My worst date… with Mel Gibson
This happened quite a while ago but something recently reminded me of it.
I was set up on a date with a friend of a friend. We'd exchanged a few emails and seemed to enjoy a similar turn of phrase. I picked her up at her place, and the descent into lunacy began.
A few miles down the road we were at a light and this car pulls up next to us, some relatively ordinary car that had clearly been suped (sp?) up because it was louder than hell and the guy kept revving it as though inviting me to a race I would ultimately decline. My date says, "I think fast cars are really sexy." I laughed, thinking she was being facetious. She was not, and she was now angry at me for laughing at her not with her. I tried to apologize and explain my laughter was meant in support of what I thought her position was, but she was not mollified. Oops.
We headed to Quincy Market in Boston, I'd never been. As we approached an older woman approaches selling flowers. I very politely declined. We looked around, and in the course of wandering see several other similarly attired older ladies at some distance selling flowers. We ended up heading a few blocks away to get some dinner. A few minutes into dinner she pauses, looks directly at me indicating she was about to say something significant, and says to me, "I thought you were a jerk for not buying a flower from that woman. Don't you care about old people?" Ouch. I was pretty stunned. I remember some weak attempts to provide sudden proof that I did care about old people, and people in general, and that that incident really didn't seem like a fair way to judge my character. The conversation limped along and eventually the check came. She now announced her brand new philosophy, which I was apparently the first to experience... She said, "I've been treated really badly by guys in the past, so from now on I'm requiring that anyone I date pay for all our dates." Wow. I don't mind paying for others, I'm a bit of a communist when it comes to mealtimes, from each according to his means, to each according to his needs. I'll pay for friends, coworkers, dates, pets, whatever. Different people often offer at different times, and I figure it all evens out in the end (monetarily or karmic-ly). And I would have gladly paid for her portion out of kindness, need, chivalry, simplicity, whatever. I usually make the attempt and if someone stops me (as usually happens) then we figure it out from there. But the notion that I was being required to make up the debt (in cash) created by her previous poor choices in men hardly seemed a fair or inviting situation. I kindly explained that I didn't mind paying tonight, but in general I really couldn't go along with the idea that I who had never wronged her was somehow supposed to compensate for those who had. She took in the argument and seemed to see it had some merit.
At this point I was pretty well tired, it just seemed we were very poorly matched despite some initial clever email banter and mutual admiration of stories we'd each written. We began the 15 minute walk back to the car, and I mentioned a camping trip I was going on. She spent the next 10 minutes telling me far too much information about how she can't go camping because there can be swarms of bugs and the bugs remind her of all these bad LSD trips she's had as well as reminding her of the horrible withdrawal symptoms she's experienced detoxing from heroin. I, who have never done any drugs, let along hard core ones, was really ready for the night to be over. While I am certainly sympathetic to her discomfort with swarms of bugs and all they mean to her, it was just way too soon and too contextless to be sharing that sort of information. (I've dated people who've used drugs, seems like most people have used or tried them, and it's not been a problem, but that's probably because they didn't insist I know so much graphic detail about their experiences, and certainly not on date one.)
The date ended a few minutes later, but not before she explained to me that she was obsessed (literally) with Mel Gibson, that her recovery from the drugs involved watching all of Mel Gibson's movies over and over again and that now she was in a very real way obsessed with him, because he was there for her when no one else was. She said the walls of her room were covered in Mel Gibson posters, she watched at least parts his movies every day, and that if she ever met him she would have sex with him, even if she was already in a relationship, that the other person (I felt implied) would just have to deal with that absolute and unarguable reality.
I dropped her off at her place, we had a little hug (no kiss), and I went on my way with no small amount of relief. I felt quite comfortable that the date was as awful for me as it was for her, since I couldn't relate to and didn't resemble much of what she wanted or liked. Being a nice guy and not fond of ambiguity, I planned to write her the next day and very politely make it clear that I enjoyed her friendship and would be happy to see where that went while acknowledging that dating was really not in our best interests.
Before I had a chance, however, I was shown just how wrong my perception of events had apparently been... she wrote me the next morning to let me know how great a time she had had and how much she looked forward to another date. Ugh.
