Royal Ruminations

Connections, Part One

2010-08-04T15:49:00.000-05:00

Today is my dad’s birthday. Since he passed away a few years ago, I can’t really call him. Instead, I’ll just pound out a few words that he would have liked.

~ ~ ~

Some of my earliest memories revolve around baseball. As far as I can tell, I can remember as far back as 1980, when I was six years old. 1980 was memorable because George Brett was making a run at .400 and the Royals made it to the World Series for the first time. My grandma had a “George Brett for President” bumper sticker. And she took me and my brother out to get George Brett t-shirts but we had to settle for Hal McRae because all the Brett shirts were sold out. Of course, the Royals lost that first World Series to the Phillies. The next summer, we visited my great-grandma in Pennsylvania. My brother and I spent some time with the little girls who lived across the street and who were proud of their World Champion Phillies. Which prompted me to come up with derogatory slogans about their best players like, “There’s Pete Rose. Punch him in the nose!” and “There’s Tug McGraw. Punch him in the jaw!” I don’t think I was brave enough yet to rhyme “Mike Schmidt” with “piece of shit”. But I guess I was pretty competitive, even at that early age.

As a young kid, I would spend time at my grandparents’ house. They would sit on the front porch, listening to the Royals on the radio. Within earshot of the radio, I would throw Whiffle balls up to myself and pretend to be each batter, seeing if I could eclipse their exploits by hitting the ball across the street.

I remember receiving my first baseball cards. Some friend of my parents that I don’t remember was over at our house and needed to make a run to QuikTrip or the like. For some reason, I went along with him and he offered to by me a jumbo pack of ’82 Fleer cards. I remember getting back to my room and studying each of the cards, completely mesmerized. There was a card called “Black and Blue” with Bud Black and Vida Blue. There was another gimmicky card called “Carlton and Fisk” which featured Steve Carlton and Carlton Fisk. There was a card with Ed Farmer wearing a blue windbreaker which I found really confusing.

All of this is to say that baseball was my first love.

~ ~ ~

My dad grew up in the 50’s. He played baseball when he was a kid and I imagined his childhood was something similar to Leave It To Beaver or Charlie Brown and the Peanuts. His favorite player was Mickey Mantle and he told stories about meeting Hank Bauer and some of the Yankees at his barber shop.

But as much as he seemed to enjoy baseball, in adulthood something new had seized his attention.

It wasn’t basketball where height was a distinct advantage, if not necessarily a necessity. It wasn’t football where strength and machismo reigned and injury lurked around every corner. It wasn’t hockey, even though the Miracle On Ice was still fresh in the minds of many Americans.

No, what piqued my dad’s interest was incredibly popular but still something of a novelty in the United States. And you could compete even if you were short and couldn’t bench press a VW Beetle. And it tapped into the boundless energy that most kids have.

Of course, it was soccer. He found it fascinating and entertaining and he encouraged/compelled me and my brother to play. We didn’t know any better so we played and had fun, which I’m sure just augmented Dad’s enjoyment of the sport. And it helped that we were both pretty good. In fact, I was scoring so many goals that I made an agreement with my fellow middle forward that we would trade off opportunities to score. Which worked well until I passed up an easy opportunity to score because it wasn’t my turn. I botched a pass to my teammate and our coach sniffed out and snuffed out our charitable-yet-ill-advised plan.

Unfortunately, my coach was an alcoholic and a world-class jerk. This led my parents to search for another team for me to play on. And, fortunately, that eventually led to my dad coaching my team.

At first, I was a little embarrassed. My dad didn’t know as much as my previous coaches. But I liked being the “Coach’s Son”, even though he treated me just as he would any of my teammates. And he worked really hard to learn more about drills and tactics. As an adult, I realize just what a huge commitment he made, not only learning the game but having to organize practices and corral a bunch of smart-ass kids. He put in a lot of work but I think he really enjoyed it.

He enjoyed the indoor game, too, and ended up buying season tickets for the Kansas City Comets. It was a blast going to the games. And after they were over, we would go down to some secret, season ticket holder bar where players would pass through and sign autographs after they showered and dressed.

Watching Comets goalies Enzo DiPede and Alan Mayer (complete with helmet!) stirred something different in me and I decided that I didn’t want to score goals anymore. Instead, I wanted to stop them. I was excited to try something new, but my mom was leery, worried that I might get hurt (never mind that I’d received and played with a broken hand while playing forward). And on my first day of practice at my new position, I split my lip after running face-first into the goalpost. But I loved the challenge and I loved the physicality of the position. And I loved that I could use my hands and didn’t have to run incessantly.

~ ~ ~

None of this affected my love for baseball much. Since the soccer seasons ran during the Spring and Fall, I still dedicated my summers to listening to the Royals, watching The Baseball Bunch (starring Johnny Bench and the San Diego Chicken) and This Week In Baseball (which still makes my heart flutter when I hear the best TV show theme music in history) and playing our version of stickball (Whiffle bats and tennis balls) with the neighborhood kids. And in 1985, when the Royals won the World Series, I went to bed that night thinking my own life would never be the same.

To Be Continued...

My Little Buddy Isn't So Little Any More

2009-10-02T15:40:00.000-05:00

He started off at five pounds twelve ounces, with an extended stay in the KU Med Neonatal Intensive Care Unit to give his lungs a chance to succeed on their own. It didn’t take him long to catch up and now he’s six feet tall and 150 pounds. My first child, my son, was born sixteen years ago today. My friend, Kelly, asked me today how it feels to have a sixteen year old. I told her that it’s a mixed bag. Here’s why…

I’ve been a parent nearly half of my life. It’s strange to say that because I didn’t envision that happening at all. When I was a kid, my grandma made a comment to me about how life would be when I got married and had kids. I scoffed at her suggestion and told her that I would never get married. I was also self-aware enough to tell her that I wouldn’t have any kids because I didn’t want to have to deal with anyone that would act like me. She just gave me a knowing grin and asked if I’d be willing to sign a piece of paper to commemorate my naive wisdom. She said she’d keep it on hand and give it to me on my wedding day. I laughed and signed my declaration, which she tucked away for safekeeping. Years later, during my wedding reception, my grandma pulled me aside and told me she needed to give me something. She just held out her hand. I had no idea what it was, so I held out my hand and she dropped a slip of paper into it. I unfolded it and read my youthful declaration and she just grinned. I laughed and gave her a hug. And while the marriage didn’t work out, I did get a couple of kids out of the deal. She got a kick out of that, too.

x x x

David Julius. I came up with that when I was about 12 or 13 years old. I didn’t plan on having any kids, but thought that if I ever had the chance to name one, that’s what it would be. “David” came from the fact that I absolutely loved watching David Letterman. Another inspiration was my deceased uncle, who I never met but sounded like a cool guy, Dave Hopper. Also, I really liked the fact that David in the Bible was described as a man after God’s own heart. And as a fellow whose name is “Nicky Jay”, I couldn’t let him get away with a boring middle name. So, I went with “Julius” as inspired mostly by Dr. J, Julius Erving. He seemed like a stand-up guy and he was absolutely beautiful on the basketball court. Plus, “David Julius” just sounded like it fit together.

“David” is a solid name and one that lends itself easily to nicknames. Dave, Davey, David, Davo, Davis. Of course, that wasn’t enough for me. I had to slip one more in there: Little Buddy. I just couldn’t help it. He was just so little and chubby and happy that I couldn’t help but pick him up and squeeze him and hug him and press my cheek against his rotund little cheek and call him my Little Buddy. Some dads go for “Sport” or “Tiger” or “Champ” but I’ve always been a “Buddy” guy. And he’s the all-time best.

x x x

When Dave was about seven or eight, I would tickle him and his sister during commercials of whatever show we were watching. He would laugh and try to get away, but one time, I had him good. He was squirming and wiggling and laughing but he couldn’t escape. In a desperate attempt to get me to stop, he cried out between giggles, “Dad, look! A fat guy in a wetsuit!” Now, I was the one who couldn’t stop laughing.

I asked him, “Where did you come up with that? Did you see something on TV?”

“No,” he replied. “I just thought you would think it was funny.”

Smart kid.

x x x

I was dead serious when I said I didn’t want kids who behaved like me. Not that I was a rotten kid or anything, but my M.O. was always about me. One of my greatest joys in life is the fact that despite my genes and influence, David is one of the most caring and considerate people I have ever met. He is fiercely loyal to his family and friends. When his sister was born, we charged him with looking out for her, even though he was still just a little squirt. He hasn’t let me down. When Samantha was just figuring out how to crawl, David would follow her around and make sure she didn’t get into trouble. He would often plant himself in front of any potential dangers (like stairs) and pick her up and move her out of the way if things got too dicey.

He’s always been willing to help when someone needs a hand. When my friends Jeremy and Amanda moved into their new house, David and Samantha were charged with putting felt on the bottom of pieces of furniture so as to not scratch up the hardwood floors. It was a hectic and busy day and when lunchtime came around, all of those helping decided to break and eat some pizza. About halfway through lunch someone asked where Dave was. I said that the last time I checked, he was upstairs putting felt on furniture. I went up and he and Samantha were still dutifully felting everything that had made its way up there. We had forgotten to tell them to come down and they hadn’t seen anyone in a while but they were determined to make sure that they got their job done.

