Joe's Return Party

My friend Joe returned December 23rd from 2.5 years in the Peace Corps, working in Tanzania. I’m going to post some pictures that Wendy took at his coming-home party. I know most of you who visit my site visit Wendy’s on a regular basis as well, but I figured it would be nice to have them here as well. She just posted a bunch of them the other day.

One of them has been cropped so that I’m not showing as much out-of-shape pectoral (AKA flabby man-breast) through my shirt, but you can always find the unedited photo at Wendy’s site.

The last few days have been a lot of fun. I’ve had the opportunity to hang out with a lot of people I don’t normally get to spend time with, and it’s been great. Joe showed Turck and I some pictures from his time in Tanzania, as well as a few short video clips of leopards and elephants. Ben showed up a little later and we watched a DVD of Joe’s white-water rafting experience in Uganda, on the rapids that actually make up the source of the Nile River.

Most of the photos you'll see are smaller than on Wendy's site, and I had to upload them one at time because of my beloved narrow-band connection.

Anyway, I was going to say more, but with all these pictures, I guess there's little need.

Turck is obviously quite amused by something here, although I have no recollection of what it may have been. I don't know if I'm straightening my shirt or pulling up my pants in this picture. It comes to my attention now that the sideburn on my left side is much less distinct than on my right. Odd. We're playing Deutchland Memory in this picture, although Ben, Turck, and Joe all refer to it as "Deuche-land" and will probably continue to do so.

 

Randy, Laura, Kim, and me... apparently in a celebratory mood.

Randy told me that Kim, who had never had the pleasure of seeing me much "under the influence," said that I was "much more fun," "less sarcastic," and seemed much happier. Kim was home from Arizona for a few days.

 

That's quite a wink, Turck.

 

Looks like a double-chin is just a matter of time.

 

James & Joe H, Me

 

DC Internship Destination Decided: Durbin

I woke up at 1:45pm today.

I guess that's what vacations are for. I had some Rice Krispies and coffee while switching between the Colbert Report and Fuse, where the Foo Fighters were performing. Then I showered and left to go get a haircut.

I've had the same barber since I was ten. He's a little old Italian guy in his mid-to-late 70s, but he watches Jerry Springer. I walked in today and there was a guy on TV in a cowboy hat and a lime-green bikini. I really have no idea what the topic of the show was supposed to be, but within three minutes of my arrival, three women had flashed the rest of the audience to loud ovations.

We usually discuss the Yankees or the Bills when I'm the only one there, and today was no exception. While I provided an overview of what I'm doing over the next few months, he showed some interest but eventually turned to talking about the acquisition of Johnny Damon.

I left the shop and went the long way home, swinging by Paul's house and finding his car there, but neither he nor Tia was home. I was in the process of leaving a note when his dad drove up and confirmed that there was no one home and that he would pass along the message that I had stopped by.

I came home and was greeted by my mother in the garage, letting me know that someone from Mr. Durbin's office had called for me. I was coming in when the SUNY internship coordinator called to let me know that Durbin's office was looking for me. I said that I had just found out and went to call her back. I had a fairly long phone interview with a woman named Sally who had gone through the SUNY Washington Semester program and also had participated in two EuroSims - one in Brussels and one in Prague. She had also lived in Colorado for a while. Now she's the internship coordinator for Richard Durbin and splits time between the Whip's office at the Capitol and the main office in DC. She was incredibly conversational and easy-going and for some reason I didn't get nervous; everything went very well.

She asked me about my two year "gap" in college and I explained that as briefly as I could. She talked about Colorado and we knew a lot of the same places. She also asked about my umpiring. She laughed at a lot of the things I said and I never felt like I was under pressure to over-promote myself. Everything was very relaxed and at the end, she offered me a spot and told me that I need not report until the 23rd, which gives me time to get back from the Czech Republic and not rush too much getting down to Washington, which is great. I don't really know exactly what I'll be doing there, and it will likely depend on her evaluation of my "skills," whatever they may be. She said that of course everyone has different strengths and that I apparently write very well, judging by my letters of recommendation. She asked me if I knew what had been written, and I said no. She just said that they were very, very good. So apparently, Dr. Stinson and Dr. Maulucci did a great job of making some great stuff up about me. I will have to thank them again for that.

So I'm pretty excited. I fly out of Buffalo to NYC on Sunday and the next day, I fly out of JFK airport and into Prague.

Fort Collins, CO - March 2003

This is a picture of Kristen Y (original Kristen, for those of you keeping track) and I at the apartment I shared with Biz and Steve Y in Fort Collins, Colorado. It was taken around mid-March 2003. There was a blizzard while Kristen and Christine were visiting - right around St. Patrick's Day. They even closed the mall because there was danger of the roof collapsing under the massive amount of snow. I think that was the day we all stayed inside and started drinking around 1 in the afternoon. I had Admiral Nelson vodka mixed with Sprite out of the giant beer mug that John had smuggled out of a bar in Cheyenne, Wyoming.

In this picture, I'm enjoying some New Belgium beer brewed right in Fort Collins, at the world's only completely wind-powered brewery. New Belgium offers Fat Tire, Sunshine Wheat, and four to five other outstanding beers. Odell is the other microbrew in FtC, and they have some good beer as well. I still use my 90 Shilling bottle opener that I received at a tour there, although the logo has long since worn off. The six packs were roughly $7, but we usually went for them anyway because it was just so good. There was a bar there called Tony's that most of the Sears guys would go to on Wednesdays because they offered dollar draughts of both local microbrews. Tony's was only marginally better than Sunny's in Fredonia, but Christian always wanted to go so he could hit on the shots girl with the huge tattoo and large (very likely fake) rack.

I was intending to grow my hair out in Colorado, but I could never make it past that awkward stage. It kept getting more and more puffy without seeming to approach the shoulders or even lower on my neck. So I went from the one extreme (this picture represents almost the longest point) to another. I shaved my face first and the next week, Chris F came over with his kit of supplies and cut my hair down to about 1/8". It was pretty scary - I looked like I had just joined the army. Eventually the beard came back and was cut down to a goatee - Colorado was the first time I had the goat, and that's what I had when I returned in August for Randy & Laura's and Links and Brooke's weddings.

On the refrigerator in back, you can see the collage that Biz assembled prior to the invasion of Iraq with various amusing combinations of words and pictures. There was one thing that he did that I especially liked; he had cut out the word WAR and placed it across the upcoming week's forecast. It was fitting. This was the time period when every cable news channel had had "Target: Iraq" or something similar written in the corner of their telecast with flashy graphics. There was little debate in the mainstream press. I remember getting into an argument with an empty-headed flag-waver at work after he made some derogatory comment about the protesters that had peaceably assembled on College Avenue, down from CSU. There was never a thought among most people that the war might be unnecessary or a mistake, and to touch on the subject was blasphemous - "you don't support our troops!!!???" was all you would hear. Well, I don't support the use of our armed forces in a war of choice in which tens of thousands of innocent civilians will perish. Nope. The beat goes on though, two and a half years later.

There's a tangent. Here's a couple more...

I'm posting a bunch of pictures because I'm home now and have the ability to do so. I couldn't install Picasa on the computers at school and didn't know how to upload anything without it. I think it's nice to have them on the blog. It serves to break up the mass of text that there would be without them, and might encourage people to stay who don't like to read my endless ramblings. I like this picture, despite how my hair looks and despite the fact that my beard was growing in even less well then than it does now. It was great to have Kristen and Christine visit and to hang out and have fun with them. We had been in FtC less than a month at that point, since we had lived in Denver for about two weeks after a couple days with Alison in Boulder (that was as long as we could stay without washing dishes...that's an inside joke for Steve and John).

...although it did kind of point out to me that two thirds of the guys in the apartment had someone sharing their bed (guess who the other third was?). This really wasn't a huge deal, because I was only about four months from the Destini thing (which had led me to stop going to classes at Fredonia and then to move out to Colorado), and although I was definitely lonely, I was in no position mentally to be with anyone. Living with two cool guys, being very poor, and drinking a lot were just about everything I needed. There was a little crisis there when Biz and Steve took off for a week to California, leaving with Kristen and Christine. They left me everything I needed to meet our group's financial obligations, and Steve was always very generous with loaning me his car even after I smashed up the front end in a very low-speed, no-traction sort of collision, but I would come home from work and go out of my mind with nothing to do. I burned up a 600-minute phone card that week talking to Destini. I found out later that she had seriously considered coming out there, but of course that would probably have been very damaging to what psychologically needed to happen for me.

*

I just attempted to find the email about that on this computer's Alltel account in Outlook Express. The entire Destini folder is gone. Vanished. Kaput. I have no idea what has happened to it, although I know one of the only reasons this computer is still around is because I was intending to transfer all of those emails somehow to disk or at least print them all. But everything is gone. I don't know how that could have happened. I don't even know what to say about it, other than that I'm feeling a little too much like Jim Carrey in Eternal Sunshine right now - things being erased out from under me. Wow.

