True Friendship

It occurs to me that you’re not really friends with someone until you are mutually comfortable in the knowledge that if either of you interrupts the other and says “Now wait a minute!” (1), you’ll still be able to have a friendly conversation with each other after that point.  If this is not the case, you are acquaintances at best.

A minor enough insight, I’ll grant, but in the age of online “friends,” I think it’s one that bears mentioning now and then.

(1)  Alternatively known in the vernacular as “Calling B.S.”

A Quick Rant

There are numerous travails involved in the preparation for an upcoming birth, and naturally the mother-to-be faces more than her fair share of them, but she doesn’t face all of them, so . . .

For the record, I am not “being so good” about all this.  I’m pretty sure I’d be the first one to know if I was, and let me assure you, I am not!  I knew in advance more or less what I’d be facing, so I understand, but that’s not the same thing.  Trust me, I am not being good about these travails . . . I am merely being quiet! (This rant aside, of course.)

Thank you.

(Actually, I may not be giving myself enough credit here, but it’s certainly the way I feel, not every day mind you, but certainly on occasion, particularly around the times when someone comments on the fact that I’m almost exclusively sticking to decaf drinks because “she who is pregnant” is restricted to decaf, and I don’t want her to feel left out.  As a rule I detest decaf anything, but I feel it’s important to drink it right now for the reasons already stated, but please let me do it without commenting on it.)

Truth Be Told (Part Four)

So I grinned and pointed out that, for instance, I had been born in Hawaii, and some people found that interesting.

The judge didn’t however, and he told me so.

Nodding, I pointed out that I never claimed that I was interesting, but that it seemed to me that with as many people as were in the room, the odds heavily favored that at least some of them would be interesting if you asked the right questions.

Mercifully, the judge decided it was flat out too early in the morning to hassle with contempt of court charges, and dropped the subject, but when it came time for the lawyers to start asking their questions, guess who was firmly in their beady little sites?

Yep.

It was me.

And it wasn’t too long after that when I learned exactly how much worse for myself I could make it.

Bastards picked me as juror number one . . . I even ended up as jury foreman.

Truth Be Told (Part Three)

Take it from me, there’s nothing quite like the sinking sensation you feel as you realize you just chimed in on a rhetorical question asked by a judge in their own court.   And even before the judge could turn a baleful eye upon me, both sets of lawyers were glancing down at their seating charts to get my name and furiously scribbling notes beside it.

Then the judge’s baleful eye reached me.  “Like what?” I was asked.

Now, at this point, my options were some variation of “shrivel up and die,” or alternatively, to do what is genteelly referred to as “palavering.”

I chose to palaver.

How much worse could I make it for myself after all?

Truth Be Told (Part Two)

All things considered, I had pretty tolerant teachers on average back when I was in school, so it was never that much of a big deal when a teacher would ask, “Is everyone clear on that?” and my response came out “I believe I speak for all concerned when I say that we have no idea what you are talking about.” Even so . . . I did my best to keep my comments (particularly the unkind ones) to myself, in no small part because this gave me extra leeway for the times when I thought something out loud without realizing it. All in all, this worked pretty well in school.

In a court of law though, you just know you’re in trouble when you’re sitting for jury selection, answering the routine questions, and generally trying to remain coherent despite the fact you had to get up a lot earlier than normal because you had to drive across town to act in accordance with your belief in the concept of “civic duty,” but you’re still more than a little bleary and out of sorts, and . . .

Well . . .

You know you’re in trouble when the judge turns to the bailiff after the latest round of questioning and says “Boring group today, isn’t it?,” and you hear someone jauntily saying “That’s because you’re not asking the right questions.”

Yep.

It was me.

Truth Be Told (Part One)

I almost didn’t post what I did yesterday, because I kept looking at it thinking, “There’s just no way that’s not going to be misunderstood by somebody out there.”

But then I thought, “I don’t care.  It’s funny.”

Which, come to think of it, is how I used to get in trouble on occasion in school . . . not to mention in a courtroom once.

Actually, said that way, I think I will mention it after all . . .

Something I Saw On Facebook Recently

“A real man doesn’t love a million girls, he loves one girl a million ways.”

While I appreciate the sentiment, truth be told, either accomplishment sounds pretty impressive to me.  I mean . . . yikes!

Is there any leeway in this formula?  For instance, what if I were to love 100,000 girls in 10 different ways each, would that still count?  How about 10,000 girls a 100 different ways?

Maybe I’m approaching this the wrong way.

Given enough time, I’m pretty sure I could love someone a thousand different ways, but after that I start running out of ideas, so let’s call that my maximum.  According to this formula, I’m going to need a thousand girls to make this work, and I don’t even know a thousand girls!

I think I’m in trouble here . . .

Another Letter For My Unborn Son (Part Five)

And my list of quirks  goes on and on, of course, like how I’m more offended by bland than by something actually tasting bad, or how I can happily wake up before seven or after eight in the morning, but if I’m woken up during the hour of seven A.M. I’m likely to grouse about it (if only to myself) for the rest of the morning.  Every quirk has a reason, however illogical (The seven A.M. thing, for instance, is because that’s precisely the time block I was forced against my will for years to get out of bed, and I still remember how much I resented it; waking me during that hour always makes me re-live that.), and though they’re all “mostly harmless,” understanding them gets you a long way toward understanding me.

And I like to be understood; it’s another quirk, and that one is a quirk I hope you’ll share with me.

Because one way or the other, I’m going to be doing my damndest to understand you at all times, and things will be a lot simpler if my need to understand doesn’t offend you.

It’s a quirk of mine, you see . . .

Another Letter For My Unborn Son (Part Four)

Why not?  It’s true . . . just another quirk, much like me being an intensely private person in general, but having no problems being in a public area or forum.  I just never forget that I’m in a public area, and remember at all times to act like I’m in public (even and especially when I’m pretending to do otherwise).  In a similar vein, I write what I want to write  — no exceptions — but the feedback I get does influence what I want to write about.

And, yes, sometimes it really does matter if it comes from a girl or not; not always, of course, but enough that I might as well admit that it’s a factor.  Maybe not as much of a factor as I joke about, but it is a factor.

Chalk it up as another quirk.

(And while it’s not a quirk that you necessarily have to share, it will gives us more to talk about in the years to come if you do.)

(Come to think of it though, if you don’t share the quirk at all, that in and of itself will give us some things to talk about, so I guess we’re good either way.)

Another Letter For My Unborn Son (Part Three)

In other words, if you ever ask yourself “Does he realize how weird it is for him to be writing a letter that’s supposed to be to me, and then posting it up for the world to see?”, the short answer answer is “Yes.”

But as with most things I do, I do have my reasons.  I could write these letters on paper and seal them in envelopes, for instance, and if I were covering a topic that I considered best just between us, I’d definitely be doing something like that.   And by the time you were old enough to read them, odds are good the envelopes would have been lost and/or opened, defeating the purpose.

Barring a technological meltdown (which would bring its own issues that would likely eclipse the importance of these letters), doing it this way is the best way to tilt the odds in favor of you actually reading these someday, so that certainly part of the reason.  Another reason is that when I sit down to do Candles & Curses, I write whatever I’m thinking about, and when I’m thinking about you, I write you a letter.

The positive feedback, particularly from girls, that I got from posting the last letter I wrote you, also influences matters, of course.

Bet you didn’t expect me to admit that, did you?