barn. I'm not spooking it now.

Today is Lilly's last day in her job, and in a month she'll be in the grad school of her choice, where presumably her soul will be fed, not depleted. We went out to dinner last week, reflecting both backward and forward.

"One of the things I've learned in the last two years, and I hope this doesn't offend you," she began hesitatingly, "is that I don't want to work with Microsoft."

I have never loved another human being more than I loved Lilly in that moment. I gave her a hug.

"I have nothing more to teach you."

posted by john at 09:08 AM  •  permalink

June 15, 2009

my big fat gay weekend ii:
even gayer

My fate was sealed, I suppose, the moment Mike invited me to watch the charity softball game. "It's cross dressers against lesbians," he said. It's called "Bat 'N Rogue."

"What's the charity?"

"I dunno. Does it matter?"

"No. I'm so there." I was certainly not going to miss seeing this.

It was a freakshow, but it was decidedly less so than I'd anticipated. I'm not sure what I'd hoped for, exactly, but it wasn't wholesome couples picnicking in the outfield with their Brookstone picnic basket and poodle.

Mike introduced me to his buddy Matt. "John's from Columbus," Mike said to our fellow midwesterner. Matt's eyes flashed.

"Oh! I heard they have the largest bath house in North America! Is that right?"

"Uh, I wouldn't know," I said.

"John's straight," Mike stage-whispered in a manner that was way too similar to how someone might explain hair loss by whispering "He's got cancer."

"Ohhhh," Matt replied, my obtuseness explained.

And so did it go for the rest of the day. Every time I met a friend, my predilection for vaginas would be quickly explained. Sometimes it was phrased exactly that way. In my regular life, the word "vagina" seldom comes up. Not so on Saturday. It takes some getting used to, as does my obtuseness being explained. I mean, I'm used to being a polka dot, but black friends seldom have to explain that I'm white. Apologize for it, sure, but not explain it.

"From now on, every time I introduce you, I'm adding 'He's gay.' to every sentence," I growled to Mike.

"Oh shut up."

A group of us went to dinner, where good food and much alcohol flowed. They asked me about women. We talked about glory holes and rectal fissures (I'm opposed) and the recreational use of Viagra. Well into my eighth bourbon, I reportedly asked, "Tell me about a world without women. It's saner, right? It's wonderful, right?"

More booze flowed. I toppled my drink on some guy's lap, and everyone lunged to dab it off with their napkins.

I made that part up. The dabbing part—unfortunately, the drink part is true. We drank some more.

Feeling bad about my clumsiness, I picked up the check. They were delighted. Elated. Kinda crazily happy about it. Matt declared "We are SO getting John laid tonight!"

"Uh."

"Trust me."

"I don't."

"You should."

"Why's that, exactly?"

"Oh, you."

They determined to take me to a gay club called Purr in the gayest part of Seattle, and that's saying something. Matt wouldn't let it go. He pulled me aside. "What type of woman do you like?"

"I have only two requirements: 1) no living relatives and 2) low standards," I replied. "Disease free is a nice-to-have."

"He likes tomboys," Mike interjected. "Brown ponytails pulled through baseball caps."

"Man," Matt replied. "Wow. That's a pretty tough order. Not many of those in Purr."

We walked into Purr, and I was stunned to see it full of attractive women. It was a bachelorette party. The place was filled with the usual Capitol Hill freaks, but as far as gay bars go, this seemed tame. Why there were women in schoolgirl outfits, I could not guess. At first I thought they were trannies, but no. They were women in plaid miniskirts and vests.

Our group sat down. "So back before you all chose to be gay," I said. They all glared at me, waiting for me to finish an offensive thought. "I don't have a second half to that sentence," I finally admitted. "I just wanted to begin a sentence that way."

"What you'll quickly understand about John..." Mike began.

"...is that he's kinda an asshole?" Vince said. "Yeah, we got that."

Time passed. They all tried to hook up, but they did check in on me once in a while to shoo away a guy and to be sure I was having a good time. I was. I was a fascinated observer in an environment truly alien to me.

Matt took a break and plopped next to me. "So who's the best looking woman in the room?" Now this was not an alien environment to me. This is how guys normally converse. I surveyed the veritable buffet before me and selected a statuesque blonde in a tight skirt.

"I will procure that vagina for you," Matt chirped confidently.

"No no. I was just answering your question. I'm not actually interested."

"You, sir, are going to tap that tonight."

"You're insane. No. I'm not. Don't do anything."

And then he disappeared. Within 20 minutes, there was another plop on the couch next to me. It was the blonde. Seriously? What the fuck?

"Are you really straight?" she asked, touching my arm, not unlike like a stripper.

There was only one thought on my mind: committing a hate crime. Matt must die. And slowly.

"Are you really straight?" she repeated.

"God yes," I said with probably too much defensiveness. We chatted for a bit, and she was an utter imbecile, not that you expect any less from a woman your idiot gay buddy sets you up with in a bar named Purr. I chatted politely for a couple minutes, then excused myself and ditched her on the couch.

"WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?!" Matt screamed, to the general agreement of all assembled. "YOU BLEW IT! I GIFT-WRAPPED HER FOR YOU, AND YOU BLEW IT!"

"I'm not really in the market for an STD right now, but if I change my mind, I'll definitely give your matchmaking services a try."

They all stared at me. It was a familiar stare. I've seen it on my friends' faces before, most often on the basketball court when I've blown an easy layup. In my head, I hear the caption I'm friends with this? Really? I can't do better? I've also seen the stare on girlfriends' faces. I debase myself with this? Really? I can't do better?

I, too, was feeling contemplative. I thought about my odds of getting anywhere with that woman had I been left to my own devices. 100 to 1? 1000? A million? Something like that. What on earth had I just blundered across? And more importantly, how can this heretofore unknown gay superpower be exploited for my heterosexual benefit?

Matt's continuing rant interrupted my reverie. "What is wrong with you? I mean, she had low standards!"

posted by john at 07:00 AM  •  permalink

June 09, 2009

great moments in mentoring

My adoring young protege Lilly sent me this yesterday:

You're not in a King county detention facility, are you? I keep getting collect calls, and the name is really muffled. Sounds a little like "John".

posted by john at 10:37 AM  •  permalink

May 18, 2009

here pussy pussy pussy

1996

Uncharacteristically, I'm sitting in my office working when Katrina steps inside. She's spent her day at one of those morale events Microsoft holds periodically, in this case, bowling. She's wide-eyed. "Oh. My. God. I just met your perfect woman."

"Huh?"

She gives me directions to my Perfect Woman's office, which of course I follow with all due haste. Therein sat a beautiful girl, Kristin. I could see what Katrina was talking about. Kristin was resplendent in a faded sweatshirt and blue jeans, no makeup, her natural blond hair pulled back in an informal ponytail. The woman exuded "tomboy." Pretty tomboy. Very pretty tomboy. We had no real reason to talk, but I gagged out some awkward pleasantries anyway. She beamed and sparkled and offered her handshake.

And I pussied out.

1999

I left that team shortly thereafter, and three years later, Kristin and I are invited to the same birthday dinner. When I arrive, the only empty seat is next to her. Utterly heartbreaking development, that. And so we chat for hours over drinks, and she only becomes better. She sparkles and beams. She listens and jokes. We love and hate the same music and movies. She knows the answer to my Perfect Woman test question. We'd loved the same cartoons as kids and quote them verbatim. She not only loves football, she plays football in a league. We talk about our lifes and loves, our successes and disappointments, and she heaps unusual amounts of empathy on me and everyone else.

Katrina sure knows what she's talking about, I think for the first and last time in my life.

When dinner ends, I walk Kristin to her car. And then I completely pussy out. She was just too...too. My knees wobble.

2009

After ten years of my kicking myself, this weekend Kristin and I are invited to the same party again. No longer a cute 22 year old, she's now a drop-dead beautiful 35 year old. She shows up alone, sans ring. Chance for redemption, coming up!

"I cannot work up the nerve to even talk to her," I text Katrina.

"Do it! You'll hate yourself if you don't!" she replies.

An hour later, I'm talking to Katrina on the phone. She's trying to help me to muster some courage that, with this one woman and only this one woman, has inexplicably deserted me for a sizable chunk of my life. Ten minutes into the call, Kristin spots me. She smiles and waves across the room.

"I gotta go," I said and hung up.

And so I chat with the Perfect Woman again, 13 years later. My buddies were there, and I zing then, and she laughs and sparkles and lightly slaps my forearm. All systems are go! What can possibly go wrong?

"It's official. I pussied out again," I text Katrina two hours later.

"Is it too late?"

"Yes. I'm in the ferry line."

"Sigh."

Exactly: sigh. If you think it's exasperating being around me, you should try being me.

posted by john at 08:06 AM  •  permalink

April 28, 2009

you don't know jake

Continued from yesterday

Meanwhile, I was interested in this girl, Susan, my co-worker, and we'd been hanging out a lot lately. I'd confided in her about my anger with Jake, my frustrations with Zoe, and of course the death threats.

Within weeks of Jake picking up the mop at my particular Starbucks, Susan and I were in my Jeep, heading to dinner. "Okay," she said nervously. "I have something to tell you and you're going to hate it."

I went cold all over. Yep, she was dating Jake. And yep, I'd mentioned my interest in her to Zoe and him.

I did an illegal u-turn and started driving back to Susan's apartment. "What? What is this?"

"I'm driving you home."

"What?! WHAT?! You mean this is it, just like that, it's over?"

"That is precisely what I mean."

What followed was an unreal volley of acrimony about how controlling I am, about how she needs to find out about people for herself, blah blah blah. Does it matter? It did not. I was seriously creeped out, both by Jake's stalking and by Susan knowingly inviting between her legs someone who continued to threaten my life. Yes, it's over. And how.

I stopped outside her apartment and waited for her to leave. She started breathing heavily, upset. And then, just when I thought the creep factor had peaked, she snapped the needle on my creepometer.

"Do you want to spend the night?"

Jesus H. She obviously considered this her ace in the hole. How flattering.

"No. For so many reasons. Get out."

• • •

Jake must have been satisfied with his measure of revenge, as I never heard from him again. Small price to pay, that. Susan wrote me six months later, telling me that she'd broken it off with him and that what can she say, she's a slow learner. I didn't reply.

• • •

In my "post ideas" queue has long been "creepiest moments of my life." I've resisted writing it, even though you guys already know a few of them from other posts. Susan's claim to fame is that she's the only person who made the top five twice. In one two-minute period, yet. Not too shabby.

posted by john at 06:09 AM  •  permalink

April 27, 2009

jake

A conversation this weekend turned toward "has anyone ever threatened your life?" To my surprise, I was the only one at the table with stories. I'll tell the shorter tales later, but first let me dispense with Jake.

Like most of my friends' boyfriends, Jake was a lazy fuckup who did the bare minimum necessary to keep her. Zoe was damned lucky that he would deign to mooch off of a single mother, he thought, and even luckier that he let her wash his socks.

I despised him. For a time I tried to reach out to Jake, for Zoe's sake, but even at the poker table or in a video game, he was an irredeemable sack of tepid yak shit. I could find nothing to like about the man. Worse, he made my friend feel down on herself. Unforgivable, that.

En route to a poker room one day, he let slip that he was going to Europe with another woman, a "friend" about whom Zoe should have absolutely no problem. "And did she?" I asked.

"I haven't told her yet."

Ah. Of course. And now he was expecting me to do his dirty work for him? Nuts to that. I kept my mouth shut. Three days before he departed, he finally mentioned it. Zoe blew. He yelled back that he'd already told her, that she was overreacting, that she was too controlling, that he'd even told John. She would not be mollified. He flew off to Europe, and she cried on my shoulder for a month. Pure bliss.

Soon after his return, she broke up with him and took up with his former office-mate, Ken. Ouch! But deserved. And then a curious thing happened: I got the blame. Jake became convinced that in his time away, I'd turned Zoe against him. A few psychotic phone calls, encounters and emails later, we all broke off contact with the guy.

Then Jake changed careers. To put it in reader-friendly terms, imagine that a Starbucks accountant blamed you for his relationship's demise, then took a job mopping floors at the Starbucks branch where you happen to pour coffees. That's how much he changed careers.

Around the same time, word started to filter back to me from all directions: Jake had put $20,000 on my life. He apparently couldn't stop talking about the bounty, either, if the number of people who dutifully reported it back were any indication. I'm of the opinion that only talkers talk, so I wasn't terribly worried about the bounty being real. But after a few weeks of hearing the reports, I couldn't exactly ignore them.

I discussed the situation with one of my oldest friends. d'Andre agreed that Jake was probably full of crap. "Just in case, better send me a map to his house," he added.

I did. Meanwhile, I steamed at the universe. How come Ken was getting laid and I was the one getting death threats?

To be continued tomorrow

posted by john at 08:03 AM  •  permalink

April 24, 2009

the duvet cover

Dorkass is my old shopping buddy. Her taste tends to be dead-on, but more than that, she effortlessly fulfills the role I need her to fulfill.

I once badly wanted this Calvin Klein duvet cover. Unfortunately, it was priced like a Calvin Klein duvet cover, probably some $200 per ounce. I didn't get it. Time and again, she saw me admire it and not get it. And then finally, one day, the Bon marked it 10% off. It was still outrageously overpriced, and I was racked with doubt as I stood in line, clutching it to my chest, agonizing about whether I'd ever be able to afford a house. And Dorkass eased up to my ear.

"Do you loooove it?" she cooed.

"Yes."

"Do you ever do anything nice for yourself?"

"No," I said with a surprisingly straight face.

"You deserve this duvet cover. It's too beautiful not to get." And then she added the final nail. "John, if you get this duvet cover, the first woman who sees it will throw her legs open."

CUT TO:
INT. - JOHN'S LIVING ROOM - NIGHT

It's three days later, and the first woman to see the duvet cover is sleeping off mas tequila in my bed while I sleep on the couch. I'm sleeping fitfully when I hear the horrendous sound of tequila being evacuated in a hurry.

"rrrrrrRRRRRROOOOOOOWWWWWWWWWWFFF!"

"Oh my God," I thought. "I hope that was in the bathroom."

It wasn't.

The next day, I went to work and collected Dorkass, making her come home with me to see the bright orange enchilada puke splatted all over my bed and, yes, the duvet cover.

"Wasn't quite what you promised me."

posted by john at 06:32 AM  •  permalink

April 20, 2009

calling her shot

Years ago, I used to watch Dorkass' occasional softball game. Actually, I was more of a participant. I'd stand behind the backstop during her at bats, heckling.

"You really should think about vertical stripes," I'd say as she swung. And she would positively crush the ball over the outfielders' heads, pausing to glare at me before she sprinted to first. I have no idea what she was imagining the ball was, but you couldn't help but admire her power.

I hadn't gone to her softball games in 10 years when I decided to take one in recently. She was not thrilled. A decade of gooey slugglishness has softened her skills considerably. I even felt a flicker of empathy. No, this time I remained on the bleachers, from which I heard her ruefully snap "You know you suck when John isn't saying anything."

Truer words.

They played on. Dorkass stepped to the plate for the fourth time. Immediately before the windup, the opposing pitcher turned her head and yelled "LEFT FIELD!!" to her left-fielder. Ca-RACK! went Dorkass' floating fly ball, straight to the left-fielder.

I was finally properly motivated. "Hey Dorkass, you're supposed to call your shot, not the pitcher!"

Ah, there's the glare.

posted by john at 07:05 AM  •  permalink

April 11, 2009

heavy lies the cr0wn

Dorkass and I have been playing the video game Left 4 Dead in recent months. It's a first-person shooter where you team up to traverse a city full of zombies. One of the major achievements you can attain is called "Cr0wned." It consists of killing a witch with one shot, which believe me, ain't easy. You basically have to walk right up to her and shoot her in the face when she's standing to eviscerate you. On your first thousand attempts, the witch, not you, succeeds.

Dorkass was trying for the achievement first, which meant that I suddenly had to try to get it before she did. After many maulings, I did. I gleefully reported it. A prideful Dorkass redoubled her efforts, to no end, unless you count serial disembowelments.

Finally, sheepishly, she handed me her controller and asked me to get the achievement for her. I said I would try. Within minutes, I found a witch. Blam. Dead. ker-BLINK! went the achievement notification.

"Oh. My. GOD!" Dorkass moaned.

"What, did he get it right away?" laughed Frank Frank from the kitchen. He found it particularly amusing because, he says, Dorkass had been holding forth about how much of a better player she is than me.

There's no vindication as sweet as oblivious vindication. No vindication I know.

posted by john at 09:36 AM  •  permalink

April 09, 2009

vindication of a wuss

Yesterday I went hiking with Minette's camera. Minette came along, too, to carry the camera. Near the end of our journey, we came upon a small man-made pond, and she spotted something therein. "SALAMANDERS!" she squealed, like others would shriek "Shoe sale!" or "Corn dogs!"

And then she spent the next half hour trying to get the perfect salamander photo. This included making nature look more natural. "Here," she said, handing me a salamander. "Hold this here until I'm ready to take the shot."

"Uh, how do we know it's not poisonous? Why don't you hold the slimy thing and I'll take the shot?" I think it was when Minette saw me pulling my hand inside my sleeve that she abandoned any notion of my being an animal wrangler.

"So are you afraid of all wildlife," she asked on the way to the car, "Or just the slimy?"

I hate when women tear my balls off instead of cutting them cleanly.

Postscript
Later that night, she sent me a link. "Dude. That newt...WAS toxic." Per wikipedia, the newt secretes a poison that's deadly to humans if ingested.

posted by john at 06:37 AM  •  permalink

April 07, 2009

on ancientness

My recent efforts to roll back my clock are thwarted now and again. Aging friends just make me remember that, well, I'm aging too. Witness this shopping list at a friend's house:

Yeah, I'm a dead man for publishing that. (Although I'll go to the mat for the principle that refrigerators are public domain.) And might I add, a little more fiber and a little less of item 4 might mitigate the need for items 2 and 3.

posted by john at 07:09 AM  •  permalink

March 30, 2009

my big fat gay weekend

Mike and I went to Vancouver this weekend. Longtime readers may recall that Mike once gave me a most precious gift indeed. In a spasm of bad judgment, he once (presumably on behalf of the entire gay community) pronounced my use of the word "cocksucker" to be inoffensive. I was incredulous. "Knock yourself out," he shrugged.

I felt exactly like Florida State University must have felt when they found some obscure, senile Seminole chief to endorse their use of "Seminoles" as a mascot. It's too late now, Seminoles and cocksuckers alike, too late now. Floridians and I are taking our dubious permissions and running. The cows have permanently fled the barn.

A gay guy and a straight guy walked into a bar in Vancouver...

Several bars, in fact. Mike suggested we go to a bear bar, where, he promised, "you'd be Marilyn Monroe." I declined.

It's amazing how a weekend with a gay buddy makes us both hyper-attuned to all things gay. I'd already chosen the headline for this post when Dick's Supplies passed to the left of Mike's car. I debated whether that, the White Spot Cafe, some place called Booster Juice, or Christina Aguilera being on the radio was gayer. Then we stopped and saw Lilly, who lamented that, thanks to her recent move, I was no longer "just a ferry ride away."

I shot Mike a look. "Well, no, I did drive," he corrected.

We decided that Lilly's line would certainly remain the gayest of the weekend, and so it did, right up until we were strolling the streets of Vancouver and I un-self-consciously remarked that I wanted to munch on some hot vendor nuts.

There were countless such moments.

We eventually went to the weekend's main event, a Q&A session with writer/director Kevin Smith. Very early into the 3-hour program, a guy told the whole audience that he'd composed a bucket list of 80-odd things he wanted to do with his life before he died, and he wondered if Smith could help with number 82: getting naked in front of thousands of people. Smith obliged, and thus came the cherry on top of my big, fat gay weekend.

I would like to apologize for my phone's detail-obscuring shutter speed. I would like to, but I just can't.

posted by john at 08:15 AM  •  permalink

February 23, 2009

prelude to the most heartfelt "fuck you, motherfucker" of my entire life

In the fall, my octogenarian friend Sue's best friend died. A lot of her friends are dying lately, but this one especially hurt. Sue was depressed. Months passed. The depression didn't.

In December, I noticed that her beloved Gonzaga basketball team, ranked #2, was playing #1 UConn here in Seattle. "How 'bout I fly you here for the game, take you out to dinner, and send you home?" I asked. She was elated.

"Oh my God, do I need this, John."

And then the snow came. She wasn't comfortable leaving her home, and she canceled. Her flight took off on time, so no refund was possible. Not only was she disappointed and now even more depressed—how singularly frustrating is that?—I was out about five hundred bucks. I would have gotten more for my money if I'd set it on fire. Heat, at least.

I resolved to try again. Two months later, I did.

"I'll tell ya what," I told her last week. "I'll drive to Spokane and take you to the game Thursday night." She was elated again. And so I mailed her the tickets, lest I get stuck on this side of the mountain pass and have to cancel. I drove eight hours through the fog, booked a motel room (lest my puppy whiz on Sue's rug), and stayed for a few days. I picked her up, flowers in hand. For dinner I took her to Clinkerdagger, a fine steak place, and on our way to the make-good basketball game, Sue spoke of how painful it is to see her friends die. I bet. I can't even imagine.

And then she bitterly spat the following.

"All of my good friends are dead."

Cue the headline.

posted by john at 07:54 AM  •  permalink

December 29, 2008

shagged

"I think that's brilliant," Katrina will say, barely able to suppress the admiration making her face visibly twitch. "So when acid-washed jeans come back, you'll be wearing them first."

Exactly.

Having seen bellbottoms and pastels and any number of similar fashion abominations come and go in my lifetime, I'll be damned if I'm throwing out my acid-washed jeans from 1989. I keep them in a plastic tub in a storage shed. They'll be back. It's only a matter of time and patience. It's like sitting on gold.

"And their waistline is what, again?" Katrina will ask, the expected wave of admiration so crushing, this time, that she physically braces against the table.

"32."

"Isn't that, like, your thigh measurement now?"

• • •

Yesterday I was in Home Depot and saw something I never thought I'd see return, in my lifetime or anyone else's. Yep, ghastly shag carpeting is back, folks. The horror, the horror. Now an entire new generation of kids can hunt in vain for the food that hit the floor and disappeared. Forever.

posted by john at 08:06 AM  •  permalink

December 12, 2008

iiiiiiiiit's
thaaaaat
time of year,
when the world falls in love

I heard from my adopted Spokane family yesterday. Lynn, this time. Every such conversation invariably leads to her asking about every female name I've ever mentioned.

"So what's going on with x?" she'll say leadingly. "How's y?" Are z through gg still happily married?"

"With love, Lynn, kindly shut your nag-hole."

For whatever reason, the holidays bring it up a notch. The implicit becomes painfully explicit. "Well, we just want to see you happy before we die, is all."

Happy meaning married.

I've never noticed any particular correlation between those two concepts, but despite the abundant evidence to the contrary in her daily life, Lynn still devoutly practices the religion happiness = marriage.

"Can you remind me again why you and Allie didn't work out?"

Jesus Christ pushin' a hand-cart. Now she's mining 1995?

"Please don't. We are and always should have been friends. It wasn't even close."

"You say that, but it just seems like a shame."

"And the fact that she's got a family of her own now, this doesn't take her off your random list of prospects?"

"Is she happy in her relationship?"

"Elated. And I like him more than I like her. Now can we drop this?"

"It just seems like you two have such a special relationship, is all."

"If by that you mean she doesn't annoy the fuck out of me like this, then yes, it's a very special relationship indeed."

"What about your boss, Flo? Is she single?"

posted by john at 07:56 AM  •  permalink

December 10, 2008

purple rain

Once a year, I bought Maddie a new canister of mace, just like the package suggested. Sure, I knew it was a scam, but then I would imagine standing over her crumpled corpse, mace still in her hand, and some cop walking up with his thumbs in his pockets. "She emptied the whole canister into his face," he would drawl. "But it appears that it was 14 months old. At that age, it's effectively chocolate silly string." And so even though I knew the year-thing was a scam, I gladly bought into the scam.

Maddie examined her new mace as I pulled on to I-71. She flicked the trigger guard with her finger, testing its hinge. And she somehow pressed the trigger with the mace aimed perfectly at my face.

Speed: 75
Traffic: Packed tightly
Visibility: None
Pain: Transcendent
Dye color: Rapist Purple

It's quite impossible to keep your eyes open when they're filled with mace. Shutting eyes is mace's sole purpose, really. It is equally impossible to pull over to I-71's four-foot wide berm against the cement divider during rush hour without the use of said eyes. So with my left hand, I physically pulled my eyes open—and excruciatingly, exposed them to air—for 20 more seconds as the Buick slashed across traffic and into the berm.

I'd be interested in having a mother try this. I'd like to know how the pain compares to childbirth, in severity if not in duration. Me, I would rather gouge out my eyes with acid-slathered icepicks than experience this again.

Maddie was uncharacteristically quiet. And then, even before I could open my eyes, she began laughing at the purple dye. The laughter built the whole way home. At some point, she apologized while she was still laughing, which was apparently really funny.

I didn't leave the house for a week. I got her back, though, by using all of her foundation makeup, which I'm told was really expensive. Yeah. We're even.

posted by john at 07:42 AM  •  permalink

November 06, 2008

dork pride

I was standing with two friends when Dorkass called. I answered my phone as I have on this occasion for 11 years.

"Dork."

A wounded Blondage turned to the other friend. "Well. I thought I was the dork," she sniffed.

Dorkass overheard. "I DON'T KNOW WHO THAT IS, BUT TELL HER TO BACK THE HELL OFF, 'CAUSE I'M THE ORIGINAL AND ONE AND ONLY DORK."

Yep. These are my friends.

• • •

A recent visit with Dorkass included a ritual with which I'm very familiar: my friend disappearing in order to put her spawn to bed. What made this occasion special were the twin presences of 1) a baby monitor and 2) my phone's recording app.

Here's Dorkass, taking away her child's "Lovey" in order to extort cooperation. Ladies and gentlemen, Stank is very proud to present to you its Mother of the Year.

posted by john at 06:36 AM  •  permalink

October 22, 2008

rimshot

Before a recent visit with friends, I stopped at Toys R Us and purchased some gifts for their three year old son. And then I showed him that you can actually blow the whistle while beating the cymbals with a drumstick. I just can't help helping.

Sound clip from the wee hours this morning

posted by john at 06:11 PM  •  permalink

October 06, 2008

goodbye, my forever friend

I was complaining about how as I've lost weight, I've had to buy new clothes. People, I find, are endlessly fascinated by such bitching, so I do it as often as possible. Pointing to my already-ill-fitting new dress shirt, Annette said I needed to buy cheaper clothes. Katrina nearly did a spit-take.

"No. He doesn't." Katrina then started in on The Sweats.

I've owned this pair of sweats for years. They've survived many girlfriends. I've pulled them out of the trash twice. To the horror of any woman in my presence, they are my everyday attire of choice.

Men, meanwhile, are uniformly supportive.

"I kinda remember that they used to be black," Katrina droned. "But it's been years. They're a purply/gray/beige diseased color now."

They are also far too big for me, their drawstring having decomposed a sometime during Clinton's term in office. His first term. It's time for them to meet their fate, but first, a tribute. Here's their general state.
And here're the legs. Note the added holes for my feet, right above the elastic-banded ones. The possible variations are endless. The sweats are a marvelously flexible garment.

Putting my mother down wasn't this hard. I just can't do it.

posted by john at 08:17 AM  •  permalink

October 01, 2008

baited

"You need to chill out, John. Seriously. Seattle drivers used to drive me nuts, too, but then I learned to just accept it and now I'm much happier here. I'm the very model of contentedness. I'm never leaving. Blah blah blah. The key to happiness is for you to be exactly like me. Blah blah blah."

— Amy (no, the other one), as I remember the conversation, about two years before she ran screaming from Seattle forever.

• • •

Last night I played Euchre with Amy and her husband, Rob, with whom I was unfavorably compared on that blah blah day. Last night, Amy and I were on a winning streak when Rob asked me about Seattle drivers. One embolism, ten minutes, and several of my mistakes later, Rob's team had won five straight hands.

Nope. Still haven't accepted it. Can't. Won't.

posted by john at 07:28 AM  •  permalink

September 15, 2008

i woke up in compton in a bar with no name \ and a woman assignin' blame...

The old Lincoln Continental caught some air as its wheels barely grazed over a construction site. We heard the sickening sound of metal grinding asphalt.

"Just so I get the details right when I tell this story tomorrow," I said, death-gripping the oh-shit strap, "What year is this pimpmobile?"

"1989," said the man driving.

"Okay. And who are you, again?"

• • •

I was in L.A. over the weekend. Among the matters to which I attended was checking in with old buddy Grady, whom I last saw in Columbus last year. We had not parted amicably. We'd exchanged angry words about the circumstances of Mason's death. We both felt bad about it. When I told d'Pam that I was going to L.A., she suggested I do a little fence-mending. Fence-painting, anyway. And thus did I end up driving my rental car to Compton.

I found the address I'd been given, but it sure didn't look like a bar. It looked like a strip club—mason blocks, no windows, no sign of any kind. I knocked on the door, but no one answered. I walked in and was soon smothered by Grady's embrace. Like me, he seldom connects with anyone he knew over ten years ago. Fence: painted. Let the ball-busting begin.

"You moved 3000 miles to fucking Compton?" I asked incredulously.

"Oh, I don't live here," he said, twinkling evilly. "I just wanted to make you come here. I live in Woodland Hills."

I stared at him. He read my mind. "No, there are other brothers in Woodland Hills. I can just, you know, name them all."

I have no idea how to describe the establishment where I would spend the next 10 hours. It was my kind of place: sticky booths, dank, no lighting to speak of. There were no servers. No money exchanged hands. There were four kinds of alcohol served: tequila, whiskey, rum, and beer. There was an owner, but he seemed more like a host than a proprietor. I have no idea what was going on. I do know that I ate my body weight in buffalo wings and drank a Monterrey Bay of whiskey. The evening was a blur. What follows are random reminiscences bubbling up through the drunken fog.

• • •

I ordered a huge amount of whiskey on the rocks.

"Easy, there. You don't really drink," Grady said.

"I, um, gave that up a while back."

• • •

These were good people. No one was under 30, which doubtlessly helped. The drunker they got, the more sickening their professions of love for their absent women became. The setting notwithstanding, it was sweet. And everyone had an origin story worthy of a film and two sequels. Everyone except me. I'm quite used to eyes glazing over when I'm asked what I do and I explain that I write software documentation, but this was special. I might as well have said "I make margaritas in my carburetor." They simply could not believe that someone makes a living doing such a purposeless thing, and in a rare moment of clarity, I was right there with them. My job is a joke. A painfully unfunny joke. A Carrot Top joke.