*

So......................

I've gone away and come back to this too many times, so I think I'll just finish it up.

I was pretty hard up in Colorado until just about the very end when a girl named Desiree - who was apparently just out of the movie Saved! - came along. I certainly never got to that point with her, but Desiree, like one of the girls in the movie was under the impression that she was going to preserve her virginity by only having anal sex. She had one of the dirtiest minds I've ever encountered, but she was a staunch Republican. I kind of forgot about the email she sent to me after I came back home to NY, but I just looked it up and I think I'll post part of it. I remember that I snorted in shock and amusement while reading it because it was so unlike how she was in person. I'm sure King will enjoy a certain portion of it - he tells me the same thing all the time. I think I was worse then than I am now though.

Here's a sample:

"you told me you saw Morgan and me in my car at the mall. You told me when you were here just before you left and then you email ed me the same statement which leads me to believe that you thought this was a big deal or some sort of problem. Why? I live with two guys, seeing a guy in my car is hardly anything to worry about. Besides, he's my best friend, and had you and I had a relationship, I still would talk to him and want to hang out with him. No one understands me like him, no one is as close to me as he is. Never has been, never will be (except Jesus).


Which brings me to my next point. God is vary important to me and my growth as a person. No offense, but I could never be with someone who doesn't have the same views. Not just because that is important to ME, but because the Bible tells us that a relationship where the couple is not "equally yolked" will have a difficult time and more than likely not succeed. Now, if none of the above things were factors, and I really was interested in a relationship, your lack of self confidence and the way you bad-mouth yourself would be an issue. I did find you physically attractive, but when you go on and on about how you don't think so, it's a definite turn off, and that would have ended it soon anyway. I will tell you now that you would find ME hard to get along with as well as I am probably one of the most conservative people you may ever meet. I can appreciate smart liberals who have views with reason and have taken years to find out how they truly feel about things, and then there are the delusional ones which make up about 95% of the liberal population. I don't know which you are, I don't care. But I refuse to have unnecessary conflict in my life, and two different political views would certainly cause conflict.

Now I know I am not the most articulate person ever, I didn't plan this out really. As I said, I'm just telling you how I feel. It felt good to know you didn't care if I had makeup on, or anything like that. But the pace at which we moved was WAY too fast and it frightened me. I believe there is a reason for everything, a reason I did what I did and a reason you left. I believe everything works out for the best in the end and I know I won't always understand or like the outcome, but eventually everything works out. That is the way it is suppose to be. A purpose to everything. I wish you the best of luck in the future, I'm sure you'll end up happy."

Morgan was her ex-boyfriend. The boyfriend that became an ex-boyfriend when she called him up to break up with him three days after she made out with me. He was in the Caribbean or something. For what exactly, I forget. One of the guys that she lived with was Morgan's best friend. His name was Jon and he weighed about 300 pounds. Very funny, very likeable guy until she started hanging out at my place (her apartment was about 10 seconds away if I walked slowly). Then she started sneaking around like he was her father. It was annoying.

I don't think that I "went on and on" about my low opinion of myself, but I probably did.

I never heard a word about God or politics until shortly before I left for the weddings. Desiree had just retrieved the mail and I was looking through a radical Republican newsletter that was addressed to Jon, laughing at the headlines. Even then, she didn't say the type of things she said in this email.

The fast pace was to third base in about four to five weeks or so. Actually only slightly faster than my first long-term relationship, although to stick with the baseball analogy, that runner was stranded on third for seven more months before he scored.

The makeup and stuff like that....I just pointed out to her that she was very pretty and didn't need any of it as far as I was concerned. I also did some math for her and figured out she was spending about $200 per year just getting her nails done. She actually gave that up and got rid of the fake nails within a week of me saying anything about it. This both impressed and scared me to think that I had that much influence. She was only a year younger than me, but acted quite a bit younger than that.

You can imagine how much I loved the statistic that 95% of liberals are delusional. I found that hilarious.

I saw a nice bumper sticker the other day: The Only Republicans are Millionaires and Fools.
Of course, this is the same sort of blanket statement.

I laughed out loud at the "(except Jesus)" because it just surprised the hell out of me (no pun intended) just coming out of the blue like that. Like I said, she had given no indication of this during the time we were together. She had definitely been the aggressive pursuer of the two of us and also told more dirty jokes than I had heard in the past year.

So Colorado was an interesting experience.

Lively Discussion at the DABA

I'm linking to this because I wrote quite a bit in the comments section and one of the reasons for having a blog is to get people to read what you've written... so read it.

Me with John Paul Jones - November 30, 2001

JPJ played bass, keyboards, mandolin, and just about anything else that needed to be played in Led Zeppelin. He has continued expanding his instrumental prowess since the Zep days. His talent is displayed on Zooma (1999) and The Thunderthief (2002).

Keep in mind that I had been waiting in freezing temperatures for quite a few minutes prior to Jonesy coming out to meet his fans. It was also windy, which explains the hair. There's probably not much excuse for the mental patient's grin plastered on my face. Oh well.

This was the back of the venue in Lakewood, Ohio (just outside Cleveland). Jonesy opened for King Crimson at this large high school auditorium. I thought it was a bit odd, but I was informed that Britney Spears had played there previously (so that makes it all right...). I skipped King Crimson and snuck through the back of the school to meet JPJ. Jones had dedicated "Freedom Song" from Thunderthief to his friend George Harrison, who had just passed away.

Philadelphia - June 22, 2005

Matt (Cindi's friend), Cindi, Alex (Oz), Me

This was taken prior to the second Robert Plant show in Philly.

 

Semester's End

I had my last two finals on Thursday. Wednesday night, I stayed up writing my PoliSci paper until quite late. The final for Filipink's American Century class was a lovely little nightmare. Thirty-nine questions over roughly fifteen pages. All short-answer, fill-in-the-blank, minor essays, et cetera. 150 points. Of the two hours allotted, I was there for one hour and fifty-five minutes. Loved it.

The room was packed. I started wondering if maybe there was another section of the same class, but I'm pretty sure there isn't. I don't know what these people were hoping for, since they were never in class and there's no way that they're about to pass that final. One idiot came in about ten minutes late, dressed like he left his guns in his car after his drive back from Columbine. I had never seen him in class before. He proceeded to sniffle very loudly at slightly irregular intervals, snorting the snot back up into his nostrils and annoying the hell out of everyone there.

Or at least me. I was pretty ticked.

Someone must have finally handed him a tissue or maybe he just started to let his nose drip down onto the paper. I don't know, but his snorting subsided after about twenty minutes.

SO...I got out of there around 3:30 and had to be to the Critical Thinking final by 4pm. I called Jessica and discovered that she was on campus already. I trekked over to Fenton Hall - slowly, since everything was iced over pretty well, and of course I was trying to "carry myself well," but it was difficult to do so with the sidewalks in that condition.

Anyway, when I got over there, I knew I wasn't going to get much studying done sitting next to her. We talked a bit. She described her mood as "antsy" because she was all packed up and ready to leave and just wanted to get out of Fredonia. She was waiting around all day for someone from the gas company and they had never shown up. I got about ten minutes of studying done. I tried to get her to stick around that night because the weather was so bad, but she apparently really wanted to get home. I suppose that's further evidence that she's not as interested as I am.

I was in and out of the test within thirty minutes. It was kind of like Dr. Tuggy said it was going to be - a "glorified quiz." That doesn't mean I did well on it. I didn't do the homework for that unit and I hadn't studied that much. I had an A in the class, so I just hope I didn't screw it up. The debate evaluation was completed finally, and he had amended it to a 98. Some comments:

"You spoke with power and precision"

-I'm not sure I've spoken with power or precision at any point in my life.

"Good use of sarcasm - it was pretty dry, though - I think some of the audience thought you were actually advocating genetic engineering."

-I found this hilarious. My sarcasm too dry? People didn't get it? Huh. That never happens. The comment referenced something I had said toward the beginning of the debate (on whether or not there should be one world government) about how it would be a wonderful idea - just as soon as we fundamentally alter human nature. I said that maybe we could just start genetically engineering people and suggested that we use a nice book by Aldous Huxley called Brave New World as a blueprint. This was delivered in a somewhat characteristically deadpan way and apparently flew directly over some heads.

"I didn't get the car joke - sorry [smiley face]"

-The other side had said something about most people being fairly educated and rational. I countered by saying that in the United States, supposedly one of the most educated nations in the world, one of our most popular activites is to watch people get in their cars, go fast, and turn left all day. This was also delivered - purposely - with a straight face, and no one got that it was a jab at NASCAR. Oh well.

Those were the most interesting things on the evaluation. I lost it in the snow later on. I lost it in the snow because after the test, I waited for Jess to come out and we walked to her car. I tried to put my books on her car, but they started to slip, so I (I think fairly dramatically...) threw them into the snow, turned around with my arms out, embraced her, and kissed her. I said that I wished that we had more time together, she agreed, and I told her to drive carefully. That was about it.