And he’s an extreme lover of animals. I don’t think there’s an animal he’s met that he hasn’t adored. He definitely gets that from his Papa Barry and Great Aunt Vicki. I have a stack of pictures from throughout his life of Dave snuggling with all sorts of dogs. One of the first things he wants to do when he gets his own place is to get a dog. And even the most petulant cats seem to like him. As he gets older, the tenderness he showed towards others as a little tyke is occasionally overshadowed by his quest for independence. But it oozes out uncontrollably when he’s in the presence of someone’s pet.

x x x

It’s a little overwhelming realizing that he now has just about every basic skill that one would need to survive in the world. He still has to rack up some hours behind the wheel before he gets his real driver’s license, but he’s getting closer and closer. He’s an excellent driver for someone his age and he picked up on it very quickly; he managed to become proficient at driving a stick-shift in less than 15 minutes. He has his own phone and, today, his mom took him to open his own checking account. He’s very smart (sometimes too smart for his own good) and has an excellent work ethic. (That is, when it’s something he’s really interested in and motivated to do. Kind of like his dad.) Though it would be tough, you could plop him into the real world and he would make his way. I can hardly believe we’ve arrived at this point already.

I’ve realized that my time with him is short, at least how it used to be. He spends a lot of time with his friends and family, away from my place. I understand how it is but I still miss having him around all the time. I’ve come across a bunch of pictures of him when he was little and I miss him like that. Not that I don’t enjoy him now; I wouldn’t trade the potty-trained version for the little version, but I miss how innocent and cuddly he used to be.

x x x

He’s no longer little and he probably wouldn’t admit it to anyone, but I still consider him my buddy. I’m looking forward to watching him grow and mature and learn, first-hand, some of the things he still doesn’t believe me about. He’s a great kid who is less and less a kid every day and year that passes. I am immensely proud to be his dad. And while this milestone birthday is gratifying and overwhelming and even a little sad, I still love my Little Buddy Dave.

Life Goes On

2009-09-09T15:49:00.001-05:00

I open my eyes and there isn’t much difference. It’s dark and grey and soupy outside. Not my favorite way to start the day. I roll off the couch, wake the kids and start my morning routine. Once dressed, I tell the kids to head on down to the car when they’re ready and I make my way out of the apartment.

The damp sidewalks show spots of drying, which is a good sign. My main vehicle, a silver ’99 Chevy Metro, likes to sleep in when it rains, so any sign of moisture taking a hike pleases me. I’m getting a head start on the kids this morning because the car has added a number to its repertoire: If it hasn’t been started in a while, say overnight, it likes to choke and sputter and run unevenly for a few minutes before everything evens out. Not a big deal, but I figure I should get it started before the kids come down to keep things efficient.

I plop down into the driver’s seat, set my book on the passenger’s seat, put my wallet and notebook on the dash and key the ignition. In a tiny surprise, the car starts right up. Alright, I think to myself as the car gurgles and pops; this is excellent! No sooner than this thought completes itself in my head, the car dies. No biggie, I think; it started once, it will start again.

Or not.

Okay, it’ll start in a couple tries. Like I said, it started once, it’ll start again. By now, David has come down and slithered into the seat next to me. He puts his backpack at his feet and flips his iPod on. As I give the car a moment to regroup, I notice that I can faintly hear the Beatles' “Ob-la-di, Ob-la-da” escaping from Dave’s ears. I give the ignition another turn…to no avail. I guess someone’s trying to tell me something. Clever.

Samantha has now appeared and is coming around to David’s side of the car. As he opens the door, I tell her to hold on just a second. I crank the ignition one more time and get bubkes. Okay, this is getting annoying but I still have options.

“It’s not working,” I tell the kids and they peel away from the Metro. Fortunately, I have another car, a bright orange ’74 Chevy Chevette. Unfortunately, it overheats when you run it for more than about fifteen minutes. But that’s okay in this instance because all I need it for is to take Dave to school (a five minute round-trip) and then I can come back and get the Metro, which, historically, has started up after a brief respite.

So, we pile in the Skittle (as it looks just like the orange version of that candy) and take Dave to school. I’m cursing every stop light because I need to maximize the efficiency of this trip to ensure I make it back home without the car overheating. I cut the engine every time we have to stop, hoping it keeps the temperature down. We make it to school and as Dave hops out, I tell him to have a good day.

“I will. Good luck with the car.”

“Thanks, Dave.”

Samantha and I hustle through the parking lot, cutting corners to avoid sitting for too long. We only get caught by one light on Johnson Drive and drift, powerless, most of the final quarter mile to my apartment.

We shuffle our things and ourselves back into the Metro and I give the ignition a twirl. Nothing. I let out a choice expletive and bang the steering wheel with my fist a couple of times. Samantha, who has seen this routine before, remains unfazed. I unbuckle my seatbelt and Samantha follows suit. We each get out of the Metro and stand still. I try to decide if I can risk a run to Samantha’s school in the Skittle without it blowing up. I finally decide that it will make it and climb inside. Samantha completes the game of musical chairs and pops in.

I figure that if I can make it up the two hills between us and the school, I can coast down them with the engine off and buy enough time to make it back to the apartment for a final shot at the Metro. Upon beginning the ascent of the first hill, some numbskull decides he can’t wait two seconds for me to pass and pulls out of his driveway right into my path. More choice expletives are directed his way as we coast down the first hill. Looking across Shawnee Mission Parkway, I see a trash truck in the left turn lane to 63rd St., which is where I want to go. Another slew of expletives. Miraculously, the garbage truck doesn’t make any stops as we climb the hill. Not-so-miraculously, a school bus coming the other direction has made a personal stop at some stupid (as I called him) kid’s house, in turn making us stop until he safely boards. Thankfully, the stupid kid is smart enough to find his seat quickly and we’re off again.

The rest of the way is mostly downhill, so I manage to cut the engine again for a good portion. I dump Samantha at school and decide to give the engine a six minute rest. Arbitrary, but necessary. The return trip home goes, Praise God, without incident.

I hop back into the Metro for the third time this morning expecting victory. I should know by now that the determination of success rests heavily upon the preceding expectations. As it happens, victory is not to be mine this day. But, former Boy Scout that I am, I still have one option: the bus.

The Johnson County Transit System or “The Jo”, for short, just happens to have a base three blocks from my apartment and the route I take runs right past my office building. So I head out for the bus, book, wallet and notebook in hand.

As I come upon my bus, I see that the driver is heading inside briefly before making way. I’m a tad early, so the driver will probably be back in five minutes or so. I feel awkward and uncomfortable not paying the instant I board, driver or not, so I take out my wallet and notice that I only have a five- and ten-dollar bill. The fare is two dollars each way. No big deal. The machine that accepts my money doesn’t give out change, but it does spit out a card with credit on it that I can use for the ride home. So I slide my five-spot in the slot and wait for the card to pop out. Waiting...waiting… Seeing that nothing is happening, I press each of the two buttons in my view to expedite matters. Nothing. Okay, well, I’ll just wait for the driver and he can rectify things.

After a few minutes, the driver returns and I instantly stand to greet him:

“Sir?”

“Yes?”

“I put a five dollar bill in there," I said, pointing at the fare collector. "Just a couple of minutes ago.”

“Well, it’s gone now,” he abruptly replied.

I am momentarily stunned but before I can react he says,

“I need to push the button for you to get your card.”

No shit, I think to myself. “Well, would you mind, then?”

“Oh, after a minute or so, it just sucks the money in and keeps it.”

He starts shuffling around with a folder while I try to figure out why I ever woke up this morning. He starts to pull something out of his folder that I assume will be a pass.

As he hands me a business card for the Jo's offices, he says, “Here, you can call this number and they’ll get you straightened out.”

That’s what I get for assuming. And, fat lot of good that does me to get back home. Ugh.

“Okay,” I say. “Thanks.”

I sit down and try to read a little bit before giving up. I can’t concentrate because I’m reliving all the events of the morning and trying to figure out why I’ve become such an idiot. While no adequate answer is coming to me, I decide to stare out the window.

Twenty minutes late to work (and forty minutes after I prefer to get there), the bus approaches my building. I pull the cord to signal the driver my desire to exit the bus. There is a driveway just ahead that I would prefer to be let off at since the overnight rains have made the grass and ground quite soggy. But the bus driver pulls up short of the pavement, leaving me with the choice between dodging traffic on dry ground or slogging through the grass.

I thank the driver and depart. I sigh and remember the song I heard earlier this fine, fine morning:

Ob-la-di, ob-la-da…

I Lost Myself

2009-09-04T17:11:00.001-05:00

The following is an amalgam of an image I saw in a dream last night and my attempt to fill in some of the missing pieces. I don’t know what it’s supposed to mean, if anything. All of this is happening while the haunting refrains of Radiohead’s “Karma Police” and Ian Brown’s “Set My Baby Free”, respectively, float repeatedly through my head. I realize the contexts of the songs probably have absolutely nothing to do with the setting I’m describing, but delicately extracted and isolated from the main body of the song , they feel like they have meaning here. I post it because I don’t want to forget it:

A young woman stands in a backyard, a Polaroid picture held at her side in a trembling hand. The look on her face straddles the line between confusion and despair, an overcast expression on a sparkling, crystal afternoon. The grass under her feet hums a radiant green. Slightly behind her and to her right sits a classic metal swing set. The slide and swing furthest from her sit unoccupied. The swing closest to her is also empty but hangs suspended in mid-flight about three feet above the ground.

Slightly behind her and to her left stands a man, maybe a few years older than the woman. He is inanimate, not appearing to move in any way, not even the gentle rise and fall of breathing shoulders. His face looks like it just rolled off a mannequin production line, completely neutral. He stares ahead into a distance only he can see.

A few feet in front of her, a trio of children stand motionless, side-by-side, facing away from her. From left to right, they stand in order of increasing height and age. The youngest, a boy of about three, stands at the right hand of his sister, a girl of about five. She holds the same position next to a boy of seven, her older brother. The two on the left have mousy brown hair, the boy’s curly and unkempt, the girl’s long, wavy and wispy. The thick, sandy-blonde hair of the eldest rests like a snug helmet just an inch or so from his eyes.