It took me quite a few hours to come up with just the right way to thank her while politely declining additional dating. She seemed to take it well. We did hang out a couple of times as friends before she found distraction in someone with a far larger engine than mine.
She was actually quite a nice girl, the original connection we had was simply not viable for anything more than friendship, and on that level it worked quite well (however briefly). She was not quite so intense as a friend, seemed less intent on requiring me to be anything other than who I was. Still, doesn't change the fact that it was the worst first date I ever had.
^Quinxy
Yin Yang
My day. Yin. Yang. The first half saw my better self, triumphantly in command of my life, amidst noble activities, pressed by people who variously care for, respect, and seek me out. The latter half saw my worser self, a soul periodically lost in self-analysis, striving for someone and something different (yet doing little more than cowardly navel gazing). We are the happily resigned marriage of our perfections and our flaws. Humans. Meh. If the aliens come I won't be overly upset if they make hamburgers of us all. (I don't really mean that, it just seemed a marvelous thing to say, would that I had the time to craft the sentence better and work the word 'ketchup' in there.) Sometimes I say things which are more beautiful than true, but I always indicate as much (even if not everyone realizes).
^Quinxy
The Meaning of Pizza
My tummy hurts. I just ate too much of a pizza, a pizza I had delivered from Chicago. From the best authentic Chicago pizzeria in Chicago, Lou Minati's. Shipped overnight, packed in dry ice. Hard not to eat too much of it. I bought it to craft a moment. But, the moment came and went, unhappened.
I met a harmless girl at the cafe a few weeks back. We had a perfect, orchestrated social interaction. I was like a conductor leading the interaction. It was one of my finest social moments ever. I hate the humans, a little bit. Which is to say I love them like God did back in the day. Back when they pissed him off and didn't do what he wanted and he didn't understand why, so he smote them all except for that Noah fella and all them critters. I don't plan on smiting anything, besides the grievous ethical problems, I'm just not that energetic. But I suffer God's misunderstanding of humans, from time to time. So, these little perfect moments mean something to me, when everything sings with a harmony that feels like it was always and forever just unheard. And I get excited thinking I found my groove.
And so I bought the pizza. She was a recent transplant from Chicago, weeks recent. And I smoothly asked her to join me on the weekend for the Hollywood Forever Cemetery movie with some friends. And she eagerly accepted. And I got the pizza because in the course of our conversation she'd recommended it, and told me you could get it online, and so I did. Because it's been years since I had a decent Chicago pizza, and there's only once place in the whole of Los Angeles that does a Chicago style pizza, and it's in Silverlake, and I wasn't sure how authentic it really was (it resembled not at all the Armand's Chicago-style pizzeria of my Washingtonian youth). And we talked a few times leading up to that Saturday, but then the day came, I called, and she suddenly had other plans. She flaked, but asked me to ask her again. Humans. I don't know what to make of them. I should make it clear my intentions were not unusual or extreme. This wasn't meant to be a date, I had no specific interest in her beyond her being interesting, the banter being fun, so let's pal around. I didn't find her attractive, but she was not necessarily particularly unattractive either. (All this I say relative to me, I have no idea what the rest of the world thinks of her. They probably found her prettier than I did, my tastes being a few degrees off the norm.) She was in that gray area where given the right interactions I may have come to find her prettier, but I had no such ambitions, my interest was purely platonic. And she flaked, and even though she very pointedly said she hoped I'd ask her again, when I did, I got a similar result. She was busy again with work, and her brother, and she is now traveling about the country on work errands. And, to my way of thinking, and I think the world's thinking as well, if she'd had any significant interest in hanging out, it would have happened by now. Ah well.
I don't mind that nothing came of it. I don't mind perhaps not being her cup of tea. I have no expectations that I be anyone's (though am grateful that I am some people's). And perhaps her new job is demanding, and her new apartment requires setting up, and her brother... but I just wish society didn't so much rely on subtleties and subtexts. Because I drown in the excess of available cues. And I miss out on quite a few friendships and dates as I always err on the side of caution. It's like if you know your sense of smell isn't so good, it's better to be safe than sorry and scream "Fire!" when you think you smell even the slightest hint of smoke; it's like the identical opposite, actually. I won't call her again. Two attempts on my part was enough. Who needs the bother?