• • •

At one point, Grady introduced me as "the conscience" of our old neighborhood. "What?" he said of the look on my face.

"That giant sucking sound you'll hear Monday morning will be the collective gasp of a bunch of women reading that at once," I said.

• • •

I talked a bit about being the polka dot. I told the d'Andre "bald friends" story, to much table pounding delight.

"Let's shoot some H.O.R.S.E.," Grady suddenly said. I knew what he was doing. He was baiting me. My standard retort back in the day was that we'd have to play P.I.G. instead, as I was the only one present who'd mastered the complexities of spelling five-letter words. I declined to reprise the joke.

• • •

But shoot horse we did, around 4am. Did I mention this was in fucking Compton? No one had a basketball, so we lived off the land. One would think that a wadded up cotton gym bag would snag on a chain basketball net, and one would be correct. That I would lose was certain.

"Do you know the last time I played hoops?"

Grady looked me up and down, his eyes wide and eyebrows arched. "I'm guessing four score and eighty pounds ago."

• • •

We awoke around 6am in our booth. A woman was very, very pissed about...something...she'd done with...someone...the night before. The details were hazy, probably because she didn't want to come right out and admit that she didn't know which one of us she'd slept with. She glared at me, but I don't think I was a serious suspect. No, she would probably remember that.

I'm glad she started shrieking, because my plane left at 7. Compton is about 20 awkward miles from LAX. I might make the flight, security willing, but there was no way I was getting the rental car back. And thus was a plan devised where Grady would return my car and Door Number Three would drive me to the airport on two wheels.

Remember Issac Hayes in "Escape from New York?" I'm just sayin.'

• • •

Epilogue

Unbathed for two days and smelling like, well, like I'd just spent the night in a bar where I'd smoked cigars and drank a quart of vinegar, I nestled into my seat on the plane. This is who sat next to me.

Hey, God, thanks for the jaunty "Fuck you, John." As always.

"Just so I get the details right when I tell this story tomorrow, you're a model, right?"

That's from her portfolio.

posted by john at 07:53 AM  •  permalink

September 05, 2008

rooting interest

"Whaaaaat," Allie answered the phone, as if I'd called her 17 times already. We hadn't spoken in days.

I was undaunted. I knew I had gold. "You know that trip to San Diego I planned around the Steelers game there? The one I already bought a plane ticket and a Priceline hotel for?"

"Yeah."

"Turns out I screwed up. The game is in Pittsburgh."

She was, at best, mildly amused. "Anyway," I continued weakly, "I know how much you enjoy John's-a-moron stories, so I thought I'd share."

She rated this story good, not great. "What would have been really funny is if you'd shown up at the stadium in San Diego with your $300 ticket and no one had been there."

Man. You gotta kill yourself to get a laugh out of this chick.

posted by john at 08:10 AM  •  permalink

September 03, 2008

set up

Allie was telling me about her new co-worker. I did what I always do during her work stories: I politely, if not convincingly, feigned interest. "Here, I'll send you a picture of her," said Allie strangely.

Ooooookay. She did. The co-worker is really cute.

"She's really cute," I observed.

"Yeah, and she's like twenty-three," Allie replied, satisfied that I'd once again been caught trolling elementary schools.

posted by john at 08:58 AM  •  permalink

August 21, 2008

trying men

Not counting work, I spend some 95% of my time with women. This is no accident, as I've historically found that women make 95% more sense than men.

But this identification wanes. After all, it's not guys who are thrashing around in my Burmese liar traps. After all, I've never watched with disgust as a man shamelessly comparison-shops women. I'm sure that men indulge in these things, but in my experience, they're uniquely female undertakings.

And thus do I hang out more with Dirt Glazowski.

"Look at how clean that city is," he says of Beijing on TV.

Yeah. I know. But it got better.

"We could learn a lot from the Chinese. Someone there causes problems, and WHAM! the gummint beats them down. No more problem."

Later on he switches to his favorite show, called MANswers. The first segment shows you how to dig a bullet out of your own body. This is a useful skill, if you're a felon. Or maybe if you're trapped on a desert island and happen to shoot yourself in the arm. Being neither, I would personally rather a doctor or even a plumber perform this procedure. Meanwhile, the show's next segment tells you how to get a "Happy Ending" in a reputable massage parlor.

"John, party of one," called a restaurant's maître d' later that evening.

posted by john at 07:38 AM  •  permalink

August 14, 2008

fancy girl

Dorkass is, of course, an Amazon and a jock. She thinks nothing of knocking her boss on his ass or of ridiculing his manhood. My testicular fortitude will be mocked just for my having said that.

"You baby. Wah."

Last week she suggested that we eat apple pie on her back patio. A garden snake appeared, and suddenly, quite unexpectedly, Dorkass found her inner sorority girl. Her voice went up an octave as she levitated through the back door. "CAN YOU KILL IT?"

I looked at the snake. He looked at me. We looked at Dorkass. I wondered how someone so often accused of having no use for a penis ended up with this gig.

"How about I just toss him over the fenc—"

"HOW 'BOUT YOU JUST KILL IT!!!" she said, now levitating a foot off the kitchen floor.

I did my duty, and Dorkass bravely came outside to tell me not to leave the corpse just lying there.

posted by john at 06:09 AM  •  permalink

July 15, 2008

the bat

When d'Andre and Pam visited a few years ago, I gave them the nickel tour of my house. d ridiculed me unremittingly, as is his wont, and Pam heaped supportive praise upon me, as is hers. Until we got to the master bedroom.

"Jee. Zus. Christ." She was staring at my baseball bat. Apparently her husband sleeps next to one just like it. And thus did their point of contention overflow into my life.

The following dialogue ensued.

We need them for safety, we explained.

You can afford a gun and a security system, she countered.

We'll take them, too, but we're keeping our baseball bats. Besides, that stuff is antiseptic. I want the satisfaction of hearing skull cracking.

I get why you had them back in the day, but now you both live in neighborhoods that haven't had a violent crime since the 30s. The 1730s.

But that's Edgar Martinez's bat!

It still doesn't belong in this otherwise lovely room. Everything's so tasteful and elegant, and then there's...this...club.

d'Andre and I argued with Pam for a while that the bats are, in fact, absolutely necessary for a good night's sleep. And then we argued with one another about whether "down comforter" or "ghetto tazer" was the better term.

Three years later, both bats remain permanent parts of the respective decors.

posted by john at 10:51 AM  •  permalink

June 17, 2008

close enough

My house is now relatively feces-free, thanks to Blondage's return and the subsequent departure of Piper. A few hours before Blondage's plane landed, I let Piper into Blondage's empty condo. (I laid down fresh piddle pads. Piper missed. "Close enough!" a delighted Blondage would say later, thereby explaining my last two weeks in a nutshell.)

And then I short-sheeted Blondage's bed. I took away about four feet of foot room. Her head would finally hit the pillow around 4am her time, and ruining that divine moment seemed the least I could do. The next morning, she said nothing. I finally asked.

She hadn't noticed. How short are you when someone short-sheets your bed by half and your feet don't touch?

posted by john at 07:26 AM  •  permalink

March 17, 2008

controversy

I have often have this discussion with friends. Usually Dorkass, this time Minette.

Her: Man is that [blog] story riddled with inaccuracy!
Me: Do feel free to write a rebuttal.
Her: Uhhuh...
Me: Yeah, that's usually where the whining stops.
Her: Would you post it?
Me: Absolutely. Longstanding policy.
Her: Without editing or annotating?
Me: I might comment afterward, but your post will go unedited.
Her: Sweet.

And with a realization that I'm poised to pants them far, far worse, this is where friends' outrage usually ends. Stay tuned.

posted by john at 08:44 AM  •  permalink

February 01, 2008

the greater concern

A story about Annette is advancing toward the top of my "idea queue," so I asked her what I ask almost everyone. "I'm going to write about you on Stank. Is using your name okay, or would you like a pseudonym?"

She asked why I was offering. Well, I said, some people freak out at having even their first name mentioned, especially on a page frequented by their co-workers.

"I would think the greater concern would be being called 'Dorkass,'" she replied.

posted by john at 07:20 AM  •  permalink

January 25, 2008

new math

Ever since I wrote the post about the IQ difference between me and Beth, one particular bit o' math has haunted me.

(My IQ - Nadine's IQ)2 < (Beth's IQ - My IQ)

I mean...you try to sleep at night.

posted by john at 07:05 AM  •  permalink

January 24, 2008

conflict of interests

I've mentioned before that my living will stipulates that Allie controls my plug. I can't imagine anyone more predisposed to pulling it, so it's a win/win for everyone.

Meanwhile, my actual will directs her to spread my ashes over Heinz Field in Pittsburgh. This was merely annoying to her pre-9/11, but now that scattering white powder over a stadium will surely come with a penalty, she is decidedly unhappy. My will provides for her airfare, dust cropper rental and bail, but nothing satisfies the selfish little thing.

She does not want to be cuffed and stuffed because of me. It's recently occurred to her that her salvation lies in her dual role. "If you're in a coma," she coos, "I'm keeping your ass alive until I die." She thought it was the perfect solution.

While boating last week, I rounded a corner and came upon a nuclear submarine with a considerable military escort. Now I don't know what sort of boat al Qaeda fancies, but apparently it looks a lot like my own, 'cause I get boarded all the time by heavily armed teenagers looking a lot like the kids protecting this sub. I stopped my engines and called Allie in order to kill time. Appraised of my situation, she implored me to just cut a straight line, over the sub, to my slip.

"Best case, there won't even be a body for me to dispose of."

posted by john at 07:08 AM  •  permalink

January 18, 2008

eyes the size of manhole covers

Elizabeth and I were preparing to watch a movie when one of us set some chocolates on my coffee table. In the time it took me to get drinks, the candy disappeared. It was unlikely, although not unprecedented, for Elizabeth to have scarfed that much candy that fast. I glared at Ed, who was in her bed, smacking her lips and all but picking her teeth with a toothpick. "Father," her eyes said gratefully, "That was exquisite. Thank you. You really should have had some, though."

Chocolate is, of course, poisonous to dogs. I poured Ed a bowl of milk and added a few tablespoons of hydrogen peroxide. "Would you like a little something to wash that down?" I cooed, for if I betrayed my rage Ed would have refused to drink anything I put in front of her. Ed slurped it down, and before long Elizabeth and I were sitting on my couch watching not a movie but Ed barfing on the balcony. Good times.

Properly escavated, Ed slinked back to her bed, and I had a new problem. On my patio was a tower of foamy puke about ten inches high and a foot in diameter. It was massive. Ever clever, I got a cookie sheet and slid it under the tower, more or less, and I carried the cookie sheet through the sliding glass door and into the living room. Kinda. What I actually did was ram the cookie sheet into the door frame, arresting my movement and causing the pile of puke to launch across the sheet toward an alarmed Elizabeth, seated not two feet away.

I wish I had a better ending to this tale. I somehow managed to stop the puke's once-promising ballistic trajectory. I will tell you this, though: I will never forget the look on Elizabeth's face.

posted by john at 07:47 AM  •  permalink

January 04, 2008

feeling it comes last

The survey results are in, and although I didn't gather any great ideas for the next great masterwork (Your #1 request is a whole book about Ed? Seriously? "Chapter 17: Coming home to discover Lake Pissicaca"), there were a few suggestions that at least merit exploration here.

for me, I've always been curious about that post where you and a new girlfriend were out and you were both hedging about shitty childhoods. You said something in that post about 'you just decide to get over it.' And I don't know how you've gotten from there to here, but on a number of occasions, I've wanted to have a drink with you and ask you that question.

A drink? Sorry, nowadays I only drink to excess.

I'm afraid there's no secret for me to share. It just is. I didn't decide to get over anything. It was more of a philosophical change that evolved over time, when I recognized that by letting my family affect me, I was complicit in, even integral to, my own misery. There was no therapy, no self-help book, no great epiphany that led me to that point. I just got fed up enough that I said "fuck 'em." They did all the hard work.

If there was one seminal moment where someone articulated this notion to me, I know exactly when it was. It was actually years after I told my family to piss off, in the immediate Fucking Amy aftermath. I was reeling and despondent, and Beth's was the shoulder I saturated most. She was unfailingly patient and caring. I don't know how someone can listen to that much psychotic hurt, over and over and over, without seriously investigating a murder-suicide thing. But she did. She probably logged two man-months of listening to me whine pitiably. Finally, after lasting much longer than a lesser person possibly could have, the Most Intelligent Person I've Ever Known gently booted me in the ass.

"John, I want to say something. And I want you think about it before you respond."

"Okay..."

"If this chick ruins your life, whose fault is that, really?"

Harsh. Dead on, but harsh. And I didn't get it immediately; I heard it but couldn't feel it. Which is why TMIPIEK insisted that I think about it for while. By then she was accustomed to pausing so I could catch up.

posted by john at 07:17 AM  •  permalink

January 01, 2008

no good deed

When Dorkass and I were each furiously dating, we somehow ended up spending every Friday night together. We certainly never planned to. It just happened that way. We killed time together by killing one another, specifically in the old Nintendo 64 game GoldenEye. Many hours that would otherwise be spent lamenting one or both of us being stood up were instead spent pumping one another full of bullets. And grenades. And rockets. And proximity mines. And we saw that it was good.

A few weeks ago, we were reminiscing about GoldenEye. We'd each long since discarded our old N64s, but I got to wondering: how much could a 12 year old machine possibly cost? And thus did I agree to buy an N64 and GoldenEye if Dorkass would take a boat to my house. And she did. And we ate cake and killed one another countless times. And it was good again.

"Be sure to write in your stupid blog that I came out here for this," she chided, shortly before tripping over a cable and breaking my newly acquired machine.

No problem, numbnut. Consider it written.

posted by john at 11:49 AM  •  permalink

November 30, 2007

thank you for this bounty

I recently reconnected with an old friend, Eve. She reminded me of two stories from a decade ago that for some reason I've never immortalized on this page. No longer.

Eve and I were, for a time, the best of friends. Her boyfriend, Jim, was a selfish man-child, and in her life I complemented him rather well. I came to look at him and myself as the salt and pepper shakers of her life. He got laid, and I got to do everything else. It might sound like a raw deal, but for several years I had the stability of having a partner yet was allowed to date as many women as I wanted. I did not consider this a bad deal in the least.

Jim treated Eve as if, by deigning to date a single mother and letting her wash his socks, he were doing her an enormous favor. I hated him. He and I had little in common, but I gamely tried to work on the relationship. We played poker and video games, and Eve would smile at us. I never told her I thought him unworthy. I don't do that to my friends, as a rule. But my god, did I enjoy busting him up at the poker table. In one glorious sitting at the old Tulalip casino, I got four fours-of-a-kind. I've never had a day like that again, but it was exceedingly well timed. I was able to exchange a lot of my frustrations for cash. His cash.

One day, Jim told me he was going to Prague with another woman, a "friend," and he was afraid of how to tell Eve. I wished him luck. I knew I wasn't gonna mention it. A month later when she discovered his imminent trip, all hell broke loose. "I told you!" he said. "I told John!" And then he left. And for the month he was gone, his girlfriend cried on my shoulder every single night. I hated him more and more.

About the time Jim returned, Eve met another guy. With great flourish, she dumped Jim and started dating the man she would eventually marry and have kids with. Jim was not pleased. He sent psychotic emails to me, Eve and the new guy. Although it was plain to everyone that he'd cut his own throat, he did not see it that way. To everyone's astonishment, he blamed me. While he had been gone, I had turned Eve against him. That's when he put a $30,000 price on my head.

To be continued Monday

posted by john at 07:31 AM  •  permalink

November 28, 2007

john explained

Allie's Baby Daddy was incredulous that I was going out with a stunning woman. "How does this keep happening?" he asked her. "How?"

She understood his confusion. "What you have to understand," she explained, "Is that no man on earth is as attentive as John is before you have sex with him."

posted by john at 09:31 AM  •  permalink

November 22, 2007

start practicing that Mother of the Year acceptance speech

I chatted with Dorkass last night, and during the Montessori school portion of the proceedings, she whined that these strangers whom she will pay to watch over her spawn actually expected her to make lunches for her own daughter.

"Seriously! What a pain, you know?" she said.

"Congratulations. You just made tomorrow's post," I replied.

"What? I haven't talked about the kid that much."

And then I put on hand puppets and explained to her what was so funny.

posted by john at 11:22 AM  •  permalink

October 30, 2007

d'gurgle

As luck, mostly of the female variety, would have it, I have an extra $400 ticket to an upcoming Ohio State game. My first thought was my old friemisis d'Andre. Then he reminded me that he'd already declined six months ago. He's going to be out of town.

"Okay, then," I said cheerfully. "I'll take your wife."

Silence.

"And pour alcohol into her afterward."

Speechless, he made a priceless sound. Kinda a gurgle.

posted by john at 08:41 AM  •  permalink

October 22, 2007

chasing elise

Having been recently informed by a woman how I was not, in her view, her ex-boyfriend—and who can blame a girl for trying to lawyer her way out of that indignity?—I got to thinking about the qualifications for the designation. How many meals must a guy purchase to make bar? How many months of morning I love yous must be uttered out of the sides of mouths? How many new tampons must be fetched and passed through the two-inch crack of the bathroom door?

Then it hit me. The woman who for years I called "my first girlfriend" has, at some time or another, taken a demotion herself. She was my summer romance when I was 14. As I grew older and relationship debris accumulated in my wake, her status diminished, and until this weekend she was almost completely forgotten. A pretty amazing fall for someone who was once the whole universe to me.

The last time I looked up an old love interest didn't go so well, so it was with some trepidation that I looked up Elise (pronounced Alisha). She is two years older than me, which to a 14 year old boy is pretty much the Holy Grail but which now, curiously, holds no allure for me whatsoever. All I had to go on is her long-memorized childhood name and address. Unfortunately, the address is in Holland, which makes surfing many orders of magnitude harder.

I found her within 10 minutes. God bless the Internet.

I officially reclaim her as my first girlfriend. Since we last smooched in the pool, Elise has gone on to become an attorney who specializes in children's rights. Good for her. Great for me. I want this on my romantic resume. I need this on my romantic resume. "I only date wholly selfless human beings, altruistic types whose sole priority is to give back to the community," I'll sniff. "For instance, an utterly random sampling of ex-girlfriends now work as a physical therapist, a nurse, and an attorney crusading for children's rights." I badly needed a third thing for that list. This is perfect.

But the ex who now manages a sports bar? She's my secret favorite.

posted by john at 06:50 AM  •  permalink

October 19, 2007

she who talk’um shit

My mother sought no one's belief more than mine. This is likely because no one believed her less than I did. I was the man of the house, and as such, I was her principle bullshit repository.

"I know what I have to do, now," she would pronounce airily.

What followed that weighty preamble? It hardly mattered. It could be kicking my sister out. It could be finally filing for divorce. Or it could be dating again. Or it could be leaving one of those losers. It could be going back to school, losing weight, changing careers, going on a trip, "learning computers," reconnecting with conspicuously absent friends. It could be almost anything. I knew only one thing for certain: it would never, ever be in the remotest danger of happening.

"Why don't you save us both a lot of trouble and heartache and stop lying to yourself?" I'd say. "Or at least stop lying to me."

She'd wail something about having such an unsupportive, hurtful child, and then she'd rush out and prove me wrong by vigorously not following through. On anything. And then one day, reminded of her false start, she'd identify the blocking issue. "Yeah, the thing is, I would have dated...but you're just not ready for me to date again," she'd say. "I couldn't do that to you." Or maybe it was that "we" couldn't afford for her to go to computer class.

"How much is the class?" I'd ask.

"Whatever it is, we can't afford it. Not with school shopping coming up."

I bestowed upon her an Indian name: She Who Talk'um Shit. (Clearly, I hadn't met an Indian yet.) Mom's misery was chronic, and so were her hollow vows to do something about it. Our money problems were a common theme, but she always had a ready solution that involved a career change or stock tips or Amway. But even being scammed by Amway requires some degree of follow-through on the victim's part. She doubtlessly frustrated them as much as she did me.

"Do you know what else gives the illusion of progress?" I'd ask, exasperated. "Actually making progress. It's very convincing."

After she'd contracted cancer, the shit-talk became unremitting. "I know what I have to do, now," she'd say. "Yoga!" Or "crystal pendants!" Or "sailing classes!" Or "wheat germ!" Or "pyramid power!"

"Chemo!" I'd counter. "Or radiation!"

"Those hardly ever help anyone," she snorted. What a unsupportive, hurtful child.

posted by john at 06:18 AM  •  permalink

October 01, 2007

teddy

Of all the jobs I've held, "construction worker" is most likely to cause unexpected (and unwarranted) respect, "beret-wearing busboy" is likeliest to cause demands for photos, and "managing editor of a health and fitness magazine" is most likely to cause choking and gasping. The job people seem most intrigued by? "Stock boy in a candy warehouse."

Someone has to deliver candy and cigarettes to all the mom and pop stores, and that was us. My job was to move boxes around. Off the truck, on the truck. Only rarely did I see candy, and if I did, it was disfigured beyond all palatability. Sorry to disappoint.

I was the college kid, and as such, I was the target of much abuse from those who'd never caught so much as a whiff of dorm mold. There was no subtlety about it. "Hey dumbass," the owner's son would yell across the warehouse. "Drop your dick for a second and college me up some Goetz caramels."

Everyone would laugh and high five. It was a great fit for me.

My first day, I was introduced to Teddy Cope, the longtime warehouse foreman who had recently been demoted to make room for the owner's son. Which is to say that Teddy had lost his title and pay, not any of his responsibilities. He would still train me. Teddy was a marvel. In a country where the average lifespan of a black man is 64, Teddy had somehow lived to be 127. His teeth hadn't made it past 42, however, and when he smiled you wished for nothing more than for him to scowl again. He walked slowly, efficiently, expending not one step more than necessary to perform a given task. And my personal lexicon was forever changed by the invective that poured past the cigarette flapping omnipresently on his lower lip.

"Teddy, this is John. He's replacing your boy Mike. He's all yours."

Teddy, slumped over the back of a dolly, glared at me. "Jesus Christ pushin' a hand-cart," his cigarette flapped. "Who are you related to?"

You'd think his disdain for me would be tempered by my not, in fact, being related to the "saltine-assed motherfuckers" who'd recently bought the place, but I was doomed. Nothing I did was good enough. Sometimes he couldn't wait for the truck drivers to get back at the end of the day so he could regale them with stories of my bumbling.

Teddy was a curiosity. He listened to country music. He loved Willie Nelson. This drove me insane. He smoked constantly. He cursed unremittingly yet yelled at me if I even began a profanity.

"Oh, sh—"

"Yooouuuu be careful." He'd wag a finger at me.

"But you swear all the time."

"Fuckin' a. But I don't want to hear it out of you."

Teddy was full of colorful expressions. It was from him that I learned such mainstays as "Tear you a new one," "Get your head out of your ass," "I need you like I need a second asshole," and his daily mantra: "John, I'm so happy I could just shit all over myself." Those all made immediate sense to me, and I adopted them as my own. Other expressions didn't quite make the cut. "And if roosters had titties, they wouldn't crow until 10:30." comes to mind.

Teddy and I lived near one another, and to curry favor I'd taken to swinging by his bus stop and picking him up every morning. It was during these trips, free from the previously undetectable constraints of a professional environment, that I learned what an abomination the entire cracker race is. He'd rail. I'd listen. Then I'd remind him that a cracker was giving him a ride. He'd point his flapping cigarette out the window. "Yeah. Well. You're just trying to curry favor."

His apartment was next to a high school, and on Friday nights he went to games alone. I thought this was unfathomably cool. I still do. I hope that when I'm 141, I can do the same. I joined him a few times, and my education as a self-loathing white guy continued under the lights. Every time a Big White Stiff screwed up, Teddy guffawed, nudged me, and pointed, lest I miss it.

One day, we were unloading a truck, in our usual positions. Teddy was behind the dolly, smoking a butt, and I was unloading heavy cases of Snickers bars. I dropped the first one on the dolly instead of setting it down, and the dolly recoiled. I heard the sickening sound of celery snapping. Those were Teddy's ribs. He glared at me, eyes bugging. He made not a sound—the most terrifying sound in the world. I thought he was just building up speed, but the eruption never came.

After a few hours, after the severity of his injury had become apparent, he asked me to topple a tall stack of cases. I did. He then went into the owner's office and said the stack had fallen on him, and that he needed to go to the hospital.

As I drove him to the hospital, I thanked Teddy for his white lie. This was the difference between my getting fired and not. He nodded, knowing well that he'd saved my job. I wasn't exactly sure what constituted being a cracker (this seemed to morph on me), but I knew Teddy's gesture was crackerdom's exact opposite. He smiled his best evil, gummy smile. "If you thought I was rough on you before, kid, just you wait. I own your ass now."

My pride kicked in. "Yeah, and if cows had boobs they'd, um, be, um.."

"Ca-righst. Just stop. I'm beggin' you. You were making such strides."

posted by john at 07:42 AM  •  permalink

September 21, 2007

dorkass sighting

"There sure haven't been a whole lot of Dorkass posts lately," Dorkass lamented last night.

"That stems from there not being a whole lot of Dorkass lately," I shot back.

"Yeah, I saw your little pity party. Poor baby."

And then we reminisced about the first time we ever got fucked-up together, at her place, with her little sister. We'd gathered to watch the Olympics. Remember Tara Lipinski's gold medal winning performance? We don't.

Our tale of drunken woe and green pepper chunks in the sink is long and, I'm afraid, kinda uninteresting to anyone who wasn't there. I vaguely remember falling asleep and awakening to discover that my direct report was fastening barrettes to my hair while her little sister fumbled with a camera. But surely if that memory is correct, those images would be an Internet classic by now.

posted by john at 07:14 AM  •  permalink

July 23, 2007

the best part of the transformers movie

For more reasons than one:

Note Chandra's screen credit. Perhaps she can get my nine bucks back from Michael Bay.

Lest she get too swelled a head, I shall now run a photo taken during her interminable "my life's dream is to be a bass player in a band in Seattle" phase.

posted by john at 08:13 AM  •  permalink

July 12, 2007

and the “jesus h, get a life” award goes to...

259.

That's how many movies Dorkass has in her Netflix queue. Can anybody beat that? Can any four people combined beat that?

For the record, my queue has 11.

posted by john at 12:25 AM  •  permalink

June 28, 2007

alien invasion

It's time for Lynn and Sue's annual visit, which means it's also time for oddsmaking on what criticisms I'll hear.

1:1 The back seat of the Jeep is not fit for human beings.

1:2 I live too far from the airport.

1:1 It's too cold. Clammy, even.

1:4 I'm a horribly lonely man.

1:3 They would really like to go to my wedding someday.

1:2 My house is disgustingly filthy.

1:1 The latter has a lot to do with the former.

1:3 I'd be stupid not to move back to Spokane.

1:3 I'd be stupid to ever leave this place.

1:4 I'm too fat.

1:5 The food I eat is unhealthy.

1:2 What, no filet mignon tonight?

posted by john at 08:55 AM  •  permalink

June 25, 2007

hey man nice shot

Yesterday I took Blondage, a fellow midwesterner and a recently transplanted co-worker, to a local vista. Stunning by any measure, Hurricane Ridge especially distinguishes itself by providing a spectacular view of the Olympic mountains without requiring that I walk farther than 100 feet. The only elevation gain is at the end of the visit, when I step into the Jeep. It's perfect.

Yesterday was the first time Blondage had experienced being hot at 4pm, then being in a snowstorm at 5pm. "Snow in June!" she squealed. I remember being similarly dazzled my first time. Snow in June was once inconceivable.

We pulled over to inspect the quickly accumulating snow. Gender stereotypes were quickly enforced. While she caught flakes on her tongue, I made a snowball. Aiming at her face, I fired it from 20 feet away. At the last second, my throw broke and impacted perfectly in the crotch of her jeans. It held there like velcro. Time stopped.

Do I apologize? Do I explain I was aiming for the face, instead? And does that make it better or worse?

Ultimately unable to admit that I'm that bad a shot, I decided to play it like the throw was on purpose. Because I'm just that cool, you know.

posted by john at 06:04 AM  •  permalink

June 24, 2007

knocked up

Staring dully at the distant horizon, Dirt drew mightily on his cigar. He squinted at me, then squinted back at the horizon. I could tell something profound was bubbling up.

"So. What chick are you most glad you didn't knock up?"

I gagged on smoke. Ignoring the presence of his toddler, I mentally ran through my sexual history, which could easily be recorded on one side of a 3x5 index card. Including annotated histories.

Those women would all have been disasters. Can I have a massive tie for first place?

"Can I have a massive tie for first place?"

"No. You gotta choose one."

But how? By what criteria do I narrow the field? There are the chicks who drove me crazy vs. the chicks who are themselves crazy. The women who would be horrible mothers vs. the women who would be horrible parental partners. This is diabolical. There's no right answer. Pressed, I chose the one who became a religious fanatic. She's crazy and drove me crazy, and there'd be a lifelong battle over the child's soul. Seems reasonable.

Speaking of God, thank God that Dirt didn't think to ask which ex I would have preferred to knock up. Shudder. I'm springing that one on him next time.

posted by john at 10:43 AM  •  permalink

June 14, 2007

the jewelry box

In honor of Maddie's birthday, I will now tell one of my favorite Maddie stories.

When we were living together, she whined about modern jewelry boxes. She wanted something old school, with lots of little compartments on top so she could readily access pairs of earrings and so forth. This was in the days before the web, so to find a suitable box I had to comb antique store after antique store. After several months of searching, I found exactly what she wanted. It was in bad shape, but I painstakingly repaired and restored it myself. When I gave it to her on Christmas day, she was delighted.

A few weeks later, we were arguing. I was doing what I do best: sitting in my office, working, making the occasionally calm-but-inflammatory remark. She was doing what she does best: pacing, ranting, raving. This is why we were a bad fit, ultimately. My low-key snarking really antagonized her. Anyway, from the other room suddenly came a spectacularly violent crash. In a fit of anger, Maddie had picked up the jewelry box and shattered it against the wall. It was destroyed.

She momentarily stormed out of the house. Pissed, I went into the other room and plucked exactly one-half of her favorite pairs of earrings. I tossed five or so earrings into my desk drawer and kept working. She returned, and over the next half hour I heard the increasingly panicked movement of furniture in the other room. Profanity started to flow. Hurt by her action, I now basked in her torment. After about an hour of torture, she came in and apologized. I accepted.

"If it's any consolation," she offered in a tone that started as sheepish but crescendoed into full-blown rage at the universe, "I lost exactly one of EVERY GODDAMNED ONE OF MY FAVORITE PAIRS OF EARRINGS!"