The woman brings her quavering hand up to study the Polaroid. Her eyes move from the photo to the children and she steps around to face them. Recognition passes over her face and she moves her empty hand to her lips. After a slight pause, determination replaces recognition. She takes another look at the picture and carefully slides it into the breast-pocket of her blouse.

The woman steps toward the youngest and picks him up underneath his armpits. His position and expression do not change. She carries the rigid boy to the enchanted swing and lifts him up. She must reach high to clear the swing with the boy’s stiff legs. Once clear, she lowers the boy to the swing, angling him slightly toward her. The backs of his legs rest on the front of the swing and she bends the boy forward at the waist into a sitting position. She then bends one arm into position to hold the chain, molding his fingers around it. After repeating this with the other hand, the woman cautiously removes her hands from the boy and moves in front of him. She pulls the Polaroid halfway out of her pocket and quickly slides it back in. She bends the boys knees just so and moves close to his face. With her index finger and thumb spread apart to measure about an inch, she moves her hand to his eyelids and expands each of them. She uses both her hands to shape his mouth into a long “O”. The woman then takes a step back and observes what she’s done. Her hands immediately cover her face and she bends slightly forward.

I want you to set my baby free…

Recovering quickly, the woman moves her hands to her sides and shakes her head twice, as if to fend off a curious bee. She picks her head back up and quickly removes the Polaroid from her pocket. After studying the photo, she places it carefully between her lips and moves toward the other boy. In the same manner as his brother, the woman molds the oldest into the corresponding image held firmly in her mouth. The boy is pushing hard off his left foot, his right pulled nearly to his chest. He balances impossibly. She twists his torso to the right and gently moves his head to look over the right shoulder. With care, she creates a look of anticipation and joy on his face.

The woman again consults the photo, slips it back into her pocket and then carries the girl into position just behind her brother, hand reaching but not quite catching the object of her pursuit. The bottom of the girl’s dress hovers behind her on an imaginary wind. Her eyes are closed, yet somehow twinkling, a timeless giggle formed on her cheeks.

The woman wipes an eye and nimbly steps around the pair of frozen runners. The man stands in front of her, as lifeless as a telephone pole. She stops and gazes at him for a long moment. While still looking at the man, the woman slowly pulls the Polaroid from her pocket. She puts the picture in front of her eyes and studies. Her hand moves gradually to her side and she lets the Polaroid drop to the ground.

She moves to him and presses close. She takes his left arm and wraps it around her waist. Her hands tilt his head back almost imperceptibly and begin to sculpt his face. His eyes are squeezed into a flickering squint, his mouth wide open to allow hearty laughter to pour silently out.

But for all the manipulation of his face, she cannot manage to equal his jubilant expression. Hers verges on crumbling down her blouse. Finally, she buckles into a heap on her knees, elbows bent, palms flat on the ground, chin buried in her chest, straw-blonde hair enclosing her face.

I lost myself, I lost myself…

Hallelujah

2009-08-21T16:22:00.000-05:00

"Bowl, please. For here."
"What kind of beans?"
"Black, please."
"Salsa?"
"Mild, please."
"Sour cream and cheese?"
"Yes, please. Could I get a little more sour cream please? That’s great! Thank you."
"Anything to drink today?"
"Just water, please."

I pay the smiley Hispanic lady behind the register (who can’t be taller than 4’10") for my Chipotle burrito bol, fill my cup with ice and water, grab a fork and some napkins, sprinkle some green Tabasco sauce on my meal and head up the ramp toward the upper seating area. I like to sit in the upper area because it gives me a clear view of the entrance, the ordering counter and the cashier. I like to have a clear sight line of these areas because it gives me a chance to scope out any hungry, attractive girls. What can I say? I like to take time out to appreciate beauty in the world. And the Chipotle in my office park has more than it’s fair share of beauty.

But the pickings are slim today. Whenever I glance up from taking a bite or take stock of things after finishing a chapter of my book, the newest patrons all seem to be men. This is slightly disappointing. Not that I look forward to a lunch hour full of ogling opportunities. I’ve got my food, I’ve got my book; I can keep myself entertained quite well, thank you. But there’s something pleasant about looking up and seeing a pretty face. And, unfortunately, dudes just don’t evoke the same reaction.

Today’s dudes are different, though. They seem lost, without purpose. They’re going through the motions, ordering their burritos, collecting their change, dispensing their ice. But they often seem to be looking in a different direction while they’re doing it. Not looks of anticipation, scouting out a place to sit or looking for a co-worker; just random staring at no one and nothing in particular. Their eyes are glazed. No, not glazed; empty. Like failed clones.

And none of them are leaving.

They’re filling up all the available seating and it seems as if no one is taking anything to go. The line to order is now wrapped around the lower seating area, past the door and starting to creep up the ramp to the upper seating area. And there’s not a girl to be found in the entire line.

As I look around, I realize that all the seats in the restaurant are filled up. All except for the three available seats in my booth. When I turn my head back to the left, I’m somewhat startled to see two dudes have approached my booth and are now sliding themselves into the empty bench in front of me without saying a word.

In fact, no one is saying a word. The place is full of people and yet the only audible voice is the quirky, French-techno interpretation of "It’s Raining Men" playing over the speakers. I’m still in shock to the degree that I can’t muster any words after two strangers have interjected themselves into my booth.

I try to reassess the situation and notice that guys are now entering through the patio door in a steady stream. And they’re still coming in through the front doors, although there are so many guys coming in that both of the double-doors are open to accommodate them. The line has become indecipherable from the rest of the crowd, so the new arrivals are now just finding any open space that they can occupy. Dudes are standing everywhere; in the aisles, crowded around occupied tables, in the gaps between barstools.

I’m starting to wonder if this is some sort of prank or publicity stunt or something when I get bumped. I look to my left to see a guy has found a few inches of my bench to sit on and is now nudging me further into the booth toward the half-wall that overlooks the kitchen and lower seating area. At this point, I’m too stunned to voice my displeasure and when I look in the direction of the kitchen, I notice that it is now full of men, too. I can’t even see any Chipotle employees anymore.

There is now an unbroken but roiling sea of shiftless men covering every square inch of floor space. But somehow, the dudes just keep rolling in the doors. I begin to figure out how this is possible when I notice that guys are starting to climb up on tables and counters and half-walls. Some of them have resorted to jumping from these elevated surfaces to reach for the rafters in the trendy unfinished ceiling. So now there are men climbing into and hanging from the rafters while other men take their places on the tables and counters. The restaurant is now crawling with men that seem more like rodents than human beings. There is hardly room for one more breath, much less one more dude.

I manage to break out of my stupor and start thinking of ways to get out. I push the stranger sitting next to me but he’s pinned in by the wall of guys to his left. The surface of my table is now the home of five dudes standing and staring which leaves me no apparent option. There are guys lined up and standing along the half-wall to my right at eye-level and I decide that this will be my path.

I grab my book and knock the legs out from under one guy and send him sprawling onto the heads of those in the lower seating area. I get to my feet on the bench of my booth and pull two more guys from the half-wall into booths that are now behind me. I step up onto the half-wall myself and survey my surroundings. The volume of men is so dense that I decide to try to go over the tops of them. Going against my inner decency, I step out onto the bald pate of the guy standing just below me. From there, I step quickly, but unsteadily, onto the next guy’s shoulder. He crumples a bit under my weight and sends me stumbling. My knee catches the dreadlocked head of another dude and I start to fall, dropping my book. I flip myself over to my back, expecting to slide through the mass and hit the floor but, instead, I am buoyed like a rock star in a mosh pit.

I roll over onto my hands and knees and try to crawl to the front door. Suddenly, the entire crowd shudders simultaneously and I slide to the floor. Somehow, I manage to gain my feet but the crowd is now moving. I feel like I’m back on Bourbon Street in New Orleans during Mardi Gras; I’m no longer controlling where I move, I am completely at the mercy of the masses. I am shuffled toward a chair that I can’t avoid and fall over. I’m now on the ground and in very real danger of being trampled to death. I try to use the chair as a shield and manage to hold off the surge enough to weasel my way under a table. The otherwise silent mob drains out the doors with an ominous rumble reminiscent of an avalanche. Guys jump from the rafters and land on the floor with sickening thuds but pick themselves up without a peep or grimace and make their way out.

I wait for the lower seating area to clear before I poke my head out. I notice my book lying on the floor a few steps in front of me. I crawl out from underneath the table and dust myself off. The last strains of the French-techno cover of "It’s Raining Men" fades out over the speakers as I bend over to pick up my book and head for the exit. When I look up, the diminutive Hispanic lady that usually mans the cash register is stationed at the bottom of the ramp, sweeping the floor. When she sees me, her eyes light up and, through her perma-smile, she says, "Thank you, sir! Please come and see us again!" I give her a confused smile and head back to work.

A Typical Morning At The Office

2009-08-04T15:52:00.000-05:00

After driving through a torrential downpour, I got into the office today around 7:15am. I’m not required to be in the office before 8:00, but I’ve found that it is generally quieter before the rest of the office moseys in. I say “generally” because there are usually between three and five other people that follow a similar schedule. Most of them respect the fact that I’m not particularly chipper in the morning. I prefer not to talk to anyone and that no one talks to me until 7:45 or 8:00. After I’m fully awake I’m happy to socialize, but I’m pretty gruff and curt until then. So, I wasn’t terribly pleased when Janey volleyed this at me before I could even sit down at my desk:

“Boy, it really is a monsoon out there, huh, Nick?”

“Mmmmmmhmmmmm…” I submitted, gutturally, without turning around.

She turned back toward her desk and I sat down at mine, hoping I could get some work done without any more interaction. Within about 30 seconds, Janey started up a conversation about healthy eating with Pearl, the lady that sits next to her. Pearl nodded politely while Janey rambled on in her outside voice despite the fact that there is absolutely no other noise that would cause her to speak so loudly.

