My apologies for the hideous blue template. I did that while trying to figure out how to get it to actually change the background color. It never took on my own monitor, so I figured I did something wrong and left it that way.

Not that anyone is (or should be) reading this yet...

The Helmet Project site details the various football helmets of all sorts of college and professional football teams, including (as the image to the right would suggest) the USFL! It also has some leagues that I had even forgotten existed, such as the international leagues (World Football League and World League of American Football turn NFL - Europe). It also had leagues that I wasn't aware of (two Arena Football leagues?) and some that I'm certain we'll all forget of and our kids will have never heard of (ahem, XFL).

What's particularly impressive is their college football team catalogue, including just about every conference (including I-AA ones such as Southland and some Division II and III as well). The scope of this web site, with not only their current helmets but their past ones too, is enormously impressive.

On another note, this column follows where all the NFL teams that have come and gone since the starting of the NFL.

And lastly, this site has a history of the ill-fated United States Football League, guest-starring Donald Trump as the villain!

No, no, not the Dalai Lama. The other guy. He is South California Republican Congressman Christopher Cox. Cox is leading the fight to repeal the IRS luxury tax on beer.

(1) The 1990 Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act, which contained several so-called `luxury taxes', increased the Federal excise tax on beer by 100 percent, to $18 per barrel. As a result, as much as 44 percent of the retail price of beer is now consumed by taxes.

(2) Middle and lower-income Americans, who comprise the vast majority of our Nation's 90,000,000 beer drinkers, cannot afford this tax on one of their few `luxuries'. Those who would presume to indulge in the `luxury' of purchasing beer are now among the most heavily taxed people in our society.

(3) The 100 percent increase in the Federal beer tax--this so-called `luxury tax'--has destroyed 31,000 jobs. It has, however, succeeded in preventing people from enjoying this `luxury': after the passage of the tax in 1990, total beer sales suffered the worst decline in 30 years.

(4) As a result of the `luxury tax' on beer, $463,000,000 in wages has been lost in the brewing, wholesaling, and retailing industries. In addition, direct purchases of products needed to make beer, including agricultural products, has fallen by $207,000,000.

(5) The 100 percent increase in the Federal beer tax has not, unfortunately, resulted in a doubling of Federal revenues. To the contrary: the decline in demand, the resultant loss of jobs, and the reduction of direct purchases has cost Federal and State governments hundreds of millions of dollars in lost tax revenues. The `luxury tax' on beer has cost millions more in increased outlays for unemployment compensation and other social services to help those who were put out of work by this ill-conceived tax increase.

(6) Because of the regressive nature of the `luxury tax' on beer, its negative impact on the economy, and its unreliability as a source of Federal income, this `luxury tax' should be repealed.

Who could oppose this tax cut?!

Am I the only one who finds those little Orbitz pop-up ad games to be really cool and play them over and over again whenever they pop up?

Okay, so maybe I'm weird...

One thing I've always been able to point to when people accuse the Republicans of being uniformly big business is that it's primarily Democrats, not Republicans, who are the toadies for the MPAA and RIAA and their draconian copyright policies.

Well, via Bo Cowgill, I ran across this:

Hollywood's two premier trade associations -- the Motion Picture Association of America and the Recording Industry Association of America -- are strongly considering replacing their current leaders, who are liberals, with prominent Republicans.

Officials at the motion picture association have privately told Republicans they want a Republican to run the organization if President Jack Valenti, a former aide to President Lyndon B. Johnson, steps down this year as expected.

I actually kinda liked the MPAA/Democrat alliance, in part because it kept all the baddies together.

If the RIAA and MPAA start veering towards the GOP and the Dems makes this a partisan battle, it could rather seriously change my views on the Republicans having control of both houses and the Presidency.

I've been waiting for this for a long time!

I've never been an online gamer, but this could change my mind. I've actually been wondering when someone would do something like this. I was coming with different genres for a VR comic book series proposal I'm working on, and this was by far my favorite.

I actually passed by Bedrock Comics on my way to lunch this afternoon. I thought about going in, but realized I still have a lot of comics I've already bought that I need to read. Which, of course, I won't until I can actually get them organized, which I can't seem to make time for.

It's so hard being me... (or something).

[Link thoughtfully provided by Michael Morgan over at Owen's]

Twenty tips for anyone wanting to become a blues singer.

6) Teenagers cain't sing the Blues. Adults sing the Blues. In Blues, "adulthood" means being old enough to get the electric chair if you shoot a man in Memphis.

[...]

10) Good places for the Blues: a) Highway; b) Jailhouse; c) Empty bed; d) Bottom of a whiskey glass. Bad places for the Blues: a) Dillard's; b) Gallery openings; c) Ivy League institutions; d) Golf courses

11) No one will believe it's the Blues if you wear a suit, 'less you happen to be a old ethnic person, and you slept in it.

12) Do you have the right to sing the Blues? Yes, if a) You older than dirt; b) You blind; c) You shot a man in Memphis; d) You can't be satisfied. No, if a) You have all your teeth; b) You were once blind but now can see; c) The man in Memphis lived; d) You have a 401K or trust fund.

[...]

18) Persons with names like Michelle, Amber, Debbie, and Heather can't sing the Blues no matter how many men they shoot in Memphis.

A really, really interesting study done on appearance and what people find attractive.

If you take a look at the picture to the left, you will quite certainly think that this is a very beautiful face. But what makes you be so sure about that? Finding answers to why we regard one face as being more beautiful than another is actually not as easy as it seems.

Nevertheless, at least in the case of the above photograph, it's not a big surprise that you think this is an attractive face. Each pixel of that face has been calculated by scientists using a specialized software program - that is, it has been altered in a special way in order to make people think this is an attractive face.

They used morphing software and created different looks and made somewhat interesting (albeit not entirely unexpected) discoveries:

This woman was found most attractive by our test subjects. Also staff of the model agency selected it as being suitable for a model career. But this person does not exist in reality - she was computed by blending together the eight most attractive original female faces. Their skin is absolutely perfect and actually looks rather artificial. But it is this kind of perfection that obviously attracts test subjects.

It covers the study and various experiments they did with it. The full report is unfortunately in German, but the English portion of the site gives you plenty to chew on.

[via Perspectivism]

"When you sleep with someone, your body makes a promise whether you do or not" -Julie Gianni (Cameron Diaz), Vanilla Sky.

"Maybe. But some promises are worth more than others." -Lex Alexander, NLJ's comments section.

A while back I wrote on a pitfall that many would-be suitors fall in to. Mostly guys, but some girls, will befriend the person they want to be more than friends with in their efforts to become more than friends with them. This leads to a plethora of unpleasent responses and counterresponses.

Now it's time for a new ubiquitous story.

A guy and a girl are hanging out at his dorm room. They're both attracted to one another. He can tell that she's at least somewhat attracted to him, but he's done a good job of keeping his poker face around her. He offers her a backrub and she accepts. While giving her the backrub, he kisses her neck. She asks what he's doing and he replies he's not sure, it just felt right. They kiss.

Two hours later, she's hugging him tightly asking "Why does this feel so right?" while he's laying there thinking about whether his paper is due at the begining of that day's class or whether he can turn it in late. That afternoon, she calls him. He asks what's up and she just says that she wants to talk. "Oh, okay," he replies and they talk. She wants to know if they're getting together that night, but he dodges the question.

A couple nights later they're together again. The fact that he hasn't made any overt gesture referring to their relationship has not escaped her attention. She finally breaks down and asks him about it, but he more or less dodges the question and simply says that he doesn't know what they have.

She's suddenly a lot more intent on a relationship, whereas he has become surprisingly adept at avoiding the question altogether. In her mind, if they keep acting like a couple, he'll realize how good a relationship with her can be and he'll want one. So she spends the night again.

As the sorta progresses, she becomes increasingly impatient. The longer this goes on, the less he really wants a relationship with her. The more impatient she gets, the less he even really wants the sex anymore. Eventually, he suggests that maybe they ought to just cool it and be friends or something. She doesn't like that idea, so he gets more sex. He sleeps easier at night knowing that he has a sex-pal and that he warned her.

"After all, if I wanted a relationship, why would I offer to stop having sex?" He says to himself.

"If he isn't interested in me, why does he keep having sex with me?" She asks herself.

Eventually he gets interested in someone else, she gets upset and then angry. He comes home from a date with his new girlfriend and she has left some twelve messages asking if he misses her and if he misses sex with her. He becomes increasingly agitated (cause he warned her, after all) and she becomes increasingly angry (how can he be so cold to her after all they shared?)

She comes out of it angry and upset, but he comes out of it just fine. After all, why shouldn't he? He got everything he wanted.

While the previous installment of Paging Dr. R. posed a variation of the Harry Met Sally Question, whether or not a man and a woman can be just friends, this installment will focus on whether or not a man and woman can have sex without strings attached.

My position of the Harry Met Sally question is that guys and girls can be friends, but only if both parties are being honest about their intentions. My position on the Sex Without Strings question is actually about the same. Unfortunately, in both cases, one party or the other is generally dishonest, leading to unfortunate results as often as not (usually more).

The problem in the above scenario isn't necessarily that they're having sex outside of a relationship. Some people do it, enjoy it, and it doesn't cause problems. Those, I'd say, are the minority. In general, one party or the other believes that the sex really means something and they're just going along because they more they do it, the more they feel that the other person will believe the same. I'd say somewhere between 75-90% of the time, it's the girl that thinks that.

Cameron Diaz's character from Vanilla Sky embodies that belief. She doesn't say the quote as a suggestion or an abstract belief, she screams it as she drives Tom Cruise at eighty miles an our down a busy road on their way off a bridge. (I'm not giving much away, that's all in the first fifteen minutes or so.) While most people are more stable than Diaz's character, variations of it occur as many variations of the scenario I wrote above do. In some cases, they're in a relationship and she wants it to be more serious. In others, the relationship is in trouble and she thinks that'll save it.

According to her and all of her friends, he will be the villain in the struggle. To an extent, it is deserved. Whatever his intentions were, he kept his cards close. He only overtly admitted that a relationship wasn't going to happen when he became uncomfortable with her aggressiveness. He's also the one who got out unscathed and unhurt, so it's natural to say that if she's hurt and he's not, surely he did something.

More of the fault, in my view, lies with her. While he wasn't completely honest, she was outright dishonest. She explicitly or implicitly demonstrated that she was fine having sex outside the context of a relationship. The gateway to sex with her was meant to be a relationship. Like the guy from my earlier scenario, she wanted something and acted as though she wanted something else. He should have known better, but she really shouldn't have expected him to. Especially when he has every incentive not to make that realization because as soon as he does, he either stops getting sex or enters a relationship he (apparently) doesn't want in to.

Now, as to my personal views on the subject, I am more or less in agreement with Heidi and Daniel in their comments below. The notion of so much as kissing someone that I don't have feelings for simply doesn't appeal to me. I suppose that I'm not a typical male in that regard. I feel the sentimental attachment of a shared moment, or shared moments. If I know ahead of time that it's not going anywhere, the feeling is hollow.

That's certainly not the case with everyone. Different people want different things from a relationship and some people simply want the physical aspects of it and are willing to put up with the rest (note: only when they have to) to get that. A lot of girls simply want the emotional support aspect of a relationship, which is why they often string some guys a lot as their "close friends" despite being aware on one level or another that's not what they're friends want.

In a way, relationships are a negotiation. The typical guy wants sex, the typical girl wants emotional support. In the scenario I wrote in April, the girl got what she wanted, so why should she give up anything more than she has to? Especially when she get can get emotional support not only from the guy-who-wishes-he-was-more but also from a boyfriend. Extra points if the boyfriend "doesn't open up easily" (is a standoffish jerk). Extra bonus points if he drives a motorcycle. On the other side, if a guy is getting sex from a girl, as the saying goes, "why buy milk when the cow is free?" Especially in the age of "sexual liberation" where sex outside a relationship is more permissable and so they can be sleeping with someone while pursuing someone else, much as the girl can be confiding in her problems with the motorcycling jerk to her friend-who-wants-more.

There are exceptions to The Negotiation Rule. Sometimes relationships occur seemlessly out of the blue where everything comes together at once. Of course, waiting for that is the subject of another post entirely. Coming soon to a blog near you, for sure.

Dear Blogger Gang,

I was actually very close to writing a spirited defense of you guys, in light of all the crap you've been recieving for blogspotted archives and the like. Then you released the new posting interface and since then I have not been very inclined to. First I couldn't find my drafts folder, then I did. Except that if I "edit" one and publish it, it disappears. So I've produced one post, but have lost two. Since they involved old links, I'll never be able to reproduce them. I also can't help but notice this new interface is only available to Blogger Pro people. Blogger Free folks have the same old boring (read: working) interface. It reminds me a bit of when I first subscribed to Blogger Pro and you guys decided to delete posts over a certain length, meaning, of course, my longest ones.

My primary defense of you guys was going to be that "free is free and it ought to be appreciated rather than berated, even if it's buggy."

I still believe that, but I can't help but notice that both of my problems exist only to Blogger Pro users. Is this a cynical attempt to get me to switch to the more expensive Blogger Plus program, or do you just hate people that give you guys money?

Sincerely,
Author Of This Blog That You Manage But Do Not Read

RAWbservations Reborn!

Dear Mr. Sandman,

I thought we had a deal. Last night, I decided I would forego sleep and clean my room. In return for your cooperation, I would be very productive. Here was what I was going to accomplish:

Two (2) organized closets.

One (1) walk-in closet that I can actually walk in to.

Fifty Bazillion (5x10^1000000000000) coins picked off the floor.

Zero (0) bathrooms that I am ashamed of.

So it was all good, right? You were going to hold off and I was going to actually use my time productively. SO WHERE THE BLOODY HECK ARE MY KEYS?!?!?! I had them when I started, now they are gone. I do not recall putting them away anywhere, but where are they? Where? Where? Where? I got places to go! Things to do! I didn't leave any food out of the freezer last night so I can't eat until I find my keys! I have a job lead to follow up on! C'mon. Where are they? Was this part of the contract:

One (1) Set of lost keys.

Or this?

One (1) Pissed off R. Alex.

Or this?!

One (1) Laughing Sandman.