I'll write more, but I'm at Brett's and he needs to sleep, so I'm going to leave.

Now THAT'S Reassuring!

Tiny Excerpt:

Months after the Sept. 11 attacks, President Bush secretly authorized the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on Americans and others inside the United States to search for evidence of terrorist activity without the court-approved warrants ordinarily required for domestic spying, according to government officials.

Under a presidential order signed in 2002, the intelligence agency has monitored the international telephone calls and international e-mail messages of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people inside the United States without warrants over the past three years in an effort to track possible "dirty numbers" linked to Al Qaeda, the officials said. The agency, they said, still seeks warrants to monitor entirely domestic communications.

The White House asked The New York Times not to publish this article, arguing that it could jeopardize continuing investigations and alert would-be terrorists that they might be under scrutiny. After meeting with senior administration officials to hear their concerns, the newspaper delayed publication for a year to conduct additional reporting. Some information that administration officials argued could be useful to terrorists has been omitted.

Jimmy Page, OBE

From Yahoo! News -

Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page went to Buckingham Palace on Wednesday to receive an Officer of the Order of the British Empire, or OBE, from Queen Elizabeth II — but the award was for his work with poor Brazilian children rather than his music.

The 61-year-old rocker said he was overwhelmed to be given the accolade, recalling how he first became involved with Brazilian children in 1994 when fighting broke out between street gangs while he was in Rio de Janeiro promoting an album.

"At that time in Rio the sun wasn't shining. The army was going into the favelas (shantytowns) and I heard about the plight of the street children," Page told reporters.

He joined forces with the British charity Task Brazil and set up a safe house which has so far supported more than 300 children.

"I think when you're faced with a plight that's inescapable, and there's something you can do about it, you hope you can make a difference," he said.

Task Brazil offers medical and psychological support, food, clothing and job training for street children.

Page was a member of the 1960s band The Yardbirds before helping to set up Led Zeppelin.

Welcome To The Desert

I've turned down my thermostat from 66 degrees to 60 to 58 and now to 52 degrees.

However, the temperature in the apartment remains a vaguely hellish 82 degrees Fahrenheit.

In the morning, I awake parched, with my lips incredibly dry. The skin on my hands is weathered and not particularly becoming. If I was staying here more than ten more days, I might be tempted to purchase a humidifier.

I'm under the impression that the ladies downstairs in the doll shop keep their quarters at 102 and the warm air is rising up to me whether I like it or not.

Well, I don't.

Not one bit.

Catching Up, Part Two

Just got back from my PoliSci final. Globalism was yesterday. I now have two finals and one big, fat research paper left to do. The paper's due by noon on Thursday, then I have an ugly American Century final from 1:30-3:30 and my Critical Thinking (Philosophy) final at 4pm. After that, I'm done with regular classes at the undergrad level for good, although I will have a paper to write and a presentation to give as part of next semester's DC internship.

I've been thinking about how this semester went, and I'm fairly pleased. Not having Aaron around at the apartment may have meant a lack of furniture and computer, but it also meant that I spent a lot more time at the library these past few months. I did much more reading for almost all of my classes this year than I ever had before, and I think I was generally more prepared for quite a few things. That doesn't mean that I appreciably altered my predilection for procrastination, of course. I was still doing papers at the last minute (and still have one more to do at the last minute) and staying up late at night before they were due. However, spending more time at the library was - oddly enough - better for my social life. This semester, I effectively lost some of the friendships I formed when I initially returned to college last fall, but gained other, likely more substantial relationships with likely more intelligent and interesting people. It's probable that I wouldn't be going off to central Europe in a few short weeks if I would have spent less time here, since I wouldn't have been around to have been offered a spot. In addition, I wouldn't have had either of the end-of-the-semester encounters that I've recounted in recent posts...although one of them crashed, burned, and died immediately and the other might fizzle out fairly quickly (like after Thursday...I'll explain more in just a bit).


What I'm saying is that it seems things may have worked out for the best as far as me not having enough money to buy a computer and consequently spend more time alone at the apartment. It was, after all, a positive thing.


So yeah - the Jessica thing. Jessica, for those of you who may be wondering, is 5'2" with just-touching-shoulder-length, just slightly wavy, wonderfully thick lustrous hair. Yeah, that's a bit of a Costanza reference from Seinfeld.


She is yet another Leo - born on August 7th. (Destini, Andrea, and Chelsea were all Leos as well.)


She likes classic rock, but is more into Aerosmith and Guns n Roses than what I would probably describe as higher tier groups like Zeppelin, the Doors, Floyd, Hendrix, et cetera. She likes those bands, but probably couldn't identify individual songs. That's the impression I got anyway.


We talked politics for a while, but I was careful not to reveal too much. She is pretty obviously conservative. She is opposed to things like Affirmative Action, gay marriage, and possibly even civil unions, although I didn't get that direct with her. She did say directly that she thought the prospect of gay marriage "promotes that lifestyle," to which I could only give a slight smirk. Instead of overtly contradicting many of the things she said and getting into an argument, which is not something I normally shy away from..., I took a different road. I merely offered probing questions that aimed at forcing her to consider the ramifications of the views that she held. She held firm for the most part, but seemed intrigued by the challenge to her stance. I offered more than once to change the subject, but she said that she enjoyed talking intelligently about such things and didn't mind disagreement; she also said that no one had actually taken the time or expended the effort to challenge her on individual issues. All in all, the initial conversations went well, and I think we both enjoyed talking to each other. The time passed very quickly and there was a lot of fluidity and smiles at subtle jokes.


I don't know... see, things like that are a big deal to me, but I think they come much easier to other people. Of course, other people might be talking about how fucking cold it is outside or how incredibly shit-faced they were at their last frat party, but I guess they also have fluidity in their conversations. For me, though...it's pretty rare. I tend to latch on when I find that.


We both talked about our initial impressions of each other. She had apparently not even noticed that I had had a beard for a little over a month, but that was the exact time following her breakup, so it's understandable. Yet it also indicated that she was probably not as observant/interested as I was. She said something about how I "carry myself well." I'm not exactly sure what that means, but I think it probably means that I act more confident than I am. It must have been a big disappointment to her that I turned out to have such low self-esteem.


I avoided talking about religion for the most part, but I confirmed that she was not a creationist who believes that Earth is 5,000 years old and that the dinosaurs' remains were put here just to test her faith. As beautiful as I think she is, that probably would have made me get up and get out pretty quickly.


I didn't touch the abortion issue. I assumed, being an every-Sunday, no-exceptions kind of Catholic, that might cause a very awkward and difficult impasse in the conversation. Generally, although we did hit a few political issues, I tiptoed around the major ones. Oh well.


Anyway, at Applebee's last Thursday night, she explained that while, "I can't deny I'm interested," she also noted the time constraints of the remaining days of the semester and the proximity in time to the end of her previous relationship while admitting that there was a distinct possibility that it might not be completely over. Even though the previous day in the library she told me that I should have talked to her sooner, she acknowledged that it probably would have been tough for her up to a month or so after the breakup to have been willing to even go anywhere with me. So I can't really kick myself too much for waiting too long to go after her.


It was snowing heavily when we got outside the restaurant. She had wanted to pay, but I said absolutely not. I brushed off her car, which we had taken because it was closer to BJ's, where we had been to listen to Mike K's short fiction reading. We went back to my place to pick out a movie to watch at her apartment (owing to the fact that she has furniture as well as a television that can display the color red, unlike me). She selected the last Bond film, which she had not yet seen, as well as Big Fish. She also noted that she's a Mitch Hedberg fan.


Solid.


So we went back to her place - among a group of apartments above BJ's bar. It's a nice little apartment, pretty nicely furnished. Complete with a picture of her and the ex-boyfriend on the end table on what turned out to be my side of the futon.


Excellent.


I tried not to notice it too much, but of course I kept looking over at it. I wasn't really surprised, and I'm more guilty of hanging on to my own past than anyone else I know, so I put it out of my mind. She had mentioned that he was pretty selfish and hadn't adequately appreciated her during their time together, saying that they broke up so that he could "grow up a little." Consequently, I acted as mature and chivalrous as I possibly could while remaining sufficiently flirtatious and playful.


I probably failed miserably in all these objectives, but at least I had a plan in my own little mind.


I really didn't know how to act once we got to the apartment. Obviously I was very interested, but I knew I had very little chance of getting anywhere in the short time I had. I can't emphasize enough how comfortable I was just talking with her and being with her. Even though I knew how much we probably disagreed on important, substantial issues and that it's unlikely I'll even see her again after Thursday, I was and am compelled to try to be around her as much between now and then as I can. I just simply don't experience that level of relative ease that I do with her.


I also felt a very powerful impulse to put my arm around her and hold her closely from very early on. I don't know why. I felt like I could and wouldn't be rebuffed at all and that it would just kind of work and that we would go together. I can't really explain that properly. If you know what I mean, that's great.