“Well…you know…so, I tried the, um…lighter salad dressing…and…you know…well, I’ve been taking the, um…salmon oil..which is supposed to be really good for you…but, well, I tried eating more…um…garlic…but, um…it kind of made me vomit………”

At this point, Reid had come around the corner from his cubicle to pick something up from the printer. Just as he was looking up in my direction, I pointed my index finger at my temple and pulled the trigger. He smiled, grabbed his papers and started walking over toward my desk. I picked up the bottle of Tabasco sauce I keep on my desk and pretended I was pouring it in my eye. He laughed, picked up my scissors and acted like he was ramming them into his chest. After he put the scissors down, I picked them up and mimicked slicing open my wrists. There’s no better way to start the day than listening to inane chit-chat that inspires you to shuffle off your mortal coil.

After fifteen minutes of trying to block out the rest of the chatter, Lee arrived.

“Good morning.”

“Hullo,” I responded.

“Well, the eldest daughter is a champion! Her team won the Chicago Roller Derby title!”

“Wow, that’s great,” I replied, mustering very little enthusiasm.

“Yep, now I’ve got a new bumper sticker for my car: ‘Proud Father of a Roller Derby Girl’.”

“Well done,” I said and chuckled.

As this highly-enlightening discussion took place, Josh walked in, dragging his briefcase-on-wheels behind him. About the time the Roller Derby conversation ended, Josh was walking back across the office bellowing about hail to what seemed like no one in particular.

“Yeah, so Eddie calls me and says that the hail they’re getting is just nuts. He says that he went out in his yard and picked up this one piece that was totally spherical…Yeah, so he cracks it in half and sees that it has rings like a tree…Yeah, so he says that the hail jumps up and down in the atmosphere and picks up more moisture and that’s what creates the rings…”

Josh adjusted the Bluetooth earpiece that was stuffed in his ear and moved on to the kitchen where his severed conversation continued in a pleasantly muffled state.

I sat back and wondered why I continue to entertain the notion that an office with only a handful of people present should be a peaceful, productive work environment.

Illusion Dissolution

2009-08-03T15:00:00.000-05:00

Red stars in a tiny black universe. Feet tingling. Adrenaline flowing beneath the surface of my chest like an underground river. Excited. Nervous. Immunity dissolves.

Why is fire so captivating? Why is music so powerful? Why is The Pick of Destiny so hilarious? Why is Miller the “Champagne of Beers”?

Boston’s “Foreplay” wails on the iPod. Alternating waves of curiosity and disappointment and coherence and bliss. Moronically obvious observations. Theoretical one-block journeys ending abruptly. Intermittent confusion.

Sweaty friends. Relaxed friends. Alert friends. Content friends. Asleep friends.

Whirlwind, Part Ten

2009-08-01T00:55:00.000-05:00

(Continued from Whirlwind, Part Nine)

I probably went too far. But I meant it. Maybe I shouldn't have told her that I love her. Maybe I shouldn't have said that I would marry her. Maybe I shouldn't have said what a wonderful team I thought we would be, accomplishing great things together. Maybe I should have explained that by valuing her above my kids, it didn't mean that I valued the kids less, it just emphasized my choice to love her; I don't have a choice in loving my kids, I couldn't NOT love them.

It was probably all said too quickly. What if I hadn't said those things? Would we still be spending all our free time together? Would she still feel the same? Would I?

I know I would. There hasn't been a day that's gone by since I met her that I haven't thought about her.

I've sought out advice from every direction. "Play it cool." "Don't be too intense." "Check in with her occasionally, but not too often." "Move on." "Be patient."

"Cut it off completely. Stop all contact. She knows where to find you. If she values you, she'll figure it out and come back."

This is the best advice I've received yet. Also, it's the worst.

It absolutely frightens me to refrain from texting her. Maybe she'll forget about me. Maybe she'll be relieved that I finally quit bugging her. Of course, if she really feels that way, it's probably for the best. That doesn't make it hurt any less, though. But what if she forgets about what great times we had together? What if she forgets about what a great guy I am?

Still, I trusted God up to this point and everything went well. I told her how much I cared about her numerous times and she didn't run. I gave all the credit to God. But just as I trusted God's plan in what I viewed as success, I realize I need to trust God's plan in what I view as failure or disappointment. It kind of annoys me when athletes make a great play and then point their hands to God, giving Him the credit. Actually, that doesn't really annoy me so much as the fact that nobody reaches their hands to the sky when they make a bad play. There may be a greater purpose in that bad play or that bad game or in that bad season. Just as I'm sure there is a greater purpose in how things have worked out with us so far. There is obviously a reason that things have transpired in this way. I just don't understand why.

x x x

Remember, all of this happened within the span of about six weeks. It seems like at least a season’s worth of activity, probably more. Certainly much more than what would typically transpire in a conventional dating situation. Which is why I still hold out hope. There was definitely a connection there. Not just a couple of people awkwardly feeling each other out, but people who definitely clicked on multiple levels. Maybe things moved too fast. Maybe the timing was all wrong. Either way, the speed and timing happened for a reason. I just hope it’s not one more lesson in the never-ending curriculum of life, that my experiences with Stacie are supposed to teach me something for the next person I get involved with. Because I don’t really have a desire to be involved with anyone else. And I don’t want the lessons to go to waste.

x x x

When I first started this series, I made a flip remark in the comments section about how I didn't really care how things worked out because, at the very least, I had some amazing writing material.

I couldn't have been more wrong about anything.

I would trade in every single word, every bit of inspiration just for the chance to be with her again.

It has been such a strange experience of contradictions. She inspires me more than anything or anyone, yet when we were together, I didn't write a word. I wanted to soak in every minute of our time together. I didn't want to waste precious minutes banging away on a keyboard. I wanted to spend those minutes with her or daydreaming of her or thinking about the next time we would be together. And now that I'm not with her, the only thing I can do is write. And it doesn't seem to help. It just churns up anxiety within my chest. Though, sometimes, it's worth having that, if nothing else.

x x x

For the longest time, I didn't really know what I was looking for in a girl. It was easy to see what I didn't want. As time went by, I would discover an attribute or two that I preferred. And after meeting Stacie, I now know everything that I want in a girl and I won't settle for less.

x x x

I thought going in that I wasn't really risking much. I acted confidently because I didn't really expect much. She told me she didn't want to break my heart.

'Tis better to have loved and lost...Bullshit.

The best laid plans...blah, blah, blah...

x x x

I guess my biggest mistake was telling her that I love her.

(To Be Continued...???)

Whirlwind, Part Nine

2009-07-31T07:00:00.001-05:00

(Continued from Whirlwind, Part Eight)

I went in to Adrian's. I went in early enough to make sure Stacie was there. I had been in a couple of times recently, but she had either already left or wasn't in on that particular day. It was busy and there was a line, but I saw that she was the first person making sandwiches.

At least until she saw me.

She turned and said something to her friend/co-worker, Jenny, and then went and hid in the office before my turn in line came up. Jenny, who has always been friendly with me, asked if I would be eating there today. I've never gotten an order to go and she's never asked me that before, so I suspected she was fishing for information for Stacie. As I was moving past the office, Stacie turned and caught my eye and turned back away.

I paid for my sandwich and sat down at my customary table. I made a conscious effort not to look over to see if she was looking my direction and instead focused on eating my sandwich and reading my book. I decided that I didn't want to push the issue any further than what I already had. She knew I was there and if she wanted to talk to me, she knew where I was. I could hear her voice most of the time I was there, so I eventually looked over to see if she had left once I didn't hear her voice. She was still there, talking with Jenny and made eye contact with me. I went back to reading my book and she went back to talking; there was no one in line so she wasn't busy.

I finished my lunch and my chapter and she still hadn't left. She was talking to someone in the office, so I went up to the counter to say hello. She turned and saw me standing there and immediately looked away. I could tell that if she could have avoided talking to me, she would have. But she turned around and came over and said hello. She smiled and was pleasant and asked what I was reading, just like she used to do when all this craziness first started. I told her and we made some small talk and cracks about the size of the book I was carrying. Occasionally, she would quickly look over at Jenny and grin and immediately look back. I asked her how she's been and she said she's been fine. She just finished Finals and was on break from school. And this afternoon, she and her mom were going up to Lawrence to bring her brother back from KU. She asked me how I was and I said that I was fine but that I wasn't unpacking anyone's dorm. There was a pause and she said,

"Well, I guess until we meet again."

And I said,

"Ok, whenever that may be."

She turned back to the office and I turned and walked out.

(To Be Continued...)

Whirwind, Part Eight

2009-07-30T07:00:00.001-05:00

(Continued from Whirlwind, Part Seven)

I got an email from her one day asking what I thought. I thought to myself, "I'm head-over-heels for this girl!" I thought, "Every other time I've thought it would be stupid to tell her how I felt, I went ahead and did it anyway. Why not do it now? We've connected so much, get along so well; I really love this girl."

So I told her.

She wasn't on the same page. She said that freaked her out. I got a huge knot in my stomach.

x x x

I managed to get her alone one day outside of Adrian’s. I apologized for my over-eagerness and explained that it was probably too quick for me to lay everything on the line. She was very uncomfortable and just seemed to want the conversation to end as quickly as possible. We discussed easing back a little bit and she seemed to be okay with that, but the cat was already out of the bag and I told her I wouldn’t feel any differently about her. When I left, we seemed to be on decent, if awkward, terms.

But from that point on, our communication became more and more spotty. Texts that were usually answered within seconds were now answered within hours. Phone calls went unanswered, voicemails ignored. Then texts that would receive a delayed answer remained completely unanswered. Finally, the following text exchange transpired:

Text message from Nick: “Am I missing something? Did I do something wrong? I feel like you are avoiding me…”

Text message from Stacie: “Sorry. I just need some space. I don’t know what else to say.”