I DON'T DAG GONE THINK SO! I have the contract right where... how bout that! They're where my keys are. So you just find the contract and prove me wrong. I dare you! I double-dog dare you!

Heh. That's what I thought.

Prick.

Best,
Author on the Blog You Do Not Read

PS You know I'm just joking, right? I mean, I'm about to take a nap and I need to get up in three hours or so. I'm going to need your assistence on that. So maybe in three hours you can help me get out of bed, show me where the keys are, and I'll write you a really nice poem or something. You know how much I hate writing poems, but I'd write one just for you!

I found a great job. One that I am overqualified for but would love to have.

Sounds great, right?

That's until I discovered who it was with. No, no, not big bad oil or big tobacco or any other big scary businesses.

It's a friggin' Master Plan Community Developer.

This is hilarious.

The population of an entire Shadowbane town was forcibly moved to the bottom of the sea, where they drowned. City guards turned feral and attacked town residents. Mobs of never-before-seen superpowerful creatures, seemingly spontaneously spawned from the ether, began to prowl the streets unchecked, killing characters in the most painful way possible.

[...]

Experienced players looked on in horror as new players were slowly and gleefully dismembered by ax-wielding ogres. Others just laughed and looted the characters' bodies after the ogres were done.

"If you go to what is left of the town of Khar, you will see my grave," one Shadowbane survivor wrote in an e-mail. "I never knew dying could be so hilarious -- I had a great time."

Mike Gontelli, a late arrival to the game that evening, said that when he arrived in Shadowbane "there were hundreds of tombstones. New players were being beaten and tortured. Newbie blood was flowing like a river. I knew it wasn't real, but it was oddly terrifying."

[...]

"Hallelujah, I was dead and now I'm not," said player Brian Buttoloer. "This is way better than real life. Let the games begin ? again."

[via Rebecca's Pocket]

To a writer, characters are in a way like kids. To writers like me, where characters take on a life of their own, that is particularly true. I assign them a certain set of traits, certain experiences and whatnot, but once I turn them loose, they control the action more than vice versa. In the cases of my novels, I don't generally know how precisely it's going to end until I am at least halfway through. That much is up to the characters.

So there are times I am angry at so-and-so for doing such-and-such, but I write them doing it anyway. Every now and again, my characters do die and it's sometimes, though not always, a quite tragic event. But in many ways, all their failures are a tragedy to me. They make me want to smack them over the heads, maul them, or just make me pity them.

So when Rawlings is crying over killing one of her characters, I can relate.

After writing the death scene, Rowling recalled, "I walked into the kitchen crying and Neil said to me, 'What on earth is wrong?' And I said, 'I've just killed the person.'"

You raise the characters as best ya can, but at some point you must set them free to face the world, or each other, or something conflicting that makes a story interesting.

"And he said, 'Well, don't do it then.'"

But... but... stories aren't interesting unless someone dies!!

No, this post has no point whatsoever, though Colby's does.

When Roger Ebert Hates, Hates, Hates a Movie

I don't always agree with Mr. Ebert, but I can read some of his reviews over and over and over again. In fact, these two I have:

North (Zero Stars)

I have no idea why Rob Reiner, or anyone else, wanted to make this story into a movie, and close examination of the film itself is no help. "North" is one of the most unpleasant, contrived, artificial, cloying experiences I've had at the movies. To call it manipulative would be inaccurate; it has an ambition to manipulate, but fails.

[...]

What is the point of the scenes with the auditioning parents? (The victimized actors range from Dan Aykroyd as a Texan to Kathy Bates as an Eskimo). They are all seen as broad, desperate comic caricatures. They are not funny. They are not touching. There is no truth in them. They don't even work as parodies. There is an idiocy here that seems almost intentional, as if the filmmakers plotted to leave anything of interest or entertainment value out of these episodes.

Highlander 2: The Quickening (1.5 Stars)

This movie has to be seen to be believed. On the other hand, maybe that's too high a price to pay. "Highlander 2: The Quickening" is the most hilariously incomprehensible movie I've seen in many a long day - a movie almost awesome in its badness. Wherever science fiction fans gather, in decades and generations to come, this film will be remembered in hushed tones as one of the immortal low points of the genre.

[...]

Flash forward 25 years, as the older Lambert goes to an opera, wearing a tuxedo, which people still wear despite the heat wave and the 99 percent humidity. Life in big cities has grown dangerous and criminal, although people are still alive and should not complain, considering that you would think that the total blackout on Earth might have curtailed food production, since nothing could grow.

For that matter, why isn't everything covered with a carpet of fungus? And for that matter, why is the humidity 99 percent - after all, the lack of sunlight should have (a) ended the process of cloud formation, so that, without rain, all of the water would end up in the oceans and the land would be a desert, and (b) without warmth from the sun, a new Ice Age should have begun?

[...]

FILM NOTE: "Quickening" is a process by which two people touch each other and are surrounded by special effects making it look as if one of them is standing in a puddle and the other had just stuck his finger into a light socket.

Read'em both.

In the 1950's, a town in New York named Levittown popped up and came to represent, for good or for ill, the onslaught of suburbia. Cultural critics thought it was hideous. Families who were now able to afford a home thought it was wonderful. The culture war over suburbia has been nonstop ever since. Movies such as American Beauty and SubUrbia demonstrate how oppressive these little burgs are, stiffling authenticity of every turn. Yet people keep moving to them. Cities expand, woods are cut down, and neighborhood continue to pop up.

For my part, I was raised in a little town called Taylor Lake Village. TLV shares its post office with nearby Seabrook, its fire department with Pasadena, it's phone service with Kemah, and it's police department with El Lago. In all, my parents figured out that they pay taxes to six municipalities and two counties. While the towns are all a bit different (Seabrook is more blue collar, Clear Lake is wealthy, Bay Oaks is wealthier, etc), there are counterparts on all sides of Houston (Clear Lake equals Kingwood and Cinco Ranch north and west of town respectively, Pasadena equals Humble and old Katy north and west and so on) and they exist on the outskirts of all kinds of cities. Geographically, they're all cipher's for the cities that they live in. The comfort of a small town and the utility of being near something big. They lack firm identity, style, authenticity, blah, blah, blah.

Except I don't feel that way at all. I don't know if I'll settle down in the city, suburbs, or the country. The city is appealing because since I was eighteen, I've been a city boy and have growned accustomed to being near lots of things and big places where big things happen. On the other hand, when I'm driving to San Marcos or Waco, it is amazing to drive through these little towns with so much history and so much, well, authenticity. The suburbs offer a near combination of both. There are also good suburbs and bad ones. There are suburbs that people will grow up and look at as simply "the place I grew up" but there will also be those that people will look back at as "my home town."

So while there are suburbs I'd really enjoy living in, there are others that would drive me insane and that represent the harshest words of the critics' derisions. Taylor Lake Village falls somewhere in between, but closer to the ideal. Nearby, though, is Clear Lake and the loathsome Master Planned Communities. Where I come from (and I don't know how universal this is), they are the most soulless, lifeless, and plastic entities I have ever seen. They are wealthy, immaculate, posh, and I would sooner live in a trailer park than in any one of them.

My first criticism, similar to that of those critics of Levittown, is that all the houses are built exactly the same. One after another with the same layout, same brick pattern, and same color scheme. Sometimes one person on the street will start feeling really adventurous and will put up a basketball hoop. They are utterly uniquitous and bland and I can just imagine former residents who grew up there going into the wrong house because they 1991 Oak Bend Forest Park Court Drive as 1661 and couldn't tell which house was theirs. The house they grew up in is the same as all the houses next to them and around them and in neighborhoods built by the same Master Plan Community builder fifteen hundred miles away.

Levittown was, for most of its residents, the first chance they had at a home. They were moving out of apartments and slums and so the utilitarian nature in which Levittown was built was a godsend to them because it allowed them a chance to afford a house they would not otherwise have. For residents of mass production model homes in Houston suburbia, that is not so much the case. They could just as easily have a relatively nice house in Taylor Lake Village or Seabrook, but the houses in Bay Oaks are just so much bigger and nicer and state-of-the-art(less). Numerous people that I know actually moved out of the regular joe burns into the mass production variety as they moved up the corporate ladder.

This alone wouldn't bother me (to each their own, after all) were it not for the inevitable, irresistable temptations of these commuties to conform and that conformance to be enforce vigorously by Home Owner's Associations. Now, HOA's are not unique to Master Planned Communities. My subdivision in TLV has a somewhat active HOA that keeps fences from getting too high, pressures certain residents to mow their lawns, and keeps cars from being parked on the lawns. They want to keep things from going the way of less-maintained Seabrook and I understand that. What they generally don't do (to my knowledge) is tell people what hue of brown or off-white their houses must be painted, how often the lawns must be mowed (within reason), what kind of regulation sprinklers are allowable, and so on.

They don't do these things for a very good reason: There's no point. Does it really matter if our pillars are painted a lighter shade of brown than our neighbors when they have a red brick driveway with a big stucco wall and we have a standard concrete driveway and wooden fence? But when you have houses that were all designed and built by the same people at the exact same time, two different shades of brown can clash, y'know. A green sprinkler with a yellow one next door? That just stands out. Home Owners Associations are generally run by the busibodies that give a crap, so they notice these things and as such apply onerous regulations so that nothing stands out and there's nothing to offend anyone.

A couple years back, I was at a political gathering where the topic of HOAs came up. I voiced my opinion, figuring a liberal fellow like the man I was talking to would agree, but he just shook his head and said, "You don't understand. Irregularities depreciate property values. A stronger Home Owner's Association is good for your investment. You'll see when it's your turn to buy a house."

Hopefully he's wrong and I won't. I don't want to live in an investment or a property value. I want to live in a house. A home.

Which all brings me to the impetus for this post. Kevin linked to an article in the Houston Chronicle about the Sugar Land City Inspector's office.

Sugar Land residents like the laws that give the city its golf course-like appearance. But the sign restrictions can sometimes rub people the wrong way when they are looking for the family's lost cocker spaniel or launching a new sandwich shop.

"The philosophy we have had in place for years is that people move here because of the appearance and the orderliness of the community," said City Manager Allen Bogard.

One way the orderliness is maintained is by removing illegal signs, such as those for garage sales. The signs are fair game for inspectors.

"I used to pick them up and take them back to the owner and explain they were illegal. After I got chewed out and was called names several times, I just threw them in the back of the truck and kept going," [City Inspector] May said.

May, a code enforcement inspector for almost two years, covers the area south of U.S. 59. It includes almost all of the city's new neighborhoods, many of which are part of the First Colony master-planned community.

First Colony subdivision designs include extensive landscaping. Homeowner associations are very active in those neighborhoods, and that makes May's job a little easier.

I'm certain that they do. Given my experiences in the Clear Lake area, it's not remarkably surprising that these codes are supported. Property values, you know. Investments!

I can understand the desire to have a town be attractive. I'll get off my high horse for a moment and say that Seabrook's tendency to have cars in their front lawns on cinder blocks is enough to keep even me from moving in there. But a garage sale sign? How is someone supposed to have a garage sale if they can't advertise it? Is it really such a crime to have an 8.5x11 sign posted on a power line for a garage sale? Little posted signs for web training or whatnot I can understand, but c'mon, a garage sale.

Something tells me that First Colony residents are probably not all that hip on the concept of a garage sale. After all, they're all well paid people. Who needs a quarter for an old book that they could throw away? Besides, those garage sales attract all those cars. Those cars obstruct the green of the regulation-mowed lawns and paint-by-number houses. Oh, and I'm sorry if you lost your dog and would give anything to get it back, but your sign detracts from the beauty that is out neighborhood (yes, the article says that lost dog posters are also banned).

In TLV, there were always some curmudgeons that would get mad at us if we walked across their lawns. There were also biddies who'd get their panties in an uproar when so-and-so put up a basketball hoop or whatnot. But kids want to play basketball. Some people like having their old stuff go to good use by selling it to a neighbor for a quarter. People actually care about their runaway dogs!

I would like more than to just live in a home instead of a property value or investment. I'd like to live in a neighborhood where people don't just admire their surroundings, but, you know, actually live in them.

I'm working on some of the backstory of my Slaughter series and need the help of people who live, have lived, have spent significant periods of time, or know a lot of regions outside of Texas. I am creating a chain of interconnected cities in the form of a college conference (possibly two). The cities are not particularly large (cap off at 100-250k or so, some smaller). Here's the deal, though, I don't know where to put them. Well, I know where some of them go:

Northwestern Colorado
Southern Louisiana
Texas Gulf Coast
Arizona

By putting one of them in Louisiana, I may have already done myself some damage (and may ultimately move it if I need to). So anyhow, I need 10-20 cities that would be representative of each region. Obviously, it's going to need to be really broad (otherwise Texas could have four or five alone). But in the same way that Texans identify themselves as Texans, I need other regions to be represented so that, for instance, someone who lives in North Carolina could go to college in Georgia or Idaho to Colorado or Mississippi to Alabama. Some states are going to be a bit crossways, such as Missouri, which is part south and part mid-west.

Another thing, I use the word contigious because I can't seem to find a more descriptive one. I don't define the states in a "contigious" region as being interchangable, but think of it this way: You are applying for colleges and don't really want to leave your state. However, you are offered a full-paid scholarship and just about everything you want from a neighboring state. If you live in Wisconsin but get an offer from Minnesota, that's not such a big deal. However, the difference between Nevada and California is somewhat more pronounced. I also know people that will never ever leave Texas, so I had to give it its own region. I don't know what other states have that kind of "state patriotism" if any. Also, for the sake of simplicity, I'm looking at the continental US only. Alaska and Hawaii are special cases that I'm dealing with seperately.