I came clean. To her credit, she appreciated how much she deserved the torturing. Eventually.

posted by john at 08:30 AM  •  permalink

May 30, 2007

the beth story

When I was a kid, mom was a nursing assistant at a local hospital. She droned endlessly about her co-workers, of course, and among her favorites was an especially gentlemanly doctor. He distinguished himself by being kind to the staff, and they adored him for it.

And then one day, he was arrested. He was accused of being a serial rapist. Mom was apoplectic. She vigorously defended him. And then the evidence mounted, and a very public trial ensued, and he was convicted on 90-some counts. Mom was stunned and heartbroken.

A few years later, I had co-workers myself. I was working at a library. Checking in magazines one night, I was chatting with the bright young page when I came across a magazine with the doctor's face (and the headline "Insane?") on the cover. I waved it in the air. "This bastard," I snorted self-righteously, "Is guilty as hell."

Beth smiled and nodded, stretching out the moment as long as she could before chirping "That's my dad," pivoting on her heel, and walking away. She seemed to mean it, but I flat-out didn't believe her. There was just no way. Yeah, they had the same last name, and yeah, they were both black, but I wasn't buyin' what she was sellin.' It was too big of a coincidence. She was just too impish about it. She was yanking me. I demanded to see a family picture.

The next day, she brought me one. Their Christmas card, as I recall. Very festive.

While I groveled and apologized, Beth gleefully reveled in my discomfort, and a fast friendship was born. She is among the most graceful people I've ever known—evident from this anecdote, I'm sure—and also easily the smartest. Even at 16, she babbled excitedly about fractal geometry, oblivious to the fact that I had zero understanding of what she was saying. She might as well have been talking to the stuff growing on her shower curtain, but I loved her for trying. Almost as much as I loved having her around when math needed to be done.

• • •

Astoundingly, the coincidences don't end there. Maddie, too, worked in that library, and after she and I started dating, we visited her dad, a retired Columbus cop. It turns out he was in the crew who arrested Beth's dad. It was absolutely surreal to hear an alternate account of the Night They Came for Dad.

posted by john at 05:53 AM  •  permalink

May 08, 2007

the quotable allie

Again, I'll start at the end of the conversation:

"How do you do that, being a savior and a martyr at the same time? How is that even possible? It's, like, just you and Jesus who do that. And buddy, you ain't Jesus."

posted by john at 12:34 AM  •  permalink

May 07, 2007

with friends like these

Response to the pranks post has made me think of one of my best mind-fucks.

I was meeting a friend and his woman in a bar. They were married. Unfortunately, they were not married to each another. I don't begrudge anyone a mistake or three, but this woman on whom he was draping himself was no reason to be breaking marriage vows. She was preening, manipulative. She spewed complete nonsense. I caught her in needless, self-aggrandizing lies from word go. She was, to summarize, a most unwelcome development.

Shortly after I returned from the jukebox, I saw my friend twitch uncomfortably. It might have had something to do with the song selection, which happened to be what he and his wife were listening to the first time they made love. Or it might have just been gas. A couple tunes later, the jukebox played the "first dance" song from his wedding.

He was no longer listening to our conversation, which was about, oh, let's say politics. Noticing his distant glare, the mistress tried to loop him back in. "What do you think, hon?"

"I THINK SOMEONE'S DELIBERATELY FUCKING WITH ME, IS WHAT I THINK" he snarled contemptuously. "DON'T EVER TELL JOHN FUCKING ANYTHING."

Words to live by.

posted by john at 07:20 AM  •  permalink

March 30, 2007

here, let me tell you an enthralling story about someone’s kid

Of my friends with kids, Katrina is the most Mother Earth. I cannot present evidence of this without inciting arguments about which I do not remotely care. Suffice it to say that it would surprise no one if she sang "Kumbaya" to Annalie every night before bed.

To Katrina, any time not spent snuggling with Annalie is utterly wasted time. It was torture, then, when I called her office yesterday to tell her that her husband, parents, daughter and I were all together at her house while she worked. I guess I'm just thoughtful that way.

Those parties gladly stuck me with kid-watching duties, and I made the most of my quality time with Annalie.

"Can you say crack-whore?"

"Co-co."

"Crack-whore."

"Cwack-co."

"Crack-whore."

"Cwack-ho."

"Good! Have some chocolate."

Katrina eventually came home, and much snuggling ensued. At dinner, I looked at the child, pointed to Katrina, and said "Crack-whore."

"Crack-whore," Annalie chimed with perfect clarity. Katrina was aghast.

"No, Annalie! Don't say tha—"

The child's eyes grew wide with realization. "MOMMY CRACK-WHORE!"

I burst into applause. Dad burst into applause...inwardly. Mommy thunked her forehead on the table with surprising weight.

The rest of the night was dominated by a game in which Annalie sang "MOM-MY CRACK-WHORE!" and I responded by clapping two and three times. (Think the "o-ver-ra-ted" basketball chant.)

Other people's kids are fun.

posted by john at 07:19 AM  •  permalink

March 23, 2007

the week in pranks

Part I

Action: I sabotaged my friend's computer at work, rewiring cables in interesting ways and hiding crucial parts.

Intention: To cause about 20 minutes of irritation, culminating with the statement "John is such a dick."

Result: My friend was trying to work remotely and, unable to access his office computer, had to commute to Redmond from afar to troubleshoot the situation. Much worse words than "dick" were uttered. Still are.

Part II

Action: I laid an email guilt-trip on a friend who had a high fever. Replying to a fabricated email in which pretend-she reassures me that she is in fact alive, I sarcastically say "Why thank you for letting me know. That was very thoughtful of you."

Intention: She gets the joke, snorts that she has better things to do than send me status, calls me a dick.

Result: Still home sick, she thinks someone at work hacked into her account and sent me email, posing as her. She goes into the office and angrily accuses a very confused co-worker.

Yes, kids, in 24 hours' time, I made two people go in to work unnecessarily. I'm going straight to hell, aren't I?

Victim #1, told to name his restitution, chose cruelly. "You're coming to my house and making pizzas. For my kids and their shrieking friends. And they get to sit on your lap while they eat. And you don't get any pizza."

posted by john at 06:23 AM  •  permalink

February 21, 2007

mormons and me, part i

Before I left Ohio, what I knew about Mormons could be summed up in four words: "the Osmonds" and "Danny Ainge." Like with out-of-closet gays, I couldn't name a single Mormon I knew.

When Maddie and I simultaneously went to grad school, she in Indiana and me in Washington, I paid for her expenses by keeping mine very low. I took out a student loan, sent her the money, and myself lived in a dorm. My living in that dorm for a year led to my meeting Elizabeth, which is all well and good, but it also led to my meeting Fucking Amy and Mormonism.

The latter came in the most insidious form of all: an utterly charming, bright young redhead named Leanne. Hoping to just serve my time and move to proper accommodations, I hadn't wanted much to do with my fellow residents, but Leanne wore me down. She wouldn't take no for an answer, pounding on my locked door until I relented. There was no resisting her. We became friends.

Many a night we'd sit in my dorm, she sharing the excitement of her newfound love with the guy down the hall, me sharing the pain of what turned out to be the end times with Maddie. Leanne was becoming an English teacher, and I was teaching for the first time. We talked about teaching, life, love, plans, dreams. I got sucked into this fantastically warm, kind woman's orbit.

Religion didn't come up that much, but I knew hers was important to her. It was that Osmond thing I knew nothing about. Rather than admit ignorance, I went to the library. There was a surprisingly deep collection of books about Mormonism, both admiring and damning. I skipped past those and cracked open a more neutral, academic source, the Harvard Theological Review. An hour later, I shut the book and stared out the window.

This was the most moronic religion I'd ever heard of.

Some American teenage brat claims that he's talked to an angel and now leads the one true religion, and these morons actually, like, believe him? I thought. What the fucking fuck? For God's sake, the angel was even named "Moroni." And then there were these magical gold plates no one ever saw, instructions from God to revise the bible and, presumably, to marry as many teenage girls as possible before it became politically inexpedient.

It turns out I hadn't known any Mormons previously because Midwesterners ran 'em out of the Midwest in the 1800s. I too wasn't in danger of becoming a Mormon anytime soon, but I also didn't hold it against Leanne. I believed in her, if not her especially silly religion.

Meanwhile, I became friends with another young woman, Hilary. She hailed from Salt Lake City and had been raised Mormon, but she had walked away as a teenager and never looked back—except when the church came knocking on her door, which was apparently very, very often. Hil was mildly amused that I was becoming close to a Mormon and even more amused by my ignorance. She took it upon herself to get me up to speed. I learned about the Holy Mormon Underwear. I learned that wouldn't be allowed into the Temple when my friend got married. I learned about the vow of masturbation. I learned about in absentia baptisms of the dead. I learned about the baby heaven full of souls waiting to be birthed by good Mormon girls.

This religion just kept getting stupider and stupider.

Hil got personal. "Let me guess. She's the most upbeat, kind, cloying person you know."

Um.

"Let me tell you what's going to happen with your friend," she declared with jarring confidence. "She's going to marry the first Mormon guy she meets here, and she's going to marry him fast. He'll be just back from his mission and horny as hell. They'll start crapping out kids by the bushel, and she'll spend the rest of her life in total subjugation, dropping litters and doing chores for the church. Guaranteed."

"Not Leanne," I said. "You don't know her like I do. She loves teaching. Her whole world is teaching English to ESL kids. Yeah, she's dating the only other Mormon in our dorm, and yeah, he's just back from his mission, but she's even told me she won't get married for six years. Until her career is established."

"Mmm hmm," Hil replied.

"Besides, the guy is a thoughtless lump. She'd never marry him."

"Of course not."

After Christmas break, Leanne came back with an engagement ring on her finger. Lump had proposed exactly three months after they had met. Leanne had accepted. They were getting married in the summer and would celebrate their three-month wedding anniversary a year to the day after they met.

"What about waiting until you were 27?" I asked.

"Oh, forget that!" she squealed, delighted.

Oh.

Tomorrow: I become a follower of the latter-day Prophet Hilary.

posted by john at 07:53 AM  •  permalink

February 16, 2007

special request

Allie has a dubious superpower. If she were a character on Heroes, she'd be the mild housewife with the mysterious ability to call you when you're reading "Entertainment Weekly" in the bathroom.

It took me forever to answer the phone, and when I did, I explained that I'd just painted, and that had required that I remove the doorknob, and I was locked behind a knobless door, which required some effort to get past.

"So you're alone in the house, and you locked yourself in the bathroom behind a door with a locking mechanism but no knob?"

It sounds so stupid when she says it.

"I can neither confirm nor deny that," I replied.

"How come you never blog about this sort of stuff?"

• • •

In that spirit, here's another lesson I learned after it was too late.

If you're walking on a treadmill, and for the first time you notice that its control panel has numbers 1 through 10 around its periphery, and you wonder "Are those buttons?"...well, don't find out by pressing "10."

posted by john at 08:43 AM  •  permalink

February 13, 2007

ed’s debra winger moment

When my dog, Ed, was a newborn pup, Elizabeth was staying with me. This cemented two things: 1) Ed forever adored 21 year old girls, and 2) to Ed, Elizabeth was Mom forevermore. They don't get to see one another often anymore, but when they do, Ed goes positively batshit.

When things looked so bleak recently, I sent Elizabeth a message that I was afraid Ed's end might be very near, and would she like to say goodbye? Ed bounced back, of course, and the goodbye never happened. But given Ed's prognosis—"horrendous" spinal arthritis that will cripple her in months, not years—I resolved to take Ed to see Elizabeth the next time we got together.

The sheer sadness of it all struck me as I was bathing Ed Sunday night, trying to make her pretty for her mom. It walloped me again when I was brushing her Monday morning. It was impossible not to think of the scene in Terms of Endearment where a dying Debra Winger, about to say goodbye to her kids, pauses to put on makeup. If you gotta check out, check out pretty, I guess.

Elizabeth and I chatted a while, but inevitably it was time for the main event. Elizabeth sighed and pulled some tissues out of her pocket. "Just a sec. I'm gonna go get some more," she said and disappeared.

The reunion was complete pandemonium, as always. Ed climbed all over Elizabeth, unable to get close enough even while standing on her lap and tunneling her face into Elizabeth's abdomen. Elizabeth held it together, which is more than Ed and I can say. Ed trembled with...joy, I guess. She couldn't stop shaking, a behavior I'd never seen before. Even her teeth were chattering. She was overwhelmed with joy, but the joy had a sad desperation to it. As I drove home, I wondered if this was like when I was a kid and hurt myself—how I so desperately needed Mom more than all the other people on Earth combined.

Curled up on the back seat, Ed stared into space and whimpered softly the whole way to the ferry.

posted by john at 08:28 AM  •  permalink

January 16, 2007

self-awareness is a beautiful thing

My Japanese mom, Miss Sue, called last night to mother me. She immediately wanted to know how much I spent on my BCS ticket. When I declined to tell—what am I, stupid?—she berated me anyway for spending too much. I wouldn't have thought a non-relative capable of that.

Talk turned to the weather, and she complained that near her house, the city had plowed a steep hill, leaving an exposed sheet of ice with which she could not deal.

"My god," I said. "The carnage! Don't they realize how many Asian drivers there are in that neighborhood?"

"Old Asian drivers," Sue corrected.

• • •

While I'm doing my part for race relations...you ever wonder how Asian restaurants get away with hiring only Asians? These are the things I think about when a Chinese chick in a geisha robe brings me my bento box.

posted by john at 06:37 AM  •  permalink

December 11, 2006

green death

Speaking of Green Death, the recipe for this magic potion couldn't be simpler:

1. Put a bag of apple Jolly Rancher hard candies in a bottle of Absolute.
2. Wait two days for the candies to dissolve.
3. Serve over ice and wait 45 minutes for the clothes to fly off.

It's a deceptively sweet drink, and the sugar really gooses the intoxicating effects of the vodka.

When I still kept a bottle at the ready, there was a streak of six or so servings where nudity was absolutely guaranteed. Although this effect was unanticipated, it was fantastically fun for a while. (Pausing to remember a few life highlights. Mmmmmm. Okay, on with the story. No, wait. Mmmmmmmmmmmmm. Sigh. Okay.) But then Susan stood atop my coffee table and performed a carnal striptease, complete with throwing me her thong, in front of all her co-workers—and, significantly, her five year old son. Such developments do make one take stock of oneself.

Shortly afterwards, I went camping with some friends at the beach. I'd made the back of the Jeep a full bar for the occasion, and I was a far more popular figure than usual. Coincidentally, Dorkass and her new boyfriend, Frank Frank, were at the coast that day too, and I told them to stop by. When they arrived at 9am, I was mixing John's Breakfast Margaritas (tequila, lime, triple sec, salt, and a single corn flake). "I'll take two!" Dorkass yelled before she'd even stopped her car.

And thus did I meet Frank Frank. He's not really a drinker, he said, but he was game. "Well then," I said, pulling out a bottle that for some reason was inside someone's sock. "Do I ever have the thing for you!" Dorkass nodded eagerly as I poured Green Death into a tin coffee cup. Frank sniffed it. Pleased, he swallowed it. I gave him some more.

15 minutes later, my friend Heather came back to camp with an armload of firewood. She looked at Frank Frank's expression.

"Oh god. He gave you the green shit, didn't he? Hon, just stick your finger down y—"

"SHHHH!" everyone hissed in unison.

Alas, the Green Death disappointed that day, as only his shirt flew off. In 50 degree weather. And thus did I retire the drink. My self-respect was already teetering from the five-year-old-child incident. I'm afraid seeing Frank Frank's nipple hair finished it off for good.

posted by john at 10:02 AM  •  permalink

December 07, 2006

three to two

I know exactly when I first thought of having a living will. It was Christmas Eve, and my siblings and I were voting on whether or not to let my mother die. At this point, Mom had terminal ovarian, lung, lymph and brain cancer; had several crushed vertebrae that resulted in paralysis, not to mention bed pneumonia and acute claustrophobia; had just had her second heart attack; and showed no brainwaves from the depths of her Christmas coma.

Should we put her on extreme life-support? The decision was a slam-dunk.

The vote went 3-2.

In a situation that could only be more hopeless and more obvious if Mom were also decapitated, two siblings actually voted to keep my mother's lungs pumping at any cost. Theirs was an emotional, not moral decision. They wanted their mother alive, no matter the suffering it caused.

3-2. For me, the moment would forever epitomize selfish cruelty and moral weakness.

And it was the moment I decided to take the decision out of my family's hands. They cannot be trusted to put my interests above their own. I therefore entrusted my plug to friends and girlfriends, finally settling on the one the person in the world most inclined to pull it: my ex-girlfriend.

"Can I pull it now?" she asks. "How about now?"

She has to spread my ashes over Heinz Field, too. My will even provides for her fines.

• • •

Allie's drowning with work this week, so naturally I call her every half-hour or so with updates about what the FoxNews ticker says ("THE WAR ON CHRISTMAS: Is it hurting our children?") and about my health. The day she gets Caller-ID at work, it's all over.

"My left eye is twitching," I'll say.

"Mmm hmm."

"It's making me nuts."

"I bet."

"What do you think it is?"

"Yeah."

"I think it's a heart attack."

"It's not a heart attack."

"It's a prelude to a heart attack, then. I'm gonna keel over on Football Weekend next week, just like I always wanted. It'd force Bubba to carry my corpse from stadium to stadium, plopping it in the seat next to him."

"Hey!" she said, perking up. "If you go to Pittsburgh, that would save me from having to dispose of you!"

Damn, that's cold. "I'll just tell Bubba to toss me in the trash on his way out of the stadium."

"Why trouble him? He can just leave you under his seat, with the beer cups and gnawed chicken bones."

This fate appeals to me way, way more than it should. Way.

posted by john at 01:33 PM  •  permalink

November 28, 2006

the quotable dorkass

"If you break up with a girl, she gets to be your friend. But if she dumps you, she gets 'Fucking' forever prepended to her name."

posted by john at 09:56 AM  •  permalink

November 22, 2006

the dying is easier to take

One of us near life's mid-point, the other near its end, Miss Sue and I had an unusual conversation last week. Her lifelong best friend just moved to Arizona, and Sue's socially decimated. She described their relationship at length, especially its irreplacability and the big hole left in her life now. I asked why the friend left Spokane. "Her kid lives in Arizona," Sue shrugged. "And he wanted his mom near him."

She picked at her salad a bit. "That's what it's like when you're old, you know. All your friends move away. Or die. The dying is easier to take than the moving away."

The parallel was obvious. "Is that the geriatric version of all your friends having kids and disappearing?" I asked.

"Yeah. It's exactly the same feeling."

Great. Something to look forward to.

Sue pressed on. "And there's a middle stage. When the grandkids come along, they all disappear again."

"Jesus Christ. Any other cheery nuggets to share?"

"Yeah. Just go ahead and make new friends. These aren't coming back."

posted by john at 08:41 AM  •  permalink

November 09, 2006

into the craven mind of the american male

A few years back, Dorkass had the distinct pleasure of watching her boss (me) start hanging out with her little sister. I fondly remember the accusations of untoward intentions, accusations that usually bubbled up during our weekly 1:1s. Dorkass' delight peaked when li'l sis and I started getting on airplanes together. To Dorkass, this collision of worlds was decidedly unwelcome. I can just imagine her parting words to her sister: "Never forget he's a complete dog! If he gives you something green, for the love of God, don't drink it!"

Worse, though, was when I started carousing with Dorkass' ex-husband, Jim. "Usurper!" she charged.

I have no idea why it so bothered her.

"Ya know what Dorkasses's pwoblem is?" he began every drunken sentence, as I set my pool cue down to take notes. This shit's pure gold. I'll sneak this material on to her performance review.

The friendship didn't last, however. Jim was in full-blown post-divorce womanizing mode, and I lost interest in that pretty quickly. He was in that unseemly zone where every woman, regardless her status or interest, was a prospective Next! This especially applied to exceedingly young women. When a middle-aged guy is shamelessly trolling for 18 year olds, eventually dating at least one, you do wonder why you're hanging out with him.

I shared these concerns with Dorkass one night, and she revealed that Jim had mentioned his taking out a personals ad. After a pregnant pause, we lunged at my laptop. And there it was, a preening pack of lies aimed at disguising what a lump he was. We debated whether "adrenaline junkie" or "I love to read" was the funnier line, and then I had my brainstorm. I invented Sam.

SamLuvsYa was a sweet, simple 18 year old high school student who found his ad intriguing. She had little to say except that, although he's really too old for her, she thought he sounded fun. She made a token attempt at small-talk. "Who r ur fave writers?" she asked. She was, by any measure, an utterly unremarkable child with horrible spelling. And then I attached this photo.

"Yes, I'm older," Jim replied at considerable length, trimming a few years off his age. "But one of the things the wisdom of time has given me is the insight that love is ageless."

"How generous of him!" Dorkass howled, both of us doubled over in laughter as we read his overwritten, deliriously fawning response. It turns out he, too, found Sam intriguing. It must have been the "r ur." I don't know what else it could have been. Oh, and his favorite author? There are too many to mention, but if pressed, he'd have to say "Shakespeare."

"Not unless it's Steve Shakespeare of Men's Health," Dorkass snorted.

We never came clean. And Sam? She went away to college. Damn kids today.

posted by john at 06:33 AM  •  permalink

September 26, 2006

the time the approval whore screwed her courage to the sticking place and stood up to my abuse

I've had exactly two interactions with the AW since our relationship officially gasped its last. The first was several months after the breakup, when I was acquiring from her my ancient laptop. This gave me the chance to fire an unused bullet. "Be sure to comb it carefully for my old emails and save them to roses.txt," I said.

The next and last contact was no longer than that, but it has far more backstory.

In the years I was trying to return to teaching, I made contacts at an area university that happened to be the AW's alma mater. Every year, they invited me to be a guest speaker at their Spring careers lecture, where I conducted a writing workshop. Every year, I invited my girlfriend to come with me to her alma mater and see me in my natural element. And every year, she yawned and declined.

One November, the university offered me a job in the spring. I accepted. In December, the AW and I broke up. In March, I stepped behind the lectern again. In April I saw, on the walls outside my office, flyers advertising the guest lecturers who would be speaking to my students.

"Approval Whore, a manager from the Microsoft Corporation..."

Letting go of the fact that she wasn't a manager, I was incensed. Now, now she has an interest in the lecture series? I had an exceptionally cool class, and I told them about the ex weirdness. What I found disrespectful and hypocritical, they thought downright psychotic. "I'll give you guys killer questions for her—about her infidelities, her arrest in Oregon, etc." We all had a good laugh and then agreed that the easiest course was for none of them to attend the lecture.

Soon I got mail that announced the guest lecturers, and I took that opportunity to make my displeasure known. I forwarded it to the AW.

"Thanks for the respectful distance. I'll be sure my students are exceedingly well prepared for your Q&A."

That would be our last contact.

I showed the flyer to friends on her team at work. "You don't have, like, skilled people you could send to talk to my students?" Word trickled back that she hadn't mentioned the lecture to anyone there, not so much as to ask for the day off. And then I didn't think about it for several months.

The day of the lecture, the AW marched into her boss's office and excitedly announced that a special, "spur of the moment opportunity" to lecture at her alma mater had just dropped into her lap. Yes, the AW would need to miss deadlines and screw over people at work, but this opportunity was just too special to pass up. The boss grudgingly let her go. And while she was gone, the flyer made its way from my friends to the boss.

When the AW returned and boasted about how fantabulous a lecturer she was, the boss confronted her about the flyer. Caught in a needless and gargantuan lie, the AW then did what she does best. She burst into tears.

"I don't know how much you know about my personal life, but I'm coming out of a really abusive relationship situation," she sobbed about her cheating on me and my not caring.

"He's been trying to bully and intimidate me," she wept about her following me to my new employer and volunteering to meet my students. "I used to cave in, to let him control me. But here, this one time, I finally stood up to him! And I'm proud of myself for having the courage to face down his intimidation! I'm proud of myself for going!"

Welcome once again to Planet AW, where lying, cheating, and gross disrespect are unassailable virtues. And oh yeah. She's a manager now.

posted by john at 09:12 AM  •  permalink

September 19, 2006

welcome, guang!

There are three things I've historically loved about working at Microsoft.

1. They provide you with all the pop you can drink.
2. They routinely get the criminally incompetent out of the files by promoting it to management. (Bad for customers. Great for the right kind of worker.)
3. When somebody leaves for vacation, it's common to sabotage their office as a prank.

In my time, I've hit and been hit. The worst I've gotten was when my old test team came by and wrapped every last item in my office in newspaper—desks, chairs, books, pens, knick-knacks. I was woozy from the ink fumes. Of particular genius was wrapping my phone, handset, and the cord that connects the two all independently, which I discovered when my phone rang. The worst prank I ever perpetrated myself was on my friend and boss, who foolishly gave me the key to her house. She returned from Costa Rica to find her living room redecorated with her office furniture, right down to loose CDs and halogen lamps. Guess where her living room furniture was.

My favorite prank, however, was on Dorkass. When she was away, I made her office into a double. I put a second nameplate on her door. "Guang" wasn't even a member of her own team; he was something imposed upon her by moronic management. (Instant credibility. See #2.) I put a picture of his wife and kids on his desk, along with a pack of smokes. Guang was a complete pig. He'd left crumbs all over the place. He'd also moved Dorkass' phone and a few of her music CDs to his own desk. I turned on his lights and left his glasses on the desk. A development manager and Dorkass' own boss sent Dorkass mail explaining how she would be working closely with Guang, so they thought they should work closely.

"WHAT. THE. FUCK."

It didn't take long for Dorkass to blow. Every sentence had a quivering rage and the f-word in some form or another.

"They can't f-f-f-fucking do this to me. Unbefuckinglievable. There are more junior people than me on the team. And look! He's a fucking smoker! Just look at these fucking muffin crumbs all over the floor! This is so fucking unfair! And stupid! There's no good reason for this! I'm senior! They can't just do this and expect me to accept it! I'm not letting them get away with this! GODDAMIT, IS THAT MY MOTHERFUCKING EARTH WIND AND FIRE CD ON HIS DESK?"

I let her storm for hours. She was fuming, spewing profanity and rage at anyone who would listen. "Anyone" did not, as it turned out, include anyone above her. She replied-all to the managers' email.

"Welcome, Guang!" she chirped. "Great! I look forward to working with you!"

There could not possibly have been any more disconnect between this obedient lapdog and the morally outraged malcontent shrieking profanely about seniority and cigarette butts. Not unless she bought Guang a welcome muffin. It was desk-poundingly funny. I printed up this monument to sycophancy and posted it on her office door. She figured out the joke eventually, I think.

Epilogue
Dorkass has since been promoted to management.

posted by john at 07:06 AM  •  permalink

September 14, 2006

photo negative life

During our conversation, Pam and I wallowed gleefully in scorn for three demographics that happen to irritate us both to no end: 1) young suburban whites who try to glom on to black culture, 2) young suburban blacks to whom every perceived slight is "racist," and 3) Pam's husband. Number three has nothing to do with the other two. I just wanted him in there. "Talk about your bait and switches," Pam groaned. "The man put on fifty pounds on our honeymoon."

That comment would bring me a whole lot more pleasure if I hadn't gotten even fatter.

• • •

I held forth for a time about how I hold accusations of racism to the same burden of proof that I hold accusations of lying or stealing, and about how, at times, younger blacks have become angry with me for not taking their word for what white folks are thinking.

Pam chuckled her agreement. "But let me ask you something. Just as an exercise. Do you think you'd be living the same life if you'd been born black?"

Of course not, I thought.

"Of course not," I said. "No way." This exercise was easy.

"Why?"

Why? Why. I stammered about racism and white privilege for a while. She let me. I tried to conjure evidence to back up my claim. I soon retreated into quiet reflection. It's not often that someone smarter than me comes along and traps me, but here I was, dangling by my ankles, my shirt over my head. I do not like the feeling. This must be what life is like for Dorkass every damned day. I reacted with typical grace.

"Fuuuuuuuuuuck you."

"The whys ain't so easy, are they?"

Indeed. The whys are a bitch. They're hard to quantify, or even to list speculatively. All the little advantages I've enjoyed and all the additional burdens placed upon my black peers—I know of these things, but I cannot readily prove their existence. Much like with a black hole, we understand the existence of institutional racism without being able to directly observe it.

I do not know, for example, that the linchpin people who've profoundly shaped my life would not have done the same if my skin were a different color. But it seems naive to assume that everyone would have treated me identically, does it not? With a couple exceptions, these twenty or so folks all looked very much like I do. I'd like to think that's not a variable. I just can't make myself believe it.

Pam was cleverly putting me in the shoes of having to prove racism. Point taken. My burden of proof was impossible to satisfy. Klansmen don't come along often; the everyday realities are far subtler than that. All the more reason to use the r-word judiciously, in my estimation. It's fine and healthy to scan for it, to debate it. But casually diagnosing it? I think the whys should be a bitch for all concerned.

posted by john at 10:54 AM  •  permalink

September 12, 2006

the quotable annette

Sayeth Annette: "If it weren't for parents, kids would be pretty cool."

posted by john at 04:16 PM  •  permalink

1-614-SMOTHER

At first I held my breath, taken aback. Why was my friend's wife calling me long-distance? Was d'Andre okay? Yes, he was. Then why...? It was with a creeping shame that I remembered back to a time and place where it wasn't fear-inspiring for a friend's S.O. to call me. d'Pam was simply calling to chat with her friend.

Ah. Yes. Midwestern mental health. You'll have to pardon me for not recognizing it. All the insulation I use to combat the Seattle chill makes me equally impervious to warmth nowadays, I'm afraid.

A sales widow last weekend, Pam called to chat about the Ohio State/Texas game that had just concluded. I winced and held the phone in my lap, temporarily unable to listen. How, in the name of all that's holy, had that idiot d'Andre managed to snag a beautiful Ph.D who can speak enthusiastically about attacking defensive backs who are cheating up in the box? Him! How? How? I'm still fuming. And I'm still plotting to smother him in his sleep, not that such notions didn't predate Pam by a decade.

The conversation whirled and turned, touching on football and relationships and race and Christmas and that old standby of every conversation I have with someone in the 614 area code: do you ever think of moving back home? Moving, yes. Frequently. I look at real estate online every time Percy lets himself into my house. But moving back to Columbus never even flits through my mind. There's nothing to recommend Ohio, really, save the opportunity to not visit my parents' graves more regularly.

But this time, refusal was harder. Unlike with family members, the person suggesting I come home is from a place for which I actually have home-like yearnings. It felt good to hear. It hurt to decline. I'm not sure what that twinge is about, but I suspect it comes from some obscure, little-used, well-adjusted corner of my psyche.

Back to mental Siberia with ya, twinge. There's no place for you here.

posted by john at 08:02 AM  •  permalink

August 30, 2006

whose eulogy is this, anyway?