Text message from Nick: “What did I do?”

Text message from Stacie: “Nothing. The more you try and talk the more it pushes me away.”

Text message from Nick: “I am confused. But I will let you be. I am sorry. I will clear out until you contact me. Be safe.”

I went home that night and cried. I tried to watch a movie, but I would think about her and start sobbing uncontrollably. Once the movie was over, I cried some more. I cried until I tried to go to sleep, but I couldn’t go to sleep. I just kept going over everything in my head, over and over and over, trying to find the missing piece that ruined my nearly-completed attempt at a 10,000-piece relationship puzzle. I cried until I fell asleep. I woke up the next morning, though I did so reluctantly. I was in a funk for a days. I was in a haze for weeks. And while the immediate pain has become manageable, I still get daily pinpricks that won’t go away.

(To Be Continued...)

Whirlwind, Part Seven

2009-07-29T07:00:00.002-05:00

(Continued from Whirlwind, Part Six)

I love the fact that she loves the Royals and went to more games last season than I did. I love that she digs the Kansas Jayhawks. She is wonderfully creative and expresses herself through dance and writing. Her relationship with God is important to her. Her friends benefit greatly from her kindness, compassion and loyalty. She has great taste in books and music. She has been through a lot in her life and is not afraid to deal with the world. Her work ethic is unmatched, yet she prioritizes work appropriately. She loves her family and her sweet dog, Buddy. She likes my bright orange '76 Chevette. She is one of the few people in the world who can be beautiful, hot and cute, all at once.

x x x

She is the only person who has ever made my heart pause and my breath stop just by thinking about her. Every time I see her model of car pass by, my hopes spike...and then crash when it's not her. Whenever I hear footsteps on the stairs outside my apartment, I wait and hope that they stop at my door and that they belong to her. Every text message and phone call is a disappointment once I see that it isn't from her. Whenever I see an attractive girl around town, I immediately think, "She doesn't measure up to Stacie."

x x x

We spent a late night just sitting in her car near a park near her house, talking. We spent an afternoon at her friend's house with her buddies flipping between the Chiefs game and two baseball games with playoff implications. We spent the rest of that afternoon playing a competitive game of Ultimate Frisbee in which she played very well, including scoring a point on one of my throws. We walked up to Hy-Vee late one night and got a frozen pizza and cooked it up and ate it. We went to Lamar's one morning and got donuts and walked down to the coffee shop and ate our breakfast on a park bench on Johnson Drive. We spent time at Loose Park laying on a blanket, reading and enjoying the perfect weather. We spent several days a week eating lunch and talking at Adrian's. We spent an hour before one of her classes with one of her buddies just throwing a Frisbee around. We watched "Garden State" together one night. We spent an afternoon or two lazing around while she did some homework. We spent an evening listening to music and coming up with new names for Snow White’s dwarfs. Lumpy, Pasty, Droopy, Drippy, Biff, Stumpy and Steve (with Olaf in reserve).

(To Be Continued...)

Whirlwind, Part Six

2009-07-28T07:33:00.000-05:00

(Continued from Whirlwind, Part Five)

“There’s something oozing from his…wiener.”

We were supposed to go to Loose Park and throw a Frisbee around and lay on blankets and read and pretty much just enjoy a beautiful day. But when I arrived at her house to pick her up, she was concerned about her dog, Buddy.

“He’s been licking himself…down there…a lot the last couple of days and now there’s something oozing from it. Should I take him to the vet? I don’t know if I should leave him here the rest of the day…”

“Maybe you should call the vet and explain what’s going on and see what she says. If she thinks you should bring him in, then you probably should.”

“I feel bad about ruining our day but I don’t want him to get worse. What should I call it when I talk to the vet? ‘Uh, yes Doctor, there’s a milky discharge coming out of my dog’s wiener…’”

“Well, you could just call it a penis,” I said, as we both giggled immaturely.

“Ohhh…I don’t know…”

“Just give her a call and we’ll get it figured out.”

“Oh, okay.”

She called the vet, settling on “wiener” as her chosen descriptor, while she tried not to giggle. She explained the situation and the vet told her that she could fit Buddy in within a couple of hours. She thanked the vet and hung up.

Stacie apologized again for the our plans blowing up. I told her I understood and offered to tag along with her to the vet, in case she needed any support or assistance. She gratefully accepted and we hung out until it was time to go.

We arrived at the vet’s office and, with some effort, managed to keep Buddy from discovering the office cat until it was time to go to the examination room. Once there, Stacie tried to comfort and reassure Buddy that everything would be fine while I tried to comfort and reassure Stacie that everything would be fine. She forewarned me about the feathered, she-mullet that the vet would be wearing and we both managed to suppress our giggles when she entered the room. Barely.

The vet looked Buddy over and gave us a couple of possible diagnoses. But she said she would need a urine sample to run tests on to know for sure. She said we could take him home and get a sample there or we could take him outside and try to get one while we were still at the office. We decided that we wanted to get things under way as quickly as possible and opted for the more immediate option. The vet handed us a Petri dish and we went outside.

“Do you want the leash or the Petri dish?”

“He’s your dog. I’ll let you deal with the urine collection. I’ll take the easy job.”

“Easy” is a relative term, especially in this case. Buddy isn’t Marmaduke, but he isn’t Toto, either. I’d guess he weighs around 75 pounds. Combine that with the fact that he is young and strong and that there are about 25 trees outside the vet’s office to sniff and investigate and I had my hands full keeping him under some semblance of control.

But at least I wasn’t Stacie. While Buddy drug me from tree to tree, sniffing and pausing and lifting his leg every chance he got, Stacie was following along, Petri dish in hand, squatting down to collect what she could from Buddy. But, just as she would get into position, Buddy would look up, find a new tree to explore and take off, leaving her with little but sprinkles in the dish and on her arm. I couldn’t stop laughing and neither could she.

After investigating about 10 trees, we had what we hoped was an adequate amount for a sample. She turned in the sample and washed her hands while I realized that this wasn’t such a bad alternative to missing out on our plans after all.

(To Be Continued...)

Interlude

2009-07-27T16:22:00.001-05:00

This has nothing to do with the current series, just a scene from my day today:

It’s lunchtime, so I head out the office door to my car. It’s warm out but not unpleasant, though I can tell it’s a prelude to steamy afternoon.

I wheel my car out of my parking lot and toward the divided, four-lane parkway that runs through my office park. I generally look upon the stop signs within the office park as optional, so it lightly irritates me when I look left and see two vehicles coming my direction. As I wait for them to pass, I notice that the first vehicle is a white motor scooter piloted by a college-age girl. She’s wearing a helmet (also white), which I note is unusual to see on Vespa-riders. I also comment to myself that she’s really making time, zipping past me in the right lane at, I estimate, 35mph. The speed limit on this road is 30 mph, but it isn’t unusual to see cars flying by at 40mph or more. It does feel strange to see someone on such a tiny vehicle move this fast.

The second vehicle, a Mustang convertible, is not far behind in the left lane. As I pull in behind them, I notice that ScooterGirl has signaled and moved into the left lane. The Mustang, presumably deciding it needs more room, moves over to the right lane. I assemble the limited number of facts in my head and come to the conclusion that ScooterGirl will regret her decision. I figure that she’s headed toward the junior college a couple of miles off and the right lane is more conducive to her journey than the left.

As the road curves and bends, I catch up a little and see that she has, indeed, moved back over to the right lane with the Mustang still trailing. As I cross the bridge, I look up to see her brake lights glowing as she approaches what can be a sharp left curve if you’re moving too quickly. Now she’s in the left lane again while the Mustang is in the right.

Suddenly, the scooter moves toward the left curb, hits it and sends the girl rolling into the grassy island. I let out an audible gasp and continue towards the accident. She pops up and dusts herself off as the Mustang stops next to her in the right lane. The balding, white-haired man in the sports car appears to be asking her if she is alright while she gathers her wits and her scooter. After receiving sufficient answers to his questions about her state of being he pulls off and heads on his way. I pull up just as he leaves and stop my car.

“You okay?” I say, a look of genuine concern on my face.

“Yeah,” she replies, an embarrassed grin on her face. She rights the scooter and keys the ignition.

“Okay…”

I smile and decide that if she didn’t warrant enough concern for the other guy to offer further assistance then she’s probably fine. Plus, I don’t want to multiply her embarrassment by running her through another gauntlet of questioning. I’ve wiped out like that as a kid riding my bike and I always wished the folks that were (rightfully) concerned for my well-being would just move along and let me be. Of course, I wasn’t moving that fast. Or wearing a helmet, for that matter. If she was anything like me, I’m sure she had a shaky ride to her final destination.

Whirlwind, Part Five

2009-07-23T12:10:00.003-05:00

(Continued from Whirlwind, Part Four)

One night, Stacie came over after serving drinks at a local mixed martial arts event. She had on an little black dress and a pair of disconcerting fake eyelashes. She was tired and hungry and came equipped with the remnants of some sort of chicken dish. She picked at her food and told me tales of working at such an unusual venue.

She told me about the guy who tried to woo her with his money. Or half of it, anyway. She had served him a drink and he pulled out a hundred dollar bill to tip her. But instead of just giving her the money, he tore it in half and told her she could have the other half if she went out with him. Classy. She kept the half-Benjamin as a souvenir and a great story-starter. She never did call the guy.

She told some more stories and then we started looking at a few pictures on my computer's slideshow screen saver. A picture of my dad popped up so I told her about how my dad had just passed away the year before and the crazy/awful/wonderful circumstances that surrounded his death. She told me about how she had never really lost anyone who was close to her in her life. I told her about being with my grandma in her dying days and when she breathed her last. We stayed up late, talking about how death has and has not affected us.

x x x

The next day, Saturday, I was over at Chad and Kelly's. I don't remember what I was doing; I might have been helping Chad with a home improvement project or just hanging out and shooting the breeze. In either case, I was talking with them when I received a call from Stacie. Since our normal mode of communication was texting, this seemed odd. And since I generally don't answer phone calls while I'm talking with someone face-to-face, I let the call go to voicemail.