So here's what I have in mind:

I figure if I put a college in Northern California that would cover the Pacific states.
Colorado will cover the rocky mountain and general western region.
Arizona would cover portions of southern california, Arizona, New Mexico, and some of west Texas.
Texas would cover most of Texas except the western-most part of the state as well as Oklahoma, which would probably feel a lot more at home in Phoenix than Corpus Christi.
Kansas would cover most of the Midwest column of states, some of Iowa, Arkansas, and Missouri.
Virginia would cover the Mid-Atlantic region with Maryland. Could West Virginia be considered in this area? Massachusetts?
Wisconsin would cover the Scandanavian-American states, such as Minnesota. It would also cover some of Iowa. Maybe?
South Carolina would cover the southeastern states. Could this include the non-Panhandle parts of Florida (which go to the South) or would Florida need its own region? Considering the high immigration rates (from abroad and other states), how contigious is it?
Ohio would cover the Rust Belt, including Pennsylvania, Michigan, Indiana, and portions of New Jersey.
I am undecided as to whether or not Southern Louisiana can cover the South. An acquaintance I know described it as such, and I know of the heavy French influence in New Orleans, but outside of it, the only area that I know very well is Lake Charles, which is Alabama with gambling. Anyone else know?
I'm conflicted on the northeast. Is New York contigious enough to get its own? Is there such a thing as New York (state) pride in the same sense that there is Texas pride? I have the same questions here as I do regarding Florida.
Whether NY gets its own, it seems that the other areas of New England would need one, at the least for Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine. Say I stick it in Vermont. Would putting Massachusetts here be a stretch? Where would Massachusetts go? Or would Vermont, founded by a lot of exiled New Yorkers, just need to go there? I don't know enough about the region.

I believe that I have most areas covered. I'm still missing a few states that I don't know enough about: Kentucky, West Virginia, Massachusetts, and Illinois (which I suspect will be like Missouri, split up between regions). Anyone have some input for me?

Father's Day ended four and a half hours ago, but I feel compelled to post on it, even if I miss the deadline.

Instead of simply writing about why my father is important to me or how much I love him, I'll simply tell two stories.

Some of you may be shocked to learn that I wasn't the perfect kid when I was growing up. In grade school, my marks from teachers were rather poor. They were bad enough that the counseller tried to exempt me from the CAT standardized test to keep our school's grades up. Most of my teacher's liked me okay, but when you don't pay attention in class or turn in homework, there's only so much they can do for you. Throughout elementary school, they just bumped my grade up to 70 (which in Texas is the lowest passing grade K-12). When I got to Intermediate school I had a teacher who was not so accomodating. My grade in the first six weeks was a 60, ten points below passing.

When parents have a failing kid, there are a number of reactions they have. Some don't care, some say "do better next time", some yell and curse, others mete out punishment. My parents could see that this was more than just a slip-up and unless something changed, it wasn't going to be an isolated incident. But my father isn't the type to yell or get angry. Instead, he sat me down and explained what we were going to do to improve my grades. They personally met with every teacher I had (not just the one I failed with) and gave them a stamped post card. If I ever missed an assignment or failed a test, they said to just write a note and send the post card. Though I wasn't punished for failing that first class (the deed was done), it was understood that I would be grounded for each and every assignment that I did not turn in.

More importantly, Dad sat down with me every night and I had to explain to him what we did in class that day. If there was homework, he wanted to see it. Dad worked full time at NASA, enjoyed sports as much as anyone, and had a hundred other things he could have been doing with his time. Instead, he sat down with me and helped me work through the math problems that plagued me, the science that I hated, and the English writing and reading material that I had so much difficulty producing and reading. He didn't back off and tell me that I just needed to find a way to do better, nor did he simply pass it off as the school's problem for failing me or failing to teach me. It wasn't something the district had to do or just something I had to do, it was something we all did together. I never failed another class and I made straight A's my last two grading periods at Seabrook Intermediate.

By the time I was in high school, I didn't need his help anymore. In December of 2001, I graduated college with thirty honors class hours to my credit and were it not for some unrelated troubles my senior year, I likely would have graduated with honors. I can honestly say that there is no way that would have happened had my father not been willing to roll up his sleeves and take a pro-active role in my education.

The second story also took place in the sixth grade. In addition to my academic troubles, I was just starting to test my boundaries and what I could and could not get away with. While I wasn't busting hub-caps, I was clearly breaking rules that I knew I was expected to obey. It all came to a head when I had forged a note from my parents to get back a magazine I was reading when I should have been listening to the teacher. I was in deep crapola and I knew it.

When he got back in to town he sat me down and gave me a very calm lecture on honesty, following the rules, and doing what's right even when you don't think you'll get caught. He handed down a month of no television, computer, video games, or friends. What I'll never forget was the worst punishment he handed down of all. Right before he left me to think about what I'd done, he said "I don't know when I'm going to be able to trust you again."

Coming from my father with his even temper and Mid-Western sensibilities, there was nothing he could have done to make me feel more low. Compared to that, being grounded was nothing. I ended up getting off my grounding half a week early, but I really didn't care about that. I wanted to know when Dad would trust me again.

It takes a tremendous man to have that kind of moral authority with his rebellious thirteen year old son, but my father is that kind of man.

Dateline:
Hall of Masks
Netherworld
Friday, May 23, 2003

We all have a face
that we hide away forever
and we take them out
and show ourselves
when everyone else is gone

Some are satin, some are steel,
some are silk, and some are leather
They're the faces of the stranger
but we love to try them on
Billy Joel, "The Stranger"

It all starts with Ora.

One of my lesser known talents is acting. There are various methods to acting, two of the more dominant in my mind are outside-in acting compared to inside-out. Outside-in acting is primarily taking your own experiences and using them to fuel the emotions of the character that you play. If you need to cry, you simply recall something sad that's happened in your life and the tears will fall. I tend to use Inside-out acting. That is, instead of using my outside experiences for the inside role, I internalize the character I am supposed to be playing and, in my mind, become it. Once you've got yourself convinced, everyone else is easy.

I use it a lot when it comes to my writing. I act out the parts that I am playing and putting myself in their position, which is largely what fuels my skill with characterization and, more specifically, dialogue. I've also lent my voice to four roles in No-Lyfe Productions and have participated in various other amateur productions, that's not precisely what I mean. Most of those roles are too superficial to go into that much depth over.

What I'm really referring to is self-directing. Acting out a role not necessarily of someone else, but of who I would like to be. We all do this as we grow up. We try on different personalities until, theoretically, we find one that fits. I was certainly no different as I went from a free-spirited kid to someone who strived to fit in to someone who really didn't care that much. I never really did the goth thing or the kikker one, but that probably had as much to do with my mother's thrift in clothe shopping as anything else.

What I'm talking is a conscious effort to be someone that I am not in order to better myself according to some standard or another. As my sixth grade science teacher used to say, "fake it till you feel it." That's precisely what I did and it all started with Ora.

Ora was the first girl that I ever loved for who she was, not who I imagined to be and definitely not by how she made me feel, because she made me feel like cow dung. She didn't try, mind you, but that was just the way that things were with the high school mentality and all. She was a late bloomer when it came to discovering boys and when we met, she didn't have realistic ideas as to what she really wanted and, perhaps as importantly, what was obtainable to her. As such, she tended to bypass the obtainable me for the unobtainable other.

It all came to a head on July 12, 1996, when after receiving information that she still loved me, I made a last-ditch attempt to wreste her away from her boyfriend. I failed and I don't know that either of us were ever the same again. For her part, she lost one of her best friends and most loyal stalwarts. She would come to realize her mistake a year later, but by then, I'd made my changes and I was not up for reopening the past.

The day after it all went down, when I woke up, I felt like I didn't have an identity anymore. It wasn't just because Ora rejected me, though that was certainly a part of it. If she didn't love me for who I was, I reasoned, then why would anyone. That's a thought that might have harmlessly passed by (all adolescents have that thought after their first heartbreak) were it not for everyone else. I hadn't realized how much my friendship with her benefitted me socially. When the crapola hit the fan, all of our mutual friends (which is to say most of mine) took her side. Even those that didn't no longer felt the need to be particularly nice to me, and during that long month, I realized that I wasn't as highly regarded as I had previously thought.

So I ended up laying low and just watching people. I took mental notes on what alienated people and how one could become highly regarded. I realized, with painfully clear vision, everything that I had done wrong. I knew it was time to change and that was when I first came here, to the Hall of Masks. It was all relatively benign at first. I needed to control my temper and smile more often to be highly regarded. I needed to learn to be more protective of my feelings. All good things. But once I slipped the steel mask on, everything changed.

I tend to use broad language, saying that I was being "something that I was not" but that isn't entirely true. The steel mask did not -- and could not -- create an entity from scratch. Rather, it brought out sides of me that had previously been hidden. Many of them were good, such as objective insights into the way that people work. It also suppressed some of my negative characteristics and thankfully my former spitfire temper never truly resurfaced. But there were key parts of me that the mask kept hidden. The steel mask's identity, which I call The Second (The First being my identity pre-mask), took on a life of its own.

Rather than simply making me a better person, it turned on the old parts of me that didn't fit. Like andogens to a rejected implanted heart, it mercilessly suppressed the emotions that didn't fit in with The Second. It struck at the negative aspects such as the temper and the jealousy, but it didn't stop there. The mask wanted to remove any and all emotions that could stage a mutiny and oust the identity that it had created. Just when it had assumed victory, The First started fighting back. The resurgence of the alien heart took place sporadically at first. The Second chalked it up to stress, but as time progressed the steel mask became weaker and weaker. It was a troubled time for every aspect of me that was involved, but the primary casualty was my four year relationship with Anna, which effectively ended when the mask split in two.

Nature abhors a vaccuum and The First took temporary control until things broke with Elciem. The Third was borne of a soft clay mask. When it rained, it got hard. When it was hot, it would become putty and if I wasn't careful, it would come off and my true face would be revealed. Most of the time, though, it was maleable. I could make it look like whatever I wished it to. I could become whomever I wanted. At first I reshaped the mask to fit Elciem's mold, but once that ended, I was left with infinite possibilities. Because I was unbeholden to Elciem -- or anyone, for that matter -- I could look like whatever I wanted. This period of my life has been marked by a previously undemonstrated ability to bend with the winds. Post-Elciem, the only goal was not to burn any bridges and, ultimately, to have no goal.

Yet fragments of The First and The Second remained. Shards of desire for money and writing. It isn't that I have been lazy so much as my goals have been crosswired. I've simultaneously wanted the stability of the steel and the freedom of The First's rubber face. Eventually, like both of its predecessors, it began eroding once decisions had to be made. When I became increasingly dissatisfied with my career path, when I noticed disturbing patterns in my dating habits, and I found myself growing year by year without being wiser for the wear.

When I first met Lisa, I never suspected that she would have any profound effect on me. I could tell from the start that the relationship wasn't going anywhere and that was of a comfort to me. I had, after all, avoided those with whom I felt a more genuine relationship was possible. It was an easy way to make a decision (for a relationship) without making a decision with consequences.

But, of course, all actions have consequences and Lisa reminded me of that. But that was only part of the effect that she had on me. When I became increasingly aware of her psychoses, I emotionally distanced myself. When I felt that I may be in danger, I waited until I was sure it was safe and left. Thoughts of her, however, lingered. Partly because of our Wednesday conversations and partly because a girl I met a couple months later had some of the same problems, which lead me to wonder why I seemed to gravitate towards such people.

Two nights ago, when I left the Starbucks after a particularly contentious discussion, I noticed what frightened me the most about her. I'd determined that she was more-or-less harmless and so it wasn't the veiled threats. It wasn't that she was a drama queen compared to my stability-seeking demeanor. It wasn't our differences at all, it was our similarities.

One thing that stuck in my mind was how much she wanted to make an impression on me. Not a positive one, necessarily, just a big one. To do so, she took on a number of identities and wore a number of masks. She was a rebel (getting kicked out of public places), a mystic (was visited by a "demi-god" in the third grade, giving her mystical powers -- I kid you not), a homemaker (she loved to cook), and just about any strange combination she could find. Over and over again she'd ask me, "Does that surprise you?" or "Does that intrigue you?"

Our masks were different, as were our goals. I used masks as a face through which to see the world, adding to the certainty and avoiding ambiguities I've never done well with. Mine were utilitarian faces of rubber, steel, and clay. Hers, on the other hand, were like ancient Greek theatre masks. Whereas her face could not explicitly wear connotations of a rebel, mystic, or homemaker, the masks conveyed that splendidly. Like me, though, she kept whoever the "real her" is a riddle wrapped in an enigma. Despite all of our conversations, I don't know who she really is at heart. I know her name, I know the things she's done and the masks she's worn, but I don't know who resides behind it. She's as afraid to show me as I have historically been to show my bare face to the world.

My Melodrama Crisis and the Me Myself and I Saga were, in a way, doomed from the start. I couldn't get the answers because I was asking the wrong questions. I wanted to know what I should do and, by extention, who I should be. I wanted to know what I needed to do and who I needed to be. Through I'm not sure the precise wording I used in the questions, I never seriously asked what I wanted to do and who I am.

To be sure, I am not self-ignorant. I can say that I probably know myself better than do most people know themselves. There are certain things that I am good at. I am intelligent, articlate, probing, curious, and a slew of other things. What I've failed to understand is what I am not. Or, maybe though I understood them, I could not bring myself to apply it. I have always used masks to exceed my expectations of myself. There's certainly a lot of good to be had in that, but often in search of improving my weaker points I neglect the stronger ones that energize me. In a sense, with everyone that I meet, I am putting my worst foot forward.

There have been many times in my life where I have failed. If I'd followed the ambitious courses I've set out on in my life, I'd be a lawyer by now pulling in a six figure salary for my expertise in intellectual properties. I might also be married and have a child (or two). Or maybe I would have seen the relationship as a no-go from the start and spared Anna a lot of pain. But with every failure comes a lesson. Every lesson, however, is not applicable everywhere all of the time. Failure does not consistently warrant putting on a new face. It warrants reflection and once I have a clear understanding of what happened and why, my gut will tell me if I'm about to do the same thing.

In the future, I think I'll listen to it more often. I'm also going to start listening to the self behind the mask. The one that instinctively tells me how good someone or something is for me. I think ever since The Second took charge in 1996, I've been afraid to hand over the keys to the self that created such catastrophe that a new mask was unavoidable. But who I am, at my core, is not that sixteen year old kid. Even in my most private, selfish, and petty moments, I've grown a great deal. So while I know a lot about myself, I don't know what the aggregate of it all means, and I think it's time to find out.