I should perhaps stick with the people who make more native sense to me (though there are few).
The pizza was good. Some people (like my dad) have this charming notion that everything happens for a reason. Ah, pretty, lucky little imbeciles. If I believed them I would say, "I met her solely so that she could introduce me to Lou Minati's pizza."
^Quinxy
The Me of Hidden Variables
On a handful of occasions it has been suggested that I am complicated.
While I think that may be a reasonable impression formed, I am of a somewhat contradictory view. My complexity is merely the illusion created by the hiding of the variables which govern me.
One alternate notion about quantum mechanics that I believed before I knew other more intelligent and PhDed fellows already came up with it (my life is filled with devastating cleverness I exhibit only to find that someone got there 50 years before, it's very frustrating) is the notion that the randomness we think we see at the subatomic level is not randomness but are the unpredictable effects of intrusions from energy/matters/forces in higher dimensional space-time. And I don't mean the words energy or forces in the new agey sense! I mean it in the literal sciencey, non-paranormal sense! These intrusions are hidden variables, we can't directly know what's going on in these higher dimensions, all we see is their effect on our own, and to us the effect appears random, but really had we omniscience enough to know the goings on of the higher dimensions, it'd be just as deterministic as Newton's apple. So, my theory of myself is that I'm as simple as cheddar cheese, but my cheese is simply being twisted through a biased filter of social whateverthehell and so appears complex. I hate the sorts of people who intentionally complicate themselves, who crave and craft a view of themselves as different. Hopefully I'm not one of them.
^Quinxy
Does a dog have Buddha nature?
Zen Buddhism includes a koan which asks the question, "Does a dog have Buddha nature?"
From what I gather, their answer is, "No."
But, I say, "YES!"
If I was a sculptor or a painter/drawer of any merit I would redraw Buddha as a dog and construct some vast and believable conspiracy which explained that the real Buddha was in fact a dog who wandered into a Hindu temple, lay beneath a Bo tree for 20 dog years and attained enlightenment, which he demonstrated by being released from desire; he longer reacted when the people of the temple offered him treats. And everyone began to transcribe the dog's lesson, and reinterpret his meditative behaviors, and his glorious liberation from suffering, and want, and see him only as living in the perfect now. But their first book of his teachings sold very poorly, so they made a few minor edits and Siddhartha Gautama turned from dog to a man. And the rest is history.
^Quinxy
Odious Small Talk
I must breathe, and drink water, and sup, and excrete, and Society (the grand They) seem to expect small talk. And that's fine. I think for me it's when it lingers over the small and you realize the small is all there will be that I feel a bit frustrated. Which isn't to say I don't care about the small stuff. I ask my friends how was their day because I care and even their minor incidents are pieces of their larger puzzle. But it's also the depth of my awareness of them that makes those small things important to me.
What is awfully hard for me to suffer through is when you get dragged to a bar by a friend... And you spend the next three hours briefly conversing with slightly drunk people about the most superficial aspects of themselves. I come away knowing a human named Cindy exists and she is an account rep at a pharmaceutical company, that she went to Northwestern, that she has a thing for Gucci bags, she likes Hawaii, and she thinks Robert Downey, Jr.T is super sexy. Ugh. I want to know what Cindy feels when she first sits at her desk in the morning. Excitement? Dread? Why does she seem to have this palpable sadness about her? Is this really who she thought she'd become five years ago? What secrets is she keeping from her friend, Jen, who's sitting right next to her. Does she secretly lust after Jen's husband?
That's what I want to ask, what I want to know. Anyone can ask me anything any time any place. I may choose not to answer but I won't be offended. I don't have rules about you can't ask me this or that until some whenever. Obviously if you ask me and also seem odd I'll assume you're a few bricks shy of a load, and may keep myself to myself. But that's just sensible. To the mostly sane I would bare my soul at the drop of hat.