I've been through my share of awkward conversations with friends. The "don't you think you might be drinking too much?" conversation. The "where'd this bruise come from?" chat. The "just because you've decided to stop being a lesbian doesn't mean I've suddenly stopped seeing you as one" potboiler. The "I'm not sure I'm cut out to be married" post-affair exposé. Heck, every other conversation with Dorkass leads to her asking "And you think it's healthy, not having any interest in a relationship?"

But nothing prepared me for what Lynn said to me last weekend, when she asked me to give the eulogy at her funeral. Mind you, Lynn is several decades from dying, so this was a bit unexpected. And a hideously unpleasant thought. I still can't bring myself to think about summing up my friend's life, not while it's still a work in progress.

I asked her why she was tapping me now. "Well," said my former boss, "I know how long it takes you to write something you hate writing, so I thought I'd give you a head start."

posted by john at 09:25 AM  •  permalink

August 29, 2006

when reality and blog collide

Dorkass and Frank Frank visited this weekend, and on their way here and back they suffered the drivers who, sadly, I deal with every day. Slow drivers. Weaving. Oblivious. Slamming on the brakes for no reason. "Stupid Metamuville drivers," Dorkass recounted later.

Thing is, she didn't use my town's real name. She actually said "Metamuville." I'm not sure what this means, but it ain't good.

posted by john at 08:07 AM  •  permalink

July 27, 2006

the jen clause

Jen has ruined my life.

We met online some seven years ago, when she was a lowly undergraduate. She began to watch my dog, Ed, when I was out of town, although we took care never to actually meet. Whereas giving someone I'd never met the keys to my house seemed natural enough, and finding her long brown hairs in my bed didn't bother me, meeting her seemed freakishly weird. We agreed that when she got married, she'd set up a webcam feed for me. I think she was kidding, but I wasn't.

Somewhere along the way Jen morphed from a chemistry major to holding the same Master's I do, in technical communication. Inevitably, she landed at Microsoft. More inevitably, she started working with people I know.

"Jen is housesitter Jen?" Dorkass exclaimed. "I thought she was, like, 20."

Sigh. So did I. Damned kids these days keep getting older. It flummoxes me, I tells ya.

Knowing that my virtual kid sister is roaming Microsoft's campus has positively ruined girl-watching for me. How am I supposed to objectify a woman who might, upon closer examination, be Jen? It's not like I could identify her from 20 yards. Mathematically, this mistake is inevitable. I well remember accidentally staring at my sister-in-law's posterior at Northland Mall one day. A repeat horror is something my heterosexuality might not be able to withstand.

"You can safely leer at tall blonds," Jen suggests. Great advice. In Scandinavia. In Seattle, not so much.

"Okay," she sighed, which I don't know for sure but I heard nonetheless, "You can have ponytails. When I wear my hair up, it'll be pigtails."

Wow. Now this is friendship! My only fear is that word of this will get out and women across Microsoft will set their scrunchies aflame.

posted by john at 07:27 AM  •  permalink

July 07, 2006

on golden doodles

Allie reports the following conversation took place between her and a friend.

Allie: "So my friend John is getting a Golden Doodle pup."
Friend: "I know a guy who's just perfect for John."

posted by john at 07:06 AM  •  permalink

July 03, 2006

do you see what I see?

If you can see my front door's retractable screen in the picture, you've got my recent houseguests beat. Those retards walked into/through it some six times. No amount of my telling them "I do not leave doors wide open" would dissuade them from charging ahead, nor, apparently, would their having already walked into the door twice each. On her third charge, Sue finally tore the thing completely from the wall. It was my fault. I bought an exceedingly stupid screen, you see.

When I first installed the door, my dog, Ed, walked into it one time. She hasn't done it since.

posted by john at 01:57 PM  •  permalink

do you see what I see?

If you can see my front door's retractable screen in the picture, you've got my recent houseguests beat. Those retards walked into/through it some six times. No amount of my telling them "I do not leave doors wide open" would dissuade them from charging ahead, nor, apparently, would their having already walked into the door twice each. On her third charge, Sue finally tore the thing completely from the wall. It was my fault. I bought an exceedingly stupid screen, you see.

When I first installed the door, my dog, Ed, walked into it one time. She hasn't done it since.

posted by john at 01:57 PM  •  permalink

July 02, 2006

you’re wrong, mr. worf!

It occurred to me late Friday, when my level of irritation peaked. I'm not used to being second-guessed. Oh sure, it happens, but it's a couple times a day as opposed to 10x per hour.

Remember how on Star Trek: the Next Generation, the writers would bring Worf into a scene only so he could say something that Picard would immediately beat down?

"The fetus must be aborted."

"You're wrong, Mr. Worf!" Slap-slap-slap-slap-slap!

That was me this weekend. Lynn and Sue can doubt me on any topic. Their degree of familiarity with said topic has no bearing whatsoever on their certainty. They simply must correct me. Whatever the subject matter—ferries, physics, my love life, plants they haven't seen, people they've never met—they are instant and infallible experts. And they are piranhas. When one second-guesses me, the other gleefully joins the feeding frenzy.

"Explain to me again why the plants are cooler in direct sun than they were where I had 'em, in the shade?" I said.

"They just are," said Lynn.

"Yes!" assented Sue, with an exclamation point, so you know it must be true.

They're gone. I'm glad. That nonsense is tiresome.

("No it's not," I hear in my head.)

posted by john at 07:10 AM  •  permalink

June 30, 2006

still

Day Two of Lynn and Sue's visit

So far, so good. They've been on their best behavior. Not much criticism has been leveled, although Sue, given a chance to amend her statement that I'm the bitchiest person she's ever met, including people at the Japanese internment camp where she grew up, politely declined. Props to Lynn for saying that I'm not bitchy but "an iconoclast. I can't read H.L. Mencken without thinking of John." It was a marvelous compliment but was immediately undermined by the ditziness that followed. Lynn has made only one remark about the tragedy of my not being married, but it came in the extraordinarily irritating form of her Wishing Importantly that things had worked out with Allie, with whom I'm "perfectly suited." She's never met Allie.

"We are exactly what we are supposed to be," I said.

"Still, it's too bad."

"No it's not. She has a great guy."

"Still."

She makes a good point. Everyone might be delighted with the current arrangement, but we shouldn't be. We just don't understand the situation.

posted by john at 06:37 AM  •  permalink

June 26, 2006

pity this

When I took my leave of grad school and Spokane, I promised my friends Sue, the Creative Writing secretary, and Lynn, my boss, that I would stay in touch.

They laughed. "Yeah, we've heard that one before. We'll hear from you for a year, maybe two, and then never again. You'll just fade away. They always do."

This Thursday, 12 years and three weeks after that conversation, Lynn and Sue arrive at my house again. I will remind them of their scoffing a decade ago. They will beg me to fade away with dignity.

• • •

Mothering. You can't spell "smothering" without it.

While I love being with my old friends, there's one component to their mothering I could do without. To their generations, it's positively freakish for a man over 24 to be unmarried. He is presumed helpless—drowning in his own loneliness and filth—whatever the case might actually be. Without a wife to mop the floors, my floors must be disgusting. They must be. That the maid mops them a couple times a month is immaterial, at least until I marry her. And thus will our time together include many a comment about my complete inability to function. Good times. Good, sexist times.

I will have heaps of pity piled upon me during this visit, and not for my stupid elbow injury, losing all my friends at once, Percy continuing to live—or anything else for which I might actually deserve pity. Nay, I will be pitied for not making the same choices they did.

This leads us to an emerging peeve of mine: when people profess pity for you about something with which you're actually quite happy.

"No, you're not," they seem to be saying. "Snap out of denial and be miserable."

Any time I'm less than elated, it's because I'm single. My feh time at the Super Bowl? It had nothing to do with Detroit or corporate sterility or a crappy game. "I just wish you'd been able to take someone with you," ached Lynn.

"Um, there wasn't exactly a shortage of volunteers. I just thought that given my good fortune in scoring tickets, the money from the second ticket should go to char—"

"I think you would have had a better time if you weren't alone." She sounded ready to weep.

"I go to games alone every year. I love doing that."

"Still..."

Ca-righst. Do graduating students really fade away, or is it more of an all-out sprint?

posted by john at 07:09 AM  •  permalink

June 22, 2006

fine company

Once again, I'll start the conversation at its very end:

Allie: "Nope. Just you and Ted Kaczynski. You're the only ones I can name."

posted by john at 06:41 AM  •  permalink

June 20, 2006

real men, part iii

Three cheers for Dorkass, who tore her plantaris tendon while base-running yesterday and finished the game in pain before driving herself to the emergency room.

"I even batted better," she says. "But I couldn’t so much as hobble to the base. I would have left earlier, but we would have taken an out because we didn’t have enough females. So I was just trying for RBIs."

Report to the nearest counter and pick up your penis.

posted by john at 07:56 AM  •  permalink

June 05, 2006

reporting to the nearest counter

Dorkass coined the expression when I was agonizing just-a-little-too-much about the intentions of the girl I was dating. Dorkass had seen enough. She was disgusted.

"Report to the nearest counter and turn in your penis," she sneered.

We were both immediately delighted with the expression. We use it all of the time now, whenever we see some guy being weak, needy, simpering. "Report to the nearest counter, pal," we'll chide.

"Huh?" he'll reply.

• • •

I am less than a man.

This realization hit me Saturday night, when I sat on Dirt's back deck and listened to Dirt and his cousin trade stories. Both are former star college athletes and former pro players, one in football and the other in hockey. So right. What can I possibly offer this conversation? The Hunkering story? The Best Pass I Ever Made story? No, I decided to just shut up and smoke Dirt's expensive cigars and drink his '77 tawny and listen.

I listened to tales of their grisly injuries, both those they inflicted and those inflicted upon them. About the insane, testosterone-crazed characters they met. About the many, many teammates' little sisters they boinked. About border runs after bed-check. About what it's like to play against the best athletes in the world.

I spent college studying literature and going home every night to my girlfriend and setting picks on morbidly obese guys and having sex with one woman, I thought. Hmm. Perhaps it's best not to share.

The story that sent me over the edge follows. Dirt's cousin took a 100 mph slapshot in the eye, shattering his eye socket and leaving hamburger-like tendrils of meat where his face used to be. The state of New York determined that the injury entitled him to $10,000 in workman's comp funds, to be put toward plastic surgery. What did he do with the money? He smeared Vitamin E oil into the facial hamburger and bought his girlfriend an engagement ring.

"Report to the nearest counter," Dorkass said in my imagination as I drove home. "That is a man."

posted by john at 09:31 AM  •  permalink

June 01, 2006

point, dorkass

Giving Dorkass credit goes against everything I believe in, but credit must be given. On Memorial Day, she packed up her child and visited me in the sticks, a friendship-maintainance effort unparalleled by any other parent. I so appreciate it that I've removed the Dorkass-mocking counter from the sidebar. And replaced it with a Katrina-mocking counter.

When Dorkass arrived, she spied Percy watching from next door. She pulled the baby from the car, turned to me, and yelled, "Yes. She's yours."

posted by john at 07:25 AM  •  permalink

May 31, 2006

jeep wave

A decade ago, Allie challenged my assertion that the male friends hanging around her were, in fact, romantic hopefuls pathetically awaiting their turn. Mine was a limited, biased view of these men, she thought. Not all men are like that, she argued.

Having since fended off the advances of every last one of them, she has changed her view of our original argument. It's not "when John was right and I was wrong." Heavens no. It's not "when I learned about the nature of men." No, it's "when John systematically destroyed my trust for all mankind."

I've had similar conversations with several women since, and I have a go-to anecdote I like to use.

When Jeep drivers pass one another, they wave. As with all social endeavors, I put in the bare minimum effort; a half dozen times a day, I lazily extend my fingers, letting my palm remain on the wheel. After eleven years, the practice is ingrained. Sometimes I wave to Jeeps from a rental car.

Once in a while, the person in the other Jeep is a beautiful woman. Enter the anecdote.

I don't see the beautiful woman make the same minimal, reflexive, bored gesture that I do. No. I somehow manage to see actual interest in me. "Hey! Whoa! She waved! Maybe I should turn around!"

Yes, it's moronic. Yes, it defies all logic that someone so versed in the mundanity of the Jeep wave and the eager stupidity of men should have such an impulse. Nevertheless, I have the impulse. Every single time.

"That's insane!" say the women who hear this story. Yes. Yes it is. But your relationships with men make just a little more sense now, don't they?

posted by john at 07:52 AM  •  permalink

May 25, 2006

nine percenter

I was 23, and Maddie and I were talking about hair loss. I told her my certain fate: like my every male relative, I too would watch my hairline recede until "my bangs" joined "my baby teeth" in the linguistic ashbin.

"But at least I won't be one of those poor bastards who lose it from the back and have a ridiculous little bald circle in the back of his head."

That's the first time I saw The Look. The pitying, tear-welling, oh-my-god-do-I-really-have-to-be-the-one-to-tell-him? look. She couldn't form words. She just handed me two mirrors and fled.

• • •

Years later, Katrina and I were discussing relationships and what we each wanted in a partner. I waxed about a woman we both knew from school. Emma was effortlessly kind, graceful, bright, hilarious, elegant, athletic, and beautiful. She had, as Katrina and I are both fond of saying about people, beams of light coming out of every pore. I never heard a soul say anything but adoring things about Emma, and I was no exception. She was and remains one of my favorite people.

"Emma. Emma is my metric," I told Katrina. "What do I want in a woman? There ya go." The Look fell over Katrina's face. She fidgeted uncomfortably in her seat, averting her eyes, searching for the exact right words. She drew a deep breath and began.

"So why...." Trailing off, she squirmed and thought some more.

"Let me put it this way: what sort of a man gets to be with the Emmas of the world?"

Man. That's some cold shit.

It's obvious. It's right. It's just not a reality I had allowed myself to consider. Emmas marry wealthy underwear-model Pulitzer-winning pianists who, rather than killing a spider, will catch-and-release them—and even make them a tiny sack lunch to go. Why? Because Emmas have their choice of men. Beyond that, because Emmas know better than to get involved in an inequitable relationship. Which is what I would be. Which is what Katrina was saying without really saying it.

Acknowledging her point, I bounced back remarkably fast. "So what I want, really, is a woman who's x percent Emma."

"Ca-righst."

"Something more equitable. Someone, like, 80% Emma."

"Oh hell no. Eighty? Are you mad? You are simply not entitled to anyone who exceeds 9% Emma. Anything more than that would be an obscenity."

Sigh.

I bet the underwear model/Pulitzer guy doesn't get The Look, either.

[Editor's note: upon reading this, Katrina denies that she ever went as high as 9%.]

posted by john at 03:58 PM  •  permalink

May 07, 2006

the ballad of greg biekert

A note for non-sports types: this will seem like a football story, but really it's a story about smiting a celebrity. So keep reading.

• • •

tomczakian [tom-ZAK-i-an] adj. - said of a moronic act of intense granduer and cruelty.

Mike Tomczak was a quarterback at Ohio State when I was a kid. He had his moments, but he also had an uncanny gift for idiocies like taking modeling jobs that violated NCAA rules and, worse, throwing untimely interceptions. On a throw to the sideline (called an "out" pass), he would loft the ball so high and so slow that a moth could alight upon it mid-flight. Tomczak got to the point where I would see him begin to throw an out and the world would click into slow motion. "NNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO..." I would yell in an otherworldly baritone. As soon as the defender intercepted the ball and began his sprint toward the end zone, the world clicked into double-time.

Every sports fan has That Guy. That unspeakable bastard. That irredeemable fucker clearly put on this earth just to torture you, only you, in repayment for some atrocity you committed in a previous life. Tomczak was mine.

He cemented his status during a crucial game against Purdue. Down by a touchdown with something like 30 seconds left, having driven Ohio State the length of the field, Tomczak dropped back to pass, surveyed his options, and, not liking what he saw, calmly threw the ball out of bounds to end the play.

On fourth down.

Purdue ball.

Game over.

When he graduated, I breathed a sigh of relief. Still, it pained me that during his rookie year in the pros, he got a completely undeserved Super Bowl ring as a backup on the Bears. But I let it go. Live and let live. Mike "Out" Tomczak was someone else's problem now. And then my Steelers signed him.

"NNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO..."

Astoundingly, he hung those out passes in the air even longer in the pros. In the time it now took those passes to complete their arc, defensive players could stroll under them, choreograph their touchdown dance, make their grocery list, do their taxes, and complete half a crossword puzzle. Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh! went the interceptors the other way. Every year, I kept waiting for someone, anyone else to secure the quarterback position. Every year, I heard those damned whooshes!

On Football Weekend '97, we went to Jacksonville for the city's first Monday Night Football game ever. In a game that was blissfully Tomczak-free, my Steelers and the Jags battled all night long, and finally the game came down to the Steelers needing to make a chip-shot field goal with only two seconds left. The field goal team took the field. Through my drunken haze, I noted Tomczak trotting out to hold the ball.

"TOOOOOOOOM-zak!" I bellowed. "TOOOOOOOOM-zak! "TOOOOOOOOM-zak!"

He bobbled the snap. The kick was blocked. Jacksonville scooped it up and took it 80 yards for a touchdown. Game over. My buddy stared at me. "Maybe you shouldn't have said anything to him."

I sobbed into my hands.

Tomczak lost a few more games for the Steelers before the owners finally sobered up and cut ties. He signed with the Lions and on August 18, 2000 suffered a career-ending broken leg. Most fans didn't take notice—the player, game and team were just too insignificant—but not me. For doing God's work, Raiders linebacker Greg Biekert—my new hero—received some fine cigars.

And that, I toasted anyone within arm's reach, is the end of that.

And then he got a job on the Pittsburgh Sports Tonight TV broadcast, and he was preening for the cameras in my living room every night. I shook my fist at the heavens. How is this prick still in my life six teams, 2500 miles, and nearly two decades later?

At 6am on September 11, 2001, my girlfriend and I were sitting on a plane, on our way East for a trip that would culminate at the Steelers' opener in their brand new stadium. The trip and the game never happened, of course, but I was determined to see the new home opener in October. She declined to get on a plane, so I went alone. In a very sober affair, I watched my boys beat the Bengals, and then I adjourned to a bar near my suburban motel. I walked inside and immediately heard Tomczak on the radio. Shit. He's got a local radio gig, too. I took a seat at the bar and nursed a Long Island, staring absent-mindedly straight ahead...at Mike Tomczak.

He and his partner just happened to be doing their post-game broadcast from the bar that just happened to be nearest my hotel after the game that just happened to be the makeup home opener. Jesus, what are the odds? Sigh. About 1:1. I sat there and glared at him, and then I told the other patrons about my Tomczak curse. When leaving, I decided to hit the bathroom first. I opened the door with some urgency.

WHAM!

I clobbered Tomczak on the ass, knocking him into the paper towel dispenser. He had been talking to his broadcasting partner, who was still at the urinal. "Wham!" laughed the partner. "Nailed by a blind-side blitz!"

I apologized, a reflex for which I despise myself to this day. Tomczak left, and I assumed the urinal next to his partner. He made more blitz jokes. "Actually," I said. "That was a long time in coming."

"How's that?"

And then I spilled my guts. I told the whole tale. The partner was delighted and couldn't wait to get back to his microphone. On my way back to the hotel, I tuned into the radio station.

"Jerome Bettis passed 10,000 career yards rushing during today's game, but before we get into that, Mike, I want to talk about something that just happened in the men's room. Some guy burst in and clobbered, I mean really walloped, you in the backside with the door. At first I thought it was just an innocent accident, but now I'm not so sure. After you left, he told me how he feels that you've victimized him his whole life, first at Ohio State, and then with the Steelers. He even said he considers you some sort of karmic punishment for something horrible he did in a previous life."

"What?!? What did I ever do to—"

"Well for starters, he said that at the end of the game against Michigan, you threw the ball out of bounds on fourth down."

"IT WAS PURDUE! If he's gonna call me out like that, he should get his facts straight."

"Oh that's right, he said Purdue."

"Oh."

And on it went. He completely humiliated Tomczak. He publicly flogged my longtime persecutor with the weapon I, myself, had crafted and handed him. I laughed myself to the point of near-unconsciousness. I didn't even care if I had a heart attack. I could die in peace now.

Not long after, Tomczak disappeared completely from my life, never to return. Coincidence? Perhaps. Or perhaps I'm his karmic punishment for some horrible things he did in a current life.

posted by john at 04:46 PM  •  permalink

April 19, 2006

reader mail: yoko

The consensus response to last week's Yoko post is sensible enough, but nonetheless I didn't see it coming: yes, this happens with the genders reversed, and often it's a sign of an abusive relationship. The guy discredits people in her support system one by one, excising from her life anyone who might pose an obstacle to him. This is not at all inconsistent with my Yokos. Although physical abuse isn't a factor, emotional abuse is, and the hunting of the support system is too familiar. People perceived as threats are managed out.

Next question: male or female, do your Yokos have any friends of their own? Mine don't. Socially as with all else, they bring nothing to the table.

posted by john at 07:33 AM  •  permalink

reader mail: yoko

The consensus response to last week's Yoko post is sensible enough, but nonetheless I didn't see it coming: yes, this happens with the genders reversed, and often it's a sign of an abusive relationship. The guy discredits people in her support system one by one, excising from her life anyone who might pose an obstacle to him. This is not at all inconsistent with my Yokos. Although physical abuse isn't a factor, emotional abuse is, and the hunting of the support system is too familiar. People perceived as threats are managed out.

Next question: male or female, do your Yokos have any friends of their own? Mine don't. Socially as with all else, they bring nothing to the table.

posted by john at 07:33 AM  •  permalink

April 13, 2006

bubble popper

Allie and I were discussing yesterday's post. She liked it, and I let the praise go to my head.

Me: And the term "Yoko?" That's a John Original, thank you very much. I coined that.

Allie: Ha, ha!

Me: No, seriously. That's mine.

Allie (slowly): You don't really think that, do you?

Me: Oh no.

Allie: Oh yes. I hear that all the time.

Me: But I coined it three years ago in Sue's living r—

Allie: They used it on "That 70s Show" just the other night.

Me: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Allie: Sorry.

Me: Goddammit. There's just nothing original to be said anymore.

Allie: I'm sorry.

Me: Fuck you. You had to go and take that away from me. Here I was, feeling all pleased with myself, and you had to go and blow a hole in my pride. A big Yoko-shaped hole.

Allie (chipper): "Yoko-shaped hole" is original! You can claim that!

Me (bitter): It sucks. Thanks heaps.

Allie: Eh. Garbage in, garbage out.

posted by john at 10:41 AM  •  permalink

how do you sleep?

Tell me if this is familiar.

You've got a friend. You get along fabulously. One day, a woman appears in the periphery of his life, hanging around just a little more than she should, trying to get his attention in any way she can. She's needy. Compared to your friend, she's wholly unremarkable. You might even feel a little sorry for her. Then one day, they're dating. Okay, fine. You welcome her. And then bit by tiny bit, you watch the man who was your friend be chipped away. I'm not talking about normal new-relationship triangulation, where this new influence causes your friend to change and evolve. That's natural and healthy. No, I'm talking about a descent into a sort of madness, where the whispers in his ear become his unquestioned perception of reality. Suddenly, you and your friend have conflicts. You question yourself but find that his other relationships are weirding out, too. He's suddenly secretive. He's distrustful of your motives, and he's not the least bit inhibited about telling you what you're really thinking—which often is shockingly far from anything that's ever crossed your mind. He's uninterested in hearing your thoughts; he already knows them. He does not allow his certainty to be diminished by data. You don't know for sure where this weirdness came from, but you strongly suspect. "This is between you two," the woman makes sure to say about each of his suffering relationships. "It has nothing to do with me." Yet his every question feels like an errand, and his every e-mail seems vetted. The new unease in your friendship breeds more unease, and you grow farther apart. You find yourself not really knowing this person anymore, nor caring to. And then one day your friend is gone entirely, and you just shrug. I've had two such friends, both male, both gone. The women whispering in their ears? Still there, still whispering. I call them "Yokos."

At first I thought Yoko unique to the first friendship, but then Yoko II appeared, so now I wonder how common it really is, and whether this happens with the genders reversed. Do tell.

posted by john at 09:01 AM  •  permalink

April 05, 2006

melon baller

By special reader request, here is the melon baller story. Once again, we mine the fertile, sanity-hanging-by-a-thread period of a decade ago.

I was standing in the glacial returns line at Target. Bored, irritated, I scanned my environment for a means of entertaining myself. The wedding/baby registry machine was to my right. "Hmmm," I thought. "Let's do the math. Fucking Amy broke off our engagement 29 months ago. Six months off for appearances, four months of searching for a man exactly like her father, 19 months of stalling to get to the magical, round we've known each other for two years mark....this is about the bare minimum time she'd need to get re-engaged. Let's see."

BOOP-BOOP-BEEP-BEEP-BOOP

"Ho-ly crap." The wedding was in a few months.

My mind reeled. My math was right, or at least it wasn't wrong. But who really expected a hit? And who registers at Target? I have no recollection of returning my item. I printed the registry and went home to reel some more.

For the next couple of months, I had an engrossing new hobby: fantasizing about crashing the wedding. It's not like I didn't know where it'd be: the very church we hadn't wanted to use for our wedding and that her parents had strenuously insisted upon. ("With all due respect, Ken, it's not your wedding. It's ours," I'd said. "No, John, you're wrong. It's ours," came the reply.) But what to do? Pipe up when the minister asks for objections? Perhaps I could sit in the congregation, let my cell phone ring about 20 times, answer it, stand up, and drolly announce "Amy, it's Jesus. He wants to know why you're wearing white." Or should I ask to dance with the bride? Catch the bouquet with a flourish? I had many discussions with fellow jiltee Elizabeth, who was game to help with the cell phone or parking lot fliers or whatever I decided to do. As satisfying as revenge would have been, though, there was one undeniable truth: seeing Amy and her family would punish me more than it would them. I just didn't want to get slimed again. Yet the serendipity of it all compelled me to use this info somehow, didn't it? And thus I decided to amp it down to a sterile little mindfuck that would constitute no burden on me whatsoever. Perhaps if I simply sent a gift. Yes. That was the right tone. But not months ahead of time—two weeks before the wedding would suffice, right during the highest-anxiety period. With any luck, that would be two weeks they spent dreading the thud of my other shoe. Another shoe that would never come. Perfect.

I perused the registry for something appropriate. "Maybe I can send the groom knives," I thought. And then I saw it. The I-can't-even-believe-this answer to my prayers: they actually registered for a four dollar mellon baller. (I pause to let the spectacular white-trashedness of it all sink in. Ready? Resume.) And thus did I etch "Happy Balling!" on its handle and ship it to the groom two weeks before the ceremony. There would no thank you note. Ingrates.

• • •

Three years later, I was waiting in line at the same Target. "Well, my math was right the first time, and according to Hoyle you start procreating at the two year mark, so..."

BOOP-BOOP-BEEP-BEEP-BOOP

"Ho-ly crap." The baby was due in a few months. But no, I didn't send them the First Christening doll for which they registered.

posted by john at 06:24 AM  •  permalink

on the name “fucking amy”

I explained this once, but it was five or six years ago, so for the three people who were reading back then, I apologize for the repeat. I'm sure you noticed.

"Fucking Amy" was not, of course, always her name. Nor was the prefix attached immediately. It didn't become necessary until I met Amy Amy, my friend and euchre partner. Suddenly there was confusion about which Amy I was referring to. Then one day, someone suggested that since the f-word seemingly always preceded the ex Amy's anyway—"John used to be such a thoughtful guy...until fucking Amy came along"—why not just make it official? And thus did I init-cap the F, and a nickname was born.

posted by john at 06:23 AM  •  permalink

March 31, 2006

okay bye click

For the most part, an ex-ship is pretty much like any other very close friendship. There are subtle differences, though. There are intimate things you know about one another that cannot be unlearned. Now as then, no unreasonable request can be refused—"You need an airport pickup at 3am, followed by a ride to a mechanic in Cle Elum? Fine. Bitch." The buttons you so carefully wired during the course of your relationship? They remain. I can annoy an ex much faster and more effectively than I can, say, Dorkass. And there are moments that you cannot help but cheerfully juxtapose your current status with your former one. This story is about such a moment. Allie answered the phone.

"Hello?"

This was not good. From how she pronounced that one word, I could tell that I did not want to talk to her. She was depressed, exhausted, angry, bitter, and despairing beyond all hope of repair. In other words, she was Barry's job, not mine.

"Jeeeeeezus," I replied. "I'd like to just back out of this conversation right now."

"Okay. Bye." Click.

Yes. This is much better.

posted by john at 07:47 AM  •  permalink

March 26, 2006

consistency of character

After some solo boating, I visited a restaurant that the AW and I used to frequent. Dining alone with a good book is one of my favorite activities. I find reading and having food brought to me to be incredibly relaxing. And thus was I deep in a don't-talk-to-me trance, engrossed in my book, when the server shattered my peace and quiet. She set her tray down on my table and assumed an alarmingly meaningful tone, looming above me, so near that her waist was all I could see. Utterly mortifyin'.

"I just have to thank you!" she gushed nervously.

I tried to remember even making eye contact with her. "Pardon me?" I said to the waist.

"I have to thank you. On my first day here, a really horrible day where I almost quit, everyone was awful to me and you were the only person who was kind."

That certainly didn't sound like me.

"That certainly doesn't sound like me. I think maybe you're confusing me with someone else?"

"No, it was you. I remember. You were here with a blond woman, seated right at that table over there. You were on your way to the Film Festival."

Oh. That was me. That was me three years ago, but it was me.

"And you saw that everyone was pissed off at me, and you told me that I was doing great, to go ahead and neglect you two so I could help everyone else, and then you gave me a tip that was big enough for the whole room—practically the only money I made that day."

"Anyway, um, thanks. My name's Sarah." And then she got flustered and left.

I thought back to the original incident. Even though she was clearly set up to fail, even though she was obviously hustling her ass off, the other customers—a great mass of preening assholes—bitched about the service when she was absent. That, I remembered. I never forget a preening asshole. But what on earth had possessed me to do the right thing?

As I contemplated my inconsistency of character, the waitress came into full view. I actually stopped breathing. She's utterly gorgeous. And when she turned her head to smile at someone, a silky, bouncy brown ponytail whipped around her neck.

Ah. Order to the universe, restored.

posted by john at 02:01 PM  •  permalink

February 14, 2006

the old valentine’s day tradition

I used to give out small boxes of chocolates on Valentine's Day, particularly to single friends and to the poor receptionists who have to process everyone else's flowers all day. I'd done this for several years when one day, suddenly and without warning, an old friend freaked out. She started speechifying. "For some time now," she said to my utter horror, "It's been apparent that you want to be more than friends..." And then she let me down rather ungently—not to mention unnecessarily. Surprised and supremely uncomfortable, I had to respond that actually, I wasn't attracted to her, and that moreover, if I were interested in a girl, I think I'd muster more than a 4-piece Whitman sampler. It was the latter part that I found most insulting.