When the conversation reached a stopping point, I checked the voicemail. She asked me to call her if I had a chance. She was brief and not brimming with her normal mischievousness. So I went out on the front porch and gave her a call.

When she answered, I asked if everything was alright. She informed me that one of her close friends was murdered while trying to leave Westport the night before. In fact, it happened at almost the exact same time that we were having the conversation about how Stacie had never lost anyone close to her.

I was stunned. I stupidly but instinctively asked her if she was okay. She told me she was hanging in there, but that she was shocked and upset. I asked her if there was anything I could do for her or if she just wanted to get together and hang out and talk about what happened. She said that she was going to visit Devin’s parents but that she wanted to get together later.

She was still in a daze when we got together later that night. She couldn’t believe that Devin was really gone. Stacie had seen her just a few days before and they were supposed to get together very soon. And that was one of the things that was really weighing heavily on Stacie’s mind.

We had talked before about the lifestyle Stacie used to lead. She and her friends partied a lot and lived care-free and decadent lives. For a while, she really dug that kind of stuff. But, eventually, she realized it wasn’t doing her any good and she started to make an effort to strengthen her relationship with God. Apparently seeing the change in Stacie’s life, Devin started asking Stacie questions about God. She asked if they could get together sometime soon and discuss things more thoroughly and Stacie readily agreed. The date arrived for their get-together, but Stacie had to cancel. Devin was killed only days after, before they could reschedule.

Obviously, Stacie was devastated. She felt guilty and responsible for whatever eternal fate awaited Devin. She couldn’t shake the feeling that she had let her friend down on the most important level imaginable. It was an awful lot to deal with for someone who had yet to lose anyone close to them.

I told her that it wasn’t her fault, that things happen for a reason. I told her that she needed to trust that God knew what he was doing and that Devin would be ok. The fact that she was even seeking answers was a very good thing and that while Stacie may have missed one appointment, she had been there for Devin and Devin knew that.

Stacie understood what I was saying but was still understandably distraught. She spent a lot of time with her friends and Devin’s parents, mourning and reminiscing and supporting each other.

x x x

One night, she asked me if I would like to go to dinner with her and a group of her friends. It was both a nerve-wracking and exciting proposition. I always get nervous meeting new people. Additionally, she was giving me a test drive in front of her friends. But that aspect was also exciting because it meant that I rated high enough to even meet her friends at all.

Her friend Ray met us at my place and we all went to Pot Pie in Westport to join her three other friends. They were an interesting and eclectic group of folks. All good people and a good mix of personalities. The dinner was excellent and I managed not to make an ass of myself in front of her friends.

Afterwards, Stacie and Ray and I picked up some wine and went back to my apartment. Ray was friends with Devin, too, and so the conversation naturally shifted to her and spiritual topics. Ray was really struggling with Devin’s death and how to deal with it. He was questioning his off-and-on relationship with God. Stacie and I spent most of the night trying to help him gain perspective on all that had happened. Ray can be a bit loquacious, so he ended up doing most of the talking. I just tried to be patient and listen and interject where I could with whatever wisdom and knowledge I had available.

Once the wine was gone and Ray had talked himself out, he thanked us for listening and took off. Stacie hung around for a little while longer and apologized for Ray’s long-windedness. I told her I was happy to be able to lend an ear to her or any of her friends. She thanked me for listening, I thanked her for allowing me to hang out with her friends and she headed home.

(To Be Continued...)

Whirlwind, Part Four

2009-07-23T12:08:00.002-05:00

(Continued from Whirlwind, Part Three)

Within three days of hanging out with Stacie, we were having a text conversation. I felt an overwhelming urge to tell her how much I cared about her and I asked God to tell me what I should do. I had an overwhelming shout in my brain that said "TELL HER!" So, I told her that I liked her so much that I would marry her. And instead of saying, "Okay, creep; please remove yourself from my life," she said, "You are bold like liger." And our conversation continued.

From that point on, she would occasionally ask me what I thought.

"So, what do you think?"

It was her cue for figuring out what our relationship was and what it would be. And I always told her that I really liked her and would date her if she was up to it. She would say that she didn't want to break my heart and I told her that I still felt the same way and couldn't help it. Then we would continue to joke and laugh and talk.

One time, I pointed out the fact that she was equidistant in age between me and my son. She replied that she'd just have to hang out with both of us and decide which one she wanted to date.

One night, while sitting in her car in the parking lot of Baskin Robbins, the subject of whether we should date or not came up again. She said she wasn't sure and picked up a coin. She said she'd flip a coin to decide. I told her that I didn't think it was cool to make a decision like that with the flip of a coin. After bantering back and forth, I conceded to flipping two coins. I said that if they both turned up heads, we'd date; tails, we wouldn't; split decision meant we would just keep hanging out and see what developed. One head, one tail. And we laughed and talked for another hour.

(To Be Continued...)

Whirlwind, Part Three

2009-07-23T11:42:00.003-05:00

(Continued from Whirlwind, Part Two)

We met at the old Adrian's location. She pulled up in her brother's well-worn Lexus, windows down. It was a warm, late Fall day, nearly perfect. She wanted to grab a bite before we headed out to the game, so we wheeled around and went through the Burger King drive-thru. She ordered a chicken sandwich, some fries and about a gallon-and-a-half of ketchup. She had no insecurities about eating in front of me, which was refreshing.

When we reached the parking lot of Kauffman Stadium, the "Burger King" factor of "Burger King chicken sandwich" sunk in and she stopped eating her sandwich. She handed me a wad of cash, her keys and her phone and asked me to hold them for her, so I stored them in the many pockets of my cargo shorts. She locked up the car and we walked toward the stadium.

We went inside and found our seats in the shade. She was wearing a brown skirt, a baby blue tank top and somewhat oversized sunglasses that reminded me a little of Audrey Hepburn's in "Breakfast at Tiffany's". But the sunglasses were more of an auburn shade, playing off her long brownish-red hair and sweet freckles. She was at once cute, sultry and relaxed.

And while I was captivated by her looks, I was even more taken in by our conversation. We talked about baseball, which was essential and great, but she was also very comfortable talking about less obvious and more personal topics. I learned about her stint hosting a cooking show on TV. I learned about some very real and difficult struggles in her life.

I learned that she was willing to trust me with her eating habits, her valuables and her personal details. And I learned that I was falling for her like an anvil dropped from a cartoon building.

(To be continued...)

Whirlwind, Part Two

2009-07-23T11:17:00.006-05:00

(Continued from Whirlwind)

Foolishly, I invited Stacie to come play Ultimate Frisbee. I hadn't seen Girl #2 there in a while, but it was still a questionable decision on my part. Apparently, after having no action in my life for some time, I suddenly craved as much as I could get.

Luckily, when we met at Franklin Park to play, no one else was there. I had forgotten that there was something else going on that day and that Ultimate was canceled. But this worked to my benefit because she agreed to toss the Frisbee back and forth with just me.

I tossed her the disc and she threw it back with considerable confidence and skill. She mentioned that she and her dad used to throw it around a lot. I was impressed and told her so. We spent the next hour or so talking and getting to know each other, observing the pee-wee football practice adjacent to our field and throwing the disc.

At one point, one of the pee-wee football coaches sent a kid to run a lap. But instead of sending the kid by himself, the coach accompanied him. The route they took just happened to pass near us. When they circled back toward practice, I told Stacie that the guy was ogling her. She dismissed it with a laugh. Five minutes later, Coach was escorting another troublemaker for a lap right past us.

"That dude is totally leering at you."

"Whatever," she smiled.

After the third trip, she decided I was probably right and figured she'd play it up. She volunteered to try to catch the Frisbee while doing a no-hands cartwheel. Though my poor accuracy didn't allow for an upside-down completed pass, her athleticism caught my attention in a very positive way. The football coach slipped on his own drool as he ran back to practice.

When we were done throwing the disc, I didn't want our time together to end. I asked if she was hungry and if she would be up for getting something to eat with me. She agreed easily and we headed to Mi Ranchito for dinner.

We talked and joked and laughed. In the midst of our pleasant and humorous conversation, I told her there was a mid-week afternoon Royals game coming up and asked if she would like to go with me. Again, she agreed quite easily. By this time, my head was spinning with how wonderfully and easily this relationship was progressing. Shortly thereafter, I believe, was the first time she told me that she wasn't really looking for a relationship. That stunted my enthusiasm, but I figured I would just play the cards I was dealt and go from there.

(To be continued...)

Whirlwind

2009-07-23T11:13:00.002-05:00

It was, without question, the best month of my life. Pound for pound, day for day, no other month in my life can measure up. And it started with a walk for charity that was canceled due to tornadoes.

x x x

I was sitting in Adrian's Cafe, eating lunch and talking to Stacie, a.k.a. Adrian's Girl. The weather was pretty ominous: dark clouds, high winds and rain. I was telling her that I was heading up our office's participation in that evening's Light the Night Walk, a benefit for leukemia and lymphoma research. And I wasn't particularly thrilled with the drippy forecast for the proceedings. She seemed marginally interested in what I was talking about, so I invited her to come join in on the fun.

"Hmm...maybe I will," she said. "But wouldn't it be weird if I showed up since no one knows who I am?"

"Yeah, it would be weird," I said, "But you can hold my umbrella so that I can properly attend to my clipboard. You can be my assistant," I said with a smirk. "Really, though, there will be other folks there that nobody knows. Of course, with the weather shaping up the way it is, this might not be an ideal night to be walking around outside."