If I would give myself a chance
To find out who I am
I might turn out to be
Someone I like
Given the time
Cary Pierce, "Given the Time"

On June 13, 1996, I discovered that I didn't have to be who I always was. This was a mixed blessing.
On December 17, 2000, I determined that my relationship with Anna was functionally over and let her go. Fortunately for everyone involved, she was snatched up by Pierce in double-time.
On October 23, 2001, I left something that was making me miserable and proved, once and for all, I can survive a heartbreak more-or-less intact.
On October 23, 2002, I had a bite to eat with Elciem. She told me that her life was not working out as she'd hoped. When we parted ways, I wished her well and, for the first time in a year, honestly meant it.
On May 27, 2003, I sent Lisa the following email (some personal portions edited out):

Lisa,

I've been thinking about you since our last Wednesday bout. I'm tired of arguing, tired of fighting, and tired of watching you oscillate between blaming me for all of your problems and claiming that I never meant anything to you. It would be one thing if I felt like we were accomplishing something, but we're quite clearly not. I've tried to remain on civil and speaking terms with all the figures in my romantic past, but between us "speaking" and "civil" are mutually exclusive.

So I will not be online tonight. In fact, I'm going to keep my ICQ disconnected for the remainder of the week. Whenever I'm out on Wednesday, you either call me, come over, or wait until Thursday. If you call me, I will not answer. If you come over, I won't be here. If I find out that you've hung around my apartment for hours waiting for me to come home, I will file a complaint with the authorities. I am absolutely serious about this. You are no longer invited to be a part of my life.

[...]

I am not to blame for all of your problems. I know that they proceded me and unless you truly confront them, they will continue to do so. If you need help, get help. If you need (uhm, legal) drugs, take them. If you choose to simply find another verbal punching bag, there isn't much I can do about that. You have everything you need to be happy at your disposal.

[...]

I know that you're concerned about me, but I ask that you let that, as well as me, go. For my part, I've spent much of the year soul-searching and have only found hours wasted trying nail down an uncertain future. At the end of the day, I don't need to "find myself" because I'm right here. I don't know where I'll be six months from now, but I do know that no matter how much I think about it right now, I still won't know.

We have the rest of our lives in front of us and I'm going to start acting like it.

[...]

Take care,
Alex

PS If you respond to this email, I may or may not read it, but I will not respond.

On June 8th, the Fourth was christened and everything changed again.

[Back to Collage]

[Note: Revised and images removed]

Dateline:
Pasadena Blvd.
Pasadena, TX
Sunday, December 17, 2000, early morning

I've driven down Pasadena Blvd. hundreds of time. It's the preferred route from the University to Anna's house. I don't remember it being this long of a drive. Then again, it's not every day I'm driving home to break off a four year relationship. Hopefully, this will be the first and last time. I just got finished talking to Pierce about it.

When I told Anna about my doubts, and that they were probably terminal ones, she requested that a number of people talk to me before I do anything rash. Those that knew were taken aback as much as she was. About three days ago I talked to Sola, who was a relatively easy sell. Since Sola knew me longer than Anna, I was certain that I'd get her support. Though I've been friends with Pierce longer than I've known Anna, I knew from the start he'd be a tougher sell. He didn't buy my rationale and questioned me on every turn.

I don't know how ironic that all is because I do not yet know that, a month after the breakup, Pierce and Anna will get together. Within six months, they'll be living together. His inability to convince me will turn out to be the luckiest failure of his life. A year from now, he'll thank me for breaking things off with her and give me this obnoxious look like "you made the biggest mistake of your life."

There will even be times where I'll wonder that myself. When what now looks like a promising prospect with a girl I just met named Elciem falls apart, and when I spend the next year-and-a-half trying to avoid the dual mistakes of Anna and Elciem, I'll wonder if being in a loveless relationship was really such a bad thing. It's going to hit me hardest almost exactly 18 months from now, when I'll begin to wonder if it's too late to have any regrets.

I'm not thinking about any of that as I drive, though, because I don't know about it. Right now, I've never been more certain that I am doing the right thing.

At first, I thought it was a fluke. There was this young lady from the suburbs of Dallas who had caught my eye. She practically fell all overherself announcing her availability to me, but I wasn't available. Oddly, I went to great pains to avoid telling her that I wasn't, all the while trying to explain, with one false reason or another, why we couldn't be together. It wasn't until I found myself swigging whiskey, watching her dance with some other guy, and feeling jealousy for the first time in years that I realized there was a real problem with Anna and I. I can't even say it was the liquor talking. I wasn't thinking those thoughts because I was drunk, I was getting drunk to drown the thoughts from out of my mind. I hate whiskey.

The more time passed, and the more I started planning to propose, the deeper the knot in the pit of my stomach became. Sure, there was a period of euphora, but once that fell away all that was left was the feeling that I was about to make the biggest mistake of my life. Though I had no idea why. Then I started finding reasons. One after another. All very practical, all very stupid.

That's where Pierce was most helpful. Through his grilling, I was able to get down to the guts of it all. It wasn't so much about law school or money. Those were just the last defenses. I mistakenly thought they the cause, but rather it was just that once they were peeled away, I saw that the most crucial missing element was my feelings for her. Absent that, the superficialities mattered all the more.

Somewhere along the way, my emotions got derailed. I thought that I was just being strong, but I was really just being hard. When I thought I was being independent, I was instead being isolated. I've become so afraid of being hurt that I've beep building up walls that have not only kept the new pain out, but locked the old ones in.

A week from now, Elciem is going to see through my unhappiness and, despite my best intentions to stay single, I'm going to fall again. Having been out of the emotional game for so long, I'm going to do so stupidly and in reckless disregard for everything that mattered to me a year ago. All because I spent so much time holding all the emotions in.

How did that happen?

[Part Six]

Dateline:
House of Pies - Westheimer Location
Houston, TX
Wednesday, October 23, 2002

I pace back and forth, looking out into the street and seeing my own reflection. No passing cars. No cars turning in. Certainly none of them being driven by Elciem. Given the standard hour-late window she's always gotten, she is three minutes from being officially late even by the diminished expectations I learned to give her. It's fitting, in a way. Tardiness and absenteism rank high among the reasons that things never worked out between us. Whether they were the symptoms, as I suspected, or the illness, as she suspected, it was always the cloud hanging over our head. Now, a year later, a year to the date that we parted ways, history repeats itself.

My cell phone starts lighting up, ringing, and vibrating to make sure I am aware that I'm recieving a phone call. I glance at the number. It's not Elciem, it's Polly.

"Is she there yet? Is she there yet? Huh? Huh? Is she there yet?" she asks in the voice of an impatient child.

"Cute. How many times must a comedy repeat itself before it officially becomes tragedy?"

"So she's not, then?"

"No. She's... 3... 2... 1... officially running late."

This was, of course, nothing new for Elciem. It, in fact, embodied almost the entirety of 2001. I would say that I spent more of that year waiting on Elciem than I did on any other single activity. Waiting for her to call, to show up, or even just send an email. It got so bad that I appreciated it when she called, an hour after we were supposed to meet, to tell me that she wasn't going to make it. A third of the time, she didn't even do that.

I remember the instant I knew it was over. She'd missed her half-hour window graded on the most lenient curve. Blind Luck had already been on stage for half an hour by my estimation. I didn't know it at the time, but it was their last concert in Houston before they broke up. I barely cared. The sickness in my stomach, they eyebrows weighted by anvils of anger. I was so angry I could barely breathe. That wasn't the instant, though. It was over the second my breath resumed, my eyebrows turned to position, and my muscles relaxed. It ended when I was no longer angry.

How could I be? She'd only done what she'd been doing all along. I didn't have to make any more threats or devise anymore gameplans to make her realize how stupid she was being. I didn't even have to ask myself what I was going to do. The writing was on the wall.

Yet it remained in the corner of my eye, like a optical illusion. I'd turn to look at the wall, and it wasn't there. It wasn't even a wall. It was a window where my reflection looked back at me. It was writing enough, I suppose. Besides, when I'd look away, there the red writing would be in the corner of my eye. How long had it been there? I don't think I wanted to know. I just knew I was going to listen to it.

It took three weeks for it to finally happen, in a Target parking lot of all places. I was sitting on the bench, smoking a cigarette, while she stood there. She was holding her wavy red hair back with her hand, keeping it out of her eyes. It was cool and moist and there were frazzles of her hair flipping in the breeze. She wore a gray sweater with a black skirt. Behind her to her left was the Starbucks where we started the conversation. To her right were our cars, parked appropriately opposite of one another. I wasn't mad, she wasn't aloof. When she told me that she didn't feel all that guilty for all the times that she stood me up, I didn't flinch. When she said that her only mistake was failing to let me walk away, I could only nod in agreement. It was what I'd been telling her for some time.

Ten minutes later, I was in my car driving away and trying to absorb that it was finally over. She'd mustered the strength to do the only really selfless thing she'd done in the entire relationship: Let me go.

"If you'd like, you can wait at a table, Sir," the host informs me.

"No, that's alright. If she's not here in about ten minutes, I'll be leaving," I told him. As I glanced up from my watch, I could see Elciem driving by and pulling into a parking space. I could tell it was her by the way she lifted her head and looked down as she drove. It was as if she was short and always trying to look over the dashboard, except she wasn't. Once upon a time, I probably found that intriguing or profound.

When she walks in, I smile as big as I can muster, which isn't much. She apologizes for being late. I joke that I'm used to it by now. She fakes a huff and I tell her that I'm not joking. Except that I'm not joking, she really is huffing, I'm not okay with it, and she's not sorry for it. Just like old times.

We make our way to the table and engage in small talk. My mouth breaks into a smile when I see her hands. Her once professionally French manicured nails were filed away to stubs. It's splendid. She'd always given me grief in 2001 for being unemployed while she boasted her nice job. Now here I am making more money than she ever did while she's on the unemployment lines. Of course, I do not yet realize that in about six months, I will be joining her there. For right now, though, I can enjoy the delicious schadenfreude. And I do. Immensely.

I'd love to say that I took it well after it ended. I'd love to. The saddest part of the affair was when it had just ended and my goal in life was to vindicate myself. I had to prove that I was going to be happy and she was going to be miserable. I had to be happy not so that I could be happy, but just so that I could prove her wrong and demonstrating that she needed me more than I needed her. Not so I could rub it in her face, because we weren't talking at the time, but so I could settle it in my own mind. I was more worried about being wrong than being miserable.

Then again, I don't know if I had the levity to handle it right to begin with. After something like that, I'm not sure anyone does. These days, I wonder if I would have come around in about the same time if I had just let myself be hurt. But really, that's the one thing I never could have allowed myself to be. If I had, you see, she'd have won. So I spent the next year -- today is the one year anniversary of our parting ways, to the day -- trying to prove that I was unaffected.

I've dated a fair number of people. Some wonderful, others dreadful. It's kind of odd to think about because I'm not really the "dating" kind. I'm the relationship kind. Yet I vascillate between liking my freedom and the horror of being alone. Not because I can't handle being alone, mind you, but because if I am alone, even if I'm happy, she'll never see it that way. She'll see that she was right all along: I needed her more than she needed me.

So I've split the middle and become, despite the fact that every ounce of me rejects it, the "dating kind." So far so good, though. I have a plethora of people to tell Elciem about should it come up. Except that I won't tell her. I never do. She's been dying to know what's been going on in my life, and I won't tell her. Even if I am dating someone magnificent, I won't tell her. That drives her crazy. It's the only power that I have left.

The subject finally comes up and she starts talking about her relationship. The one she got in to right after -- and I mean right after -- we parted ways. The one that she committed to on a level that she never committed to me. When she talks about how miserable it is with him, how miserable she's making him, and how miserable that makes her, I successfully hold back my smile. I offer her advice because she wants sympthy and that's the one thing that I can't give her.

Then she says it. I don't know where it came from and I certainly never expected her to say it, but she did. "God, Alex, you're lucky you got away."

Never before have I felt such powerful vindication. It's what I wanted to be true, what I had convinced myself was true. And here she was saying it. I am certainly a lot better off than her boyfriend.

But there was something in her sigh and the way the she looked away from me, down at the table, as she huffed it. Then when she says that she's the same miserable person now than when we first met, I can't help but feel a tinge of sorrow because that was, after all, the Elciem that I fell in love with.

Our first date was at an IHOP because it was at three in the morning. I remember when we were talking and I portrayed myself as mainly contented. She disagreed, saying that there was a tightness around my eyes. My smile was forced. She saw that when no one else did. It was such a desolate time in my life as I watched a relationship of four years drift away and I had to convince myself that I didn't care. It took someone else to tell me that my feelings mattered.

What could have made me fall for such a parlor trick?

[Part Five]

Dateline:Starbucks
Clear Lake, TX
Wednesday May 21, 2003

Lisa and I are at a Starbucks in Clear Lake. I'm in town getting ready for a trip to Oklahoma. My roommate unknowingly told her where I was and when she found out I was in the area, she called me. I agreed to meet her here because I know, if I didn't, she would have shown up at my parent's house. It's Wednesday, and she always tracks me down on Wednesdays. With the exception of one week, we've spoken every Wednesday since the one in January when we broke up.

It's interesting that we chose to meet at Starbucks since neither of us are coffee drinkers. Caffiene is one of the approximately eight billion things that she is allergic to, so she's sipping on hot chocolate while I down caramel chocolate machiata, which is the only coffee I drink because it tastes so little like the real thing.

"So do you regret it yet?" She asks. "I think you regret it."

"Regret what?" I ask, fully aware of the answer.

"Us. Or the fact that there isn't an 'us' anymore."

"I can't regret us," I matter-of-factly reply.

"What do you mean you can't?"

"I won't let myself."

"Augh! What do you mean you don't 'let' yourself feel regret?"

"Was there a word in there beyond your college-educated vocabulary?"

She says nothing, just piercing through me with her brown eyes.

"I mean that even if I thought ending our relationship was a mistake," I begin before lifting my hands and amplifying my voice slightly for the disclaimer, "and I don't! -- I wouldn't let myself feel that it was a mistake because there's nothing I can do about it."

"If you won't let yourself feel it, how do you know it's real?"

"It's not real because I don't feel it. Besides, even if I did let myself feel that way I wouldn't for you because we were wrong from the start," I explain for the eight-billion, six-hundred-thousand, and forty-third time, wherebouts.

"But how do you know you wouldn't feel it if you let yourself? How am I supposed you know?"