So on the futon, I sat on the right center and she sat on the left center. She had a blanket around her because it was cold. She moved over a bit and our knees touched. I teased her a little and asked her if she was all right with that level of contact.


By the time we were 65-75% or so into Die Another Day (her selection, not mine...I would have gone with Big Fish, given its emotional impact. I warned her ahead of time about the presence of Madonna and her horrible techno-ish theme song. The vibe was obviously very different with a Bond movie than what Big Fish might have been. More Mystery Science Theater 3000, if you know what I'm trying to say - we both made fun of the one-liners and the unrealistic bits, of which there are many), she was kind of cradled from the waist up with my arms around her. I ran my fingers up and down her forearm and through her hair. She had since moved the blanket to cover mostly just her legs and when asked if she was warm enough, she laughed and said she definitely thought so.


I took that as a good sign.


That's really as far as things went, because I didn't want to seem either presumptuous or like I had completely disregarded what she had told me at dinner. There was also that nice picture on the end table every time I turned to my right. What transpired was really the extent of what I wanted to happen that particular night. I was pleasantly surprised that it went as well as it did and I didn't want to ruin it by being greedy. Most importantly, I really enjoyed just being there with her, holding her, and attaining that level of trust with her. It meant a lot to me.


It was fairly late after the movie. Under ordinary circumstances, I'm sure I would have absolutely ruined things by insisting on knowing exactly what she had thought about what just happened and what it really meant and what the future held and on and on. However, I decided, just for once, to shut my mouth and refrain from the temptation of pulling the trigger on that gun poised over my foot.


I did kind of stall at the door because it felt like something should happen, and eventually we embraced and kissed...very tamely. That was really enough, so I said goodnight and skipped off down the stairs.


Well... I never really learned how to skip, actually. My kindergarten report card praised my ability to "gallop," but advised that I should work on skipping over the summer. Unfortunately, I didn't heed this and it haunts me to this day...


You get the idea. I was pretty happy.


This was to be relatively short-lived, however. The next night, we went to the Hook and Ladder at her request. Although we had agreed to go out together with my friends, she went home after the meal to call a friend of hers whom she had promised to call back that night and I went back to my apartment. She told me to call her later.

~ ~ ~

(It is now 10:12pm... I went to dinner with King, Randy, and Laura)

Okay, so she was supposed to meet us out later. King showed up pretty late, and Matt D hadn't gotten there yet. I called Jessica and was told that she didn't feel like going out. She apologized at least twice for "disappointing" me.

I'll admit that I was slightly crestfallen. King and I decided to meet Steph L, Matt D, and Kristen O at a slightly lame party a very long, cold walk away from my apartment. We picked up a six-pack of Blue on the way. We arrived and confirmed fairly quickly that it was indeed lame. The two Matts and I downed two Labatts each and the five of us headed out, but not before Matt K had an awkward encounter with a woman scorned (as in "Hell hath no fury like...).

So we proceeded to have an interesting night out. We went to Ellicottville Brewing Company (EBC) and eventually Pizza, Wings & Things (PWT) and back to my apartment where Kristen O ate half of my chicken fingers.

Saturday at work, I received an email from Jessica. This is the main part of it:

"I wanted to apologize to you too because I don't think I'm being very fair to you. You're probably cursing women right now for being so damn confusing right? I don't blame you. I tried to explain to you at dinner the other night that things are kind of complicated in my life right now and I'm not really looking for anything. But I realize that by kissing you goodnight I probably confused you a little bit - or possibly a lot.

Let me try and be as black and white as I can...I do like hanging out with you. I think you're a really cool guy and we've had really good conversations together. I also know that you are really into me, and I thank you because its very flattering. But I can't give you what you're looking for right now. I don't mind hanging out, but I want "light and breezy", and I think you are interested in more than that. I'm sorry if you've felt I've been leading you on to think something different. Timing was just WAY OFF for you and I right now. I don't want you expecting something from me and then be really disappointed later. I've just got a lot of things on my mind - past, present and future and I really can't handle and don't want anything else. I just need to take care of me right now. Like I said I don't mind spending time with you this last week I'm here but casual is all I can be. If you can't do that or don't want that I totally understand, but hopefully you can understand where I'm coming from too.

Maybe this email was too presumptuous on my part, but nonetheless I felt I needed to tell you where I really stand. I've got finals on Monday but if you still want to talk to me please call."

Of course, I was a little disappointed by all of this, but I was extremely impressed with how incredibly clear and forthright she was with me. Very few women...well, very few people are this direct, and I really appreciated that she took the time to write/clarify all that she did.

Missing from her email was "...and I'm really into you too," which would have been nice to hear, and would have made me feel a little better about things. But I wasn't too surprised, I guess. I complimented her quite a few times, but I think the only thing she ever said about my appearance was that 'carrying myself' comment, so it's probable that she just really wasn't that attracted, which may account for some of her readiness and willingness to leave right away after Thursday's final and presumably not look back. Or maybe she's looking forward to getting back with the boyfriend. I don't know.

Saturday night, I ran into her at BJ's and we talked for a bit about the email. She hadn't read my response, which had essentially praised her for being so open about things and also asserting that no apology was necessary - that I had been quite happy with limiting things to what happened on Thursday night and that I didn't expect anything more, but that I enjoyed very much what did happen. We basically just confirmed that we were on good terms. Her friends were in town, so she didn't join our little group. She did not say goodbye that I'm aware of, which bugged me just a little.

Monday night, we went for pizza at Lena's here in town and went back to her apartment. She indicated that she had a lot to do, so I took off fairly quickly. At the door, I held out my hand to shake, and she rolled her eyes and laughed. I told her again that I didn't get any wrong ideas about anything from the kiss, and I said how I was content just being there with her, but at the end we had regressed to just a hug goodbye.

Today, I saw her on campus after my exam and we talked for a bit. She said that she would "catch up with me later," but that didn't happen tonight. Time's running out, and I feel like both time and my chances of making any kind of real impression on her are pretty much gone already. It's a little wistful.

I wish I would have had just a little longer, but at the same time, I can't be too unrealistic about what would have eventually happened anyway when we met certain obstacles in our respective world-views. I'm not about to start attending Mass every Sunday and I've made my views on organized religion fairly clear in this space before. And Jess is unlikely to undergo a complete transformation about her thoughts on issues. So maybe it's a good thing that things will likely end on a very limited but still friendly basis, and hopefully with her having a fairly positive view of me. Just too bad things couldn't have been a little different - that's all.

So that was one of my longer entries. Sorry to anyone who read the whole thing. It was a chance for me to get a lot of my thoughts down so I can stare at them and come back to them later.

I need to do some research for my paper now.

Over and out.

Catching Up

Well, I didn't post a lot for the last few days. There are reasons for this. It's finals week, of course. The last day of classes was Friday. Kristen O, Matt D, Matt K, and Steph L were hangout partners on Friday night. King was not present for Saturday.

The unnamed girl in recent posts was Vanessa. She did indeed skip both Wednesday and Friday, so I never saw her again after my lovely email that attempted to confirm her disinterest in me. I don't have a final in that class, so unless we have some unfortunate meeting on campus in the next four days, complete with furtive glances, I will likely not see her at all for months, if ever again. I'm not sweating it.

I got over it pretty quickly actually. As I've noted before, I think if I have to try really hard to get a girl to want to spend time with me, then it's simply not going to work. First of all, it doesn't communicate a very good sign to me if I have to call and call or write and write with no reply.

Second of all, I'm lazy, and if you're into me, you'll have to let me know about it, preferably directly.

Anyway... I had a debate in my philosophy class last Tuesday. It was a makeup for the first one I had, which went pretty badly. I was initially supposed to write a paper, but when someone dropped the class, I was allowed to step in. I was on the opposition side of an argument regarding the establishment of a world government. Long story shorter...we destroyed them, and I think I did pretty well. The professor seemed to agree, and he gave me a 94. He had some rather humorous things to say in his evaluation. I may share some of that at a later date.

I had a presentation in Globalism the day after, and that was interesting. Although not necessarily on topic, I incorporated the rules to the drinking game Bullshit into my speech. I made an analogy: the American people, diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, prescribed Ritalin, have been drinking all night. Alcoholic beverages do not mix with psychiatric medication, and the Americans aren't doing very well in their game of Bullshit. Their opponent? The US government, presented through the mainstream media. The US knows that it shouldn't drink anymore than it has to, so they're reluctant to call "Bullshit," since this would lead to drinking unnecessarily. The American Administration knows that it can say virtually anything without getting called on it.

So the class seemed to like this, and the instructor was fairly amused.

The same day, I was in the library and saw the first girl that I had my eye on all semester - the one in my philosophy class. In reality, Vanessa merely came to fore after I never saw Jessica outside of class (when I did see her, I was always taken by surprise and had nothing intelligent to say). I had actually written Jessica's name down in my notebook (I looked through this recently) back in mid-September. So that Wednesday night in the library, Jessica came up to me and told me I did a nice job in the debate.