She contemplated the idea for a while. Finally, she said, "Okay, I'll go. Give me your number and I'll text you if I decide not to."

I complied and asked for her number in return, so that I would know who was texting me. She gave me her number and I secretly celebrated the first telephone number I had ever successfully acquired from a girl. I then left and returned to work, thrilled that I had gotten her number and a shaky commitment to do something with me outside of Adrian's Cafe.

Once I got back to the office, the weather declined in a hurry. Before long, a Tornado Watch had been issued. About this time, I received a text from Stacie saying that she would probably not be up for those kinds of conditions. I agreed and after a Tornado Warning was issued, I told her that she should absolutely not risk her life to come walk around a business park. We continued to text each other the rest of the evening and from that point on, there was rarely a day that went by when we didn't text, call or see each other for the next month.

(To Be Continued...)

A Touch of the Hair, A Drop of the Pen

2009-05-19T16:35:00.000-05:00

Pamela’s eyes glazed over as she looked at the piles of crop insurance information in her cubicle. She daydreamed about things far more interesting while she half-listened to the conference call droning at her ear. Maybe I’ll find a guy who’s willing to sweep a 42-year old divorcee with two teenage kids off her feet to live happily ever after, she thought. Some big, strong guy with a solid streak of responsibility, a quick grin and a soft touch. She leaned back in her chair and looked to her right just in time to see that guy walk in the office door.

John strode in, putting one worn cowboy boot in front of the other, barrel chest puffed large with confidence and cheer. His notebook looked a little out of place in hands that were generally more accustomed to working in a grain elevator. The first person he saw upon entering the office was Pamela. Being that she was a recognizable and friendly face in an office full of strangers, he gladly walked towards her.

Pamela’s eyes lit up, a grin emerged and she lightly hung up on the conference call. She had met John several times while making visits to grain elevators around the area informing those of the benefits of crop insurance.

“Hey, Pam! How’s life treatin’ ya?”

“Hello, John! Not too bad, I suppose. What brings you into the big city?” she said as she flashed her bright white teeth. She had swiveled her chair to face him and was leaning back slightly, inviting conversation.

“Oh, just meeting with some folks in your office today. Nothing special,” he said as he jammed his non-notebook holding hand in his pocket like a shy little boy talking to the pretty older girl next door.

They continued to shoot the breeze in an easy, rural way. Pamela touched and flipped her hair. John picked up a putter shaped like a corn cob from the next cubicle and started practicing his swing, glancing up occasionally to catch Pamela’s eye.

Those he came to meet appeared and the encounter came to an end.

“Good to see you, Pam.”

“Likewise, John. We’ll see you later.”

John joined the meeting participants in the conference room and Pamela got back to her conference call. At least she did physically; mentally, she was back to dreaming about a suddenly more tangible Prince Charming.

After her conference call had ended, she hung up the phone and looked up to see John standing there.

“Hey, Pamela; do you think I could borrow a pen?”

Slightly surprised and flustered, Pamela fumbled around her desk for a pen.

“Oh, of course, John! Let me find one for you…”

She corralled a pen and handed it to him. As he walked back toward the conference room, he held up the pen and said over his shoulder,

“’Preciate it, Pam!”

Glowing from the second unexpected meeting that morning, Pamela picked up her ringing cell phone. On the other end of the line was her oldest son’s math teacher. Her son had been underperforming expectations and the teacher wanted to discuss possible strategies to get him back in line. Having forgotten that this call was imminent, the mini fairy tale she was living that morning started to fade away as reality grumpily pushed its way back to the forefront.

Nearly forty-five minutes had passed and John’s presence in the meeting had concluded. He started to walk out the door but stopped, remembering that he still had Pamela’s pen. As he moved towards Pamela’s cubicle, he saw the phone at her ear and her head in both hands. Not wanting to disturb her, he deftly dropped the pen on her desk and slid back toward the exit.

Seeing the pen on her desk, Pamela looked up and saw John’s broad back moving away from her. Her heart raced a little and she tried to bring her phone conversation to an end. With each step he took, her face transitioned from happiness to desperation.

“Okay, okay, thankyousomuch,” she spit out as she halted the call. But just as she hung up the phone, the office door came to a close with a click.

Ooooooooh...Baseball!

2009-04-21T15:50:00.001-05:00

Well, now; this is strange. A baseball post on what began as a baseball blog. But after several years of finding nothing to do but complain ad infinitum about the Royals and their losing habits, Spring has sprung and after two full weeks of games, the good guys are still in first place. Okay, so they’re in a three-way tie, but hey. So my hiatus has come to an end.

So, why are we in first place? Because our starting pitching has been ridiculously good. Our #1 guy, Gil Meche, has pitched like a #1 guy. Zack Greinke has been untouchable, having yet to give up a run in his three starts. Kyle Davies has combined natural talent with the subtle genius of pitching coach Bob McClure to produce the reality his potential has been hinting at for years. Add in the fact that bloated corpse Sidney Ponson has actually held his own and Horacio Ramirez’s starts have been minimized in number and the starting rotation has been the best in the American League.

The bullpen, on the other hand, has been a mixed bag. Juan Cruz has been worth all the money paid to Kyle Farnsworth, while Farnsworth has been worth all the money paid to me. This year. At my low-paying desk job. Joakim Soria continues to try to pry the title of best closer away from Mariano Rivera, but hasn’t been utilized in the most effective, high-leverage situations. The assortment of Jamey Wrights, Robinson Tejedas, Doug Waechters and Ron Mayhays have been solid, as per their abilities.

The boys in the field have had their ups and downs, but they’ve been pretty solid, as well. Coco Crisp is leading off with a vengeance. John Buck is benefitting from the tutelage of new batting coach Kevin Seitzer. Mike Jacobs has hit a few homers, Alberto Callaspo is getting on base and the rest of the offense is treading water while Alex Gordon and Jose Guillen are on the disabled list. Of course, Guillen being on the DL is probably more like a life buoy to an offense treading water.

Outfield defense? Very good. Infield defense? Not so much. Although Billy Butler has been a pleasant surprise so far at first base.

One of the amazing things about this young season is that we could very easily be alone in first place by a couple of games. The reasons we aren’t, though, are not very pleasing . I want to keep this post light and airy, so I’ll save the mind-boggling moves of Trey Hillman for another day.

Whaaaaat?!?!

2009-04-21T13:10:00.000-05:00

Remember my unrequited office paramour? She’s still around:

I was walking toward the door to head to the restroom when I heard a sound. I turned my head back toward the conference room, but since it was dark, I didn’t see anything. Then I heard someone say something. Very quietly, she said “Did you hear me crunch?” I realized she was sitting all alone, lights off, shades drawn, eating her lunch. My brain couldn’t compute all this oddity at once, so I just walked out the door and went to the restroom.

When I got back, I made a concerted effort NOT to look in the conference room and NOT to engage in any conversation. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see she was still sitting there like an assassin waiting alone in the dark to kill a secret agent. As I walked past the door, I heard her say something again. I hoped she would just let me pass and be done with it.

But, no.

Again, out of the corner of my eye, I saw her get out of her chair. I went and looked out my window, my back to the rest of the office, hoping to discourage any further interaction. But she was dogged:

“Did you hear me crunch?”

I said, “What?”

“Did you hear me crunch my chip when you walked past?”

“Apparently so.”

“Sorry,” she said, and took her lunch trash into the kitchen.

Whaaaaat?!?!

I Am Solid

2009-02-25T13:25:00.002-06:00

When I let responsibilities slide, I feel incomplete. I feel like a two-dimensional drawing that contains small-but-growing holes. Holes that might resemble a single flame eating its way through the drawing, inside-out. Or a rat systematically chewing through a paper cup. I feel paranoid, like people are poking and prodding for my failures. As if they are just waiting for me to step in a hole of my own creation.

When I don't face problems head-on, I feel unstable. I feel like my problems are chipping away at me, like a sculptor who doesn't know when to stop. And the more that gets chipped away, the more I feel wobbly, like a game of Jenga right before its climax. I feel overwhelmed. Every problem I have manifests itself as a brick and simultaneously positions itself directly above my head.

When I face my problems and accept my responsibilities, I feel strong, and warm and light. I feel confident and social. And solid.

Movie Time!

2009-02-23T12:16:00.003-06:00

The last couple of years, I've made an effort to see the five movies that were nominated for Best Picture. This year, I upped the stakes and made a point to see the movies that included the nominees for the acting categories, as well. The following is my thoughts on each of the acting performances and the movies up for Best Picture. I've included the winner of each category along with my favorite.

ACTOR IN A LEADING ROLE

Richard Jenkins, The Visitor -- Richard Jenkins was excellent in The Visitor. Unfortunately, his character was a very understated, subtle man, which didn't bode well for his chances at winning an Oscar. The movie was an interesting look at unlikely friendships with a sprinkling of political/immigration/racism commentary. It's a movie that makes you think, but it's not boring.

Frank Langella, Frost/Nixon -- I was born the year Nixon resigned, so I'm not really familiar with Richard Nixon's mannerisms outside of the handful of news clips and comedy impressions I've seen. But from what I HAVE seen, Frank Langella is nearly perfect. It's easy to get lost in his portrayal and convince yourself that he really is Nixon. My favorite part of this movie was the look into what drove Nixon. He seemed to be an intensely competitive individual. It certainly doesn't excuse what he did, but it sure made him more compelling in my eyes.

Sean Penn, Milk -- I had no idea how influential Harvey Milk was in initializing the gay rights movement. Milk is basically an underdog tale about a likable (though flawed) guy who makes a big difference in the world and in the lives of thousands of people. And Sean Penn does a typically brilliant job of embodying his subject, the good, the bad and the ugly. I think he really humanizes Harvey Milk to those who may not be sympathetic or tolerant of gay people. I think Penn's performance is definitely Oscar-worthy.