"You should know because I'm telling you, in as clear language as I can, that leaving you was the right thing to do. For you, for me, for everyone."

"But you wouldn't admit it even if you were wrong because there isn't anything you can do about it?"

"Luckily I don't have to prevent myself from admitting something because it was the right thing to do!"

"You are such a lost cause."

"Thank you, can I go now?"

"Only if you tell me honestly whether or not you think breaking up with me was a mistake."

"Would you believe me if I told you the answer was no?"

"No," she answers. That's one thing I always liked about her. She's honest. Psychotic, perhaps, but direct.

We met some five months ago. We met on a Wednesday, got together on a Wednesday, and broke up on a Wednesday. That's why we have these chats.

Things weren't this harsh at first, as I'm sure you can imagine. I tried harder, then. I figured I could because it was going to be a temporary relationship and I wouldn't have to worry about pacing myself. After all, we'd both agreed it was going to be temporary. Get together, have fun, seperate. Repeat process with someone else a little further down the line. This was my groove and I was sticking to it.

Unfortunately, I was trying too hard and she declared me the nicest boyfriend that she's ever had. She also completely reversed course from the fast-track temporary relationship to a collision course, changing her mind and declaring me the first person in years that she could get serious about.

By then it was too late for me. I'd started detecting odd behavior on her part. She had a flair for the dramatic, which I was used to. However, she took it a step further. She could list, off-hand, five psychological disorders that she suffers. She did, in fact, on our first date. She kept saying that she was just being honest and direct, which she was, but she had a certain enthusiasm when she said it. She would look closely at me to gauge my reaction. Not because she was worried I might react unfavoraly, but rather she wanted to see if I was interested. Rather, she wanted to see if she could be interesting to me. By reciting all of her disorders like letters on a letter jacket. What kind of people has she been with? I asked myself.

I later found out. A number of abusive exes. Two of them are dead now, one suicide and one car accident. She told me she had visions of their death prior to it happening. "Am I interesting to you, yet?" her eyes asked. No, but when she detected that I was emotionally distancing myself from her, she had a vision of my death.

"But don't worry, it doesn't happen if we're together, and if we're together when it's supposed to happen, I'll have saved your life," she said with a smile. "Am I interesting to you, yet?" her smile asked.

"You're a real asshole, you know that?" present-day Lisa informs me.

I crack an assholy smile. "Naaah, if I was an asshole, girls would be flocking around me. Chicks dig assholes."

"Will you please take that smirk off your face? I already want to smack you."

"What do you want from me?" I ask.

She pauses for a second and looks down. Without maintaining eye contact, she tells me, "You were the only boyfriend who was ever really nice to me. I want that back. You said yourself that you never really give anyone a chance. Why don't you give me one?"

"I did. It didn't work out. I warned you from the start that it wouldn't. Hell, you warned me. Half of the reason we worked was because it was a race to see who'd run away first."

"But you changed my perspective on things. I wasn't open to a real relationship at the outset, but once we got going I didn't want it to end."

"And I did. I won the race."

"Why do I even talk to you?"

"I really don't know. If you can just tell me the magic words that will get you to stop, the ones that will get you to move on with your life and give me my Wednesdays back, I swear to God I'll say them. Just tell me what they are."

It isn't in my nature to be such a jerk, but I want her out of my life. Starting yesterday.

Once I determined that she was either lying or delusional and not threatening me, I ended it in January.

When I ended it, her parting words were, "Take care of yourself, Alex. I couldn't bear it if something happened to you."

I thought that I would probably never talk to her again, until the next Wednesday when she called me.

I start relaxing when present-day Lisa starts talking about this boy that she's interested in. I'm whole-heartedly enthusiastic about it and wish her all the best.

Out of nowhere, she yells, "What do I have to say to get to you?!"

"First of all, don't yell. We're in a public place," I remind her. I look around. If anyone looked up, they're looking down again by the time I see them.

"I don't give a shit. I've been kicked out of public places before."

When we were together, there were numerous restaurants - and a movie theater - she told me that she wasn't welcome at. I thought she was just being difficult. Now I'm not so sure. "Can I go home now?" I ask.

"You have real problems, you know that? If you don't confront them you're going to end up sad and alone the rest of your life!"

"Ok."

"I'm serious. I mean, I'm not without problems, but at least I am dealing with them."

"Dealing with them? You indulge them. Your idea of 'dealing with them' isn't confronting them, but rather instead just warning people about them and accepting, at twenty-three, that you are doomed to be alone for the rest of your life."

"I haven't doomed myself to anything. I have problems, but I've survived them because I'm strong. I haven't killed myself."

"Are you threatening to?"

"No!"

"Voice."

"Sorry."

"Look, I'm very glad that you haven't killed yourself, and that you're not going to, but that alone doesn't constitute strength."

"And what does, Mr. Perfect?"

"Figuring out what you need to do and doing it. Not what you need to do to survive, but what you need to do to make your life and the lives of those around you better. Sometimes that means not thrusting your problems on them and usually it means saying to yourself 'I have this problem, so I need to fix it' and not 'I have this problem, so I can't do X, Y, or Z... or A-W for that matter.'"

Of all the things I've said over the course of the hour or so we've been talking, that's what makes her cry. She knows I'm right. She moves her lips a couple of times, but doesn't find the words she's looking for. Once she starts crying, the conversation's over. She hates people seeing her cry as much as I hate these kinds of "victories."

She tells me she wants to go home and I watch her walk out. Once she drives off, I stick a couple dollars in the tip jar and apologize. He looks at me in a way to say, "No, I'm sorry."

When I get into the car, I wonder to myself, "How did this all even happen?"

[Part Four]

Dateline:
Anti-Valentine's Day Party
Collegetown, TX
February 15, 2003

I'm outside Pike's apartment, talking to a military fellow about his experiences in South America and his mother, a statewide elected official. In a moment of silence as I take a sip of my rum and coke, Alan asks me, "So, you're friends with Pike, right?"

"And Sama," I replied.

"Ahhh, I'm sorry," he replied.

The casual nature in which he said it stuck with me. Sorry? Is he sorry for not knowing I was friends with Sama? The way he was looking at me suggested something else. But what?

A week after the party, Pike called, saying, "I heard something weird about you earlier today."

Weird? About me? "Oh? What's that?

"Do you remember Caren from the party? Tall, thin, and one of two girls there that weren't named Jamie or Sama?"

"Alan's girlfriend?"

"Yeah. She said that when Sama was sleeping on the couch, you were looking at her funny."

I suddenly don't like where this is going. I also immediately figure out what Alan meant. Caren told Alan that I was looking at her and when I said we were friends, he took it as though I'd been rejected. Uh oh. Who else has Caren told? Sama? Oh well, not time to think about that right this second. "Interesting. I'd had a bit to drink, so I was probably acting pretty goofy."

"So you weren't looking at her funny?"

"Oh, hey! How bout them Dodgers or any subject other than the way I may or may not have been looking at Sama at the party. When I was drunk, I might add. Plastered, even, if it gets us talking about the Dodgers."

"Is baseball even in season?"

"I don't think so."

"You are the worst subject-changer ever," he admonishes. "So what's going on? Do you like her or what?"

"I wonder if the Dodgers are making any off-season trades. I know! We should go online right now and check!"

"Woah! How long has this been going on?"

"Since I met her, pretty much."

"And you didn't tell me?!"

"It's not important. I don't really intend to pursue it."

"Why not? Dude, I think you've really got a chance with this."

"I'm really not looking for a relationship at the moment," I truthfully answer.

"Why not?"

Lisa.

[Part Three]

[A form of this originally appeared on the No-Lyfe Journal]

"Novelists when they write novels tend to take an almost godlike attitude toward their subject, pretending to a total comprehension of the story, a man's life, which they can therefore recount as God Himself might, nothing standing between them and the naked truth, the entire story meaningful in every detail. I am as little able to do this as the novelist is, even though my story is more important to me than any novelist's is to him - for this is my story; it is the story of a man, not of an invented, or possible, or idealized, or otherwise absent figure, but of a unique being of flesh and blood . . . If we were not something more than unique human beings, if each one of us could really be done away with once and for all by a single bullet, storytelling would lose all purpose. But every man is more than just himself; he also represents the unique, the very special and always significant and remarkable point at which the world's phenomena intersect, only once in this way and never again. That is why every man's story is important, eternal, sacred; that is why every man, as long as he lives and fulfills the will of nature, is wondrous, and worthy of every consideration. In each individual the spirit has become flesh, in each man the creation suffers, within each one a redeemer is nailed to the cross." -Herman Hesse, Damien

The above quote, provided by Sugarmama on a recounting of her time spend in Montana, resonated with me quite deeply. I first read it a month or two ago, when she first made a list of her favorite posts.

As a writer, we are indeed all gods of our own works. We have complete domain over the characters, what they say and what they do. As it happens, I don't control my characters as much as they control the story. Meaning that I simply make the characters, define the relationships, and they work the rest out themselves. Of course, the characters are created as such that there is really only one course of action for them to take at most times. While I rarely know how a novel is going to end until I'm halfway through or so, by the time I'm done I cannot imagine it having ended any other way. But while I don't exert much control over my characters, I at least have the ability to define the narrative. I can tell the story, which is merely the product of the characters and their growth (or failure to do so), in such a way as to outline the morals of the story. One even leads to another, which leads to another, and so on, but I can explain how these interactions take place, why what happens happens, and what doesn't does not.

So while I'm not omnipotent, I am somewhat omniscient.

I have historically been lucky, in a way, that my life has worked in such a way that I draw lessons from my failures, take notes of my successes, and can generally supply a narrative of where I've been, what I've done, and the ways that I have been affected by it all. My life has been a series of seemingly coincidental meetings and sprouting philosophy and emotion that, for the most part, I've been able to make remarkable sense of it all.

When I was a kid, I adored this girl named Sarah. I called her Sarah Goddess, which to me she was. Of course, the real Sarah Beth could never match the ideal Sarah Goddess that I had created. So while I admired her flesh and mind, what I really adored was merely a figment of my imagination. At the next intersection down the road, I met Selene, who was actually someone I could deal with, but in typical sixteen year old fashion was more in my mind than she was in real life. Then came Ora, who was all too human and, I'd say, the first girl that I ever loved for who she was, not who I imagined she could be.

This trend continued as each step I took seemed an immediately improvement on the last. Even when they ended in disaster, there was nonetheless a lesson hidden in the shards and debris left behind. Like a random object you can pick up in a video game, it was certain to be of use later. Each adventure built upon the last. That's not to say that each was better than the last, but there was a strong sense of continuity where they each seemed to pick up where the last left off. Even when I knew I wasn't with "the one" I still new that this was still a step on the way there.

At some point, the lessons started becoming muddled and contradictory. When the next intersection came, I just I kept driving. So many pitfalls, so many potential mistakes. Everything I did was second-guessed right along side of everything I didn't do but wondered if I should have. My breaks didn't seem to work and I didn't have the courage for a wide turn. And all I could do was keep driving. For about a year and a half, that's really all I did.

That's not to say that I stayed my path. There were some turns along the way, but always dirt roads leading to nowhere. One of them was Lisa, who reminded me that there are consequences even when taking a short detour. I had become embroiled in the very thing I was pressing -- smashing -- my accelerator to avoid. And I grew tired and weary. I realized that something needed to change as I didn't even know where the road I was on was headed. Maybe I needed to stop and ask for directions or I just needed to pull over on the side of a desolate stretch of road and rest. Whatever the case, I needed something.

That was when I posted My Little Identity Crisis Melodrama. It was a few odd turns that got me to do that, as I'd never really used a blog for an unloading of deeply personal things. I'd taken a short hiatus and wasn't sure what to tell everyone, so I left a bit of an ominous message. That lead people to worry and so I decided when I'd go back I'd explain what was going on. Unfortunately, when I tried, I couldn't get the words out. So I applied a narrative to it, put it in the form of a conversation with Lisa, a conversation with my deceased friend Keith, and an abrupt ending. It was abrupt because while I was able to provide a narrative for preceeding events, the characters stopped moving when I stopped writing. In other words, while I knew how I got there, I still didn't know what to do next.

When I finally couldn't deny that anymore, I wrote Me, Myself, & I. I was hoping maybe if I use different characters, version of myself from various points in my life, I might be able to figure out where I should go next. Unfortunately, part way through I was terminated from my job and everything got put on hold. All of the questions suddenly became so big, so overwhelming, I didn't know what to do. I couldn't even begin to try to figure everything out. I didn't even know where to start. Whatever problems I was having in my personal life paled compared to finding work. But job hunting is 4/5 waiting, so what could I do?

Then my ex-girlfriend almost got us kicked out of Starbucks, and suddenly everything made sense...

[Part Two]

Polly would be Polly, RAW would be me, and Jack would be her ex-boyfriend that she was supposed to call in order to go out with this weekend.

Polly: Did I tell you what I did with Jack's phone number?
RAW: You said you lost it.
RAW: Is his family not in the phone book?
Polly:: I didn't find it on Yahoo.
Polly:: I think he gave me his cell.
RAW: Ahhh
RAW: No way you're gonna find that
Polly:: I used to know his house number
RAW: Hmmm... do you know his parent's name(s)?
Polly:: no, i know his last name though
RAW: It isn't Smith is it?
Polly:: It's Silver
Polly:: And he lives in Friendswood off of Bay Area Blvd
RAW: Hmmm... I'd imagine that there'd be a few of those
Polly:: Yeah, probably
RAW: Are you sure it's in Friendswood Proper?
Polly:: Yeah, it's Friendswood 77546
RAW: Are his parents still married?
Polly:: Divorced
RAW: Did his mom remarry?
Polly:: He lives with his father.
RAW: Ahhh.
Polly:: Yeah
RAW: When was he born?
Polly:: 5/26/83
Polly:: Well I am pretty sure it was the 26th
RAW: xxx-xxx-xxxx
RAW: That sound familiar?
Polly:: NO WAY! Is that it?
RAW: I'm pretty sure it is
Polly:: Damnit where is my phone!!!
Polly:: I'll email it to me!
Polly:: It cant hurt to try it tomorrow
RAW: Jack Edward Silver, xxxx W. Bay Area Blvd, born May 26, 1983
Polly:: Yes!
Polly:: Edward!
RAW: Webster, though, not Friendswood.
Polly:: What????
Polly:: No way
Polly:: Well thank you.
Polly:: So, how did you get the number?
RAW: With my keen detective skills.