Forty-five minutes later, we had exchanged phone numbers and agreed to meet later. We talked for almost three hours at Tim Horton's that night. Many of you will laugh, since it seems that she is semi-strict Catholic with pretty conservative views. Nonetheless, I was/am very attracted to her and she seems to 'get' my sense of humor, which is a relatively rare thing. The obvious downside to all of this is that I'm leaving to go to Prague and DC, and she's graduating (she's 22 and had to take a semester off for medical leave, so she's graduating a semester later than most of her friends) and going back to the Rochester area. So it's fairly unlikely we'll meet again unless we go out of our way to make sure that happens. She had a long-term relationship end roughly a week after Fall Break and maintains that even given more time, she wouldn't be ready for another commitment.

There's more to this, but I'll have to pick it up later. The library's closing. Nothing like a blog cliffhanger, eh? Actually, it's not that exciting, so don't expect a lot when I put up another post.

In Old News, A New Bond

Steve suggested I post this some time ago; I'm just getting around to it now.

I can't post the picture for some reason, but a simple internet search will likely turn one up if you're interested.

This article appeared in USA Today a while back, and was written by Cesar Soriano.

The 37-year-old English actor, little-known outside his native Britain, has officially been named the new James Bond, the first blond to portray the martini-swilling, woman-loving British secret agent.

His first assignment: Casino Royale, based on Ian Fleming's 1953 novel that first introduced the suave spy. The 21st Bond film begins shooting in January in Prague [hey... maybe I'll see some of that...] and is due for release Nov. 16, 2006.

"It's a huge challenge, a huge responsibility," Craig said at Friday's press conference in London. Bond "is a huge iconic figure in movie history. These opportunities don't come along very often so I thought, 'Why not?'"

Making a true Bond entrance, Craig arrived to the press conference aboard a British Marine speedboat up the Thames River, disembarked near the Tower Bridge and marched into the room to the well-known Bond theme song.

Craig was in Baltimore filming The Visiting with Nicole Kidman when he got the call that he had been chosen out of 200 actors who tried out for the part. "My first reaction was I needed a drink," he said.

In reality, the announcement was not a big surprise. Craig had been the long-favorite, and the future spy's cover was blown when his own mother blabbed to the family's hometown newspaper in Liverpool this week.

Craig, a film, theater and television actor, is best-known for his critically acclaimed role in the 2004 crime-thriller, Layer Cake. Other credits in his dossier include Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, Road to Perdition and Sylvia. He will next be in Steven Spielberg's Munich, out Dec. 23, and Every Word is True with co-stars Gwyneth Paltrow and Sandra Bullock (Fall 2006).
The soft-spoken Craig recalled watching Bond films as a child. His favorite was Sean Connery's Goldfinger. "I have some big shoes to step into," he said. "I don't know any child who is not a Bond fan."

Craig is only the sixth actor to play James Bond, first portrayed by Connery in 1962's Dr. No. A seventh actor, David Nivens, played Bond in an unofficial, 1967 spoof film also called Casino Royale. The Nivens film, however, is rarely counted because it was a spoof and was filmed outside the official MGM series. MGM/Sony only recently acquired the rights to the book.
Craig takes over the role from Irishman Pierce Brosnan, 52, who played Bond in four films. Brosnan made headlines this week after he expressed disappointment that was not rehired, despite his own past comments that he no longer wanted the job.

Casino Royale director Martin Campbell, who also helmed the 1995 Bond film Goldeneye, said his film will be "definitely darker, more character, less gadgets." The "Bond Girl" has not yet been cast. Filmmakers also revealed that screenwriters Neal Purvis and Robert Wade have already begun work on the next Bond film.

Oh...Wow

Jesus' General

Make sure you read the linked article that the letter is written in response to; it's something else.

Murtha Responds To Bush Speech

John Murtha, the fairly conservative Democrat who recently called for a fairly quick draw-down of US forces in Iraq, responded to some of the Bush Administration's claims about progress in Iraq.

The Digits

Well - here we are again, kids.

I had yet another paper due for Dr. Filipink today. This one was late, unfortunately. I read the book - Presidential Decisions for War, which discusses Truman's handling of Korea, Johnson's dealings in Vietnam, and GHW Bush's intervention in the first Gulf War - over the past week, but the majority of which was completed in the last 30 hours or so. I wrote seven pages in roughly three hours, from 10:30 to 1:30. The class was at noon though. Hopefully he accepts it and doesn't dock me.

The previous post pretty much covered my interaction after class on Friday with the girl featured in the "Smooth" post from Thursday night. There was a little more to it than that. She told me to call her if I was "doing anything" that night. Well, of course I wasn't - but I called anyway and got her voicemail. I left a long, rambling message explaining that it was me that was calling, and that I understood she might not answer because when I call with my calling card, an odd number will appear on Caller ID. I was able to play back the message and I realized that I sounded awful - very monotonic, morose, moribund - you name it.

Yes - I recognize that I probably normally sound like that and am simply unaware of it.

Anyway - I recorded another voicemail while trying to sound 'upbeat' and artificially cheerful. There was a marginal - repeat marginal - improvement. This was done at roughly 9:55. She did not call back.

I called Steph L to complain about things. We talked for a while. I did not go out. I did get a bunch of ironing done and some reading for the paper that was due today.

Saturday was the Autumn & Kristen O birthday extravaganza at Matt D's place. I traveled from the mall after work to my parents' house to pick up some clothes (apparently there was originally supposed to be a 'rave' theme, so I squeezed into my black/silver 100% nylon Kikwear pants that I bought at PacSun in 1999 and have worn roughly 12 times in the intervening years. I also wore the suede-like long-sleeve blue shirt. I figured that was about as 'rave' as I was going to get.

Turns out there wasn't much of a rave atmosphere there, although Autumn was playing different kinds of music in multiple rooms of the house. There was beer and wine to be had. I spent a lot of time toward the end of the night talking to M Gleason, a friend of Theresa's that I met last year. He was at the Audioslave show that I attended in Cleveland with KP, Thom, and Matt K and it turns out he was also at the Cleveland Foozer show that Thom and I went to in October. So we talked about Radiohead, Rage, Foo, Dylan, Soundgarden, Tool and of course Zeppelin for quite a while. Gleason was so enthused by our shared musical tastes that he stopped me several times after I said something he vehemently agreed with to say, "let me just shake your hand right now, man - that is so true!" I would say this probably happened close to ten times.

But I was pretty inebriated too, so it was funny. And it's always great to talk music with someone with similar interests. We both had to laugh when it was discovered neither one of us can play a damn thing or has any musical talent whatsoever (except for the ability to discern what is good and what sucks, of course).

Kristen told me several times that I should not distress over the girl who has not called me back. See - I was so worried that I had approached her too late and it would be difficult to leave for DC with the prospect of missing out on something good; as it transpired however, everything worked out fairly well. We now have less than a week in which we're likely to encounter each other in class or on campus, which means that we probably won't have to discover too many new and different ways to avoid awkward eye contact in the meantime.

Always look on the bright side!

As everyone knows, this is my motto for life.

As I mentioned, she is a psychology major. My theory is that she was able to discover in a fairly short period of time a reasonable working diagnosis of all my various harmful behaviors/habits/idiosyncracies and determine that she just couldn't deal with that sort of challenge. Some psych majors have a tendency to find someone they can work on, but I would say most of the more balanced people that become psychologists would rather find a more socially well-adjusted person than myself with whom to start a relationship.

Just a theory.

Oh - I should tell you this proud little detail.

On Sunday, I was somewhat perturbed by the whole situation and decided to email her. I knew before I even wrote it that it was a huge mistake, and something that no normal (well-adjusted, or even just aware of the rules of the omnipresent 'game') person would do. I basically said that I think I received the proper message from the lack of a return call or email, but that if I was mistaken, I asked her to let me know. I also stated my awareness that such an email was not normal behavior for anyone who is not an idiot, but that I am, after all, unique.

Surprisingly, I have not heard from her yet...

Yeah. I was basically saying 'screw it,' because it's fairly obvious that I managed to do something in a day and a half to scare her off, and I'm sick of playing around. I don't know why people can't be just a L-I-T-T-L-E more open and honest with each other and about their intentions. I hate these fucking games. I gave this girl every possible opportunity to 'escape' or 'get out of' giving her number and letting her know that "hey, I understand - most girls don't find me attractive in any way, and I'm not really expecting you to be any different. It would be nice, but I'm realistic."

No - I didn't really say that.

But I think I implied it pretty effectively.

So why go through with it? To give me a day of optimism and hope? I don't get it. I just don't. She doesn't seem like the kind of girl who just randomly gives out her number to any guy who talks to her. Like I said - I don't ask for many (or really any - when I receive them, they're generally freely given without any asking. Not that this happens often at all, but it has happened) numbers, so it's somewhat of an event when it takes place.