The next year was squirmingly uncomfortable, made all the more so by the increasing sensation that this woman was going to lock me in her basement if given half a chance. By Christmas, she sent me a list of reasons why she and I should couple. I haven't seen her since.

I have since stopped the tradition. Happy Valentine's Day.

posted by john at 06:57 AM  •  permalink

February 01, 2006

home and home

COLUMBUS - After a scant two hours' sleep Monday night—I'll admit it, packing my Super Bowl ticket gave me a bad case of Christmas Eve jitters—and after dining twice with family members, I staggered into d'Andre and d'Pam's lovely guest bedroom and face-planted. Turns out White Castles + pizza = an interesting combination in your gastrointestinal tract, sort of a culinary version of water + concrete mix. I couldn't sleep. I tossed and turned for hours, desperately wanting and needing to pass out. And finally, the sweet release of unconsciousness came around 11:30. At midnight, I felt someone's presence in my room and woke up with that adrenalized start you get when you sleepily open your eyes and see some hulking man leaning over you. You know that feeling, right? Right? Wrong. It's just me. Only I know.

I tried to be suave, pantomiming a phone call and affecting my best Southern-Ohio-redneck dialect. "Officer, there's a lahrge nee-grow sneakin' 'round my bedroom."

d ignored me. "I just wanted to wish you a happy Black History Month," he cooed. And then he turned for the door.

"You what?!?"

"Shortest month of the year. 'Night."

Click.

Ha, ha. I finally got to sleep again around 2.

• • •

I was with family for a mere 10 minutes before thinking "I've made a horrible mistake." This feeling did not abate. Even when I cherry-pick the relatives with whom I visit, I still have to hear a litany of complaints against those absent. You can't even imagine. Everyone's a victim. Tales of persecution are unremitting, shrill, numbing. I had to keep telling a middle aged women to "use your indoor voice," lest other diners complain. At least I long ago learned to schedule family at the beginning of a trip, so that I can get 'em out of the way and get to the business of enjoying myself. Like, you know, being terrorized in the dark of night.

posted by john at 06:56 AM  •  permalink

January 27, 2006

audio mirror

Katrina has made her disdain for my Midwestern dialect quite clear over the years. It's #17 on her list of things wrong with me. I never knew which was the more distressing notion: that there's a Midwestern dialect—after all, are you not all just perversions of the standard, which is us?—or that I'm receiving linguistic criticism from a Jersey girl. "On the TEE-vee, youze axents droive me nuts," she'll say, barely comprehensible behind all the Hoboken. "Yoir joist AUE-foll."

I always figured she was full of it. And then I called home this week, tapping my two good sisters for dinner next week when I briefly sneak into Columbus. My god, the nasality. Every vowel sounded like the a in bat. I'm related to these mongoloids? It was especially jarring to hear them back to back. "A, that's GRATE yer camang. A lark farward ta seeang ya!"

"So. Um. This Midwestern dialect of which you speak," I later said to an unabashedly delighted Katrina. "Wat as at A sand layk ta ya, agaan?"

posted by john at 07:01 AM  •  permalink

January 22, 2006

pro-life

Funerals are never fun, but funerals of the virtuous and impossibly beloved are downright depressing. Listening to how his life touched others, I found it impossible not to take stock of myself. "Man. I gotta make some changes." I surveyed the hundreds of grievers in attendance. "I don't even know this many people. How many would show up for me? Hrm. Maybe if I pretend it's the reading of my will."

I'll tell ya one thing that ain't happening at my service: an open mic. As person after person spoke of how the deceased touched their lives, I imagined my friends similarly passing around a mic.

"Sumbitch died owing me money, just like he always said he would," Katrina says.

"He hit me," Dorkass offers.

"Me too," her little sister chimes.

"Dating him was like living near radioactive waste," Maddie says. "After a time, your blood just starts to turn bad."

Allie pats the casket fondly. "Thanks for the power of attorney."

A minister bows his head, hushes the crowd, and speaks. "Uh, the check from the estate bounced. Who's covering this?"

"John was my role model and mentor," Elizabeth says. "Fuck him."

"He creeped me out and I'm relieved he's dead," Courtney says. "I'm just here to poke the corpse with a stick."

My family checks in. "Mine! Mine! MINE!"

"Speaking of when I played for the Bengals..." Dirt will begin.

Sue staple-guns a note to the casket. "I made you a list of things to do differently in your next life."

"The casket is really ugly," Minette declares.

"He didn't know what it's like to be black," someone chides.

"He was my brother," Percy sniffs. "I will miss him every single day."

It's not worth it. I choose life.

posted by john at 09:30 AM  •  permalink

pro-life

Funerals are never fun, but funerals of the virtuous and impossibly beloved are downright depressing. Listening to how his life touched others, I found it impossible not to take stock of myself. "Man. I gotta make some changes." I surveyed the hundreds of grievers in attendance. "I don't even know this many people. How many would show up for me? Hrm. Maybe if I pretend it's the reading of my will."

I'll tell ya one thing that ain't happening at my service: an open mic. As person after person spoke of how the deceased touched their lives, I imagined my friends similarly passing around a mic.

"Sumbitch died owing me money, just like he always said he would," Katrina says.

"He hit me," Dorkass offers.

"Me too," her little sister chimes.

"Dating him was like living near radioactive waste," Maddie says. "After a time, your blood just starts to turn bad."

Allie pats the casket fondly. "Thanks for the power of attorney."

A minister bows his head, hushes the crowd, and speaks. "Uh, the check from the estate bounced. Who's covering this?"

"John was my role model and mentor," Elizabeth says. "Fuck him."

"He creeped me out and I'm relieved he's dead," Courtney says. "I'm just here to poke the corpse with a stick."

My family checks in. "Mine! Mine! MINE!"

"Speaking of when I played for the Bengals..." Dirt will begin.

Sue staple-guns a note to the casket. "I made you a list of things to do differently in your next life."

"The casket is really ugly," Minette declares.

"He didn't know what it's like to be black," someone chides.

"He was my brother," Percy sniffs. "I will miss him every single day."

It's not worth it. I choose life.

posted by john at 09:30 AM  •  permalink

January 19, 2006

unlearned prejudice

I've been mulling over how to discuss two forms of prejudice I find particularly hurtful, and then it dawned on me that they should be presented together. Not because their perpetrators have anything in common, mind you, but because it'll irritate all the right people.

the unfiltered white racist

Many of you know him. This is the white guy who thinks it's okay to blurt racist comments in front of any other white person. He has cousins—the obnoxious homophobe, the chatty misogynist—but the first guy is the most common in my experience. Unfiltered whites span the education spectrum, which rather surprises me. One would think that education would temper racist comments, but no. Education just makes the hateful words bigger. My first example is mild. I recently had houseguests, a friend and her idiot husband. We had tennis on TV, and we were all intermittently watching Serena Williams beat someone. When she won, she leapt in the air and ran over to shake her vanquished opponent's hand. And the idiot husband turned his head away from the TV and snorted.

"Jay-zus ca-righst, she even jumps up and down like a black chick."

Forgetting the obvious question about the apparently distinctive nature of jumping black chicks, as racist comments go, this is downright tame. But it still filled my head with resentment. Oh. My. God. You tool. You're actually rooting against her because she's black. Jesus Christ, indeed. Out of the world of possible choices, my friend married you? What makes you think it's okay to say that in front of me, you piece of shit? What makes you think it's okay to say that in my house, my home, my sanctuary away from people like you? This particular episode ended with my friend taking her idiot husband outside and suggesting that perhaps such comments, however mild, should be repressed around me, but the damage was done. If men are icebergs, I no longer want to know what hideousness lies beneath his surface.

My next examples hurt more, both because of severity and because, well, the perpetrators and I are composed of essentially the same genetic material. You betcha, I gots some racists in my family. My brother, a dentist with some 20 years of education, a born-again Christian who oozes Jesus' love out of every pore, is an unabashed racist. He is a regular user of the n-word. And not in any spontaneous "Some n-word just cut me off!" fashion, either. He enjoys using the word. It clearly makes him feel superior. When our old high school considered installing metal detectors, I of course thought of Columbine. Not my brother.

"It all went to hell after the n-word moved in."

Unlike with the Serena Williams incident, where my hands were somewhat tied, I have no desire to get along with my brother. I told him that what he said was moronic and offensive. You know what's coming next. I'm an overly sensitive purveyor of "political correctness." That little bit of hilarity aside, I'm left with similar feelings: What makes you think it's okay to say this to me? Maybe I was adopted.

My sister, meanwhile, doesn't even wait for an excuse to use the n-word. She uses it like you or I use pronouns. She too has 20 years of education, but eight of them were spent in the third grade. To my horror, she send out broad-distribution email in which she recounted a story where she and her husband rooted through a burned-out building and emerged covered in soot, looking like-you-know-whats. With two exclamation points. Ha, ha. What makes you think it's okay to say this to....my god, look at all the names...all of us?

Sometimes 2000 miles' distance ain't nearly enough.

the chiding young black

I'm developing a new prejudice myself, and it's one I could just as soon live without. I no longer want to discuss race with young blacks. All too often, such conversations end with me being chided, dismissed. I used to talk about racial matters with blacks under the age of 40 all the time. It was an everyday, unspectacular, often humorous dialogue, like talking about current events. We were simply discussing the state of our world, sharing our very different experiences, and we gave audience analysis very little thought. I no longer feel as though I can do this freely.

I don't know what's changed. I'm older, certainly. I've moved from a black neighborhood in a city that's 24% black to white neighborhoods in a city that's 8% black. And there's been a weird backlash from whiny white guys, who bitch and moan about "reverse discrimination" and the trifling inconveniences of measures that combat gross injustices. I hate those guys, too, and I fear that my looking like them sometimes makes my motives suspect. I don't discount those significant variables. But honestly, and I offer not a shred of evidence to back up this feeling, I think it's this point in history. I don't think it's a coincidence that I still can comfortably discuss race with people old enough to remember the civil rights era—hence my "under 40" disclaimer. We're a generation removed from the civil rights era, now, and people who have grown up enjoying rights previously denied people like themselves are, well, different. At least they discuss race differently. I'm sure we all discuss race differently from the previous generation, whatever our hue.

In my previous life, a deliberate plucking of the racial line was a sign of comfort and acceptance. The example that leaps to mind was a common accusation of the day: that white people referred to black athletes by their first name and white athletes by their last, and that this was some sort of diminishment of black athletes. It's obvious to any fair-minded person that Magic is "Magic" and Bird is "Bird" simply because "Johnson" and "Larry" are dull, undistinctive names. (Poor Larry Johnson.) Just like Jordan is "Jordan" and not "Michael" and Peyton is "Peyton" and not "Manning." The charge was pure silliness, and we all knew it. We used humor to defuse the issue.

"Don't call me 'Shaun' anymore. Racist mu'fugga, always diminishing me. To you, I'm Mister Thompson from now on"

"Yeah. You keep dreaming, pal."

"Don't call me 'pal' anymore, either. I ain't your 'I got black friends' friend."

"Why would I brag about having black friends? I'm ashamed of you mothirfuckirs."

And so forth. It was an innocent, everyday exchange spawned from comfort with one another and discomfort with some loud people who happened to look like us. It's important to note the element of satire. We found it reassuring and therapeutic to make fun of people who would much rather we distrust one another. End result: more trust.

Now, let's imagine what that exchange would be like if it happened today between me and a chiding young black. Based on my experience, this is what I'd expect:

"Sports announcers use blacks' first names to diminish them."

Their pronouncement will have no trace of satire. I'll give my counter-example. They'll sigh. "It's racist," they'll intone, apparently expecting me to either 1) acquiesce and agree or 2) agree and acquiesce. My choice.

Now, when one person, any person, makes an accusation against an individual, I expect them to meet a nominal burden of proof. All the more so when it's as grave an accusation as racism. A lifetime of calling bullshit on people has taught me that when you ask for proof, you're often greeted with irritation. But until recently, the pattern of people who were irritated was random. No longer. I have met an entire demographic who thinks my expectation of evidence is unreasonable. Ask them to meet a burden of proof at your own peril.

"What's your proof? For every anecdotal example you cite, I can give a counter example. You call someone 'racist,' and you better have more than a feeling. That's a serious charge."

So far, so good. This is the same argument I make all the time to people of all colors and flavors: I've heard your conclusion; what are your premises? And normally, the person either lists them, admits indulgence, or reacts with hostility. But not the chider.

Are you ready? Here it comes. The granddaddy of all trump cards, the nuclear bomb designed to put me in my place and end the debate in a rout.

"You just don't know what it's like to be black."

Another chiding young black will chime agreement right away.

"No white guy could. The first-name/last-name thing couldn't really be for any other reason, but he'll never see that. A white guy couldn't possibly know the inner thoughts of whites as well we do."

Okay, I made that last line up, but that's what I hear. Outnumbered and buckling from the sheer weight of their evidence, I put my alabaster tail between my legs and scurry off, never again to question their pronouncements of racism. Okay, that's not true either, but the attack does discourage dialogue and encourage discomfort, and it does diminish my viewpoint based not upon its merit but upon my skin color, and those ain't exactly gains. End result: less trust.

I wouldn't have thought it, but the unfiltered white racist and the chiding young black do have something in common after all. All together now: What makes you think it's okay to say that to me?

posted by john at 07:38 AM  •  permalink

January 13, 2006

the estranged folder

Exhausted, we were sitting on my office floor in the dark. It was the end of a interminable, excruciating breakup conversation, and my newest ex had one last request of me. "Please," she grabbed my arm. "Please don't put me in that awful Estranged folder."

The Estranged folder is where old email goes after I've booted someone out of my life. (Okay, a few estrangees just disappeared on their own.) I don't want to throw out our history, but I don't exactly want to look at their names every day, either—voila, the Estranged folder. It's populated mostly by former love interests, but there are a smattering of friends and family in there, too. It used to have just two subfolders, but it quickly swelled. A few years ago, the number of folders under Estranged began to outnumber the number of "good standing" folders, which was a sobering moment. Now it's a 2:1 ratio, estranged-to-not. When the number of onetime friends with whom you never speak outnumbers the number of friends you've still got, it gives one pause. I've decided it's a normal part of life, that of course as I get older I'll accumulate more dead relationships, but still. To see it neatly quantified is downright numbing. It's a monument to my own romantic and social futility.

It feels like a big win, then, when someone makes the reverse trip—moving back out from under the Estranged node. It's happened three times, now. It feels like when your team hangs a loss on the division leader—this win counts double in the standings.

posted by john at 10:41 AM  •  permalink

January 09, 2006

the six-month war: allie

Allie was my first girlfriend in the post–Fucking Amy era. She's the most empathetic person I've ever known, and as such she attracts broken men like my dog, Ed, attracts stink. So was it with me. For our ex-ship, I like to say, we retained the best and worst parts of our relationship. The best part is our friendship, which has only gotten closer. Much to her lament, she's the person with whom I speak about everything—hopes and fears, boasts and insecurities, projectile vomit and diarrhea. She, not her successors, is the one with the housekeys and passwords. One could certainly read into that—no wonder it never works out; you trust another woman more!—but for me it's a matter of hard-learned pragmatism. I give her the keys simply because I know I won't later have to change the locks. Stand by me for a decade and you too can have a key.

And now for the worst.

You know that one ex with whom you argued constantly? She's mine. Drove me positively insane. "Slavery was a bad thing," I might observe. "And chlorophyll makes grass green."

She would bristle. "I don't know why you say these things. You just generalize without thinking things through. You need to stop watching cable TV news. Not that you're entirely wrong, but I can think of 187 reasons why you're oversimplifying, and now I'm going to enumerate them in excruciating detail until you beg for mercy. You'd better sit down."

"Oh, I know you're right," I would offer hopefully. But it was too late.

"No you don't. You never know. When I'm done enumerating the 187 things you overlooked about slavery and grass, I have many compelling illustrations of how you never admit I'm right."

"I just did!"

"I mean internally, John. Jesus H. You're really obtuse, sometimes."

This was every debate with her. Tales of three notable battles follow.

Round 1: Allie wins

We're in the Kingdome watching Rick Mirer suck, and our minds wander. Allie nudges me and gestures toward some 19 year-old failed pole dancers. "Which Sea-Gal do you think is prettiest?" she asks.

(Yeah, I know. Rather, I know now. You don't answer this question, or you pick the homely, uncoordinated one and call her "real." What you most decidedly don't do is think that your girlfriend is actually interested in which cheerleader you'd most like to see naked. Nevertheless...) I meticulously survey all 32 women and silently evaluate their appeal. I undertake this assignment with all due gravity, first prioritizing the variables that comprise a hot cheerleader, then using a complex algorithm to narrow the field to four, then two, then one.

"Don't tell me," Allie says. "Let me guess." And then she points to the very same cheerleader, an apple-cheeked brunette that 99 out of 100 men would overlook.

"Wow! That was a 1 in 32 chance, and you nailed it. That's impressive."

"It wasn't hard," she shrugs, turning her attention back to the game. "I just picked the one who looks the most like fucking Amy."

It took years, but my testicles eventually grew back.

Round 2: I win

We're arguing. "You know what your problem is?" she asks. She would eventually be awarded the registered trademark on this sentence.

"You can't handle dating someone who's an intellectual equal or more. I think you seek out unformed, stupid young girls who'll look up to you and hang on your every word like it's some holy—"

"Actually," I interrupt the former B student, "You're the first woman I've ever dated who wasn't the valedictorian of her high school and summa in college."

Why is this on my top three list? Because it's the only time in a decade that I stunned this woman silent.

Round 3: I "win"

I say something pissy about something. Allie heaves an exasperated sigh. "You know, you don't have to say every negative thing that pops into your mind. It's exhausting."

"I don't."

"Yeah, right."

"But I don't! For instance, take the last hour. When that little old lady at Safeway tripped and face-planted, I almost said 'Clean up in Aisle 6.' And then..."

I proceed to list every awful, hateful thought I'd self-censored in the last sixty minutes. I don't remember how many there were, but I remember it took about an hour to recount them. And I likewise remember watching the ever-mounting horror on Allie's face as she realized that she had grossly miscalculated. "I thought you had a soft, cuddly core underneath all the bluster. But my God...underneath the facade of sneering and piss is actual sneering and piss."

"And you think I can't admit when you're right."

posted by john at 05:50 AM  •  permalink

December 27, 2005

the six year war: maddie

Among my girlfriends, Maddie was the one most like me. Not coincidentally, she holds the John endurance record at six years. They were six crucial years of my life, too: 21 through 26. In as a boy, out as a man. In an angry ass, out a marginally less angry ass. And no one had more of an influence on that non-transformation than Maddie.

She's a genius, and she delighted in the myriad ways she was smarter than me. My mispronunciations—most famously, "the plan went AW-ree" and "they showed a lovely career MAWN-tudge at the ceremony"—became recurring jokes that spanned decades, and believe me, I'm not the one telling 'em. To this day, my serial inability to spell a-m-o-n-g without a U delights her like flowers delight other women. She was cruel as a cat. "Come on," she'd implore. "Let's play Concentration." This is exactly analagous to my challenging my dog, Ed, to thumb-wrestling. "Or let's do the Reader's Digest vocabulary test. I'll even spot you ten questions." There are only 20.

She was easily the angriest of my girlfriends. To use my favorite illustration, I must digress about a different woman:

I was telling Katrina about a date the night before, a first date with a woman for whom I had high hopes. When I got to the part about going downtown during rush-hour, she became concerned. "Tell me you weren't driving."

"Yes, I was."

"Oh sweet Christ. Did you honk your horn and curse out the window at people?"

"I don't know. Why?"

"My point exactly. You should know. I don't ever ever ever want you taking a girl into gridlock on a first date again. I'd known you for a year, and I nearly soiled myself from fright."

This assessment of my conduct is the norm. Maddie, then, has the following distinction: she is the only girlfriend to react to my enraged honking, cursing and finger-flying by reaching across my chest and leaning on the horn because the rage I had expressed wasn't remotely adequate.

I owe Maddie a lot. She supported me during my interminable undergraduate years, without complaint or much hope of ever seeing that money again, and I'm not sure why. Love, sure, but still. That's a lot to ask of someone. For my part, I tried to get through school as quickly as possible, loading up on 21-25 hours for six straight quarters, a laughable amount of information to process for someone routinely spotted 10 points in the Digest vocabulary quiz. When she came home from work, Maddie would help me with my Spanish flashcards, coming up with mnemonic devices to help wedge la aspiradora in some crevice of my feeble memory. She, of course, learned the language long before I did. "Oh, come ON!" she'd plead. "This one's easy! And you knew it a hour ago!"

I knew her facial expression well. Somewhere between sobbing and bloodletting mania, it was the exact same expression my engineer father had worn at 2am when trying to push me over the long-division hump. "I really need to get a paternity test," he said in my imagination.

"I really need to get a boyfriend who can find his ass if I cement-nail his hands to it," she said in actuality.

"How's that?"

"I said, what's dolencia?"

posted by john at 07:48 PM  •  permalink

December 21, 2005

on dorkass, on blitzen

Dorkass writes to observe that she, too, is #1.

A couple of readers have mistakenly assumed that Dorkass is one of the hallowed exes, and I'd like to set the record straight. No. Absolutely, unequivocally no. No, no, no, never, ever, ever. Ever. She wanted to, but...

[shudder]

posted by john at 10:15 AM  •  permalink

December 02, 2005

the cry list

Saintly Steelers owner Art Rooney had just died, and I was watching Frank Deford's benediction on TV. Maddie walked into our living room and stared at me.

"What. The. Fuck."

"Hmm?"

"You're crying."

"I am?" I wiped a tear or two from my cheek. "Oh. It's been known to happen, you know."

"Amongst warm-blooded animals, yeah."

"Get off my back. I'm watching this."

Pacing so as to gather momentum, she waited for Deford to wrap it up. Then she let me have it. "I was there when your relationship with Celeste fell apart. Absolutely no tears. When you told your family to take a flying leap? No tears. When you got fired? No tears. All the rough times we've had? Bupkis. When you broke your leg and severed your pinky? Nothing. Did you even cry when you took your mother off life support? Or when she died?"

"No. That was a good day."

"But when the old fart owner of the Pittsburgh fuckin' Steelers dies, look out, here come the water-works?!?"

"But he was a great—"

"AAAAAAUUUUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH!
AUGH! AUGH! AUGH! I am so not in love with this man!"

• • •

Since that afternoon, my every conversation about crying has been a variation on that theme, so I tend to avoid them. It's not that I don't cry easily. It's actually frightfully easy—I could be crying in five minutes, if I wanted to be. All I'd have to do is pop in the Walter Payton edition of "SportsCentury" and watch the last twenty minutes, where poor Walter is dying and having to defend himself from vicious tabloid rumors. Or watch Magic Johnson's devastating 1991 press conference. Rips me up every time. And nothing triggers a response as reliably as anything to do with Ohio State's 2003 championship game. It was emotionally exhausting. I was there. I cried there. So did everyone else. And when I see the footage, I'm transported back to that feeling. Hell, I even teared up when the now-seniors left the field for the last time three weeks ago.

It's odd that sports figure so prominently in my Cry List. Even I know that's rubbish. It's not exclusively a sports-related list, though. Pretty much anything about the WW2 generation also gets to me. A sure tear-jerker: a videotaped interview with an elderly Frenchwoman who's describing Nazi occupation. She was under the porch, terrified and hiding from Nazi troops, when American GIs appeared. Her account gets me every time. If I read the part of my will that addresses what should be done with Ed in the event of my death, cue the tear ducts. And if I pick at Cheney scabs, that's guaranteed to do it. Which brings us to what inspired this discussion: me-sa going home. Commence scab-picking! Any trip to Spokane requires a full week of emotional bracing and is followed by a full week of emotional detox. I wonder if it would make Maddie love me more or less to know that a girl can, in fact, make me shed tears. Just not her.

posted by john at 12:40 AM  •  permalink

November 29, 2005

a thousand pardons

In describing Football Weekend to an uncaring-but-being-polite Courtney, it dawned on me that one reference was likely lost on this frilliest of girlie girls.

"I know you probably don't even know who Brett Favre is, but it was a really big deal—"

"I know who Brett Favre is," she snapped crossly. "Scheez."

"Sorry."

"He was in Something About Mary."

posted by john at 01:24 AM  •  permalink

November 24, 2005

guest columnist:
my ex-point guard

Before I abandoned the idea of guest columnists, unbeknownst to me, d'Andre (1 | 2) had already written his "ex–point guard" piece. As his making verbs agree with subjects is equivalent to the rest of us relocating an entire mountain range—not the Himalayas, maybe, but certainly the Andes—he's rather insistent that I publish this. I yield to the eldest. But I'm gonna bury this fiction on Thanksgiving day, when I have two readers. Him and his wife.

• • •

I met Egger's fat ass this last June. The rest of him, I met in the early 90's. I remember the day clearly. It's not often I make the sort of mistake in judgement about someone that I made that day. (Background: We all lived on Cleveland Ave in Columbus. It wasn't the blackest neighborhood I've ever lived in...but only because of Egger being there. You know how light can't escape a black hole's gravity? He's got the opposite effect. He's a white hole. You can feel him sucking the blackness straight out of you. Soon I was enunciating "mu-THIR-fu-KIR" like I was at the Queen's tea. It's a good thing he left when he did, before we were all country line-dancing.) We were all gathered on the neighborhood basketball court, maybe 12 of us. The court was small so we usually played four on four. We shot free throws to see who picked teams. This cube-shaped, appliance-looking white guy I'd never seen before makes his first three free throws. He had perfect form...nearly motionless. Little did I know that described his WHOLE game. I ended up being one of the two guys to pick teams. With my last pick, I committed my great mistake in judgement.

"And the white guy to shoot jump shots."

You have never seen a white guy less able to make open jump shots. Never. Remember Will Perdue? Lights out by comparison. And was Egger ever sloooooow. God almighty, was he slow. When a moth lands on you during a fast break, you ain't exactly flying. You know how TV announcers say that some plodding white dude has "a quick first step?" I used to tell Egger that he's got "the quickest 12th step out here. But that's because it only takes the rest of us 9 steps." To Egger's credit, he knew he stunk, and he passed the ball like it was radioactive. Between that and his proclivities toward violence, he was someone you wanted on your team and not the other. Yes...I said violence. This guy sets picks the way tire spikes stop cars. His picks don't merely disrupt the flow of the game. They disrupt continence. You're covering your man, and you hear someone start to call out "pi-" and then you see white spots, black out, and wake up in a puddle on the ground. Worse, he set illegal moving picks, too. You'd be backpedaling on defense, minding your own business, and then WHAM! Puddle. This was his genius. His great equalizer. He had players of superior skill with their heads on swivels, frantically looking for him instead of following the ball. He'd tell you it was out of respect. I tell you it was out of self preservation.

When I visited Egger this last summer, he spun a tale about the greatest pass he ever threw. I remember it well because it was to me. He was at the top of the key with his back to the basket, and I cut baseline behind him. He threw a no-look bounce pass behind his back. Then he turned around and saw me reverse-jamming it in. This is all true. What does Egger leave out? He sprayed it. The pass missed me by a mile and bounced off another player's leg. It was pure, blind-ass luck that it came anywhere near me at all. Too bad he didn't call "bank." He's right about one thing though. This was definitely his career highlight.

posted by john at 07:33 AM  •  permalink

November 15, 2005

i suppose i have this coming

Katrina proposed as Time's "Person of the Year"

posted by john at 07:08 AM  •  permalink

November 11, 2005

overplaying a hand

My favorite breakup—and by "favorite," I mean the only one I look back on with any fondness whatsoever—was downright fun. I was in Month Six of a one-month fling. Steph was making me insane. She was an astonishing, lethal combination of inept and confident. Inept, I can tolerate. Confidence can actually be very attractive...when warranted. But combine the two traits and you have a person who should come with warning buoys. Bungling at a level I previously hadn't known existed, she worried me nonstop. I couldn't trust Steph to do anything adequately, or at all. The sex was fantastic crazy-chick sex, but even that lost its considerable appeal. Knowing I'd put it off for too long already, I determined to break up with her over the weekend. Mid-day Saturday, though, she decided it was time for her own power-play. She presented me with a list of my faults, the non-negotiable list of things about me that would just have to change. And thus did her ineptitude continue to the very end.

In the middle of her speech, I chuckled and raised my hand. "Wait. Stop."

"No. This is important to me."

"I'm sure, but it's about to be overtaken by events."

And then, much more ruthlessly than I'd planned, I dumped her. I told her why. She cried. She tried to retract her list. But of course the list was a coincidence, not the cause, so I was unswayed. But every time I've since been clubbed with a list of my inadequacies, I've thought back with nostalgia to the time when I just didn't give a crap. There's no other word for it: it was sweet.

• • •

I find myself revisiting this territory from time to time, usually with acquaintances. Someone who contributes little to my life or the world, who's been nothing but a time- and energy-sink for me, will see fit to level criticism. Never once do they consider what I ask myself about them all of the time: what's in this for me, again? The homage of their company, I guess.

Guess again.

I think we'd all do well to critically examine our role in our friends' lives, to ask of ourselves "what's in it for them?" I ask this about myself all of the time, and I'm not always pleased with the results. Take Katrina. (Please.) I have no idea what's in our friendship for her. I try hard to be a worthy friend, but I still don't give as good as I get. At some point, some folks are just better people, I suppose. But I credit myself with trying, which is more than I can say for a great mass of parasites who view friendship as a cynical economic exercise—as harvesting the most attention and affection they can for the least investment possible. And invariably, these same people are the ones who, like Steph, overplay their hands. They issue demands from/take shots at/lay guilt trips on the very people to whom they have made themselves disposable. If not actual liabilities. And I guess we should thank them for, like Steph before them, making our doing the right thing easy.

Moral: Before you fling attitude about, ask yourself if you're worth it.

• • •

Offers Katrina on why, despite the inequities, she continues to be my friend: "Habit."

posted by john at 11:26 AM  •  permalink

November 06, 2005

hail! hail! to mich-i-gan! the ucla of the midwest!

My undergraduate degree is from Ohio State. About this I neither boast nor apologize, even though I knew when I was there that my education wasn't what I wanted it to be. That, I decided, is what a master's degree would be for. OSU was my stepping stone, my dues payment. When you were poor in Ohio, you went to Ohio State. They charged little for in-state tuition, and they practiced "open" admission; if you met the nominal entrance requirements, you got in. Period. (In my day, admission swelled to 60,000 students. They have since closed admission somewhat.) Your name, gender, race, income, and academic pedigree didn't matter. All were equal in the eyes of Ohio State, which is to say, all were dog meat.