From News.com.com (?)

Microsoft: Unfair market exploitation
Competitors and critics [of AOL's dominance of the IM market], most notably Microsoft, have complained to regulators that AOL's resistance to opening AIM to third parties is an unfair exploitation of its market leadership. During the review of the AOL-Time Warner merger in 2000, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates urged Federal Communications Commission officials to closely examine AOL's IM dominance. Gates also advocated the need for a standard that would let IM services interoperate.

Another interesting, but less humorous, article on instant messaging can be read here.

The movement of Instant Messaging services towards providing corporate packages is a welcome, and inevitable, development. I tried and failed to get my former boss to sign on to using Microsoft IM because he loves everything Microsoft and since very few people actually use MSIM, there would be less of a chance of people using it for personal business. It didn't take, which was a shame because it would have been a lot more efficient than the existing methods of communication.

The push for interoperability between messaging programs is disturbing, though, and I hope they continue to fail to cooperate with one another. The competition is a good thing and I would be worried that the three of them (being AOL, MS, and Yahoo) would get together, write standards, and then shut the doors. Thus putting us all on a network they can then turn around and start charging for. Monopolistic? Yeah, but we're dealing with AOL and MS here. In the current environment, I'm not sure a new service couple pop up and compete with a AOL-MS-Y! triumverate. For such a dynamic industry, typical computer users are notorious for taking the path of least resistence. That's the primary reason for my skepticism of the Linux "revolution." If people are used to using something, they'll continue to pay for it even if they don't have to. Or enough people will that it will remain the standard, meaning that everyone else will need to for maximum compatibility. An IM program is only as good as its user base.

Ravenwood links to this article from CNN on a study that suggests that people carrying heavy backpacks tend to walk funny. Well, it's actually about a study on the effects of kids wearing heavy backpacks and whether or not that is an issue.

For my part, I carried a huge blue duffle back that I presently use for packing all my stuff for long trips. I chose it because it could carry all of my books, which saved me the trouble of having to go to my locker... ever. In fact, I used to rent out my locker to friends while I lugged around 30 pounds of books all day. As the study so helpfully concludes, I did indeed walk funny. It weighed on my shoulder like a sunnumbeach. In fact, on our school's little "news" program, they showed a video of a bunch of people walking through the hall and I could see myself instantly.

I eventually gave in and retired the blue duffle back in favor a Jansport (which I presently use for packing my stuff for shorter trips). I couldn't rent out my locker anymore, but I still managed to avoid making trips to my locker. I just wouldn't take my book to class except for the ones where I knew I'd need it.

Trading down baggage actually made a world of difference, though. One nice young lady even complimented me on how much better I looked when I wasn't lurched over with the blue monstrosity.

So what's the lesson in all this? High school students everywhere: Don't bother taking your books to class. Chicks dig guys who don't carry lots of books.

Martin Devon's near year-old post on LA is a must-read.

The guests were beautiful too, but they couldn't really compete. It was ridiculous. I know it sounds like fun, but it really isn't when you experience it. The vibe reeked of insecurity. I sure felt insecure. I thought at any moment someone would stop me and say "I'm sorry Mr. Devon, but I'm afraid you are not good-looking enough to be in here. This section is for supermodels only." And the service? Please. The attitude is "you're lucky to be here, now shut up."

Shame on me for missing this its first time around.

[Note: This was originally published on the No-Lyfe Journal]

This is the No-Lyfe Journal, and seeing as how No-Lyfe was borne at an Anime convention and our stock and trade is taking Anime footage and parodying it, I figure I should talk about Anime from time to time. WAIT! Before you move on, this post is also about the nature of human interaction, how we relate to one another, and how we don't.

One of the most popular Japanese Animation serials ever to be released is Hideaki Anno's Neon Genesis Evangelion. Eva, as it is frequently called, is the story of the end of the world. It's been done, but never like this to my knowledge. In Eva, the end of the world is the subplot. It's the distraction from what's really going on in the hearts and minds of the characters. What is ostensibly a series about big mecha robots fighting luminescent "angels" is, at its essence, the story of the people inside the mechas and, most importantly, what's going on in the hearts and minds inside the people inside the robots.

Though I'm only going to talk about one aspect of the series, here's a brief synopsis courtesy of Comicity for context:

In year 2000, a catastrophic event known as the Second Impact took out half the world's population and melted all the ice in Antarctica. According to the UN, it was a giant meteorite, but there were many rumors that said otherwise.

It is now year 2015. Mysterious entities called Angels started appearing, causing mayhem to the remaining population. All conventional weapons proved useless against them, including the UN's key weapon, the N2 bomb because an AT Field (Absolute Terror Field) protects the Angels. The only weapon that can penetrate the AT Field is called the EVA, which is developed by an organization called NERV. EVAs are biologically based giant humanoids, which requires the control of a pilot by synchronizing the pilot's mind with it. Thus, the pilot's senses extend into the EVA unit. Every thought, feeling and action is automatically executed by the EVA (and vice versa!!) Only a select group of children born after the Second Impact have the capability to synch with an EVA.

On the surface, the series may seem to be just another group of pilots and their mecha battling evil. Underneath the many seemingly abstract and irrelevant soliloquy of the characters lie many biblical and religious references which challenges the traditional school of thought. Even the traditional image of God was under fire.

One aspect of the series that particularly interested me was the concept of the AT Field. Ostensibly, the AT Field is some sort of forcefield around the robots as they fight the Angels and vice-versa. As they get hammered, their AT Field diminishes. Once the enemy gets inside of it, all hope is pretty much lost.

It is later revealed that AT Field is short for Absolute Terror Field. It's actually not a physical forcefield at all. Rather it's the psychological or spiritual distance that keep us protected from intruders. The Angels are practically invincible because they are isolated from this world. Explosives are incapable of getting through. The only thing that can is, of course, the EVA, which is the human made equal of the Angels, born from the original Angel and maintained by human technology. Only something that can rise to the level of the Angel can touch through, and ultimately, destroy it.

The series touches over the somewhat universal nature of the AT Field, though I wish it had expounded on it more. There is the underlying notion that, in the end, we all have our own AT Field. We all have barriers we put up to keep us protected from one another. Sometimes, the barrier is simple as different wavelengths. For instance, someone that you have nothing in common with presently, have different life goals, and very different views of the way the world are is unlikely to be able to hurt you on any emotional level. If they attack you or betray you, in general you can dismiss their actions as those of someone different, probably inferior, to yourself. You may be injured physically or financially, but if you so desire, you can put up a wall around your soul and you will not emotionally feel their betrayal.

This is particularly true of those of us that are eccentric. The more different we are from everyone else, the more likely we are to be able to dismiss what everyone does to us. "They don't understand us," we can say. They are inferior to us or they are just like everyone else. At the A-kon convention in Dallas a couple weeks ago, I saw a shirt that said, across the front, "You laugh at me because I'm different. I laugh at you because you're all the same." That just about sums it up. When the benefits of eccentricity and introversion are so great, it's no wonder that so many people go to such great lengths to differentiate themselves from one another. America prides itself on individuality. Youth movements involve large numbers of people dressing in all black or with colorful hair or no hair at all, in many ways just to prove that they are different. to find their own wavelength, just different enough from everyone else that they are safe from assessment and judgment.

The Angels from Evangelion are that way in the quite literal fashion. Creatures from a different plain, they can only be touched by inventions created from another creature from the same outworld. To an extent, though, we can all do that if we so choose. Not just by dyeing our hair blue or wearing black, tin-foil hats or Star Trek uniforms, but in more subtles ways. We can denounce every clump and segment of society. We can deride frat boys, yuppies, hicks, cosmos until there is virtually no one left. No group to call our own and, by extention, no segment of society that has blanket permission to touch us. We can thus ignore all criticisms we recieve and protect ourself with the shields we put up against everyone else.

It also provides a narrow entry of attack. Not only are we free to deride other groups for their reciprocal negative opinion of us, but we are able to deflect the criticisms of others, like you (but not too much like you, since you are an individual), who criticize those groups. If you're not rural or cosmo, Republican or Democrat, Christian or atheist, then critiques of those groups do not apply to you. If you are not a member of a fraternity, sorority, political organization, or religious group; If you are in your town, state, or nation but are not of it; If you qualify every group of which you are a member or supporter with words that diminish your devotion to said group... then all attacks on that organization, locale, or group suddenly do not apply to you. You need not defend your positions, your convictions, or your memberships. They cannot touch you because they are talking about "those people" and you are not one of those people. You are an individual. You are unique. You are beyond the reproach of any group because you are, above all, independent.

We often go to such great lengths in order to remain insusceptable to criticism because the alternative is Absolute Terror. The alternative is to let people in. To take a stand is to risk getting knocked down. To open up your heart is to risk being hurt and betrayed in ways more than financial or physical, but emotional and spiritual. Marriage rates, last I checked, were on the decline. Instead of marrying, we live together. Instead of a relationship, we just have sex. Even if your heart is pure, is your partner's? Are you sure? Exactly how sure?

This isn't about Angels and Evas or romance and heartbreak.

I have had various platonic friends over the years that I once considered myself close to that have done me wrong. In an episode of gross negligence or a fit of anger, they did something or said something that really, truly, and honestly hurt me. I am not a particularly fragile person. Once upon a time I was, but it didn't take me long to develope my own AT Field when I needed to. Once I let someone inside of it, though, it becomes a different matter. Male or female, fifteen or sixty, once I trust them with my true face, my only expectation of them is that they do not breach that trust and hurt me. Once they do, it's over. Along those lines, I have not yet, nor do I believe I will ever, reunite with a former partner. I've seen reunited couples try and try again to recapture what they should have gotten right the first time. No, thanks.

In the words of Nick Clayton, "I never hated anyone I didn't love first."

Which is what makes opening up so difficult. For some people, it's all they can do. Now, I tend to write here in what I call "open book" format with some rather intimate details from my past. At the same time, I tend to do so with a bit of distance. I fictionalize it with a conversation between aspects of myself or with my deceased friend. I mention those things that sound interesting and generally leave out the damning, humiliating, and so on (whether it humiliates me or someone else). I measure my words, deliver them with maximum impact, and present myself with a public face. It's what we all do, to a degree.

To do otherwise would invite Absolute Terror. It would allow someone right into that last inch that keeps us protected, safe, and isolated.

Thankfully, I do have friends that I can lean on whenever I need to. They always have the same with me. As it turns out, I rarely need their help. I generally do better solving my own problems on my own. Knowing that they're there, and that they care, allows me more, not less, independence. The AT Field, on the other hand, offers a prison of sorts. Walls are built to keep the pain out that keep the pain in as well.

So what is the answer, then? Indirectly, Evangelion explores this at great length. Unfortunately, it offers little in the way of solutions. But Evangelion is a 26 episode series with a couple movies tacked on to the end. The answer, to a degree that there is one, requires a lot more. You can't love someone without letting them hurt you. The AT Field and lack thereof work both ways. Inversely, you can't allow someone to love you without the fear of the Ripper surfacing.

This is yet another thing that's been on my mind lately. How does one let someone in without fear of getting hurt. How does one stay protected without erecting the ever-isolating AT Field?

Life is a mystery, and it's fun to try to figure it out sometimes.

HappyFunPunditDan points to the new Eminem record's sales to explain that file-swapping is not what's killing the industry.

To an extent, I must plead ignorance on this one. I stopped listening to the radio a couple months ago and have stopped looking back. Even when I was listening to it, the station that my dial stayed on went through a spell where they played a LOT of unsigned artists. When the ratings came in, they changed their playlist and I bought a CD player for my car.

I used to get annoyed when older people would say that they don't put out good music anymore. I guess I'm getting old, cause I am starting to think it. It's not that the music is bad, necessarily. It just seems to all run together. It's all so similar... and interchangable. For instance, I liked Creed's first song. Then they released another and another and I stopped being able to really tell them apart. To make matters worse, they continually put out new bands that sound exactly like them. Why wait in anticipation for Backstreet Boys' new CD? Nsync has one for sale right now! Same difference.

Bias alert: I tend to prefer bands with distinctive voices. One of the bigger bands that I do like right now is Matchbox 20. Counting Crows is another favorite. One is unlikely to get them confused.

You know those movie critics that don't seem to like movies? Or maybe they like movies in theory, they just never seem to like the ones they see? Though I've heard it's better now, I recall the Houston Press when it recommended about 1 out of every 10 movies, panning the rest severely. Then there are those that like movies, but only if they're written by Iranian dissidents or people in France.

Well, Earl Dittman is not one of those people.

WE WERE SOLDIERS - A modern-day classic. Truly magnificent and absolutely unforgettable! Mel Gibson?s most stunning and mesmerizing performance to date.

HIGH CRIMES - Fantastic! Full of unstoppable suspense.

MURDER BY NUMBERS ? The Hottest Suspense Thriller In Town! Bullock is incredible. She gives one of the most astonishingly powerful and fiercely moving performances of her career.

THE SUM OF ALL FEARS ? THE SUM OF ALL FEARS is what great filmmaking is all about. It grabs you by the throat and never lets go! An astonishing and thrilling motion picture.

SCOOBY-DOO ? You?ll howl with laughter.

HEY ARNOLD! ? A hysterical, entertaining treat for the whole family! Action-packed, suspense-filled and chock-full of laughs, HEY ARNOLD: THE MOVIE is 100% pure fun and absolutely cool.

MEN IN BLACK 2 ? An electrifying, laugh-filled, hi-energy experience. Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones are sensational!

UNDISPUTED ? Electrifying! Jaw-Dropping! Wesley Snipes is incredible! It will knock you out of your seat! It?s unforgettable!

ANALYZE THAT ? Robert DeNiro and Billy Crystal are outrageously hilarious! Their performances are what comedic legends are made of.

WES CRAVEN PRESENTS: THEY ? A flawless, breathtaking, terror-filled thriller?A must see!

BROWN SUGAR ? BROWN SUGAR almost single-handedly redefines the date movie?slick, sexy and slammin?, like a soulful WHEN HARRY MET SALLY with a hip-hop beat.