Ugh. All right - I don't want to talk about it any more. I've obviously been thinking about it fairly steadily, and now I've gotten it out and it's done. I didn't go to the class today that we're both in...I had already finished the paper, but I didn't feel like having any encounters or odd looks or dumb, painful small talk as if she didn't get the email or the phone call that came before it.

Okay. That's it for now.

Crash, Burn, Die

"So did you want to get dinner then?"

"Probably not."


Thanks for playing.

Caption Says It All

Smooth - Extra Smooth

Well, despite my lack of "game" and continued self-deprecation in conversation, I managed to land a phone number from a girl today.

Stifle your shocked outbursts, please.

Yes, I've been informed that phone numbers are given and received every day and that this is not sufficient cause for celebration for most normal males, but it hardly ever happens to me, so I'm pretty happy.

I have wonderful timing, of course. I'll be leaving in a matter of weeks.

She said, "it sucks you won't be around here next semester."

Yeah. I'll be back, of course. Not until late April though.

I kind of got the impression that she was with a guy she sat next to in class, although I don't know how I developed that. If I had taken Matt's advice, I would never have let that stop me.

I talked to her for a while yesterday and fumbled miserably through most of the exchange. I don't think it was helped by the fact that I had an audience who also seemed to be competing for her attention.

Today, I talked to her individually, quit trying to act like I knew what I was doing, and was much more blunt about my intentions. I apologized for my lack of suaveness (suavity...? doesn't look right) from yesterday and told her that I would go back to my computer and leave her alone. She immediately asked, "why?"

Even dense me took that that as a positive sign and went forward. We talked for the better part of an hour and may make plans for tomorrow or perhaps Saturday. Too bad I'm very close to being completely broke.

Later on, I was watching Seinfeld and saw the one where George meets the Asian lawyer in the coffee shop, is initially very excited because she thought he was extremely funny. He soon realized that after such a sterling beginning, there is nowhere to go but down, and within two minutes has descended from euphoria to the depths of despair, talking himself out of any hope of success. He insists that Jerry can't keep being so funny in her presence, because it will make him look bad. Of course, then she falls for the dark, brooding, mysterious faux-Jerry.

Even I am not quite that bad, despite all evidence to the contrary. She did laugh at quite a few things that I said. I know this should make me wary, since I'm not very funny, but I'm pretty optimistic in this case. We'll see.

She's a psychology major and English minor, although she claims to like history too. She's applying to grad schools, but isn't clear on what she wants to do. She says that the fact that I'm 24 doesn't frighten her, which is good. She had a birthday recently and is now 21.

That's all for now. Wish me luck. I'm sure I'll need it.

Unusual

A male in a blue Santa Claus suit and black boots walked through the center of the library, went to the back, and came back to sit at the workstation next to mine. He attempted to sign on with the user name "blue santa" and was evidently rebuffed. He rose and left the library.

Great Post About US Use of Torture

Courtesy of Crooks & Liars

Bush lampooned on Family Guy
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2005/11/29.html#a6101

Brian: "Don't worry Lois, I'm good at finding people. I was the one who found Bush after Hurricane Katrina."

Brian: "Uh, Mr. President, are you up there?"

Bush: (face half hidden in treehouse window) "Go away!"

Brian: "Sir, there's a disaster in New Orleans."

Bush: "I'm readin' Superfudge!"

Brian: "You gotta come down and deal with this."

Bush: (lowers further in window) "Don't make me do stuff!"


James Dobson, of Focus on the Family and SpongeBob (in)famy, may be in tax trouble.
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2005/11/28.html#a6084

Tom Delay calls Duke Cunningham "a hero." Cunningham resigned from Congress yesterday, admitting to accepting $2.3 million in bribes.
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2005/11/28.html#a6092

Just Curious

I wonder who was visiting for over an hour from a computer at JCC...?

60 Minutes on Plan B

Crooks and Liars has the video. I happened to catch this last Sunday. The piece was very well done. If you haven't heard about it, the FDA has refused to grant permission for Plan B to be sold over the counter. Plan B is an emergency contraceptive that must be taken within the first 72 hours after sex in order for it to be effective. It is essentially a concentrated dose of the same drugs used for birth control pills. Studies have found it to be just as safe as birth control, and its legal sale over the counter (it is currently available only by prescription) could go a long way toward reducing the number of abortions in this country.

However, it seems that some pharmacists are refusing to dispense this medication on "moral grounds." There actually is an "abortion pill" (RU-486), but they are referring to Plan B in the same terms when it is actually far different.

60 Minutes went to various pharmacies with a prescription and was denied every time but one. In one case, a man told the woman that he could order it for her, but it would "take several days," after which time, of course, it would be of no use.

The pharmacies were in Kentucky, which is the home state of Dr. Hager, an Ob-Gyn appointed to the FDA. Hager's minority opinion written in dissent to the overwhelming approval of an FDA committee for Plan B's OTC application. His objections were adopted by Dr. Lester Crawford, head of the FDA - another Bush appointee, which is why Plan B is still not available over the counter.

Here's an article about what kind of guy Dr. Hager is. This is a little sample:

---Hager cast himself as a victim of religious persecution in his sermon. "You see...there is a war going on in this country," he said gravely. "And I'm not speaking about the war in Iraq. It's a war being waged against Christians, particularly evangelical Christians. It wasn't my scientific record that came under scrutiny [at the FDA]. It was my faith.... By making myself available, God has used me to stand in the breach.... Just as he has used me, he can use you."

Up on the dais, several men seated behind Hager nodded solemnly in agreement. But out in the audience, Linda Carruth Davis--co-author with Hager of Stress and the Woman's Body, and, more saliently, his former wife of thirty-two years--was enraged. "It was the most disgusting thing I've ever heard," she recalled months later, through clenched teeth. ---

- Read the article to find out why she's upset -

---In his private practice back in Kentucky, Hager doesn't prescribe emergency contraception, because he believes it is an abortifacient, and, not surprisingly, his was one of the four votes against widening its availability. But rather than voice his ethical opposition to the product, Hager emphasized his concern about adolescents, which other committee members have since called a "political fig leaf." According to Dr. James Trussell, who voted in favor of Plan B, the FDA had at hand six studies examining whether teens as young as 15 would increase their "risky" behavior if they knew they had a backup emergency contraceptive--and none of the studies showed any evidence for that contention.

In his sermon at Asbury College last fall, Hager proudly recounted his role in the Plan B decision. "After two days of hearings," he said, "the committees voted to approve this over-the-counter sale by 23 to 4. I was asked to write a minority opinion that was sent to the commissioner of the FDA.... Now the opinion I wrote was not from an evangelical Christian perspective.... But I argued it from a scientific perspective, and God took that information, and He used it through this minority report to influence the decision." [Emphasis added.]---

Self-Censorship

Well, you might guess what this is about.

Truthfully, I did have some reservations about my last post, knowing that there was a possibility that I would hear some complaints about what I wrote. As she hung up on me tonight, she said derisively that I would probably write about the conversation, "since I write about everything else on there." Quite a nasty tone, unfortunately.

Well - I wouldn't want to disappoint anyone.

But seriously... in one of my earliest posts on this blog, I said that I would avoid censoring myself and would write about whatever topic I felt like writing about. Obviously, this has the potential to cause some problems with people, especially those that access this space on any kind of regular basis. However, I thought it was much more important for me to be able to have somewhere to talk about what's on my mind at any given time, to discuss things that interest me that are going on in the news, and to relate stories and experiences from my own life. Above all, it was imperative that I be allowed to do this without constant paranoia that I should avoid talking about certain things. Yes, there are things that even I won't talk about on here, believe it or not - but the whole point of that little subheading below the Zepcowboy title - "didn't anyone ever tell you..." is that this is my spot to talk about whatever I damn well please. Yes, I talk about people I know here. I talk about myself as well. I talk about things that I'm proud of and things I'm not proud of. I don't post everything I do throughout the entire day, because that would be ridiculous. But once in a while, I'll write some stuff and throw it on here. I talk about stupid things I've done on here, and I talk about stupid things other people do. I talk about things that I want to talk about, and that's not going to change. I'm a lot less offensive than a large portion of things you might see on the internet. And most of the time when any normal person sees this much uninterrupted text, they turn around and go somewhere else.

Just as an aside while I'm thinking about it, since I forgot to formally reply in the comments section when I got the message a few days ago... Amy, it's very gracious of you to offer your help and knowledge of DC even though - as you put it - we don't get along. I'm sorry that we don't, but I think we both agree we're more than capable of being civil to each other, and that's good.