^Quinxy
Peanuts (the comic): An Analysis of My Hatred
Peanuts (the comic) is the perfect storm of all my core hatreds. I detest things which get grossly disproportionate attention. I detest things which have no characters I can relate to. I detest swishy jazz music (love dixie land, love Satchmo, like Ellington, hate those free form make-it-up-as-we-go stoned-out-of-our-gourd-but-our-audience-won't-notice). Peanuts has wasted god knows how much printed page space for god knows how many years and elicited in its entire run sixteen and one half chuckles, four of those were from drunk people who were reading it upside down. Charles Schultz made millions upon millions. Newspapers paid millions upon millions. And have you seen that "You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown" play? I was forced to see it twice as a kid. You know what happens in it? Nothing. You know what costumes they are wearing? None! Snoopy is just a dude, wearing a white shirt. No dog mask. No tail. No barking. And Charlie Brown is just a dude with that stupid yellow shirt with the zig zag. Oh my god. Make an effort, people. That's what that sort of jazz does to you, that's who goes to see it! And everyone on Peanuts sucks. I love dogs. But if Snoopy was a real dog I'd euthanize him with extreme prejudice. I hate him worse than Scrappy Doo, and thinking about Scrappy Doo churns bile in my belly. And who else is on that show? Bunch of little shits. You've got smelly guy, piano guy, psychiatrist girl, pull the football bitch. I mean Linus was the only major character I didn't absolutely hate, but he was still pretty god damn smug about his smarts. And all it is is swishy jazz, swishy jazz, swishy jazz. When adults talk, when stuff happens, etc. And what the fuck is with the WWI Snoopy cousin flashbacks with the flying doghouse? Mother of god, get the damn dog some PTSD medication and treatment, he's been suffering for 90 freaking years now. Anyway, that's the gist of why I hate it. I could go on for hours, especially if I got drunk at a Peanuts-themed bar. Ohhh.. And WTF is the name Peanuts for? Name it Snoopy for god sake. The good people of Hanna-Barbara didn't name their show Cashews when it was really about Scooby Doo. What a pretensious asshole Charles Schultz was. He and Hitler are the only good reasons I can think of for not curing mortality. To think of an infinitude of time and space stuck with those two... Ugh.
^Quinxy
Das Nihilist
I'm 84.6% nihilist, but not in the anarchist's co-opted blow-stuff-up sense. Rather, I neither believe nor disbelieve most things I don't directly experience. I used to drive my last ex-girlfriend nuts by doubting her every celebrity sighting claim. Once a week she would say, "I just saw [insert celebrity name here] on 3rd Street." And it just seemed like the frequency was impossible, and that she was mixing in people who just happened to bear resemblances. In fairness, I discovered later I had prosopagnosia, a mild case, and so I really was in no position to deny her claims. I can have difficulty recognizing people I only know (though only those I know slightly). Whatever the excuse, it was slightly obnoxious of me. I meant it in jest, but that doesn't mean it was forever funny.
^Quinxy
Because I Am Superior
The Homeless and their Shopping Carts
I had this odd epiphany as I was walking to breakfast this morning. I saw a homeless person pushing a shopping cart, a fairly common site, sadly. But what I realized was the peculiar significance of it all. In this nation of capitalism, where shopping is king, the fact that the homeless use the very same shopping carts as their mechanism for transporting the items they are picking off the "shelves" of the real world, seems a little ironic. Or something. This thought should have included the equivalent of them "checking out" with the goods they've collected, but... I don't instantly see that analogous part.
Another little epiphany I had years ago, which was divinely beautiful in its subtlety so much so that I doubt anyone else will appreciate it... I was in London working, and I was going out to the courtyard to have lunch with some friends, and I had brought a magazine, and as I stepped outside some of those little cards they stick in the magazine so you can subscribe to it (and to their sister publications) fell out, and I was suddenly struck by how that parallels some sort of reproduction in nature, like seeds falling from a tree/plant. Each card has the potential to spawn new subscriptions, and their being loose and falling out of the magazine is key to their being noticed, picked up, and ultimately filled out and mailed in for the cycle of magazine life to continue.