The football team excepted—they never did anything to me—I hated OSU when I was there. The hate has abated over time, but it hasn't been supplanted by affection. It's simply where I did time. It's where I learned to manipulate an uncaring bureaucracy to my advantage, using its agents' worst tendencies against them. It's where I learned to build relationships with people who worked not in fancy offices, but in cubicles—I befriended the clerks and secretaries who actually work all day. And it's where I learned to bet on myself ultimately prevailing, to trust myself even during setbacks. Am I grateful? Hell no. Ohio State didn't set out to teach me survival skills. They set out to teach me about Chaucer and calculus, and in that they largely failed.

But.

If I hear one more Michigan alum sniff that his alma mater is "The Princeton of the Midwest," blood will surely flow. Michigan's a fine school, the second-best in the Big Ten after Northwestern, but let's not overstate things, hmmm? The latest perpetrator was Percy, who recently came out as a Wolverine, making all the cosmic tumblers of my universe suddenly click into place. Of course he's from Michigan. He could be from nowhere else. "It's the Harvard of the Big Ten, you know," he said. "Hard to get into."

"I thought it was the Stanford of the Midwest."

"That too."

"What about the University of Chicago? Northwestern? Notre Dame? Those are better rated, more exclusive Midwestern schools."

"Nope. Michigan."

And thus do I cheerfully present a reality check for any Michigan alumni still reading. The average SAT scores of incoming freshmen in 2004:

UW: 570/590
OSU: 580/580
Michigan: 620/660
UCLA: 620/660
Notre Dame: 670/690
Northwestern: 680/700
University of Chicago: 700/700
Stanford: 720/740
Harvard: 750/750

To summarize: Stanford and Harvard should sue for defamation.

posted by john at 07:53 AM  •  permalink

October 24, 2005

frank frank

So that maybe he'll stop searching on his own name, I thought I'd give Frank Frank his own post. Frank Frank is my ticket pimp, scoring me sweet seats at Mariners games, even back when anyone wanted them. More importantly to readers, Frank Frank is the sire of the Dorkette; he is none other than Mr. Dorkass. It's for that last capacity—taking Dorkass off the market—that all of mankind is forever indebted to him.

I will now, for the first time, reveal the origin of the nickname Frank Frank. I don't even know if he knows. I promise the story's not worth the time you'll spend reading it.

The year is 1998. Dorkass and I are both remorseless dating machines. It's a blur of faces and immediately forgotten names, a cornucopia of romantic futility. We're one another's dating buddies—the first person to whom the other reports the debacles from the night before. And then along comes Frank. Debacle-free Frank. Super-dainty Frank. And Dorkass has it bad. Frank Frank Frank! Isn't that cute. Frank Frank Frank! Okay. I'm happy you're happy. Frank Frank Frank! Give it a rest, now. Frank Frank Frank! Oh please, for the love of all that's holy, shut up! Frank Frank Frank! Finally I mock her through imitation, singing the Colonel Bogey March with "Frank" as the only lyric. Everyone now:

Frank Frank!
Frank Frank Frank Frank Frank Frank!
Frank Frank!
Frank Frank Frank Frank Frank Frank!
Frank Frank!
Frank Frank Frank Frank Frank!
Frank Frank Frank Frank Frank,
Frank Frank Frank,
Frank Frank!
(Frank Frank Frank)
repeat chorus

The worst part of this is I just spent a good half hour listening to some god-awful midi versions of the Frank Frank song, and now it's still ringing in my ears. Be a dear and hand me an icepick, would you?

posted by john at 07:56 PM  •  permalink

October 13, 2005

ex-ships

I've learned to mention it by the second date. Just so ya know, some of my closest friends are ex-girlfriends. There's nothing whatsoever to be concerned about—if we wanted to be together, we've had plenty of chances—but some women find it off-putting. So if it weirds you out, please let me know sooner rather than later. Dategirls are never offput by this early on. If anything, they misinterpret this as evidence of a loving, forgiving nature that I do not actually possess. So why give the little speech? To set up the speech six months down the road, when Dategirl's traumatized by, say, Maddie knowing that the chicken masala gave me food poisoning. To me, this is a no-brainer. What good is having diarrhea, after all, if you can't graphically depict the symptoms to your appalled ex-girlfriend? "But that's so intimate..." Dategirl will say, suddenly feeling threatened. And then I launch into the 6-month speech: "Look. I was straight with you from Day Two about this friendship. You have no right to have a problem with it now..."

• • •

Allie and I have long looked for a project we can write together. I thought I had a pretty good idea: a he-said/she-said guide to being friends after a breakup. She gently declined. "Why on earth would I wish this friendship upon another living soul?"

So I guess I'm writing this on my own.

First of all, much as most relationships shouldn't happen, so is it with ex-ships. Most exes should just go away. Far away. I know it feels good to know that this person doesn't hate you, but that's no reason to invite the unique strains of ex-ship into your lives. I personally think the strains are worth it. I like that these friends know my every last wart and button; that they turn up my thermostat without asking; that they decide that the vase looks better there and presume to move it; that I can make them scratch that spot on my back I can't reach; that they know they can criticize me with impunity. I don't enjoy this level of platonic intimacy with any other friends—they haven't earned it, and neither have I—and I've yet to meet a Dategirl for whom I'd even consider giving it up. I'd sooner be alone for the rest of my life.

But it ain't easy. I've tried ex-ships and failed. I don't pretend to know all, here, but my experience is that the following ex-ship scenarios are doomed:

• Evolution, not revolution. People who try to transition to ex-ship immediately are lying to themselves, IMO. Going from planning a future together to talking about your respective dates the other night is like shifting from fifth to reverse. You'll scatter your transmission in tiny pieces all over the freeway. Stop clinging. You need time apart—for me, at least a year—time to forget what you were and become something else. This is hugely important. And it's still no guarantee that after a year, you'll be able to be friends.


• Assignment of blame. Once this becomes an ongoing priority, forget about being friends afterward. Of all the legacies that can't survive the romantic era, this is #1. It's more destructive than physical attraction. If you're still talking about this nonsense, you haven't moved on. Thou shalt not assign fault for the breakup. It just wasn't right.


• No right of succession. Your ex has Dateboys of her own to contend with, and they'll be varying degrees of accepting. One of the great burdens of ex-ship is that it's incumbent upon you to make them comfortable with the thought of you. Is it fair? Hell no. You were here first. If they don't like it, they can take a hike, right? Wrong. It's on you. You're the extenuating circumstance, the complicating factor. Your ex has risked her romance in order to accommodate your friendship. Accommodate back. Once you get past all the weirdness, you'll probably find you have quite a bit in common with your successor. And you'll find no bigger fan when you insult your ex.


• The trade-in. Friendship is, of course, a subset of any worthwhile romantic relationship, but I'll be damned if I don't see people who were never friends suddenly vow to be friends afterward. It doesn't work like that. Friendship is a treasured component that you labor to keep, not something for which you trade-in sex. I've actually had the following breakup conversation: me saying we're not really friends, so what's the point; her, gradually accepting this, then saying "Okay, so we'll be just friends now." Having freshly tolerated my being friends with two exes, she thought ex-ship was her entitlement, the consolation prize awarded to romances that didn't work out. Alas. There was nothing to salvage.


• Different pages. This is obvious, but it's happened to me. I'd taken my year off, forgotten what we were, and I was delighted to be her friend. And then we'd be hanging out and I'd catch her getting weepy. Not bloody allowed. Pull the plug.

posted by john at 09:21 AM  •  permalink

September 30, 2005

the validation manifesto

Several women have already stopped reading. Several weary women.

I've referred to my "Validation Theory" many times on this page, but I've never spelled it out. Simply put, I believe that the primary social force in the world is the human need for validation. In the bulk of human interactions, we are either seeking or granting endorsements. Simple, no? This theory scales like a motherfucker. Once you start filtering human behavior for validation, you see nothing else.

And yes, I'm fully aware of the irony here. I'm waxing about my belief system on my web site. Self-indulgent and validation-seeking behavior if ever there were one. See how well it scales?

So say I'm right. So what? It's a harmless enough social force. Sadly, it is not, for the Validation Theory has a very ugly corollary: most people view validation as zero-sum. If I'm to feel good about myself, you cannot—unless you make the same choices I do. But if you don't, any happiness you feel invalidates my own and must be denigrated.

My favorite example of zero-sum-validation thinking will forever be the Christian bumper sticker

Know Jesus, know peace

No Jesus, no peace

If you want to drive a fundy positively insane, show them how happy you are without their religion. That so invalidates everything they believe, everything in which they've invested their self-image, they cannot even consider the possibility. Nope, you're Satan's intermediary.

All the new moms in my life have experienced a zero-sum crossfire lately. If they continue to work, stay-at-home moms revile them as bad parents. If they stay at home, their professional colleagues snort disdainfully about "breeders." The invective is harsh, unrelenting, and unsolicited, and it invariably comes from women whose own choices are being—cue the organ music—invalidated.

Let's view recent posts through the validation filter.

• Lionel, pretentiously suggesting that poetry be read at business meetings? Seeking validation.
• Courtney, thinking people in Seattle are mean? Obviously being invalidated. Me, posting about it? Being validated.
• Jim and Marceline, irrationally defending their product in the face of evidence? The validation they get from their work was threatened.
• Ed's failing health? No validation link—she's a dog.
• Jessica Alba, saying she really wants good roles? Please.
• I'll skip Bobby Brown's playlist. That's too easy.
• Percy? His "that kid already has everything" comment suggests my age and station make him feel much resentment.
• My friends, pouting when I didn't go with exactly their color choices? I suppose they feel as though I criticized their taste.

And on and on. The need for validation is why people dress up and wear make-up. It's why they buy expensive things. It's why people pair up. It's why lousy relationships persist well past the establishment of lousiness. It's why people have kids. It's why they pray instead of taking kids to doctors. It's why your family goes batshit if you don't come by and stare at the TV with them often enough. It's why managers create direct reports aliases (e.g., "Jim Jones' Direct Reports") that are of no conceivable use to anyone but them but that inconvenience many. It's why we insulate ourselves with people who affirm our belief systems. It's why seemingly good people can rationalize doing horrible things. It's why we want our friends—strangers, even—to couple/parent/buy something/change cities/etc. like we did, and it's why we feel curiously rejected when they don't. It's why we feel self-conscious about dining or going to movies alone. It's why people with no education disdain its necessity, and it's why I so value it. It's why people find a way to diminish your new house/car/S.O. It's why the top-10 non-fiction list is half books about how smart you are, half books about how stupid "they" are. It's why readers send me email arguing "I don't seek validation from other people." It's why people kill those who don't share their beliefs. It's why they want to introduce matters of faith into the science classroom. It's why I go weak-kneed every time I hear "Lover Lay Down" and remember that the sexiest woman I've ever known actually thought of me when she heard that song. It's why my brother and sister-in-law would rather lose me altogether than admit that the John mythology they've concocted is untrue. It. Is. Everywhere.

• • •

What, if anything, is to be learned from this? Like any point of view, it's subjective. It's a theory that happens to fit the facts. A helluva lot of facts. What began as a desperate attempt to explain one person's behavior became a plausible explanation for most of mankind's behavior. Does this make it right? Is it the only possible explanation for a given behavior? Of course not. But I've yet to come across an alternative explanation that scales so, so well across all of human behavior.

Although I found the theory life-changing, I didn't exactly find it life-affirming. Understanding validation, both your need for it and others', is not an A-ticket to bliss. The benefits are more subtle than that. I look at it more as something to keep an eye on within myself. When someone upsets me, I question why, filter for my validation needs, and very often am able to let it go. This is a good thing. I take great pains not to feel invalidated by others' beliefs or choices, and that eliminates much of life's unnecessary misery. And of course, the rhetorician in me benefits from appealing to others' validation needs. At this point, Allie and I are pretty overt about it.

(phone rings)

Allie: Hello?

Me: I need some unconditional validation.

Allie (bored): You're so smart.

Me: Thanks.

So there you have it, my world view, honed by years of wondering why so-and-so is acting that way. And if you don't agree with my Validation Theory, well, you're just stupid.

posted by john at 08:20 AM  •  permalink

September 29, 2005

“mean and smelly”

Courtney, Day 30:

     “I hate Seattle."

That certainly didn't take long. The Emerald City has lost none of its warmth and charm.

posted by john at 09:51 PM  •  permalink

September 22, 2005

fake wedding

Elan and I met on Valentine's Day. Intoxicated by whimsy y mas tequila, we had some woman marry us in a bar that night. When we subsequently went to Vegas a few months later, it seemed only natural that we mock-renew our mock-vows in the nation's most mock-romantic mock-city. "I want to try a sociological experiment," I said. And thus did I email Dorkass the following two photos, my only comment being "Hey mom, look what we just did."

Bedlam ensued. My experiment worked beyond my wildest dreams. Dorkass was, by all accounts, hysterical. She went so far as to contact the chapel, which I'd instructed to say that yes, we were really married. Dorkass being the Western world's leading disseminator of information, it wasn't long before Elan and I were crushed in email and phone calls from across the country. People panicked. People congratulated us. Jilted men worldwide knocked the earth off its axis a bit by simulatenously screaming "Him?!" Someone ran an announcement in the Microsoft newsletter. My co-workers voted on baby names and filled my office with 300 pounds of rice. In retrospect, our only regret was that we didn't register for gifts.

Once again, the evolution of communications:

Telegraph
Telephone
Tell Dorkass

posted by john at 08:26 AM  •  permalink

September 16, 2005

friendly advice

I'm painting the exterior of my house this week, and I ran some of my color ideas past eight friends. They polarized perfectly. One person's favorite scheme was the ugliest thing someone else ever saw, an aesthetic abomination to the point, really, of immorality. Okay, fine. I expected as much. But it doesn't end there. Some folks have invested their egos in their choices, and my making a slightly different selection than their preference has wrought much scorn and offense. This was unexpected. To those whose feelings I hurt, I offer my most contrite, humble and heartfelt "you are waaaaay out of line." A one-time solicitation of opinion does not equal ongoing, hypercritical carte blanche.

This got me thinking about unwelcome criticism. Some folks have earned a license to give unsolicited advice, and others haven't. God help me, my ex Allie bears such a license. She had Khristi and the AW pegged long before anyone else did, including and especially me, and although that fact chafes my butt, I can't ignore such a valuable source of insight. The single best piece of unsolicited advice came from Elizabeth, who pointed out that I was repeating a pattern so disturbing, I had to pull over the car and recover from her observation.

The worst advice I've ever gotten, in contrast, is a tie.

#1a Upon hearing that I wanted to be a technical writer, Dad scoffed that there was no such profession and that I was doomed to a life of destitution. Years later, when forced to confront my success in this fictitious field, he became enraged and accused me of subsidizing my surely meager income by selling drugs. Yep. Dad was a genius.

#1b A related tale. Like, apparently, my friends, my brother has tremendous ego invested in people doing what he suggests. When in the 80s I decided his advice was dead wrong and I bought—GASP!—a personal computer, he went positively batshit. He told anyone who'd listen how I was throwing money around on impractical extravagances. You'd have thought I blew a fortune on strippers, not made a minor investment upon which my entire career would later be predicated. True story: three years ago, he finally relented and bought his daughters a computer. An Apple II. As in pre-Macintosh. As in 1982. He was outraged that no software is available for it. Yep. Genius runs in the family.

posted by john at 03:43 PM  •  permalink

September 05, 2005

funny strikes back

The "Katrina" headlines long ago stopped being amusing, of course. This morning, humor made a comeback, however brief. T-shirt being worn by relief workers in New Orleans: "WE'RE GONNA KICK KATRINA'S ASS"

I'll take two, please. Extra blimpy.

posted by john at 07:24 AM  •  permalink

August 31, 2005

welcome to the world, TBNL

And at long last, we have the final, all-caps BOOM! of this summer's amniotic fireworks display, as Dorkass perpetuates her genes and thereby single-handedly sets human evolution back several epochs. I note that on this day, as on any other, all labor ceased before 3pm.

I have no name with which to greet the child, as her arrival one day after the due date caught her parents by complete and total surprise.

posted by john at 06:41 PM  •  permalink

August 29, 2005

get yer katrina headlines here

posted by john at 11:58 PM  •  permalink

August 28, 2005

killer katrina

"Is it wrong of me to hope for the headline Katrina kills 112, rages inland?" I asked a friend last week. I've since snapped 20 or so such headlines. This is my favorite thus far:

posted by john at 11:50 AM  •  permalink

August 12, 2005

crystal ball

"I don't know why you cut your hair so short," Allie said—as always, mistaking me for someone who actually asked for feedback. "It's only now looking decent. And you should shave your beard off, too."

"Actually, I was thinking I might shave my head entirely. How do you think that would look?"

"Good god, no. Barry wants to do the same thing. It'd look awful. What is it with balding men your age wanting to shave their heads?"

Two words: Michael Jordan. When we're 80, men our age will still look to His Airness for our fashion cues. Now, I'll readily admit that my shaved head wouldn't look as good as Michael's, but the principle is the same: if you can't grow hair where you want it, take control of the situation. Be like Mike: nuke the entire site for morbid.

Or is that spite talking? Whichever, I'm thinking about it. Allie being so emphatically against it promotes it from mere "passing thought" to "life's dream."

posted by john at 09:57 AM  •  permalink

August 11, 2005

on dorkass

"All people know of me is 'comprehensive migration tools' and 'placesettings,' Dorkass moaned, not realizing that I never actually identified her as the dolt of the placesetting post. But fair enough. I'll tell the story about how we became friends, and I'll even allow her space for a rebuttal.

It begins, as seemingly all stories do, about ten years ago. I was a lead, and she was my direct report...who no one had actually told me was hired during my absence. I forget how I found out she was working for me, but it sure wasn't from Dorkass, who gleefully surfed during her 2-hour workdays. I asked around about her. "She's a radical feminist," cautioned one of her former co-workers. "Watch yourself." So odd it is to hear that in this day and age. I imagined she had her spinster's loft adorned with the jarred testicles of many a neutered man, and I kept an open mind and a wary distance.

Time marched on, and she proved herself a capable writer and human being, and in an uncharacteristic fit of professionalism she even nudged the length of her work day up to five hours. We weathered some sort of a crisis together—the norm on my team—and soon found ourselves doing what I do after a crisis: taking a colleague out to one of my shithole bars. This time it was Waldo's. As I poured truth serum into her, she sounded less and less like a man-neutering radical and more and more like, well, a drunk friend. So I told her what I'd been told.

"A radical feminist...?" she said, befuddled. "What does that mean?"

"Apparently, that you wear pants and have a job."

"That idiot Promise Keeper neanderthal. I can't believe he said that about me."

"I wouldn't worry about it." I sipped my drink and watched the activity at a nearby pool table.

"But I like men," she continued, arguing into the air. "I like penises. All kinds of penises. Big ones, little ones..." She babbled about phalli for a while, but honestly, I don't know how much she said and how much my memory has embellished, so I'll stop here. The next day, a hung-over Dorkass came to my office for our 1:1. She sat down and began with, "Hey, I want to thank you for taking me out last night. That was a lot of fun."

"Mmm hmm. Say, do you remember telling me how much you like penises?" Her reaction indicated that no, she had not remembered, but that she sure remembered the hell out of it now. Ah, sweet professional awkwardness. Utterly priceless. It remains the only time that genitalia have come up during a 1:1.

(Digression: but not during interviews. Not long afterward, I was interviewing a guy for a writer position, someone from SQL who I'd never worked with while there. When I identified myself, his face lit up with recognition: "Oh! You're the guy who called James a 'cocksucker' at that meeting!" My vanity is such that I hired him on the spot.)

No Dorkass backstory would be complete without my telling the tale of the first time we played racquetball. I was chasing down a high, arching ball and not looking where I was running. Dorkass, an Amazon, got in my path, hunkered down, and cut-block me at the knees, sending me tumbling ass-over-teakettle to the floor. Color me impressed; no one gets underneath me and takes my pins out. That's my own bread and butter move. I am the low center-of-gravity, cheap-shot king, but on this day, she beat me at my own game. She still couldn't make verbs agree with subjects, but any woman who can take my pins out from under me is the kind of radical feminist I really respect.

• • •

True story: When I wrote that this summer was going to be like the fourth of July, only instead of fireworks, it would be explosions of amniotic fluid, "boom-boom-boom-boom-BOOM!," Dorkass immediately deduced that the last BOOM! represented her. "Are you saying I'm fat?!?"

posted by john at 07:05 AM  •  permalink

August 01, 2005

asexual healing

One of the odder events from this quarter occurred when I rented a hotel room in order to avoid making the round trip twice in two days. I mentioned to some students that my dog, Ed, was already there. One of them was inspired by this news. After class, she bubbled, let's go to your hotel room, get your dog, take our dogs to the lake, do a doggie play date, and hang out! That she did not consider this an inappropriate or potentially unsafe plan was plainly evident.

I vented to Terrell a couple days later. "I'm so asexual, so unthreatening, that cute little co-eds are, like, inviting themselves to my hotel room for doggie dates."

"You want to be distrusted?" she asked.

"I don't want to fall off the threat radar altogether, no."

Terrell's a trouper. Loyal to the point of blindness, but a trouper. "Maybe it's just that you exude so much integrity, you inspire that sort of trust."

"But I'm a dog."

"No you're not."

"Yes I am. A complete dog. A K-9 of major proportions. Canis Maximus. Woof."

"Oh please."

And then I started rattling off my considerable pooch credentials, and somewhere along the line she stopped defending me. So at least I'm on her radar now. Yay, I "win."

One week later, I'm on the same topic with Courtney. Instead of arguing that I'm a good person who inspires trust, she tries the opposite tactic. "Well, you'll notice that I've never invited myself over," she snarked in a tone appropriate only if she thinks I have a Jamie Gumm–style pit in my basement.

Splendid. I "win" again.

You wouldn't think that the same person could be made to feel worse by both of these approaches. You would be wrong.

posted by john at 10:38 PM  •  permalink

July 21, 2005

kristin

Good grief. Kristin wants to be my business partner. I need this aggravation like I need a second assho—what's that? Kristin who? I've never talked about her here? Why, that's an opportunity to add another character-based entry. And just when I was hankerin' to write one—convenient, that. To the backstory!

• • •

It's 1999. I receive a garden-variety junk mail from Elan. Sent to a bunch of her friends, the questionnaire instructs me to reply-all with my response. And so I answer the questions, the last of which is "Say something nice about the person who sent you this email."

"Elan, uh, types legibly," I write and then click send. It did not take long for some chick I'd never heard of, Kristin something, to flame me. "I DON'T KNOW WHO THIS JOHN GUY IS OR WHAT HIS PROBLEMS ARE, BUT IF THAT ASSHOLE CAN'T SAY SOMETHING NICE ABOUT SOMEONE AS WONDERFUL AS ELAN, HE SHOULD JUST KEEP HIS BILE OUT OF MY INBOX."

I sit in my office, blinking. "WTFF?"

I flame back. She reciprocates. We take it private and flame some more, ratcheting up the invective. I deride any detail she offers up— her name, her spelling, anything at all I can get my hands on. But this psycho chick simply will not go away. Who does she think she is?! By the fifth round, I'm livid and out for blood. I finally find her on the Internet. She was an actress in "Cool As Ice" with Vanilla Ice? Perfect! Actresses are fonts of insecurity. I mock her appearance and age, neither of which I am remotely familiar with. That hardly matters. I mock her talent and career. I mock "Cool As Ice," of course. I mock her presumptive cosmetic surgery. I completely eviscerate her.

My phone rings. It's Elan. "Honey, what have you done?"

I puff out my chest, growling, "I told that flaming bitch off, that's what I've done."

"Oh. My. God. John, she's a friend and a very sweet girl and last night I told her all about our weddings and adventures and she was just trying to playfully flip you some crap and now she's very upset and you really really have to fix this."

We hang up. Dialing down from rage to abjection is not my strong suit. I stare at a blinking cursor for a long while. Finally I type "Just to be sure we're both on the same page, this is all in fun, right? You don't really hate me, right?"

She actually buys this crap. God bless women.

And so we begin corresponding civilly. We send pictures. Christ, she's stunning.

Why...this changes everything!

Rage...abetting...

I yell to the woman in the adjacent office; she'd heard all of the profanity during the flame wars. She walks behind my desk, looks at Kristin's picture, and says, "You idiot. She's on E.R." What? "Yeah, she plays Randi." It turns out this is not her only claim to professional quasi-fame: she's made out with Scott Baio, Billy Zane, Donnie Wahlberg, and, of course, Vanilla Ice. Talk about a treacherous career path. She was also the cousin in "Home Alone" who miscounted the kids in the van. She's since had roles in NYPD Blue, Blind Justice, G vs. E, Highlander, and countless other series.

And thus did my unlikeliest friendship strike up. I instituted policy early: we would never meet. Six years later, we're still writing and calling, and we've still never met, despite nearly monthly invitations for me to come to L.A. and pine for a swift, sweet death while meeting her actor friends. "What on earth would they and I have to talk about?" I say.

"Oh, stop being such a snob. People are just people."

Well no, we're not, but I love that you think that way. Kristin's one of the most sincere and thoughtful people I know. I adore her, but everything they say about L.A. actresses is true. In mind as in body, she is not of this planet. She makes me nuts in that great way that only people with a sensibility entirely disconnected from your own can make you nuts. One of our ongoing discussions is her firmly held belief that deep down, everyone craves celebrity. No, we don't. "Yes, of course you do. You mean you don't want to be a famous writer?" I wouldn't mind if the writing became famous, but me? I'd prefer not. "Bullshit," she snorts, for she's known nothing else since childhood. Then she borrows from whatever flavor-of-the-month therapy she's into: "You need to greet and nurture this." Then there's romance. She yearns for a "regular guy" yet dates exclusively 22 year old, coke-addled underwear models she meets at Hollywood parties, then wonders—quite earnestly, without a trace of irony—why it didn't work out. "Do you know any regular single guys?" she asks. Yes I do. I'll describe one. Well, his name's James, he's a writer, more your age, super smart, hilarious, really fit, loves the outdoors...

"Oh, ish."

"Jesus, I didn't even get to 'divorced dad' yet."

"Oh, who cares about that?"

• • •

Which brings us to today, when Kristin brings me a solid business idea that would throw much needed work to some unemployed friends, set up a nice revenue stream for me, and require that I deal with actors 24/7. Yep. It's too close to call.

posted by john at 10:34 AM  •  permalink

July 20, 2005

new parents, this is how to say something interesting about it

Rob and Amy named their newborn Henry Robert, which is delightfully old school. Better still, "Hank Bob" is one of the best hillbilly names I've ever heard. "All y'all go git Hank Bob and lez fry us up some road squirrel."

A rare breeder reader, Rob was quick with the jab in e-mail: "I'd comment on [your vin Diesel remark], but I've lost all ability to talk about anything but dirty diapers."

"Tell me about the miracle," I replied.

"The big revelation is that God is definitely a man and that's why men don't have to go through that shit. Ouch."

posted by john at 12:12 PM  •  permalink

July 13, 2005

d’observations

d'Andre scratched his chin, trying to articulate what it is about the Seattle folks he'd met that had struck him as peculiar. Since crashing with me, he and Pam had spent the subsequent couple of business days living and working amongst the Seattle Chill, and now that we were taking our leave of one another, I asked what they thought of the folks they'd met.

They're nice enough, he said, in that way you know there's a but coming. "But they tell you what they're about." Huh? "Well, it's like, 'Hi, I'm Josie, and I'm into hiking and the kabala and I'm a vegan.' Instead of, you know, just being a hiker or a vegan and letting me discover it for myself. People here introduce themselves by ticking off the trends they're into. It's really weird. They don't tell interesting stories about themselves. They don't tell you about the bear they ran into while on a hike."

Pam finished his thought. "They just present characteristics for your consideration."

I have nothing to add.

• • •

Sitting around the campfire a week earlier, we recounted stories we'd both heard before but that Pam had not. Our earliest memories of race came up. d's story is too personal for me to share, but mine is publishable. Stupid, but publishable. I was 8 or 9, and my older sister was dating a kid named Manuel whom I'd never met but who, I had gathered, was somehow so objectionable that his very existence was hidden from my parents, lest she die. So one night, we were sitting peaceably around the dinner table when this sister suddenly asked, "Mom, Dad, are you racist?"

They were oblivious to being set up.

No, of course not, came the reply. All of God's children are created blah blah in His eyes blah blah blah.

I don't remember much of what was said because my attention was riveted on my other siblings, who were suddenly shoveling food into their mouths like it was water and they had raging tongue fires. Clearly, they heard a bomb ticking. I followed suit, and the four of us cleaned our plates and got out of the house in record time. The conversation on race continued. Traps were sprung, yelling ensued, accusations of hypocrisy were made, and ultimatums were laid. I hear. But I certainly learned my lesson, and I would never myself date a kid named Manuel.

posted by john at 02:27 AM  •  permalink

January 01, 1800

sue

Originally published August 5, 2003

A day threatened for a decade has arrived: I sent for grad school friends Lynn and the revered Sue to collect an old debt. They're painting my house. For four days. Much as when I think of home, I think of Spokane and not Columbus, when I think of family, I often think of these two and not my biological kin. It's in this spirit, therefore, that I shall spend this week here listing the smothering mothering that emanates from Sue's mouth.

I predict that the first reference to my singleness will occur sometime midday Wednesday. Place your bets and watch this space. Here are the mounting motherings:

• It's ridiculous that you have caller ID on your cell phone, too. (Not that it comes without.)
• I'm not going to sleep in your bed and let you sleep on the couch. I insist on taking the couch, so that you can't possibly watch TV, use your computer, prepare my meals, clean up last night's dinner dishes, let the dog out, etc. until I wake up. So march right into that bedroom and wait for me to arise, you ingrate.
• It's piggish to throw that McDonald's bag into the back of the Jeep instead of storing down by the brake and gas pedals.
• The garden that you're tearing up in the fall needs to be weeded; oh, here I'll just do it.
• That vase/chair/table/painting/mirror/towel/stool/keys/trash can would work much better in this other room; oh, here, I'll just move it.
• It's piggish to have clean underwear in a basket in a closest. Here, I'll just bring your underwear out into the living room, show it to everyone so they can understand just how silly you are, and fold it.
• You rich fuck, who gets granite countertops?
• You're wearing that to paint?
• You're making me filet mignon? Make it medium rare and you eat too much meat.
• So. Does it ever get lonely, being single decade after decade like you are?
• I don't like that vase/music/TV show/bread/cereal/bubble bath/wall color/painting/plant/pot/soap/sandwich/centerpiece/fuse box location.
• You mean you're not going to remove that grating and clean it just because it's not visible unless someone moves the couch like I just did? Here, I'll just do it.
• You mean you're not going to get on your hands and knees and scrub the kitchen floor just because you're replacing it in two weeks? Here, I'll just do it.
• Your kitchen floor is disgusting, just disgusting. Not like when I pulled a dirty, damp, and unwashed cloth towel out of the washer—in which it had been incubating overnight—and wiped all kitchen utensils and food preparation surfaces with it.
• What do you mean, "There's some stuff in the trash can by the road that you could clean, too"? Now that would just be silly.

posted by john at 12:21 PM  •  permalink

the aretha franklin chronicles

part one

Originally published September 19, 2002

I'm off to the East Coast to see Aretha Franklin on her last concert tour ever. Hopefully 'Reethy will not be in one of her legendary moods and will go on stage as scheduled. Chancy or not, I've gotta see the Queen while I can, or I just don't think I could live with myself. I'm hopeful, of course, that she sings her two obscure songs that I'd like on my movie's soundtrack, but I ain't holdin' my breath. I'll settle for a little R-E-S-P-E-C-T.