Anyway - I don't think that I wrote anything that mischaracterized anything that anyone said or did in my last post, and the subjective bits were quite obviously instances where I was choosing to offer an opinion. I never asserted in that post, contrary to any mistaken interpretation, that anyone was a slut. I did offer some general thoughts and specifically my opinion of the message that a so-called sorority spot/tramp stamp/whore patch tat sends to most guys when they see it. These thoughts and this opinion was absolutely nothing different from what I had previously said personally to Chelsea when she initially told me that she wanted to get a tattoo, in the intervening weeks before her birthday, and once again after she got the tattoo - accompanied of course by the same guy that she had described to me on multiple occasions as an unemployed, abusive, cheating former boyfriend with whom she wished to have no further contact (not least of all because he had first choked her and then later punched her in what she said were her two previous encounters with him).

Again - these are all facts. One may certainly take issue with opinions and editorial comments, but to protest the statement of facts seems quite foolish. It may follow that an unfortunate side effect of the presentation of these facts leads to a negative impression of any of the individuals mentioned. However, I'm not making any of this up. It all happened. This is not what idiotic street thugs can refer to as "talking shit" (unless facts are shit, in which case I would suppose that we're all out of luck). Talking shit would imply that I am trading in rumors and falsehoods, which I am not.

To jump back for just a second - Joy obviously has a tattoo in that location, and other tattoos in other locations. This is well known; she has had them for years, and she got the tattoo on her back before it became trendy and popular to do so. Not in this post, nor in any other post, do I intend or would I ever impugn her character. I think of her very highly and remember my time with her fondly and am sorry I that I did not treat her better than I did. She is a good person.

Really, I think Chelsea is at heart a good person as well. She seems to have a few problems with honesty, which are unfortunate, but I'm sure that she can overcome them eventually if she tries. I really do wish that we would have had more in common and could have talked more freely with each other than we seemed to feel comfortable with when we were together. Something I speculated about to her was that intimacy after too brief a time can cut development and growth in other areas of a relationship. I don't know if that was the case with us or if it simply would never have worked. I think she's a beautiful girl, but I was perhaps too skeptical too early about too many things. Of course the other factor was that she did not seem to be over (or at the very least - free of - her ex when we got together). I don't know where the blame lies there. It may not be anyone's fault; it may be a simple question of time.

I may be called a social conservative or a prude or something else by some for my position on tattoos. Hey - everyone is free to do what they want to their own body, and I am free to have my own opinions about the things that they do. I am merely of the belief that the woman I marry or at least am with for a long-term commitment - if there ever is one again - will most likely (I could never say never, just in case) be un-inked, especially in the particular region I've been talking about. Obviously there is a possibility that things could and will turn out differently, and I can't rule anything out completely. I'm just saying most likely. It's not something I find appealing.

On a relevant topic, Matt K is in a TA group/seminar/something/(niner...?) in which there was a discussion about the way girls dress, how they view themselves, and what kinds of impressions or messages they believe they're sending when they dress in certain ways. He could explain this a lot better than I'm doing now, but basically it seems as though the girls who dress the most provocatively profess to have no idea how they're being viewed and thought of by men and even other women. Contrary to what many guys might believe, which is that a woman may stop in front of a mirror and mentally say to herself, "gee, my breasts are hanging out of this shirt - I'm sure to get hit on tonight" - most of these women are seemingly oblivious, or they're lying. I was there when Matt questioned one of our friends regarding this topic, and she admitted that she was somewhat concerned that other girls may be dressed "better" than her when she goes out. When pressed to describe just what "better" meant, she eventually said "sexier."

As Turck pointed out, some girls who are dressing "better" in order to compete with others are effectively driving away some of the "nice guys" who often develop mistaken impressions about just what kind of personality these girls have. At the same time, they may be attracting guys they are likely to be disappointed by, since the guys believe they're going for the "easy lay." I thought this was an excellent point, and one that I've often thought about. I'm often dissuaded from even considering hanging around or talking to certain girls, based primarily on the way they've chosen to dress themselves to go out. It may be completely unfair, but first impressions rule most encounters, and I think that's true of most people. It's hard to recover any substantial amount of respect after you're seen in a spaghetti-strap top and bare midriff in borderline freezing conditions.

I think this is one of the things I was trying to communicate before. We live in a culture where you are labeled by people almost immediately. This is unfortunate, but it is fact. Virtually everyone is guilty of doing this many times throughout the day. I freely admit that I engage in this practice much more than I should, often dismissing people before I have even heard them speak. I seem to be much more narrow-minded in practice than I am in theory, and I have to work hard to overcome this.

Where was I? Ah yes - so I briefly considered editing the post and changing the names to protect the not-so-innocent. But I decided not to, since this is my little corner of the world in which to dwell. Rest at ease - very few people read this, and most of them are quite close friends and this is nothing different from what I would say in person, except here I get to ramble on and on and on and talk about anything I want, including my innermost thoughts about Led Zeppelin or anything else, and I don't have to worry about boring anyone, since no one's being forced to continue reading my never-ending run-on sentences. Anyone else who might be reading this has no remote idea who the hell I'm talking about and this is all just good soap opera material.

I think I'll stop now. I had some other things I was going to say, but I think I've hit the major points.

Some Recent Thoughts

I'll just start typing, since that seems to be the best tactic. Get all those lovely thoughts out in one stream of consciousness.

Tuesday night, I got a call from Oz and then quite soon afterward from Turck. A possible poker game quickly turned into a meet-up at Miley's in Jamestown. I was late, since it only occurred to me at the last minute to take enough stuff home so that I wouldn't have to return to Fredonia before Sunday.

We had a decent time at Miley's, eventually traversing to the College Inn, where I had been maybe twice previously. It was somewhat dead, although we did get to witness a domestic dispute before the principles made up and made out. Oz got semi-plastered, but was unimpaired as far as darts were concerned.

It was nice to see Alex; I hadn't had the privilege of hanging out with him in quite some time. The night was marred a bit when Oz and his 'other half' got into a tiny altercation (read as: tremendous blowup) over the phone. I'm sorry that he finds himself in such an inconsistently harmonious relationship. Though we were laughing at the brash things he was saying and likely making the situation worse as a result, it was pretty painful to watch. I have a tendency to occasionally draw parallels between his situation and one that I was involved in, but this is probably a mistake. I'm fairly convinced now that the two situations are not that close. Obviously he needs to do the thing that will make him happiest, but I'm fairly confident that he is having a lot of trouble figuring out just what that might be. Although a wise man once wrote that "there are two paths you can go by" and "there's always time to change the road you're on," it seems like Oz has doubled back on the same road quite a few times now and he's not really getting closer to his destination.

Apparently Randy's dad recently expressed surprise or chagrin that Matt and I are still single. Randy relayed it as, "those two still don't have girlfriends!?" Yep, that's right. I haven't really attempted anything on that front in a while. I'm weakened considerably by my standard approach of not really approaching at all - that is, waiting for females to either come on to me or to make things so obvious that I'm metaphorically smacked in the face with their intentions. There have been exceptions to this general rule. Not shockingly, they've arisen when I've had alcohol and I'm feeling just a bit braver. Aside from an extremely brief success in March 2004 that lasted about two days after making out in front of the Hotel Ellington (classy, I know...), I have not had much luck. I guess she was expecting more than I had to offer.

I think I've already discussed my frequent inability to distinguish between legitimate prolonged eye contact and simply returning my stare. Maybe I should rely on the fluttering of eyelashes or something. I don't know. I'm very bad at "playing the game," as I've said many times. This is mostly because I dislike the fact that it is so much of a game. I am almost always very blunt, open, straightforward, et cetera about my attractions and my intentions. I guess it disturbs me that so few others are. I think this is one more thing that I could claim as a product of the Destini experience. We had a few weeks of catching each other's glances and then she just made her move. I'm "ruined" by that in a sense; I expect every subsequent relationship to progress similarly and when it doesn't, then I dismiss it.

However, even when I am approached in a similar manner, it doesn't always work out. I've avoided talking about the Chelsea thing because there is significant evidence to suggest she still reads this on occasion, but I guess that matters little now. When she started work, I was pretty flirtatious, but I didn't really expect anything to develop. Age was a primary concern, but there were numerous other warning signs that we had fairly little in common beyond a willingness to make innuendoes to each other. When I found out how old her boyfriend was, I was a little blown away, but it quickly fit into a remarkably easy-to-construct psychological profile of a girl whose paternal role model failed her somewhat, or was at least out of the picture a lot. She turned to a much older guy instead.

My mother's situation is pretty similar. The affair she had when I was around 8 or 9 was only a precursor to the one she had when I was 17, and if I've picked up on my father's hints well enough, he has his suspicions about the time immediately preceding their marriage (the first one). My father's transgressions when I was 16/17 with Sandy were - I am convinced - purely a product of what my mother had done. You would have to know my father pretty well in order to know what I'm talking about, but take my word for it that he's not the type of guy to do something like that unless the line had already been crossed.