FORMULA 51 ? FORMULA 51 is a high-octane, adrenaline-pumped action comedy packed with wit and style!

FRIDAY AFTER NEXT ? The funniest FRIDAY ever!

MAID IN MANHATTAN ? MAID IN MANHATTAN is the funniest romantic comedy of the year.

An interesting article on a movie reviewer from Houston with, errm, dubious credibility.

[via Kuff]

Among my closest friends is Polly, a spunky nineteen year old student at State University, about two hours from here. Neither of us really know how we became as close as we have, but in a sense we're dependent on one another. There's nothing between us romantically speaking and there never will be. At first she was too young and now, two years and two 19th birthdays later (one suspects she was actually not 19 when we met...), age isn't so much a factor (though she's still way too young, depending on how many 19th birthdays she has left till she hits 20) as that I know far too much about her and she about me to even consider it. Anyhow, like I mentioned, we're dependent on one another. We even each other out.

Like all friendship (particularly intergender ones), it is not without its problems. She is a girlie's girl and I am a nerdboy. She's an ENFJ and I an INTJ. At root, emotion is her fuel and I am generally suspicious of emotionally-driven action.

Some time ago she determined that she was very unhappy at State University and wanted to leave Collegetown in the dust and return to the suburbia of Clear Lake and go to school at the local branch of the University of Houston. To be fair, she had a lot to be upset about in Collegetown. I can't go in to it all, but she had a boyfriend I affectionately called Weasel that left her under the most humiliating circumstances imaginable. Her once good friendship with her roommates had turned quite nasty to the point that Roommate A was obstructing Polly from being there to console Roommate B, who lost a very close family member, so that she could be the "good friend." Attempted romance after attempted romance had failed and she was just miserable.

She told me about her idea and I didn't say much at first until I had time to mull over whether or not it was a good idea. I determined that it conclusively was not. In fact, I further reasoned, it was the worst thing that she could do for herself. She was initially taken aback.

Polly: Why not?
RAW: Because it's a bad idea.
Polly: Why?
RAW: It won't solve the problem.
Polly: What do you mean? Of course it'll solve my problem. My problem is Collegetown. I'm miserable here.
RAW: Your problem in the short term is Collegetown, but it's largely circumstantial. Weasel. Roommates. Those are all things that can be fixed without leaving Collegetown.
Polly: But going back to Clear Lake would make me happy!! Even you can't deny that!

And I couldn't. She returned to Clear Lake at every opportunity. One or two weekends a month, every break for more than a couple days. This has been especially true since her breakup with Weasel. In fact, she'd first mentioned the possibility of returning home right after her breakup with him. She said, over and over again, "I need to go home. I need Daddy to hold me." She wanted, more than anything, to be held and reassured by someone that she knew loved her more than anything in the world. That person has always been her father.

I bided my time hoping that the sensation would pass, and it did, but here it was renewed. This time, she'd had more time to mull it over and I got the feeling that it wasn't going to pass so I couldn't just stay silent or merely voice my concerns. I needed to stand my ground, however unpopular my view was with her. Because I cared about her and only wanted the best for her.

So I explained her tendency to want to return home whenever things got tough. Gradually, I modified my wordage and started saying "retreat" home, because that's what I felt it was. College, I reasoned, was a time for growth. It's a time to handle your own problems and make your life better on your own (to the greatest extent possible). A return home now would deny her that opportunity. The further along she gets in life, the more difficult it will be to return home so she needed to use this opportunity, when the stakes are small, to stick it out. I felt very passionately about this.

Her response: Growth is overrated.

Now, let me be clear about something. Polly is neither stupid nor weak. She has a 3.5+ GPA and is law school bound. Further, she is one of the most resilient people that I've ever met. So don't interpret any of this with derision towards her and understand that she was, at the time, very depressed.

Which comes to the crux of our difference. I viewed her depression as a distraction. It was, to me, something that distorted her judgment and made transferring schools, adding semesters to her college career, and forfeiting the college experience seem more attractive than it should have. In her mind, however, her depression over recent events was everything.

"I am miserable here! Doesn't that mean anything to you?!" she would ask.

It did, but my sense was that her misery was independent of whether or not she lived in Collegetown. I asked her repeatedly why moving to Clear Lake would make things better except by relying on her parents, which she had finally agreed was not a sufficient rationale. I asked her why she doesn't transfer somewhere else, keep the college experience and leave backwood C-town behind. Her inability to answer that question without saying "Cause I was so happy in Clear Lake" strengthened my resolve and my impression that this was simply a retreat to a former life before things got so complicated and that complication was just something she needed to get used to sooner or later and the sooner the better.

The debate literally continued for weeks. Partially because she seeks my approval, but mostly because she knew that her father had shot down her previous mention of the idea and she was testing arguments against me to use on him to change his mind (like I said, she isn't stupid). Unfortunately for her, nothing stuck on me. She eventually wrote out a Word doc explaining her argument, and I was still unconvinced. She talked to her mother and step-mother about it. They completely agreed that moving back was the right thing to do, but I was unmoved. She talked to her friend in New York, who also agreed with her.

It was about then that I started noticing the gender divide. On one hand was her female friends, mother, and step-mother. On the other side was me and (presumably) her father.

The argument came to a head on a Friday evening when she laid out her arguments for one last time before heading down to Clear Lake to talk to her father about it. I told her that I want her to be happy, but I didn't think that a retreat would solve her problems. The debate ensued and got increasingly passionate. I eventually realized that she was going to talk to her father about it regardless of what I said, so I simply stepped back and said

RAW: Do what you think is right.
Polly: But you don't think it's right, do you?
RAW: No.
Polly: Why not?
RAW: ...
Polly: WHY NOT?
RAW: I've said all I have to say on the matter. I can forward you the transcripts if you really need them, but we've been talking in circles. I just want you to be happy and we have different ideas about what will bring that about.
Polly: But you've said yourself that moving to Clear Lake will make me happier.
RAW: It will in the short term, but it's instant gratification. I want you to be happy longer than the next couple months.
Polly: No you don't. You just want to be right. All you care about is being right.

Most people who know me would say that I am a rather cool-headed person. Truth is, I have a spitfire temper that I got from my mother. It's something I've learned to control over the years and it is rarely a factor in my life. That comment, however, flew me off the deep end. Truth is that The Great Divide was supposed to play their last show ever in Houston that night and I was running late because I wanted to complete the conversation that we'd started and talk to her one last time before she got the verdict from her father.

At the same time, we were having this conversation on AIM. Her AIM Buddy Icon is a Care Bear.

Do you know how difficult it is to have a heated argument with someone that has a Care Bears Buddy Icon?

I was more of a Thundercats guy than a Care Bears one. I had my GI Joes and Thundercats figures, but no Care Bear stuffed animals. Never had a desire for one either. Not my thing.

But when you think about it, the Care Bears is truly an awesome concept. I saw one of their movies once on a church youth group trip. The plot, if I recall, was this little boy who wanted to be a magician. He opened up this magic book and this Evil Face corrupted him and made him a doodie-head. There were these two other kids that he tried to be a meanie to. And, of course, there were the Care Bears that came to the rescue. At the end, they all stood around the corrupted magician and his book and they gave him the Care Bear Stare. The Care Bear Stare, if I recall, is this thing where they all stand around and care a whole lot. They care enough that their little logos on their tummy light up and shoot a whole bunch of Care at the mean person, and he becomes no longer mean. They shoot the Care at the Evil Face and he goes away.

The lesson, of course, is that if you just Care enough, all the bad and evil in the world will just go away. You can save anyone, be with anyone, and make everything okay if you can just Care enough. While the GI Joe's used their laser guns and the Thundercats used swords, nanchaks, and wips, the Care Bears just used a heaping handful of Care. No one dies, no one gets hurt, no one loses, and everyone is happy.

RAW: What do you want me to say? Do you want me to lie and tell you that I think you're doing the right thing?
Polly: It'd be a start!! Not that you can do it now because you just told me that you'd be lying.
RAW: But I just told you... argh. Look, I just want you to be happy. I don't think this will make you happy in the long run. If you go through with it and your dad agrees, I hope that I'm wrong.
Polly: But you don't think you will be.
RAW: Exactly.
Polly: And you hope that I don't convince Dad?
RAW: Yep.
Polly: I know what I need, Alex, you don't.
RAW: With all due respect, I don't believe that you do.

There wasn't much we could say to one another after that. She was going forward with her trek to her Dad's house and I was hoping she would fail. It pained me not to be able to give her what she wanted. In her mind, if we could all just agree that this would make everything in her life okay, it ultimately would. She ostensibly needed to convince her father because he held the purse strings, but more than anything else she needed his approval. Even if she could do it on her own, her father's disapproval (much moreso than mine, anyway) would taint the entire process. This is why she felt so alienated by me and why my failure to offer support (not just for her, but for her position) amounted to a lack of Care on my part. Cause if me and him could just care enough, we couldn't all be wrong, right? It would be self-perpetuating.

In my world, Care is not only insufficient, it's often counterproductive. For instance, if I didn't care, then I wouldn't have been arguing with her over all that time. When I look back over the years at various friendships that have become strained or relationships that didn't work because of something I did, it's not because I didn't care enough, it's because I cared too much. I got too angry or too infatuated, too impatient or too demanding. If it didn't matter to me one way or the other, I could have weathered any storm with just about anyone. But the Care was there and a price was paid.

In the words of Nick Clayton, "I never hated anyone I didn't love first."

In Polly's world, everything I said may have been logically correct (she couldn't really refute my logic except that she just felt I was wrong), but that didn't actually make it right. "How can I grow if I'm miserable?" she once asked. "How can you grow if you never are?" I replied.

My logic has its place. In this particular argument, I was right. She drove down to Clear Lake, talked to her father about it, and he said the same things that I did. She complained about it all to another good (male) friend of hers who, despite having never talked to me, said almost the exact same thing. That was the straw that broke the camel's back. She is presently in Collegetown, found a new roommate, and has gone on with her life. She's happy now.

Of course, she's been right before as well. After Weasel broke up with her, she desperately wanted to ask him if he missed her. I told her in many ways how much that was a BAD BAD BAD idea because either he did and she was going to want to save things and it's not going to work or he didn't and that'd just hurt her. She, of course, did so anyway. He told her that he did but he didn't want to go back, and that was all she wanted to know, that he did in fact miss her. She just needed that validation. I don't know what, if any, solace that would have given me, but sometimes we forget that other people are not us.

I'm not advocating her philosophy or mine here. I'm just thinking that much like Polly and I often need each other's input, they compliment each other quite well. I help keep her grounded and when I'm upset she will go to hell and back to make me smile again.

"Love will not keep us alive. Food and shelter keep us alive," I can imagine myself saying to her.
"But without it, you may be breathing but you're not actually alive," she'd probably respond.

We're both probably right.

Brian Micklethwait:

This movie preaches the same message, of what to me seems like emotional incontinence, that Princess Diana ? or perhaps I mean the Princess Diana industry ? preached and still preaches here in Britain. Old fashioned (stuck up) stoicism is out. Emotional display is in. Self control is out. "Honesty" and "authenticity" are here. Although just how authentic the acting out that goes on nowadays actually is, I choose to be skeptical about. I prefer people who do brilliant things on a sports field to exchange solemn handshakes, not to go crazy and kiss each other and dance about like mad things.

Remind me to tell y'all what I call a "Maguire Sugar Moment" based off that movie. No relation to this, though.

I'm inclined to agree with Brian, as many around me would know. I will soon have to post my Martian in Care-a-lot entry. Very soon.

So what do y'all think?

[like via Andrea]

Earlier this week I picked on Miss Shania Twain pondered why in tarnation her mass-produced artificial cheese food product music is still considered country. Kevin has outdone me, weaving together link after link into a ranting tyrade on what they're smoking up in Nashville. I've actually been planning to write an extensive article on the differences between Texas and Nashville country, and probably will, but just take a look at this for the rough copy.

There are some fine songwriters in Nashville, but you wouldn't know it because they are penning tunes for drooling morons who flex their muscles in swimming pools while wearing cowboy hats, while some arranger puts together the fiddle/pedal steel tracks in what is otherwise a dance mix, and ships the shite out to radio. This is what I mean when I refer to the Nashville Musical Shite Factory. The song is almost an afterthought to the demographic appeal. (Mr. Lindy concedes as much by admitting Willie is on the air not because of his songs so much as singing "duets that have high artist appeal.")

What is your favorite TV show of all time and what do you believe, if anything, it says about you?

This morning, I installed Quake ][ on Doral (My hardware-intensive machine). This afternoon, I resolved to start editing my novel. Promptly after, I was playing Quake again.

For two hours I played Quake this evening, conquering the third level. As I was approaching the pyramid to enter my key to get to the next level, Quake cratered. I hadn't saved the game because I generally do at the start of each level, which I was moments away from.

"This is wonderful!" I exclaimed in a voice vascillating between ecstacy and unbridled rage.

I hate losing progress. I hate it. I hate it. I hate it. Be it lost progress on a novel, a video game, or whatever, it is the one thing sure to set my temper off.

I was so angry at the computer for cratering. I was angry with myself for not being more regular about saving my game. I was, and am, so angry that I will not play Quake ][ again for some time.

But that means I can work on SSP, which I needed to be doing anyway, which I was not doing because I was killing time playing Quake.

So, Microsoft, from the bottom of my heart: Thank you.

Last week, Heidi had this much ballyhooed (by me, and I'm all that matters) post on the subject of seeking the ideal and appreciating the imperfect.

The difference between anticipation and the reality of a vacation or a relationship is not just the profusion of details that life insists on showing us. The difference also lies in the part of ourselves that we forget to include in the equation while we anticipate. We don?t plan a vacation realizing that our minds will wander from the backdrop of scenic perfection to the newspaper we forgot to cancel, the bill we forgot to pay, the work that will be waiting upon our return. Similarly, in anticipating a relationship, we forget to include in our mind?s eye all the quirky details of ourselves. We forget that we are sometimes impatient, sometimes moody, sometimes self-absorbed.