Originally published September 24, 2002

3000 miles by air, six hours by car, and the bitch doesn't show up because her sister died. 

Hmm. Turns out her sister died 11 days earlier. 

Hmm. That's a full 9 days before I last confirmed that the concert was on, right before I got on a plane. 

Hmm. When my mom died, I showed up for work the very next day. 

Hmm. That's $500 on airfare...
$350 on hotel...
$210 on the rental car...
$78 on parking at Sea-Tac...
$180 on the dog kennel...
3 precious vacation days used up...
...yet she was so overcome with grief that even with a nine-day window, she couldn't give her fans notice of their imminent buttfucking. Nay, she couldn't be bothered to use lubricant. What a thoughtful human being. What a pro. The show must go on, indeed.

Oh yes, fuck you straight to hell, Aretha Franklin.

Originally published November 3, 2002

Whadya know. Karma usually takes longer.

I hope authorities don't spend too long piecing this perplexing enigma together. What came around, went around.

interlude

Editor's note, July 2005: In January 2003, when I was sitting in the Phoenix airport still basking in Ohio State's championship glow, the airline offered me a free ticket to anywhere I wanted to go if I would accept a bump to the next flight and thereby be able to finish watching Michael Vick beat Green Bay at Green Bay in January, which had never been done. Yep. It was quite a roll I was on. En route back to Seattle with my voucher in hand, I realized what it represented: a free ticket to try again with Aretha. And thus pull victory out of the jaws of defeat.

Originally published March 27, 2003

The rescheduled Aretha Franklin concert is in a couple months. Mrgm. I taste copper.

Originally published April 16, 2003

God help me, I'm flying to Hyannis, MA to see Aretha Franklin. And may God help her if she doesn't show again. What will it be this time? The death of her dog two weeks earlier? A really sore, chafing thigh pimple? Arson? Whoop, I guess that 's been done. Well, the arson of her dog's thigh pimple, maybe.

Originally published April 17, 2003

Cocksucker of the Day Award

To Ticketmaster, who irritably hissed that there could be no refund for the original, postponed Aretha Franklin concert, for which I pointlessly took vacation time, spent a small fortune, and flew six thousand miles—after having diligently reconfirmed it with them just prior to my departure. If people three offices down heard the eruption of profanity through my closed door, imagine how the guy at Ticketmaster felt. I got my refund, which cost Ticketmaster the COTD Award but saved their souls.

part two

Originally published August 21, 2003

I'm heading back East tomorrow to visit friends and—sigh—attempt to see Aretha. If she dogs me again, well, pay no attention to the media reports.

Originally published August 26, 2003

There's much to say about my New England swing, but the crux can be summed up in two magical little words: she showed!

And Aretha and me, we patched things up.

The Cape Code Melody Tent is a unique venue, a circular seating area around a rotating stage. There are only about 20 rows of seats, so to say there's not a bad seat in the house is to undersell; there's not an non-excellent seat in the house. As we waited, Amy, Rob and I placed bets on how long Aretha's set would be. I said 70 minutes. Rob, who's apparently watched far too much Price Is Right, said 71. Amy, prone to all sorts of fancifully optimistic blunders (moving back East without a job offer, joining the Green Party, drinking with me, etc.), predicted 90. I "won" when Aretha took the stage for 64 minutes. Mind you, that includes at least 10 minutes of breaks, an inexplicable homage to Nelly's "Hot In Here," and the pre-encore exit theatrics—none of which involved her actually singing.

Yet I loved the performance. It was the first time at a concert where I've felt star-struck, where I got chills from just seeing the person. This effect was heightened by some teasing showmanship. First, the band took their place in the pit. Ten minutes passed. Then the backup singers took the stage, and it seemed the show was imminent, so the crowd started clapping in unison as if in a Roman coliseum. We're marking time: Clap. Clap. Clap. Clap. And then the minutes passed. And we petered out. And the backup singers sat patiently. And the crowd started squirming. And minutes more passed. And then off in the distance, we heard a siren. And then it hit me: oh my God, the bitch dropped dead from a heart attack. And then the lights went out, and the crowd went apeshit, and I saw an eruption of camera flashes going off outside the opposite side of the arena. A dark shape poised at the top of the aisle opposite my seat. Is that her? I can't tell. The shape stood there as the backup singers took us through a medley of very familiar songs, including "Think" and "You Make Me Feel (Like a Natural Woman)." And then the MC grabbed the microphone and channeled a boxing announcer. He presented the uncontested Queen of Soul, who was suddenly and brilliantly illuminated as she and her bodyguards made their way down the aisle toward the stage. It was a entrance worthy of the heavyweight champ.

Fittingly, the first lyrics she belted were "I'm Here!"

I was afraid that at 70ish, Aretha would have lost something. Perhaps that something is stamina. But what the show lacked in length, it made up for in energy and passion, and that old lady sure got the assembled milquetoast Cape Cod Country Club jumpin' like they were in a Birmingham Baptist church. She alternated between torchy ballads and upbeat hits, and while the crowd leapt to its feel and danced for "Respect," "Chain of Fools," and "Freeway of Love," it was the ballads that I enjoyed most, particularly the magnificent anthem "Make Them Hear You" and a lovely, breathy encore cover of "I'll Be Seeing You." (The only clunker was her inexplicable cover of the Pocahontas crap-fest "Colors of the Wind." Was that for the zero 12 year olds in the audience?)

As I said, I got chills. Repeatedly. It combined the best of concert going experiences with a palpable sense of divinity, or at least of being touched by history. I beamed. I teared up. I didn't want it to end. I'd traveled 184 miles for every minute she sang—over 3 miles for every second—and I consider it a bargain.

posted by john at 12:00 AM  •  permalink

my first ban

Originally published July 6, 2003

Over the holiday I hosted the same Mormon friends that almost provoked me to murder-suicide during their last visit. Speaking of last visits, they are not welcome back. Never ever ever ever ever ever ever. It's about respect. It's about responsible parenting. But mostly, it's about self-defense. For the benefit of my other friends with children, this weekend I compiled the following parenting primer.

posted by john at 12:00 AM  •  permalink

my japanese family

Originally published August 5, 2003

A day threatened for a decade has arrived: I sent for grad school friends Lynn and the revered Ehama-sama to collect an old debt. They're painting my house. For four days. Much as when I think of home, I think of Spokane and not Columbus, when I think of family, I often think of these two and not my biological kin. It's in this spirit, therefore, that I shall spend this week here listing the mothering and smothering sistering that transpires. Wow. How overwritten it that?

I predict that the first reference to my singleness will occur sometime midday Wednesday. Place your bets and watch this space. Here are the mounting motherings:

• It's ridiculous that you have caller ID on your cell phone, too. (Not that it comes without.)
• I'm not going to sleep in your bed and let you sleep on the couch. I insist on taking the couch, so that you can't possibly watch TV, use your computer, prepare my meals, clean up last night's dinner dishes, let the dog out, etc. until I wake up. So march right into that bedroom and wait for me to arise, you ingrate.
• It's piggish to throw that McDonald's bag into the back of the Jeep instead of storing down by the brake and gas pedals.
• The garden that you're tearing up in the fall needs to be weeded; oh, here I'll just do it.
• That vase/chair/table/painting/mirror/towel/stool/keys/trash can would work much better in this other room; oh, here, I'll just move it.
• It's piggish to have clean underwear in a basket in a closest. Here, I'll just bring your underwear out into the living room, show it to everyone so they can understand just how silly you are, and fold it.
• You rich fuck, who gets granite countertops?
• You're wearing that to paint?
• You're making me filet mignon? Make it medium rare and you eat too much meat.
• So. Does it ever get lonely, being single decade after decade like you are?
• I don't like that vase/music/TV show/bread/cereal/bubble bath/wall color/painting/plant/pot/soap/sandwich/centerpiece/fuse box location.
• You mean you're not going to remove that grating and clean it just because it's not visible unless someone moves the couch like I just did? Here, I'll just do it.
• You mean you're not going to get on your hands and knees and scrub the kitchen floor just because you're replacing it in two weeks? Here, I'll just do it.
• Your kitchen floor is disgusting, just disgusting. Not like when I pulled a dirty, damp, and unwashed cloth towel out of the washer—in which it had been incubating overnight—and wiped all kitchen utensils and food preparation surfaces with it.   
• What do you mean, "There's some stuff in the trash can by the road that you could clean, too"? Now that would just be silly.

posted by john at 12:00 AM  •  permalink

percy, the euthanasia poster child

Originally published August 7, 2004

"You drive ninety minutes from work in order to be 20 feet from your neighbor?" someone once remarked. Sigh. Yes I do. Our house configurations are such that I seldom have to see or hear them, not unless they come over. Which unfortunately they do.

Percy and Thelm@ are septuagenarians, if that's the one that means "in their 70s." They're typical of the residents where I live: old, middle-class white folks who retired to country beach houses. It's not my favorite demographic. If you pass them in a passing zone when they're going 45 in a 55, which is sadly zippy around here, they'll follow you home to lecture you. When new ownership bought the local grocery and put the local coffee klatch's mugs atop a doily on a nice table, she was repeatedly chewed out for having moved the mugs three feet from where they'd been since the Creation. And so on. I've been advised not to turn this into a "geriatric old fucks with overdeveloped senses of entitlement" tirade, lest I lose the reader.

But they are.

 

The Common North-American White-Breasted Geriatric (Anus rictus)

 

Which brings us to Percy, whom I first met during my house inspection. He walked over and introduced himself, then proceeded to stand there, silently and awkwardly, forcing everyone to work around him. Why he felt it his place to inject himself in my house inspection, I can only guess, but soon I would long for those early days of awkward silences between us. A brief history:

• Day 2. While I unpack, I'm having a crew tear out the decorative outhouses (surely an oxymoron) from the front yard and hack at the 30-inch high grass the previous owner had left me. Percy ambles over and asks if I'm having them tear down my outbuilding, too. "No," I say. "I'm tearing that down someday, but until I buy my flop, I need it for storage." He huffs off.
• Day 3. The guys are still hacking at my acre of lawn with machetes and weed-wackers. Percy comes over. "So what's your philosophy on lawn care?" he says in an off-putting, accusing manner.  What the heck does that mean, anyway? "Grass grows. I cut it." He stares at me as though I'd talked in baby talk, then asks if he can borrow my tractor in perpetuity to mow his lawn. It doesn't work, I lied. He huffs off.
• Day 5. Percy comes over. He points out that my back yard is filled with dandelions and asks if I'm going to fertilize. I say that, given that Puget Sound's at the edge of our back yards, it doesn't take a whole lot of imagination to see that's just poisoning the water and everything in it. So until I can find a safe way of weeding, the weeds stay. He stared at me like I'd just talked in Klingon. "I'll do it for you, then," he snapped, as if my lack of know-how was the issue. No, no you won't. Under no circumstances. He huffs off. Soon my yard was mysteriously dandelion free.
• Day 20. Percy sees me installing planters on my balcony rail. "I hope those don't blow off!" he snidely snorted in a way that somehow indicated the exact opposite sentiment. Two years later, they're still there.
• Day 30. Percy sees me power-washing the deck. "Are you staining or painting?" Staining. "What color?" Grey. He goes inside, presumably to update Thelm@, who presumably he's got tied up in the basement. He returns. "A natural looking stain would look pretty good, too." Uh-huh. "I need to get me a power washer," he says leadingly. "Yep. I sure do. Like yours. Yep." That night, I made sure my power-washer was locked up.
• Day 31. I'm staining. Percy oozes over. "You going to paint the house, too?"
• Day 50. For the first of many times to come, Percy inexplicably mows his lawn about 10 feet across our property line, effectively enlarging his own tiny yard.
• Day 100. "You said you're getting rid of that outbuilding?" Yes. "So is that girl your wife or your girlfriend?" My girlfriend. How about Thelm@? He huffs off.
• Day 200. I've installed a new garden where previously a debris pile lay, and behind it, I'm installing a lovely lattice around my deck, hiding the ugly cement foundation. Percy walks over. "How come you bought such little plants?" Because the mature ones cost 10x as much, that's why. "Oh!" he says with enormous satisfaction, "So you're not one of those Microsoft people!"
• Day 300. Thelm@ somehow wriggles free long enough to tell me that she loves my china cabinet. Funnily enough, I've never had them over.
• Day 350. The inevitable happens. Percy comes over while I'm walking around naked and, frustrated by the curtain I'd put on the front door, goes to the kitchen window to peer in before knocking.
• Day 400. It happens again. One would think that seeing me naked once would be enough negative reinforcement. Alas.
• Day 450. Tired of the neighbor kids cutting through my yard to get to the beach, I erect a fence on my property line opposite Percy's. Percy walks across my backyard to reach me as I work. "Well," he lies transparently, "I was going to talk to my neighbor, but I guess now I have to walk around."  I guess so.
• Day 500. I begin my kitchen remodel. Seeing the old cabinets stack up on my deck, Thelm@ comes over. "Now what this house calls for is a country kitchen." Well, I'm going with cherry and granite. Sorry. "Oh. Well. I'm sure that can be nice, too."
• Day 550. I buy my flop and begin moving items out of the outbuilding. "Are you finally tearing it down? When?"
• Day 600. The kitchen remodel is done. Percy comes over with a piece of junk mail that had been left in his mailbox and knocks on the door. I answer, physically obstructing him from entering. He steps into my space and actually bumps chests, trying to come in. When it becomes obvious I'm not moving, he awkwardly asks for a phone number. I walk to my desk, and he glides on into my house, uninvited. He surveys the kitchen. "I'm going to have to memorize the details so that I can describe it to Thelm@," he hints subtly.
• Day 650. The outbuilding is being demolished. I wasn't here for it, but the boys said that Percy was throwing his own items on their burn pile and generally interfering the whole time, even trying to get them to remove plants he doesn't like ("You taking those ferns out? Ferns are just weeds, you know.") and my clothesline rack. Mind you, these are my things. The crew was taken aback. "Dude," one finally said incredulously, "You live in a freakin' double-wide." They said he huffed off.

To be continued.

Sigh.

posted by john at 12:00 AM  •  permalink

on WTFF

The origin of "WTFF" is only vaguely more interesting. When I was a manager, I'd read behind the writers' work regularly. Some writers were impeccably clean on the very first draft. I call them "my favorites." Some sucked bilgewater (as the editor, Annette, put it), no matter how many drafts they got. I call them "Roxanne." And one turned in excellent final drafts but really—insanely—weak initial drafts. She answers to "Dorkass." If the words stuck to the page, she figured, she'd done her job and met her deadline. She'll fix it later. Off to the mall! She specialized in the glittering generality. "Windows can be faster than nearly each and every one of the other alternatives," she'd type just to fill up space so she could get to the Bon Home sale. "Almost every last one of them."

One day, when I was working a weekend in order to read the draft she'd handed off before going to Banff, I came across the following. This is verbatim. "The new, comprehensive migration tools provided with Windows help you migrate items comprehensively."

My note was succinct: "WHAT THE FUCK? I MEAN, WHAT THE FUCKING FUCK?"

On Monday Annette sniffed, "I guess I've been doing it wrong all these years, giving actual feedback when all I had to do is swear like a 10 year old." She then proceeded to butcher the phrase in her memory, and now half the world thinks I say "what the fuckity fuck."

posted by john at 12:00 AM  •  permalink

egger and d ride again

Originally published April 12, 2005

d'Andre contacted me last week. He's coming. And I'm increasingly nervous.

If we talked more than twice a decade, I'd call him one of my oldest friends. But we don't, so I won't. He was my neighbor several lifetimes ago, in an apartment complex far, far away. None of us had any money. That was a given. We were all on the downside of advantage, yet that was easily the happiest, tightest-knit neighborhood in which I've ever lived—even for the polka dot, the piñata, the prematurely balding white guy saddled with the nickname "Egger." I'm not going to repeat them here and just give friends ammo, but trust that I am among the leading authorities on "cracka" jokes in any hemisphere. The unremitting verbal abuse I took was never hostile—it was affectionate, even—yet I'd be lying if I said I was completely at ease with my status.

Which, if I might digress, was a growth experience for me. I've tried many times to articulate this, and I don't know that I've ever succeeded. It begins with there being no "white experience" comparable to the set of unifying common experiences that members of a minority group share. A wealthy Vietnamese-American man in Fresno will have a base set of experiences in common with an impoverished Vietnamese immigrant girl in Louisiana; for all their differences, they deal with the same stuff every day of their lives, and they understand that they have this link. They're of the same tribe. People outside the tribe can achieve acceptance, but the very nature of tribes is such that they'll never achieve inclusion. (A nested digression: for my money, "8 Mile" was pure fantasy. If I'd tried to co-opt a black identity like that, scoffing rejection would have been the best response I could have hoped for. Acceptance starts within; your only hope for acceptance is to be who you were born.) Anyway, for whatever reasons—being in the majority probably chief among them—white Americans don't have that unifying sense of identity, of tribe. We don't think of ourselves or each other as white unless made to. It just isn't naturally a part of our self-image. It flat-out doesn't cross our minds. It doesn't come up. Where the growth came in, then, is that for better and worse, I became hyperaware of my racial identity. It's healthy business for someone in the majority to taste being a minority, and during this time I saw myself as white, as excluded, as different, morning noon and night. And I had lots of help with seeing that. Lots and lots. My chops were busted, my chain yanked, my buttons pressed, my goat gotten, my balls busted, and my place, um, me, um, put in.

Wrote myself into a corner, there.

Now I don't mean to say that I was targeted for exclusion, or verbally abused more than anyone else, or a victim who didn't himself dish out abuse. Trust me; I wasn't. We were gleefully unemployed young men with too much time on our hands, and in the grand tradition of that species, we invested more energy into not working than any job has demanded of me since. We watched girls. We watched one another's girls. When there were no girls, who oddly enough seemed to have jobs that occupied much of their time, we talked about watching girls. We balled, of course. We held great socially conscious debates like Terminator vs. Predator and Magic vs. Michael. We repaired one another's junk-heap cars, each of us having our specialty. (I was the "repairing brakes without paying to have your rotor turned like it really should be" guy.) We swapped car parts freely, the theory being that between us, we owned a single functional Frankencar. We played chess and dominoes, we schemed about how to earn money by playing basketball poorly all day, and after playing basketball we watched cartoons while eating cereal on my girlfriend Maddie's new couch juuuust as she was coming home from work. (How many times do I have to say I'm sorry?) But mostly, we sat around and crafted insults. Nothing was out of bounds; no little difference, no wart, was above public examination. The sober guys insulted the stoners. The stoners insulted the crackheads. The taller guys insulted the shorter ones. The guys who were going to college insulted those who didn't, and vice versa. The guys who didn't live with their mothers insulted the guy who did. The guy who was fired by UPS insulted the guy who was fired by USPS. The guys with acne insulted the fat guys. The young guys insulted the old guys. The white guy insulted the Mexican guy. And everyone insulted the white guy.

Yes, d'Andre is coming.

About five years older than most of us, he gradually assumed a role of elder statesmen. The perks of high office: no one ate more of my cereal, no one made more cracka jokes, and no one else decided that Egger'd taken enough abuse for today. He might publicly and mercilessly skewer me, but he'd be damned if others did, not on his watch. I was his boy. Or maybe just his personal punching bag. I'm not sure there's even a difference.

The single funniest ad lib I have ever heard spilled from his lips.

"Hey Egger, can you put on a hat?" he says as we jog back on defense.

"Why?"

"The glare off your head is really messin' with my jump-shot." Much snickering ensures.

"Baldists," I shoot back pathetically.

When d'Andre feigns offense, he always asks a question twice.

"Baldist? Baldist?!" He puts his hands on his hips and affects an exaggerated white dialect. "I am nothing of the kind."

More snickering. He continues.

"I like bald people."

The laughter builds.

"There's good ones."

The crowd roars its approval, waiting for the kill.

"I have bald friends."

Complete pandemonium.

I honestly don't remember finishing that game. I do remember grown men propping one another up as they laughed and flicked tears off their cheeks. Hell, I'm still tearing up, just writing about it. This was fairly typical of our dynamic, which is to say he generally got the best of it.

Until.

One glorious day, we climbed into his car, he turned the key, and the CD player resumed playing what he was last listening to. Realizing simultaneously the significance of the moment, we listened and stared straight ahead at crows picking through a dumpster. Finally I spoke.

"D?"

"Yeah."

"Is that Careless fuckin' Whisper?"

He started backing the car out of its parking space.

"I wish I was dead."

And thus was my go-to punchline born, a veritable nuclear warhead added to my arsenal. Andrew Ridgley and wake-me-up-before-you-go-go jokes would soon abound. Once I'd beaten him to death with it, I dug him back up and beat him some more.

The last time we talked, I called him after five years of silence and asked for a favor, a monstrously unreasonable favor.

"Hey, d. It's John."

[Complete silence]

"We ran at Mesa Ridge?"

[uncomfortable fidgeting]

"You know," I cringed. "Egger."

"SNOWFLAAAAKE!"

"No two are alike! Still, I'm touched you remember me," I said through grit teeth.

"Remember? Remember?! Man, we still  talk about the time you blocked a brother's shot."

"Hey, it wasn't just—"

"Damndest thing I ever saw."

"— the one ti—"

"We never let that sorry sumbitch play again."

What, did he have this material on a legal pad next to the phone for five years, just in case I called?

And thus did I lose control of the conversation. Just like old times. But in the end, the man followed my now-ex Maddie's sleazy boyfriend for two days, confirming suspicions that he was not only cheating on her but with her—he was married, with kids, and even had another girlfriend on the side. d'Andre didn't even consider not performing this garish favor. He remembered Maddie being kind to him, and that was all the incentive he needed. What a sense of honor, of loyalty. Can you imagine? After five years? Hell, my current friends groan about getting on a ferry to see me once a year if I pay.

d'Andre is coming. Yeah! No! Excitement and anxiety.

Yes, this summer my old friend and antagonist, the man after whom I named the older brother character in my screenplay, is visiting Seattle. I'm excited to see him, but man, are my old excluded-outsider insecurities ever getting inflamed. Those little differences I used to be ridiculed over?

They've grown. A lot.

I think it's safe to say that no one from that old neighborhood has seen their lifestyle change as much as mine has, which does not bode well for when ol' Egger is put under a microscope this summer. Every square inch of my life is packed with ripe comedic fodder. Katrina did not exactly help my anxiety level.

"What's he going to say when he sees Metamuville?" (white population: 104%)

"[unintelligible groaning]  Probably something with 'saltine-assed' in it."

"What about your gay man's kitchen and all the doilies in your guest room?"

"Holy crap. I am so toast."

"If he breaks your designer speckle-glass soap dispenser," she giggled, "Will you make him pay the $130?"

"Oh sweet christ."

"Will you tell him you accidentally gave Bill Russell the finger in traffic last winter?"

"Hell  no."

"Don't forget your purebred English Springer Spaniel on her princess bed."

"Right. I'll kennel her."

"And Percy."

I hadn't thought of that. d'Andre is going to meet Percy. Yep, death would be so sweet right about now.

In the meantime, I'll continue to fervently pray that sometime in the last 13 years, d'Andre sold out, too.

posted by john at 12:00 AM  •  permalink

if you’ve ever wondered who voted for Bush twice, wonder no more

My sister-in-law Maria is a throwback to the turn of the century. The 3rd century. She married her high school boyfriend at the worldly age of 18, and, not much seeing the point of getting her Mrs. degree when she already had her Mr., she instead became a rollickin' fundamentalist and raised their three kids in a hermetically sealed environment where Harry Potter books are banned and Jesus controls such minutia as who wins the election for class treasurer. With no sense of irony whatsoever, she will talk about Jesus' love out of one side of her mouth and utter the vilest hate out of the other. Her utter lack of curiosity about the world—I've never known her to read, travel, or in any way educate herself beyond being told how righteous she is by fellow churchgoers—inhibits her not at all. No, she is a bona fide expert on matters she knows nothing about, and she makes sure you know it. To say she is a gossip is inadequate. Remember Gladys Kravitz on Bewitched? Breed her with Jimmy Swaggart and give their love child an 8-ball of cocaine, and you'd have Maria.

When I was 19 myself, my relationship was teetering, and I was in danger of flunking out of college, so I withdrew. I tried again the next quarter, but my mind was still on my relationship, so I withdrew again. I did not tell my family, whose first through 92nd instincts are to attack, about my withdrawing. I didn't really need the additional grief, what with their already perforating me about my relationship issues. So I told them I was still in school. Suspicious, Maria took it upon herself to call the registrar and prove this was a lie. She trumpeted the news of my failure and cover-up to the four corners of the world. Fortunately for me, her world is exceedingly small.

You might think it all youthful sound and fury, signifying nothing, but it proved to be the enduring, defining moment of our relationship. Lo these many years later, nearly two decades in which Maria's seen me for maybe 20 hours, she still basks in triumph. I am a proven liar. This is established. It is what defines me. It is all she knows of me, or cares to know. You know John? Oh, he's a pathological liar now. I'd feel sorry for him if he weren't such a liar all the time. School? Career? House? Probably all lies. Any money he has is probably from selling drugs, but I'm not sure about that one. He has nothing to do with me because I know what a liar he is.

This is now a joke amongst my friends. If I say I'm picking a family member up at the airport at 3:00, Allie will press my Maria button. She insists on using an elongated y for maximum effect.

"Are you really, or are you lyyyyyyy-ing again?"
"Fuck you also."

It's a reliable button.

These days, conversations with Maria are the toll I have to pay in order to talk to my brother. They invariably go down one path: my continued friendships with ex-girlfriends.

"So, are you still in touch with, um," she'll say, pretending she doesn't have the name handy in her phoneside RIMS (Rolodex of Intelligence info and Malicious Speculation), "Allie?"

"Yeah. She's one of my closest friends. She's family."
Maria doesn't pick up on what I thought was an unsubtle dig. In fact, judgment is swift and scornful.

"See, I don't get that. I don't get that at all. If your brother still hung out with his ex-girlfriend, it would drive me insane. Insane!"

My mind parses the Fellini movie that are my disjointed memories of the 70s, searching for anyone else my brother might have ever dated.

"You mean...Tina from the 10th grade?"

"Yeah! I would be sooooo jealous."

"Well, believe it or not, relationships change a bit after high school." Another unsubtle dig impacts harmlessly on her surface.

"And [insert some girl's name] didn't mind?"

"Not a bit. I'm upfront about it from the first date."

"Are you sure? I think it's probably what broke you up," she'll declare (and no, she has no more information than this post contains).

"I'm sure," I growl, realizing for the first time that this is the speculation in Ohio.

"And what about Allie's boyfriend?"

"He's my fishing buddy."

"That's just so weird."

"Compared to what? It's not that uncommon. If we loved and enjoyed one another when we were a couple, why can't that evolve? Why would it end just because we're not right for each other romantically? My life isn't that black and white."

Maria ponders, scouring her world for an apt analogy.

"So it's like Ross and Rachel."

The right lobe of my brain fires off a quick message of sympathy to the left lobe: Yeah. I heard it too. Jesus H. Christ. Just say yes and ask for your brother again.

"Um, I guess. Only we don't, you know, secretly want to get back together. And, um, we really exist."

"It's just so weird, John."

"Yeah. So is my brother back yet?"

posted by john at 12:00 AM  •  permalink

chex and balances

Originally published April 9, 2005

The other night I was out with friends, and talk among the married folk turned toward the love lives of we singletons. Why? Because married lives don't interest even the married. When it came my turn, my "type" was discussed. Terrell used a visual aid, pulling her hair back into a knobby little brown ponytail.

"Brown ponytail," declared Dorkass.

"Brown ponytail," said Jill in near unison.

And thus was swift judgment rendered. I felt stereotyped.
"All I'm looking for," I said with great gravity, sipping my bourbon for effect, "Is a girl who's read Tolstoy and who can turn a double-play."

And the stunned ahhs rang out around the table. Daaamn. I don't know anyone like that. Pleased with myself for having mounted my perch above them all, I smiled in smug silence. Yet I knew I would have to atone for this moment later.

That moment came with distressing speed. The next morning, I tried my line on my ex Allie. "All I'm looking for," I repeated, "Is a girl who's read Tolstoy and who can turn a double-play."

"Ca-righst almighty," she snorted as she laughed. "You've never even picked up Tolstoy, and you hit into double-plays more than any other 10 men I know."

"I know."

"Why didn't you just say 'brown ponytail?'" she said from under her brown ponytail, now accented with flecks of grey.
"Ummmm..."

This, for the uninitiated (and Maria), is what being friends with an ex is like. If you can get over the blame hump, which honestly takes at least a year of buffer time, if your current SOs can get over the jealousy hump, and most of all, if you were great friends when you were a couple, you can grow a friendship unlike any other. It's flat-out closer. You know one another eerily well, right down to what you've read and how you hit a softball. You know where one another's buttons are better than you know your own, and on special occasions, you lean on those buttons for the pure evil joy of it. You know how your closest friends will open your fridge and ask if they can have a drink? Exes don't ask. And they'll go a step further, adjusting your thermostat to their liking as soon as they enter your home. Politeness rituals long ago worn away during your romantic era, they say the bluntest things—but they say them out of love, so you prize it. If you're stranded, they have to come get you no matter how inconvenient it is, and you don't feel the slightest bit guilty. Ditto with your bail if you're jailed, although it hasn't come to that for me yet. And they still have to give you rides to and from the mechanic. One of my favorite features.

I've seen two exes get married. More than that are married, of course, and all seemingly to a man named Gary, but I was actually present at two of the weddings. (And even invited to one of them! [rimshot!]) I was oft asked how I felt. How did I feel? Happier than I would for any friend, any family member. I don't know how a dad feels on his daughter's wedding day, but I imagine it's the closest analogy. I felt pure joy for these women and their happiness—and I felt like a proud investor in that happiness, an integral participant in the formation of the human being dressed in white. No matter how close a typical friendship might be, I never feel that.