By the way - all this psychoanalysis is not something that I kept from Chelsea - I covered this with her well before we went out. She had claimed that neither she nor Jordan knew how old the other was at the outset, but this is either a lie or just incredibly naive - I'm not sure which. I showed her something on my blog at work. I’ll admit this was a tactical maneuver – designed to let her see more of my thoughts than she was likely to be exposed to in a work environment or in casual conversation. I showed her one innocuous post and then she read others on her own, which showed that she at least had some interest in me as a person. I figured that her reaction to what she read would tell me a lot about our possible compatibility. She seemed pretty interested and later left an anonymous comment that was a little too obviously from her that was complimentary about my appearance. I confirmed that she was no longer seeing Jordan (something that turned out to be just a little short of what one might refer to as the TRUTH), and asked her to go to a movie with me that night after work. And it kind of took off from there, about a month before it crashed, burned, and died. Now I have my theories about how the whole thing developed. I think her interest in me was a fairly direct result of the fact that I was the only guy close to her age in the department. The circumstances of us working alone for a few days had to help. The more you’re exposed to a person, the more likely you are to experience a growing intensity of any feelings you might have had initially. In other words, the more I worked with that jackass with the coke habit this summer, the less I could stand him. I think I could have fairly good luck with a lot of girls that I’ve liked if I had been able to spend more time with them in a working environment or hanging out in small groups. Being in class or seeing them in passing on campus doesn’t quite do it. I think it also helped that I’m pretty confident of my abilities at work. I know what I’m doing and there’s little secret that I do fairly well at it. That attitude is regrettably in pretty stark contrast to how I behave generally in LIFE. Life is not really something I’m very good at, so I don’t walk around like I know what I’m doing most of the time. And when I do, it’s usually briefly and it takes little to deflate me/shoot me down.

The Big Lebowski quote -

The Dude: “Fragile, man – he’s very fragile.”

Walter: “I did not know that.”

Yeah – so I think that has a lot to do with it. I had lingering doubts about the viability of the relationship, pretty much from its inception. However, I was encouraged by a few people to look at things from a different perspective. Just because we don’t have everything in common, they said, doesn’t necessarily mean it shouldn’t be given a chance. They reasoned that I certainly wouldn’t want someone who was exactly like me. Indeed. What a frightening thought.

So I stuck with it. I don’t know how soon it started to decline. The fact that she stayed in touch with Jordan, courtesy of his constant phone calls – certainly didn’t help matters. She changed cell phones, but the new number was passed along to him somehow, intentionally or unintentionally I’m not exactly sure. She kept telling me that I was “amazing” in the meantime, obviously something no one really minds hearing a lot. An excellent moment occurred when we were “actively engaged” on her living room floor and Jordan called her phone, which was quite close to our location. She was breathing heavy and I told her to go ahead and answer it, hoping he would ask her what she was doing. I took a certain sadistic pleasure in that, but now of course I’m not so sure that I never called while she was doing the same thing with him. Disturbing. Lack of trust is a horrible thing.
The night of August 16th into the 17th (the night after my birthday into the morning of hers) may have been the most fun we had together. It just happened to also be the end. We went out for trivia night with Turck, Lindsay, Abe, and Matt and afterward went to the Saloon where multiple drinks were bought for me. Chelsea drove me all the way back to Fredonia to my apartment, where we probably spent the best night of our time together, although there were a few that might be close seconds.

By that night, she had met up with Jordan at his parents’ house, had a fight with him, lied to me about how things transpired, and within a couple days she invited him to accompany her to get her tattoo. (Matt refers to a tattoo in the lower back as the “Whore Patch.” I normally call it – somewhat less crudely – as the Sorority Spot. Another popular name is the Tramp Stamp. Take your pick, I guess.) Of course, she had told me at various points in the past that she had decided not to get one, and then that if she did, it would be "someplace where only you can see" (I pointed out that the guy who actually gave her the tattoo would also have to see it, but apparently that didn't count), and that it definitely wouldn't be on her lower back, which I explained could send a far different message than she may want to be sending to guys.

I never understood that placement anyway. It's not like the person with the tat on their lower back can sit and admire it. Is it supposed to provide entertainment to the guy who is screwing the girl from behind? Are they that bored? I don't understand it. It's not sensual or sexy to me, but it is slutty.

It's pretty demoralizing to be rejected in favor of someone with so few prospects. A former used car salesman who told her he lost his job because he couldn't concentrate after they broke up. A guy who had - she said - choked and punched her, in addition to cheating on her multiple times over the course of a little more than a year. A guy who repeatedly threatened me over the phone, letting me know that he was going to kick my ass if I didn't stay away from his girl (the one he had cheated on, choked, and smacked around). He must be bringing more to the proverbial table. Good for him. I'm sure they'll be very happy together.

She recently called work and asked me if I was upset that she had left (she transferred to Erie, near her college) without saying goodbye. I told her we all do what we have to do. She expressed surprise that I hadn't called. I laughed aloud, reminding her that the last time I saw her, she had been walking out of the department with Mr. Right tagging along behind, glaring at me all the way (but not kicking my ass, amazingly enough). I don't know - maybe she thought we could all hang out sometime.

Long story short - it didn't work. There are quite a few reasons. Chelsea blames her lack of truthfulness on my declaration that I didn't think the relationship was going to last if we couldn't talk to each other about meaningful things, which she evidently took to mean that it just wasn't going to last at all. Apparently this realization made lies and deceit acceptable, although I have my suspicions (aided by the fact that I can't really trust anything she says to be factual at this point) that the lies and deceit were there from the beginning.

Would the whole thing have developed if not for the fact that I hadn't had any female contact for more than eight months beforehand? Well, if I'm honest with myself, probably not. That fact combined with her willingness as a very attractive girl to "come after me" in a way - just too much for someone with such a shortage of self-control.

All right. There's always more to say, but I think I'll leave it there for the time being.

Springsteen Denied

This lovely letter to Senator Frist, from Jesus' General, refers to this little piece of news.

JG is a very amusing left-wing site.

Robert Plant - Construction Worker

Mr. Plant, sporting a lovely neon-green and white reflective vest while behind the controls of a mechanical trench-digging contraption.

Must be seen to be believed.

Full Article and mini-interview:
http://archive.thisisworcestershire.co.uk/2005/11/10/385790.html

John Cusack

I've been a huge Cusack fan since seeing those great 80s movies like Better Off Dead and Say Anything... and of course more recent classics like High Fidelity. Turns out that besides being an excellent actor, he's a pretty informed citizen. This article is something he wrote for the Huffington Post. He talks about Jon Stewart, John McCain, Hunter S. Thompson, and quite a bit about what we shoudln't be putting up with.

Here's an excerpt:

"Yes, there is a difference between the McCain/Hagel Repubs and the neo-con/White House Iraq Group lunatics. But it's also good to remember: no matter what he does from here on out, McCain stood by the president, a man (and his machine) who smeared him viciously on the 2000 campaign trail, and then, at the GOP convention four years later, campaigned for him when we were well on to this disastrous course. And thinking men -- of which McCain is surely one -- knew the neo-cons were exploiting 9/11 for their hideous misadventure in Iraq, and knew this was an administration that would not allow photos of the dead. Etc. etc. etc. Every man who stood by Bush should be forced to answer for it."

Making The Rounds

So - what's going on?

The Vice-President is asking for an exemption for the CIA from any legislation on torture.

Former Vietnam POW and current Republican Senator John McCain sponsored an anti-torture amendment that passed in the Senate by a vote of 90-9 that grants no exemptions to anyone. This amendment has been vigorously opposed by Cheney, who has personally lobbied senators to vote against it. McCain has not been deterred, vowing to add the amendment to every piece of significant legislation that passes through the Senate.

When asked to clarify what the VP is actually asking for, White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan repeatedly refused to give any coherent answer to the question. Instead, he focused on telling reporters pressing the issue that they were obviously out of step with the American people. The American people understand, apparently, that we are talking about dangerous killers who need to be tortured. McClellan sought to shift the discussion from what the CIA exemption means to talking about specific examples of alleged terrorists. McCain had a great rebuttal to this when asked for comment, asserting that this issue is not about who they are, but rather about who we are - and who we want to be. I'm paraphrasing there, not quoting.

A recent leak about CIA-run secret prisons in Eastern Europe (where who knows what is going on) led Republican Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist to assert that he was more concerned with the leak of the information than the fact that there were actually secret prisons in operation. The prisons, or so-called 'black sites,' are being run in Eastern European nations, at least some of which are democracies.

Okay - this one's just funny.

A recent poll found that 65% of Americans now oppose the war in Iraq. However, 34% believe that Adam and Eve rode dinosaurs to church every Sunday. 1% believe dinosaurs are merely a fabrication of Satan's to test their faith in the Almighty.
---I heard that one from a guy at Dem HQ.

The New Jersey Republican candidate for governor blames Bush's sinking approval rating for his loss.

You should also read this.

The FDA likely focused on politics, not science, in rejecting the OTC sale of Plan B - the 'morning-after pill.'

Alright. I must be going...as the College Dems' VP, I have to attend an "executive board meeting" every Monday at 6pm.