This is a subject I've been thinking a lot about over the past few weeks as I've been thinking about my writing (what to do with what I've written and what to write next). I was thinking of the authors that I admire most and what their contributions were beyond being assigned to discontented high school students everywhere. One of the things that occured to me was that there was a theme to most of what they wrote. What they wrote often said a lot about them. One of my most admired authors, F. Scott Fitzgerald, literarily defines the roaring twenties in the same way that I'd love (in my most bold of dreams) to define my period.

But that didn't really quite work because my writing isn't so much a product of its time. My first novel takes place throughout the 80's and the first half of the 90's and I had to talk to people older than myself to get the dialogue write (note to writers everywhere, the 80's equivalent to the word "sucks" is "bites"). My second novel ostensibly takes place at about this time but there isn't much defining about the time period, and in fact the more you read, the more you begin to understand why. My November Novel is the most period sensitive because of the impact of the musical culture on the character, but it's actually the music culture of ten years prior (during the more formative years of the characters).

So if my writing doesn't define the age as I see it, what does it define? The main characters, some of them based on real people more than others, don't all have terribly much in common. Yet I feel immensely connected to all of them above and beyond the fact that I am their creators. I mulled it over for a couple of days and finally figured it out: my stories are about idealists coming to terms (or failing to come to terms) with reality. The more I analyzed that hypothesis, the more it seemed true. Whether the events in the novel are based on my own experiences, a friend's, or completely the figment of my imagination, the characters are inherently idealistic and the novels are, in many ways, their efforts to make sense of the world when it doesn't fit their desires or determined notions. Some succeed, some fail, some win, and some lose.

That's not to say that they are all the retelling of the same story, because they are assuredly not. As mentioned prior, the characters themselves are rather different people, many of whom wouldn't get along if they'd met. However, despite their different (and sometimes conflicting) ideals, they are people with definite (and sometimes misguided) views on the way the world should be and the world around them is in conflict with the world as they believe that it is or should be.

Heidi took some choice quotes from movies and books to illustrate her point, so I'll take various quotes from my works to demonstrate what I'm referring to. As always, I'll point out that SSP is available for immediate download to the left. Slaughter Chronicles Book 1 and At Heaven's Door are not immediately available, but if anyone is just so interested they cannot bear to wait, I can set the files up to be downloaded quick-like. But my point here is not to sell, just to illustrate what I am talking about.

At Heaven's Door is primarily the story of Robert Andrew Eastlake, a thirty-something bartender and substitute broadcast reporter, and Nicole Johnson Eastlake, his wife and an educator that seems unable to stay with a job for any sustained period of time. Robert and Nicole are the ultimate NF-style idealists who are at constant conflict with one another. Robert, an ENFJ, is fiercely loyal and caring who simply wants to build a marriage and live a typical life. Nicole is an ENFP dreamer who is always gravitating towards the brightest (and often most distant) star.

Robert, tired of waiting on Nicole to come back from being out with friends (more than one of whom she is romantically attracted to), explodes:

"It's not that I don't want you to have friends or that I don't want you to go out and have a good time. But what are you trying to do, really? What are you looking for with these people. You don't need to answer the question because I already know. You want David more than you want anything in this world. You want Brandon more than you want anything in this world except David. Absent those two, Rich will do. Then there's Nathan. There are others, of course, but once you start getting that far down your totem pole, you'll still be looking up. I should know because below all of them I am. And I seemed like enough once, didn't I? When you thought you and I could be married, raise children, and be a happy family. But there's always these other people. More attractive. More charismatic. More something... maybe just more unavailable.

"But you know what? I'm right here. And you know that no matter where you go and what you do, I'll always be right here. In a better world, you'd see that as a reason to stay here and not use us as a launching pad to something greater. But you are who you are and I love you just the same. You and David will never be together. You and Brandon will never be together. So I know at the end of the day, you'll always be coming right back home to your loving husband and son. I just wish that you'd understand that that means something. That for all that you love Brandon and think the world of David, they will never love you like I do. They will never need you like your son does. So you go ahead and keep on chasing that dragon. I'm confident that the three of us were meant to be together. But please... please stop coming home and looking at me as someone who isn't everything you want in a man. And when you're with us, stop acting like we've got you caged and living in anticipation that you can just go out and chase the dragon again."

Some time later, the son dies and Robert leaves her. Nicole, who'd never taken all that much of an interest in saving the marriage while they were together, spends the time between the seperation and divorce trying to put things right. Whether or not she is sincere in her efforts is left to reader for the most part, but here was her argument:

"David helped me move in to my apartment. He was really great about it. He's such a sweet guy. When he left, I almost started to look for you. When they left, you were always there for me. Maybe I can't have everything, but with you I really had something and I had someone who didn't leave. While I was out 'chasing the dragon' as you used to say, I always knew you were there to come back to. Chasing the dragon. You loved that phrase. It's not so mythical, you know. I know I can find what I want and enough to make me happy. Maybe I've just been looking in the wrong places. I can't make any promises but... but you were right, I guess. You always told me that I was wasting my time and energy looking for something better to come along. You were my gravity... always bringing me back down to earth. I hated it when you did that... but I loved you for that. I need that in my life, Robert. I need you in my life... in my center. I need you at my core."

In alternation, both Robert and Nicole realized the enormous potential that their relationship had. It was enough for Robert until he became overwhelmed by events, but it was quite clearly never enough for Nicole until she faced the very real possibility of losing it all and being left with essentially nothing. To a degree, Robert was able to accept some rather horrid behavior by Nicole because what he felt they had was enough to outweigh what they didn't. From the outside looking in, it all appears rather foolish. Nicole, for her part, was able to put up with some verbal abuse from Rob because she knew that at the end of the day, he'd always be there for her. Until he wasn't.

Then they were both left with the spectre of what could have been.

The Slaughter Chronicles is about the adventures of Nick Clayton. On the surface, Clayton is the antithesis of being an idealist. At one point he ponders whether one can be disillusioned without every having been illusioned to begin with. The more you read, though, the more you come to understand that much of what appears to be his immorality is actually latent idealism. He rather brutally cheats on his first wife, but he thought (if erroneously) that he had found something better. Even when everything tumbled and he was left alone, his rationale still held: if I cheated on Cynthia because I thought Amy was better for me, then even if Amy isn't better for me, someone other than Cynthia probably is. After his divorce, he has an array of flings with former students of his. Though they were all several years younger than he, that was in many ways what attracted him to them. As long as they were out of his age range and no relationship with them possible, he couldn't betray and leave them. For all his immoral behavior, Nick is actually a very moral man.

That's not to say Nick's behavior is excused or what he did wasn't in fact wrong. The immorality of his past behavior and his coming to terms with what he's done is actually one of the pillars of the novel. It's the conflict between the way that things should be (everyone should get what they want and no one should be hurt) and the way things are (crap happens). In the second yet-to-be-written novel, he picks up from this realization and says "okay, so if this is the way things are and things can't be perfect, how can they be good?" I give this all away because it's one of many aspects of the novel (which is not as flashback-heavy as AHD) and I trust you'll all want to read about his life and adventures someday, much of which have nothing to do with Cynthia or the flings.

And, of course, Something So Perfect, which is the story of Brad Carter, Johanna Cianfracco, and Rosalind London. Brad and Johanna are at what appears to be the begining of the end of their relationship when Rosalind (an old friend of Brad's) comes down on an unrelated matter and meets up with him. Johanna, not unlike Nicole, is a dragon chaser. Unlike Nicole, though, Johanna is much more clear about what she wants more than anything else in the world: musician Grady Hammond. Johanna and Grady were together off-and-on for a number of years and her passion for him was unparalleled until it all exploded when his band was signed by a major record label. More than just Grady, though, Johanna wants to feel that passion again or at least once more feel the unbridled passion that she did when she was younger.

While Johanna is left to deal with being unable to return to her more passionate youth, Brad and Rosalind are left to deal with what exactly Brad should be doing.

Brad is a physics major turn computer programmer who tends to break down situations into commands and processes. As such, he approaches the situation as a series of processes to her commands. He determines what he will do based largely on what she does (as opposed to how he feels or what he wants). He thinks in terms of mathematical formulas and watches, more than anything else, trends. Is the relationship trending upward? Is it trending upward at the rate that it should be? To what degree should he accept improvement at a more slowed rate than he would prefer? Is there an overall upward trend or is it rather a curve that is at its apex and thus will start bending back downward again? Has he moved the threshold of acceptability to a lower one than is desirable? Should he move it? The problem is that his ability to deal with unforseen events is limited by the paralysis of fear and regret. So he sticks to his formula.

Rosalind, on the other hand, is a novelist. Instead of a formula, she views it all as a narrative. Instead of her pattern being some sort of mathematical curve of improvement or diminishment, it's all a fairy tale where problems occur, are deal with, and there is a happy ending. She and Brad butt heads over their differing views repeatedly as the formula tells him to go but the narrative tells her to stay. Rosalind's outlook, unfortunately, leads to the repetition of error by failing to see the trends that Brad is obsessed with.

In the case of all three of these characters, they all have a vision of the way that things should be. The question for them (and for idealists everywhere) is what to do when reality gets in the way of our preconcieved notions. If Johanna could just let go of her obsession with yesterday, maybe she could appreciate what she has with Brad. If Brad could take a step back from his computer monitor, maybe he'd realize that it's worth sticking out. According to Rosalind's narrative, Johanna should stick with Grady indefinitely when everyone (including Roz) except Johanna see that as nothing but a dead end.

In our lives, we're always confronted with the imperfect. Most people just deal with it and move on. That is easier for some (cynics) than for others (idealists), but who really wants to be a cynic? What does a cynic live for? But unadulturated idealism is the natural path to disaster because it completely ignores the way that things are.

To quote Brad Carter:

?There are four ways things occur in life. There are the things you make happen, things you let happen, things you don't let happen, and things that just won?t happen."

Stripped of Brad's action/reaction outlook, these "four ways" break down into the things that we can change and the things we cannot. Knowing the latter gives us a lot more control over the former. The old Alcoholics Anonymous prayer goes something to the effect of "Dear Lord, give me the strength to change what I can, the serenity to accept what I can't, and the wisdom to know the difference. Amen."

Accepting what you can't change is the first step. The next step, in my view, is appreciating it. There is no perfect world and if there were, we'd all be bored senseless. Futhermore, what fuels our differences and "imperfections" is free will. Given by God, assured by our nation, it's the most precious gift that we have.

I'm a believer in what I call dialism. That means that every good trait we have is merely a dial pushed to one side or another. So for every quality we have, we are lacking another. For instance, I have a tremendous imagination. At the same time, I have a very poor attention span when it comes to external stimuli. I believe these two things are intrinsically related. If I had more of the latter, I'd have less of the former. I believe that most of my good qualities also come with the lack of another good quality I might otherwise have. My strong capacity for long, deep thought comes at the expense of it taking me longer to absorb certain simple things than it would be for a person who thinks quicker on their feet. You get the idea.

Along those lines, if I am with someone that does not appreciate my imagination, they will likely have a dim view of me because they would certainly notice my inattention to what's going on around me when I'm off in never never land (because chances are, by not being imaginative themselves, they are more sharply observant more of the time). If someone doesn't appreciate my analytical nature, they'd likely get frustrated by the inability to react quickly because I am too busy analyzing the situation. Or take for instance, a spectrum in which I fall more closely to the middle: Open-mindedness vs. conviction. Someone that reasons more inductively than I do will likely wonder why I accept so many of the absolutes that they questions. If they admire my comparative sense of conviction, they may overlook it. Same for someone with a stronger sense of conviction that considers me to be awfully wobbly.

The degree to which we appreciate the qualities of others is positively corrolated to the degree to which we accept their shortcomings. Very often, we take their qualities for granted and hone in on the areas in which they fall short and we call it "imperfection" at best, and many more nasty things at worst. Maybe in a perfect world everyone's dial would be set to the center and it wouldn't be an issue. But if that were true, we'd have no artists, scientists, and athletes because the most successful ones combine qualities (physical acumen, ability to think quickly, coordination, etc) that they have generally at the expense of other qualities.

None of this is to say that we shouldn't constantly seek to improve ourselves. If anyone is a booster of constant self-improvement, it's me. But at one point we have to realize that even improved, we may still never be as good at something (paying attention in class, creative universes in the mind, etc) as someone else is. Look closer at them and you'll see that they'll never be as good at certain things as you are. I constantly strive to improve myself, but I also appreciate myself for who I am. I would ask that of any romantic partner and it would be required of me towards them.

Dialism also applies to other aspects of life. Take, for instance, my last job. It was, to say the least, far from perfect. I actually have a week's worth of posts on the subject that I'm mulling over whether or not to actually post. My boss was micromanaging, the office chaotic, my job description and priority lists vague, my hours long and my pay only sufficient because of my hours. On the other hand, my boss was clear on how he wanted things done, my job was rarely monotonous, my job description flexible, and I was given the freedom to work what I needed to get the job done. So then did the pros outweigh the cons? Maybe or maybe not. What's important to note though is that they are intrinsically connected.

The trick (to me, anyway) is to realize what you want most (from a job or partner) and what matters less. Then look for qualities that contradict one another. You can't ask for someone that is really organized but absolutely loves to do things spontaneously. For my part, I appreciate people that are extremely organized and self-directed but need someone that is patient and easy going. To an extent, these collide. People who are well organized are generally so because they hate having to look for things because they're... well... impatient. Which is not to say that someone can't be both, but if so their organization likely results in some other deficiency somewhere else. For what it's worth, I've never met someone who is both, though I have met people that are somewhat organized and somewhat patient. But that just means they're midpoint down the dial.

We all want it all, but absent that, we should try to find what we want most and never stop appreciating it.

At the Ramada Limited where we were staying in Dallas, Jay and I were killing some time before heading back to the convention at the Hyatt, where a party anxiously awaited us (on tenderhooks, I'm sure). Right before we were about to leave, we ran into this scrappy animated feature on PBS on this man talking about his dog. I'm a dog lover and Anna was a dog trainer while we were together, so doggie psychology and people's relation to animals has always been of special interest to me. It's hard to describe, really, but it was a gripping story with some very insightful commentary. We ended up watching it to the end, being much later to the party than we'd planned.

It's called "Still Life With Animated Dogs" and if you get a chance to catch it on PBS, I wholeheartedly recommened giving it a view.