• • •

If you haven't seen it, allow me to introduce The Ex Files (sidebar), which serve as a repository for some of Allie's best lines.

posted by john at 12:00 AM  •  permalink

duerko del asno

Originally published May 2, 2005

Minette smelled something rotten with the below fake, but god bless'er, Dorkass bit, even after I said it was taken at "Point Adobe."

But now that I've done the hard work, it's time for the CheckRaise World Tour.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

may day

Originally published May 1, 2005

posted by john at 12:00 AM  •  permalink

whale photos

Originally published May 17, 2005<

The gray whale from two weeks ago.

 

Hood Canal transient orcas from last week

 

 

Money!

 

The same swim-under I shot, just clearer. You're looking at the nose of an upside down orca as it's coming toward the camera, right before it swam under our feet.

posted by john at 12:00 AM  •  permalink

the checkraise crew:

john, your captain
minette, your naturalist
dorkass, your ballast

Originally published April 30, 2005

Yesterday was a fun day of whalin', a day that included two beachings (one accidental), bone-jarring four foot waves, the repainting of both sides of my boat, and a boarding by two young men with two big guns. Three, if you count the enormous machine gun mounted on the bow of their Coast Guard boat. I passed my inspection, but that didn't stop a gleeful Dorkass from trying to make a John-skewering anecdote out of it.

"So did he do something wrong?!? " she asked in the same hopeful tone that a child asks "May I have some dessert?" She eagerly had her camera out, hoping to capture for posterity my arrest or, better still, my pistol-whipping. Alas.

Perhaps it was the disappointment, perhaps it was the unremitting waves, but soon her breakfast was adorning the starboard side of my boat. Unfortunately, the waves were coming at us from the same side; with the boat tilted, we were corkscrewing into them. "Tell her to puke off the other side," I snapped, fraught with concern for her comfort.

Oh yeah. And there were whales.

Our best guess is that we observed 1-2 adult and 1 juvenile gray whales as they circled and fed in 50' deep water. We saw several deep dives (which I presume is when their flukes appeared), countless blows, and a lotta barnacles. I got a good look at one's blowhole, and Minette saw a full body roll. The highlight for all was when we lost track of the whales and then an adult surfaced and slowly passed the boat, not 50 feet away. Just exhilarating.

posted by john at 12:00 AM  •  permalink

metamuville crime wave!

MetamuMart Grocery, Trading Post & Provisions was hit last week. Thieves punched out a window and stole some beer and, tellingly, some cough medicine. Dirt Glazowski, the store owner, who's a dead ringer for Howie Long and did, in fact, play professional football for a time, has been a litany of profanity ever since. In addition to the classics, his every sentence is also peppered with the words "derelict," "reprobate," and "beat into a twitching mass of pulp on the ground." His wife, Kiki, has skidded into depression. As their friend, I've taken both sides, simultaneously assuring Kiki that it'll never happen again while helping Dirt plan his installation of a Burmese tiger pit in aisle 4.

The area old farts have rallied, too. A letter to the editor in support of "the kids" Dirt and Kiki appeared, addressed "Dear Meth Heads." Okay, good start. The letter goes on to scold the thieves and their lowly place in this world. You're parasites. Addicts. Degenerates. "Apparently, all you see when you meet people like Dirt and Kiki is a source of drugs."

Unable to speak, I stabbed the sentence with my tear-soaked finger. Kiki was mortified. I showed it to the contingent of gossipy old farts always on hand. They didn't get it. Even funnier.

• • •

That the Glazowskis and I would become friends was inevitable, as we're the only people under 40—hell, under 60—in town. The first time I had them over, we watched the sun set and roasted brats in my backyard. As we pounded drinks, Dirt told stories of gridiron glory while I fawningly hung on every word and Kiki did a rather remarkable Terry Schiavo impression.

An Ohio State player blew your knee out and ended your career? Great, great!

"Was there anyone you really enjoyed hitting?" I asked.

"Mike Tomczak," he answered without hesitation. "I hated that prick."

"Same here," I replied. "Do you lie awake at night wishing you'd hit him harder, too?"

posted by john at 12:00 AM  •  permalink

bacardi: check

Originally published May 12, 2005

And with a quick snip, Annalie embarks on a lifetime of having to spell her name for people.

Welcome to the planet, Johnetta!

Oh. I guess they went with second choice. The dream is all up to Annie and Eric now.

Also born on this date: Steve Winwood, Ving Rhames, George Carlin, Florence Nightengale, Katharine Hepburn, and (this one gives me goosebumps) Yogi Berra.

foreshadowing, indeed!

Originally published May 11, 2005

Katrina's little girl will be born on May 12, a tad early. Mom is in excellent spirits. Baby looks fine. The men in the vicinity of Mom and baby are completely whack. Thus endeth my report for now.

The original Lionel (a.k.a. Spazzie McDrama) took it upon herself to send out mail proclaiming Katrina hospitalized. When it arrived, I was seated next to a very surprised Trinie at her dining room table. I said it then, and I say it now: people who eagerly trumpet other people's drama as their own, who contrive to use others' news to draw attention to themselves, are vermin.

posted by john at 12:00 AM  •  permalink

the most chilling 5-word phrase

Originally published April 11, 2005

I was getting breakfast at the MetamuMart this morning and a horrifying flyer caught my eye:

First Annual Metamuville Talent Show

"How many spoons acts can you stand?" I asked Kiki, the store owner.

"It gets worse," she groaned. "There are no fewer than three square dancing demos."

This got me thinking. What are the five scariest-assed words in the English language? "First Annual Metamuville Talent Show" is bad, but not the worst. I see four distinct genres.

You have the professional:

• Can you shut the door?
• Stop fishing the company pier!
• We are making some changes.
• Thank you for your contributions.
• Khristi is in your building.

The familial:

• Will you be my executor?
• I just arrived at SeaTac.
• Maria has a new theory.
• How much do you make/did this cost?
• I'll pay you right back.

The friendshippy:

• So, I have some news!
• That's not what Karen said.
• How goes the love life?
• So I have this friend.

The romantic:

• Know what your problem is?
• My parents are both living.
• How old is this condom?
• Did the condom just tear?
• I'm late. I'm never late.
• Oh. Yeah. I'm HIV positive.

and my winner, also romantic:

• We really need to talk.

posted by john at 12:00 AM  •  permalink

hater’s leap

Originally published April 4, 2004

A friend of mine has a rather unattractive need to degrade others' acquisitions. It doesn't really hurt, as engendering others' approval is pretty much the stupidest reason I can think of to spend sweet, precious money, but it is a singularly repugnant quality to be around—especially when you're a couple decades removed from middle school. And it does repel me from my friend. Its manifestations have run from the trivial (sunglasses, attire) to the big-ticket (my car), all of which, I am steadily reminded, are in some way inferior choices.

I know what you're thinking, and yes, this all sometimes seems like a childhood reminiscence to me, too.

Nothing has triggered the ugly quite like my buying a house. I put off showing it to him just because I didn't want to hear whatever would surely be wrong with it. But eventually out he came, purportedly to borrow a trailer the likes of which he could have rented for less than the cost of the ferry. He and his girlfriend arrived, surveyed the place, left, and have not returned. There's no need to: they got what they came for.

It took me a while to notice the pattern emerge. I mentioned last year that my friends and their kids came over. "Can those kids," he interrupted incredulously, "even make it up those stairs?" My house is atop an 80 foot bluff, you see, and you have to use stairs to get to the beach.

"When I awoke this morning," I emailed him a few months later, "I opened my eyes and there was a bald eagle looking back at me, not 20 feet away."

"Wow, a beautiful view like that must make you want to go suicidal and just throw your body off the cliff, huh?" he replied with typical skill and subtlety.

And so on. This weekend, I hanged (hung?) out with him and family. His dad is considering retiring to the peninsula, and he sought my advice. I showed him on a map where I bought my house. In making conversation, he brought up what was clearly the only thing he'd been told: "You're up on top of a cliff, right?"

Even though I have little idea why being 80 feet above sea level is a bad thing, I now know that it's most desperately supposed to be. People who never even saw the stairs, let alone used them, have decided that their existence is the defining, fatal characteristic of the home that has brought into their "friend's" life so much beauty and joy. And when the friend is so foolish as to be happy, why, it's their moral imperative to remind him that really, he shouldn't be.

It takes its toll. I'd be lying if I said that all this didn't all have the desired cumulative effect. But there's no doubt about it: I do enjoy my house less for their efforts. In fact, I can no longer descend the beach stairs without feeling a great swell of shame and contempt.

For my continued friendship with these people.

My love of the ocean and beach and the 80 glorious feet that connect me to both continues undiminished.

"So you wanna give me a tour of your new place?" my buddy asks of my modest Redmond flop.

No sir. No, I don't.

• • •

Postscript: when I towed my trailer back home from his place, I had to pay the extra ferry fee myself.

posted by john at 12:00 AM  •  permalink

requiem for a flake

Originally published March 7, 2005

When the word came, it wasn't unexpected. Stan had been dying for a long, miserably long, time. This tempers the sting of loss not at all. A world that can ill afford to be less good is decidedly less good today.

I've thought for hours about how to eulogize my friend. I'm reticent to make it about me—I find that self-serving and distasteful—yet I do not know how to extricate myself. I likewise hesitate to dwell on Stan's orientation, yet I do not know how to remove our differences from my Stan the Flake stories. We celebrated, even clung to those differences. All my best stories are about our Odd Couple dynamic. So I'm not going to put any artificial limitations on this. I'll just type, and if it gets unbearable, stop reading.

When we met in September '94, I was a freshly hollowed out human being. We needn't spend time rehashing that period, but to recap: I abruptly had no relationship, no friends, no income, and massive debt in a new and chilly town, and my new hobby was going to bed at 5pm. There was no reason in the world for anyone to want to be my friend. That's not modesty; it's an ugly fact. I had nothing to offer another human being. And at the time in my life when I had the least to offer another person, one person figured it out and took it upon himself to reach out to me and be my friend, anyway. There is no repaying a debt like that.

Lord knows why he reached out. Stan the Flake: worldly, buff, health-obsessed, vegetarian, alternative medicine-promoting, alternative-everything promoting, flamingly gay man from whitest small-town eastern Washington. Me: provincial, beef-fed, dousingly straight Midwesterner from a black neighborhood, a fellow who'd never knowingly met a gay man in his life, let alone heard of the putrid herbs and teas littering the Chinese pharmacy that was Stan's kitchen. Much as there was no reason for him to be my friend, there was no reason in the world to think he could  be. Yet...yet...

• • •

In my will, I instruct my executor to forego any kind of service and instead invite my friends to participate in a John roast. One of my regrets about that decision has been that I, myself, would never get to hear Stan tell stories similar to the below, only with himself installed as the hero. Alas, now no one will hear those stories. Here are mine.

• • •

"How many hours have you put in this week, John?"

"75. But it's only Saturday."

"You and your death wish. Here. Take this. And don't take it with fucking Diet Coke. Get some water."

"I already have a mother. Get that muck out of my face."

"Now look. You're incredibly stressed, and you're susceptible to all ki—"

"Say 'susceptible' again."

"Thutheptible. Oh goddamit, I do not either lithp."

"Only when you're agitated. And you don't normally stand with your hips cocked, either."

"That ith not a gay thtereotype."

"Oh yeah it is. With hands on hips. Yeah, just like that."

"Fine. You justh go ahead and work yourthelf into a coma. My fault for caring, ya fwuckin'  cornpone bible banger."

And he would pirouette and leave. And I would swallow whatever pond seepage he left in a Dixie cup. This, you see, is how men say they care about one another.

• • •

Briefly convinced that a woman was the cure-all for all my problems, Stan emailed me a spreadsheet put out by the Microsoft gay and lesbian group.

"Stan? Why did you send me a spreadsheet identifying all the gays at Microsoft?"

"Yeah!" Stan replied with way too much earnest exuberance. " I figured it might help you if you could weed out the lesbians!"

[about 10 seconds of silence]

"You. Sent me. Me. Me, Stan. Think about what you've done, here. Me. Malicious me. A list of all the gays at Microsoft."

"Well not all of us," he chirped. "Just the known ones!"

• • •

More recently, a group of us were downtown, and Stan and I were in the back seat bickering. A collision sent our car spinning some 500 degrees in the middle of a busy street. Everyone was okay, but we were startled speechless. I finally broke the silence. "You know," I growled disapprovingly at Stan, "I always figured when it came my time, it'd be a beautiful woman by my side."

"JETHUTH CHRITHST, HOW THE FWUCK DO YOU THINK I FEEL, JOHN?!"

•  •  •

In trying to boost my self-worth, Stan once gave me one of the greatest compliments I've ever received. I didn't deserve it, but it was still impossibly great. There's a sweet strangeness, or perhaps a strange sweetness, in a gay man trying to buck up his straight friend by telling him what his attractive qualities are. And nonsense or not, the unusual sentiment behind it was wondrously caring. That was Stan. His grace transcended differences that for others would have comprised an insurmountable chasm.

Huh. How about that. Stan is the hero of my stories, too.

 

---

For obvious reasons, names and chronologies have been scrambled a bit. -jh

posted by john at 12:00 AM  •  permalink

this place where i belong

Originally published April 17, 2004

Sue's guest room is mauve now. Ew.

I hadn't stopped in Cheney the last couple of times I visited Spokane. It ain't for lack of wanting to; it's just difficult for me. It's like looking at a photo album chronicling the happiest times of my life, only everyone I cared about is airbrushed out of the photos. Nothing remains but the backgrounds. And yeah, that aches.

Nevertheless, to merely pass the exit for Cheney feels as wrong as driving by my mother's grave. That time, those people, that me—these things and their passing must be acknowledged. So when the pine trees appeared around Tyler, I took the newly named Michael Anderson highway, wove through the familiar rolling yellow hills, traveled back in time, and stepped into those photo backgrounds alone, fairly wallowing in sadness.

There's where we met. There's my first classroom. There's where we ate on our first date. There's the PUB. I wonder who Mariko's lunch date is with nowadays? There's the railroad tracks I used to walk at night. There's Hilari's shitty apartment. I gave her a blanket to use as a curtain on that window. Huh. Same blanket I use every night, still. She just vanished. There's my first place. I wonder if the ping pong table is still there. There's where we had our first kiss. There's Phil's old place. That stupid slanted half-step nearly killed me, and they still haven't fixed it.  He just vanished, too. There's where we used to throw the frisbee and I would hit her softballs so she could practice fielding. Man, she sucked at ground balls. There's Patterson 266, the classroom where I met Katrina and Pam and Mark. There's Elizabeth's old house, and Sharon's, and Karen's. Poor Karen. There's the hills Pam and I went horseback riding on. There's that vet that tried to stick me for $200 for dropping off a dead dog. Talk about blood and a rock. There's another place we ate on our first date. Jesus Christ, how many times did we eat that day? There's where we lived. What a happy house. Okay, driving on, I can't remotely deal with that.

Symptomatic of the fact that we were all broke, there were two Trash TV nights in our circle. In Spokane, it was Melrose night; in Cheney, it was Star Trek. When Deep Space Nine premiered, we were there. I remember growing bored during the DS9 series premiere. Sisko had lost his wife years earlier, an event we come to relive in flashbacks. He's simultaneously trying to explain the concept of linear time to aliens who live outside time—they have no sense of future or past. They find the notion baffling. What vexes them, it turns out, is Sisko himself. If the past is in the past, someplace you cannot return, why does he insist on continuing to reside there? I remember yawning at that point and looking at Phil, who was visibly devastated, and thinking "Jeez, what a puss." Well, today I'm the age he was then, and perhaps not coincidentally, I get it now.

Lo, I am basking in irony.

A few hours after my Cheney tour, I sat in Sue's living room, covered in mauve paint and reminiscing with her and Lynn. These reminiscences only become more brutal over time, as we wonder whatever happened to so-and-so or talk about someone else's lovely memorial service. It's sobering.

"What was the name of that girl you dated here, John?" Sue asks.

"Fucking Amy," Lynn and I groan in unison. I frantically search my mind for a new subject. There's one!

"Say, does the ironing room need repain—"

"Man." Lynn shook her head. "I've never seen anyone get creamed as bad as you did. I mean, you were completely destroyed. Bet it all and lost. I sometimes wondered if you'd ever recover. But, thank God, you eventually pulled out."

"Yeah," I stared at my feet. "I'm all better now."

posted by john at 12:00 AM  •  permalink

solidarity, brothers!

Originally published October 7, 2004

Turns out I'm not the only man who doesn't want to see his own butt on women. Go figure.

generational division

Originally published October 7, 2004

Miss Courtney and I mixed it up a bit last week, when I had a snootful and started holding forth about what was wrong with Gen-Yers like herself. I didn't get too far before I committed heresy in her book. I criticized modern women's jeans. Specifically, I criticized the way jeans now de-emphasize a woman's curves and make her butt look as square and flat and featureless as my own. Courtney was aghast, calling jeans that go up to the waist and leave no ass-crack exposed "revolting." On this we agreed to disagree, but it got me thinking that I should start keeping score. Feel free to send me your suggestions.

 

 

Xers in a landslide.

 

 

posted by john at 12:00 AM  •  permalink

don’t take me down with you

try repressing

Originally published May 4, 2005

Making the blog rounds the other day, I came across a link to the below missive. I've been mulling over a response ever since. My first reaction was that I owe a lot of good women an apology for thinking that vermin like this were figments of their imagination. I apologize unreservedly.

My second thought was of adults who spar with yappy teenagers. No satisfaction can come of it; no one respects you for making a child look foolish, and the child won't understand that he lost.

My third thought was anger—anger toward his female enablers/victims, without whose consent and collaboration this guy might have learned to be a thoughtful and responsible human being. Oh well.

Which brings us to where I am at this writing, irritated that this swine has excused his behavior by making generalizations about my gender and thereby impugning the character of every man. The generalizations, like the entire post, are unmitigated nonsense, a steaming pile of horse shit obviously designed to distract a very specific reader from his selfish misdeeds. He is the Irrepressible Shaun, and if that charmingly self-deprecating, self-bestowed nickname evokes thoughts of the Great and Powerful Oz, that's appropriate. Now I'm going to show you the pathetic little man pulling levers behind the curtain. Mouse over the horse-shit icons for line-by-line translations.

 

posted by john at 12:00 AM  •  permalink

family is relative

Originally published June 13, 2005

julie

Everything you need to know about Percy & Thelm@ and my sister Julie are contained neatly in one anecdote. That is, this encounter is typical of my every encounter with these people. To fully appreciate the anecdote, know that I left out nothing. This was the unembellished sum total of their contact.

Having not seen Percy and Thelm@ for the first couple days of Julie's stay, we finally saw Thelm@ poking her head out her door as Julie and I were departing.

As I climbed into my car, I hear my sister happily (and typically) scream "I'M HIS SISTER!!!" across the yard.

Thelm@, having no window overlooking my house nor any reason whatsoever to care, was nonetheless unsurprisingly unsurprised. "Yeah, that's what we were figuring. You were here before, right?"

"MY AIRLINE TICKET WAS $315 USUALLY I WAIT UNTIL IT'S $140 BUT THIS TIME WHEN IT GOT TO $315 I KNEW IT WOULD BE THE BEST I COULD DO BECAUSE YOU CAN'T FLY ANYWHERE FROM COLUMBUS FOR $139 ANYMORE!" my sister shrieked.

"Please shut up," I asked.

"What?!" My sister whirled, surprised. "I didn't want them to think that you were having some girl over."

"Huh? Who gives a crap?"

"She asked."

"No she didn't."

"Well, she waved when she saw us. She was curious."

"Of that, I have little doubt."

 

d’andre

d'Andre's much-anticipated visit was surprisingly mellow, for two reasons: 1) he brought his bride, the refined and ladylike Pam (henceforth d'Pam), who lent sorely needed sophistication to the occasion, and 2) we're mellow old codgers now. It was a pleasure to see my friend again and to compare our wildly divergent paths from our common point of origin to our not-too-dissimilar stations in life. It was a meeting of friends unlike any to which I've previously been a party. It was a comprehensive catching up, a touchstone, a status report covering 14 dramatic years in which we'd both known everything from abject failure to giddy accomplishment. 14 years. That's, like, 56% of a Jen. And we covered all 14 in great detail—we literally began with my driving the U-Haul out of the apartment complex. There's something uniquely bonding about originating from the same time and place and circumstance, a feeling conspicuously absent from my life. And the more we talked, the more I came to appreciate my commonalities with my friend and foil. I think even d'Pam learned something about her husband and from where he came. If I know women at all, she went to bed prouder of him than she'd been the night before.

We watched the passing lights in the shipping lanes, our feet on the fire pit and margaritas in our hands, toasting one another and friends long gone. "Who'd have thought one of us'd be here?"  d'Andre mused, shaking his head.

"Who'd have thought one of us would marry a Ph.D in biochemistry?" I added.

A nearly sheepish d'Andre bussed the beautiful Dr. on the cheek. "Who'd have thought she'd marry one of us?"

I clinked his cactus glass. "Here's to marrying up."

•  •  • 

All right, thanks for indulging me. I know what you came for. There weren't many insults, but here ya go.

• The first and best point was scored by—no surprise here—D. He had not seen me since I was in the peak physical condition of my life. As they passed the security station at Seatac, he saw me, stopped, stared, cocked his head, and said, "Santa?"
• Not that he's not a tad bovine himself these days. "Rerun?" I replied, in my imagination six days later when I finally thought of a response.
• When we got into my Jeep, I had Careless Whisper on the stereo. He looked at d'Pam knowingly. "Who called it?" Yeah, but did he call the vintage George Michael/Andrew Ridgely poster on the back of the guest room door? No.
• Of my modern physique: "You're not 'Eggre' anymore. You're 'The Cracker Barrel.'" Then Pam hit him.
• Of my Jeep: "The cracker box." Then Pam hit him.

I'm pro-Pam.

posted by john at 12:00 AM  •  permalink

PRTMRN USA DSK 4PC PL SET

Originally published July 10, 2003

"I saw PRTMRN USA DSK 4PC PL SET on your online bridal registry and thought it just screamed you. I simply had to get you one of the twelve PRTMRN USA DSK 4PC PL SETs you asked for!" Oh, the warmth. And thus did I buy a placesetting as a wedding gift for the umpteenth time in my life. Historically I'm a good enough friend to shake down for an $80 place setting, but I don't quite make the cut when it comes to being invited over to use it. One would think there'd be a correlation there. One would be wrong.

posted by john at 12:00 AM  •  permalink

percy update

It is perhaps appropriate that I find readers' #1 request so annoying: we want more Percy.

"Would it kill you to go to arizona for material?" asks Dorkass.

The problem is that Percy and Thelm@ spend half a year in Arizona. They are a combined 202 years old, after all, and the law is the law. But fear not; Percy peeked in my window just last night, so updates cannot be far behind.

In the meantime, I give you a photo of the Metamuville Koffee [sic]  Klatch [sic] , of which Percy [sic]  is a member (though not pictured). Yep. This is my world now.

Save me.

Just out of frame on the back wall are photos of deceased Klatchers, each adorned with a little brass plaque with a saying that manages to be both cloying and repulsive: "Bob Magoo, Gone Fishin' In Heaven's Lake," "Betty Struedel, Knitting God's Afghan," and the like. It's utterly fuckin' mortifying.

Other activities in town:

• Newcomer Tea
• Yodeling/line dancing night
• Prayer Canaries
• Boot Scootin' Grannies
• ROMEOS (Retired Old Men Eating Out)
• Solitarians (widows)
• and my personal favorite, the Metamuville Huggers

I strongly suspect it's the same six people doing each activity.

posted by john at 12:00 AM  •  permalink

it took percy a whole day

A creeped-out Kiki called me last night. It seems that while she was stocking shelves, Percy took it upon himself to lecherously run his fingertip up her back.

Oddly enough, he's never seen fit to touch me affectionately. Or at all.

posted by john at 12:00 AM  •  permalink

you’re so lucky

Originally published May 25, 2005

As Dirt Glazowski and I smoked cigars on his deck last night, watching the sun set over Puget Sound, we remarked that he is truly blessed. Sheepish, he then confessed something that increasingly bothers him: people urgently dismissing his new lifestyle as mere "luck." This is, after all, a man who a year ago left his career and family in Minnesota to move to a town 2000 miles away, where he knows no one but his wife and where he now makes sandwiches 12 hours a day for a living. But the move also allowed him a lovely waterfront house—affordable because it's in the middle of nowhere—and that moment on his deck last night. And he thinks the sacrifice well worth it. But the determination of some people to dismiss the fruits of his sacrifice as mere "luck" visibly hurts.

They don't have to be happy for him, but why must they go out of their way to diminish his hard-won happiness?

"You're so lucky."

I hear this sentence a lot, directed at me and friends both. Sometimes the sentence is rote politeness, like "Hi, how are you?" and nothing more. Sometimes it's an expression of like-mindedness, as in "Wow. How cool! I'm happy for you." I often use it that way myself. And then there are the sometimes about which I'm writing, the sometimes when the person repeats the sentence purposefully, defensively, even somewhat angrily. Often times they grab the listener's arm for added gravity. "You're. So. [beat]  Lucky." The intonation is not one of a compliment, but one of resentment, as in listen to me—it's exceedingly important that you understand that the only difference between you and me is that you're a fucking luck sack. Sometimes they even say as much. "Yeah, I thought about doing x, too," they'll explain, and then they'll say something derogatory about x.

In my own case, I never hear "you're so lucky" more than when showing whale photos. With this assessment I do not disagree, as most things in life are one-third luck, least of all finding wild whales. But I find the resentment thing off-putting, even insulting. I'm sorry, but blind-assed luck isn't all there is to it. Luck is, as they say, the residue of design. Consider the whales. For me to be floating out there two Fridays ago, I had to make the following decisions.

• First and foremost, I'm single and childless. I've repeatedly traded companionship, family, security, validation from other human beings, and having someone to change my colostomy bag when I'm old for the flexibility (career, time and money) I now enjoy.
• 13 years ago, I decided I did not like the pedestrian direction my life was headed, and I changed course dramatically, knowing that this would require that I move 2000 miles from anyone I knew and would likely torpedo my six-year relationship. But I wanted to get to the Pacific Northwest above all else. I bet on myself, and I won.
• 11 years ago, I moved to Seattle, again by myself, again to rebuild, again betting on myself and winning. Moreover, I made an uneasy alliance with a company that I truly despise because trading my services for its cash was the best route to where I wanted to go.
• 3 years ago, I bought my dream house in Whale Central, some 80 minutes from work, thereby committing myself to quitting soon. I bet on my ability to earn a living in the sticks.
• 1 year ago, I decided to make that switch to vending, if a bit earlier than planned. I left job security, health insurance, vacation time, sick time—trading it all for more flexibility with my time. Even in the face of job uncertainty, I stuck to the plan and dropped half a year's salary on a boat.
• In that year, I've gladly worked for two kind people whom I used to outrank, which certainly wouldn't have been possible if I'd conducted myself like many at MS. Or if my ego were invested in work status.
• In that year, I've also cracked the books hard, teaching myself how to boat in tidal waters, about the movements of whales, about using a hydrophone, about studying them safely. Every day, I track their movements in the area, trying to discern their patterns. I've gone out dozens of times and failed, usually on weekdays.
• Two weeks ago, I noted a high probability of whales in good boating conditions, and I headed out on a Friday, knowing that I would have to work on the weekend to make up for it. And then I put my tiny boat in the path of 60,000 pounds of mammal-eating predators, one of which came within three feet of landing on me.

"You're. So. [beat]  Lucky."

No doubt. But unless you too have eschewed the path of least resistance and bet on yourself, kindly shove your resentment up your ass.

•  •  •

A favorite and relevant Simpsons line:

Selma just got married, and her sister Patty is saying goodbye at the limo. Patty doesn't know quite what to say.

Selma: "Just tell me what I most want to hear."

Patty: "I am eaten alive with jealousy."

Selma (embracing her): "Thank you!"

•  •  •

The flip side of all this is that I, too, feel twinges of jealousy when I look at friends' lives and see paths not taken. Dorkass' new palace makes my house look like something that fell out of a cereal box; I bet her back yard has 3x as much square footage as my entire place. The Kerrs uprooted and got away from retarded Seattle people, and for that I'm eternally spiteful envious. The Coxes conspired to have a positively brilliant and beautiful little girl. Elizabeth is moving back to Cheney. And on and on. It's only natural, I think, to look at the fruits of their choices and feel some jealousy. Where a lack of health comes in is when jealousy ceases to be homage, when it and happiness for your friend are mutually exclusive. Their happiness is of a variety I did not choose, and yes, that makes me pause and reflect and even second-guess, but it does not threaten my own. I'm delighted for them. Is that not how it's supposed to work?

posted by john at 12:00 AM  •  permalink

who would jesus slander?

Originally published June 11, 2005

My older sister's visit supplied a few more theories circulating about me back home. My born again Christian brother and sister-in-law, no doubt emulating Christ's well-documented malicious speculation about people he didn't know, have publicly declared the following:

• When I psuedo-married Elan in Vegas, I lied. I really got married.
• A decade ago when I took my friend Tammy to my sister's wedding, she wasn't really my friend. She was someone I hired from an escort service. (Although stunning runway models will secretly marry me, I apparently have no friends I can use as wedding dates.)
• The Approval Whore wasn't really my girlfriend. She was a friend who was lying for me for four years and is now suddenly gone. (I apparently now have friends and  no longer need to hire escorts, which I guess is progress. I haven't figured out where Elan went that a fake girlfriend became necessary, though. It's all so confusing.)
• My house is not really my house. It's a rental I use to fool Julie when she's here...because I'm a druggie, you see, and I couldn't afford both the house and the drugs...because I gotta be on drugs...because there's no other possible explanation for my disliking people as kind as them.
• They know me better than Julie, the only family member to see me in the last eight years, the only one to come to my home, and the only one who's spent more than a couple hours in my presence in 18 years. Because she's gullible, you see.

As you can see, they are fantastically central to my universe. Like Annette observed: "They think they're so damn important that you'd bother to put on that dog and pony show for them? No matter how you swing it, it's a me, me, me thing."

I can't help but see parallels between these intellectual giants' zealous, truth-be-damned beliefs about me and their equally zealous, equally spurious religious beliefs. It's all about being right, about being better, about telling everyone—damn the abundant evidence to the contrary. And you know they must be right, 'cause they agree with one another so fervently.

Praise the lord and tighten my blinders, honey!

• • •

In trying to explain their zeal—why their John mythology is so obviously more important to them than John himself—Julie offers the following explanation: "They just don't understand why you don't want anything to do with them."

Should I send it gift-wrapped?

posted by john at 12:00 AM  •  permalink