Brad Pitt, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button -- I really like Brad Pitt as an actor, but I don't really think he's deserving of this nomination. The movie was decent and he was fine but I think the best thing about Benjamin Button is the special effects. From what I understand, they took Brad Pitt's face and digitally overlaid it onto the body of the little person who played Benjamin as a wheelchair-bound adolescent. Which was really amazing. And deserves an Oscar for effects, but not for the acting.

Mickey Rourke, The Wrestler -- This was my favorite performance. I think the role significantly parallels Mickey Rourke's career, making it easier for him to play this part so wonderfully. He's a guy who is extremely gifted and self-centered but watches everything crash around him. He makes a valiant comeback in both his career and his personal life, but continues to make egregious-yet-understandable mistakes. I think this was the best performance in this category.

WINNER: Sean Penn
MY FAVORITE: Mickey Rourke

ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE

Josh Brolin, Milk -- Josh Brolin did a fantastic job in this movie, but the lack of screen time for his character left me wanting more. He is definitely compelling as the tortured adversary to Harvey Milk, but there just doesn't seem to be enough there. He definitely gets more screen time than Viola Davis, a nominee for Best Supporting Actress in Doubt, but his performance isn't as striking as Davis's. Of course, in this field, his chances of winning were miniscule to begin with.

Robert Downey, Jr., Tropic Thunder -- If it weren't for Heath Ledger, Robert Downey, Jr. would be the runaway favorite in the category. The movie is a good-but-not-great comedy, but Downey, Jr. is outstanding. His character is a world-renowned Australian method actor who decides to undergo skin treatments to play an African-American character. This is another role where the actor completely absorbs you into his character and makes your forget his real identity. This movie just had the unfortunate timing of coming out in the same year as The Dark Knight.

Philip Seymour Hoffman, Doubt -- This was yeoman's work for Philip Seymour Hoffman. You get used to his excellence every time you see him, so I probably took this performance for granted. Plus, he was working with three other actors who were nominated this year, so he kind of gets lost in all the outstanding work.

Heath Ledger, The Dark Knight -- The Dark Knight is far and away the best comic book movie made to date. A lot of the reason for that is the gripping performance of Heath Ledger. He turns the Joker into a car wreck--in a good way. He is such an abhorrent creature that it is frightening. Yet it is impossible to look away and, actually, you end up wanting to see more of him.

Michael Shannon, Revolutionary Road -- In a movie filled with characters who work as hard as they can to put up a facade, Michael Shannon's character is a stunning and refreshing lunatic. He is the voice of hope and logic and reason that everyone else tries to quell. And as nutty as he seems at first glance, he makes more sense than anyone else.

WINNER: Heath Ledger
MY FAVORITE: Heath Ledger

ACTRESS IN A LEADING ROLE

Anne Hathaway, Rachel Getting Married -- Anne Hathaway shed her princess roles well and really got into this role. She's the hub of a dysfunctional family and a character who you can love and loathe all at the same time. She does a great job of invoking sympathy for a person who would be really tough to deal with in real life.

Angelina Jolie, Changeling -- The most amazing thing about this movie is that it's a true story. Angelina Jolie's character's son goes missing and she stops at nothing in her search for him. I don't think it was an Oscar-winning performance, but it was solid. She did well in portraying the range of emotions that any mother would experience when a child goes missing: grief, determination, anger, fear. But mostly she cried a lot and I don't think that was going to cut it in this category.

Melissa Leo, Frozen River -- An unfamiliar actress in an unfamiliar movie, Melissa Leo takes you into the world that not many of us care to think about. As a struggling mother whose husband left her right before the down payment is due on their new trailer home, she has to do the best she can to provide a home for herself and her two children. She ends up in a situation she never would have expected and things go awry. It was an excellent performance, but in a field filled with more familiar faces, she was going to have a hard time sticking out.

Meryl Streep, Doubt -- Meryl Streep plays a strict, New England nun in a gripping morality tale. As a stubborn foil to the other nominated actors from this movie (Amy Adams, Viola Davis, Philip Seymour Hoffman), she manages to stay true to her convictions in the face of many persuasive arguments. She has a record 15 Oscar nominations and this role was certainly a worthy one.

Kate Winslet, The Reader -- Kate Winslet could have been nominated just as easily for her role in Revolutionary Road, which just goes to show what an incredible year she had. In The Reader, she plays a woman who has an affair with a teenage boy. While their affair is filled with passion, she turns out to be emotionally stunted, much to her detriment later in life. It was a very nuanced performance that I felt was worthy of an Oscar win.

WINNER: Kate Winslet
MY FAVORITE: Kate Winslet

ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE

Amy Adams, Doubt -- Amy Adams is the young, inexperienced nun opposite Meryl Streep in Doubt. Her character, while idealistic and naive, holds firm in her convictions and stands up to the stronger nun. Upon first glance, it doesn't seem like Adams is really stretching much in this role, but she definitely holds her own in a movie filled with excellent performances.

Penelope Cruz, Vicky Cristina Barcelona -- Personally, I didn't see what the big deal was about Penelope Cruz's portrayal of an eccentric ex in Vicky Cristina Barcelona. Maybe I just can't past her accent, but she seems like the same person in every movie I've seen her in. Maybe my eyes just glaze over because she's Penelope Cruz, but I still didn't think this was anything other than just a solid piece of work.

Viola Davis, Doubt -- She didn't have much time to make an impression, but Viola Davis made the most of her opportunity. As the black mother of a child who has possibly been molested by a white priest in 1960's New England, Davis does a masterful job of showing restrained but passionate emotion in trying to do what's best for her son. Her performance may have been the most gripping performance out of all those nominated in the acting categories.

Taraji P. Henson, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button -- It probably doesn't bode well for her chances that I hardly remember Taraji P. Henson's character in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. She plays the mother of a child who ages in reverse, but to me, she gets lost in the novelty of her son's condition. It's not that she does a poor job, it's just that I found it easily forgettable.

Marisa Tomei, The Wrestler -- Marisa Tomei got the assignment of adding a little depth to the "Stripper With a Heart of Gold" character. She did a decent job considering that her story somewhat parallels Mickey Rourke's character's. It's just that since the characters are fairly similar, she doesn't get the same sympathy that Randy "The Ram" receives. You can understand a big, egotistical, burned-out wrestler being emotionally withdrawn; it's harder to like a stripper at the tail end of her career who doesn't quite fill in the gaps in Randy's emotional landscape.

WINNER: Penelope Cruz
MY FAVORITE: Viola Davis

BEST PICTURE

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button -- I realize it's been said a hundred times that Benjamin Button resembles Forrest Gump a little too closely, but I can't help but agree. The concept is certainly intriguing and the love story is sufficiently agonizing, but I just felt like I had seen this story before. The special effects were outstanding, though. And I thought Cate Blanchet's performance as Benjamin's love interest was underrated. But I just didn't think it was Oscar-worthy material.

Frost/Nixon -- For me, this was the runner-up for Best Picture. I didn't have high expectations given that I thought I knew how it would play out, but I was pleasantly surprised. As I mentioned earlier, Nixon's competitive streak was compelling, but David Frost really turned out to be a worthy opponent. What is equally interesting is that I had never heard of David Frost before this movie and he didn't seem to parlay his successful interview with Nixon into anything substantial in the United States. Supporting roles by Sam Rockwell, Oliver Platt and Kevin Bacon were all highly entertaining, as well.

Milk -- I really like this story, but felt like I had seen this movie before. I didn't know anything about Harvey Milk and his role in the Gay Rights movement and I'm glad this story has now been told. But the movie felt like a typical underdog story with a hint of foreboding. It was very enjoyable, I just felt like it was presented in a fairly straightforward way. Of course, I couldn't tell you how else it should have been presented.

The Reader -- The Reader is an unusual story about a teenage boy's first love and how it affects the rest of his life. I enjoyed the insights into the main characters' emotional maturity through the lens of a brief-but-steamy affair and a highly-revealing court case. Kate Winslet's performance is really the main event here. She embodies the passion, pride, stubbornness and determination of Hannah Schmitz to a "T".

Slumdog Millionaire -- After hearing nothing but rave reviews about this movie, I was skeptical. But the originality of the story won me over. This was one of the more original love stories I've ever seen, but it was way more than just a love story. There is plenty of action and intrigue and, being set in India, it is fairly exotic. It is also a fairly uplifting movie, and while I don't mind supposed "downer" movies, it was nice to have one movie that wasn't mostly somber.

WINNER: Slumdog Millionaire
MY FAVORITE: Slumdog Millionaire

Initials

2009-02-11T12:58:00.001-06:00

I just realized that I have a large number of people in my office who have initials that have alternate meanings:

K.O.

P.E.

P.C.

M.D.

R.N.

P.V. (Praire Village, for those non-JoCo residents)

B.S.

What does this mean? That if I get knocked out in gym class, I can use a computer to contact a doctor and nurse in Prairie Village. Either that or it's all just bullshit.

Just For the Record...

2009-02-06T13:46:00.002-06:00

The Most Annoying Intersections in the Kansas City Area

~ Santa Fe and Antioch, in Overland Park -- Every morning, I head west on Santa Fe out of Downtown Overland Park on my way to work. My next move is to turn left to head south on Antioch. And every day, it seems, I catch this left turn light just as it changes to red, meaning I have to sit through the entire light. It doesn't matter what speed I travel on Santa Fe leading up to this light. Some days, I go faster; some days, I go slower. Every day I get the same result.

~ Shawnee Mission Parkway and Rainbow, in Fairway -- No matter what direction I'm coming from, this light is red 99% of the time. You would think that a light would favor one street or the other. But that would just make too much sense. **Bonus Irritation** -- When turning north onto Rainbow from the left turn lane on Shawnee Mission parkway, the left turn light is green for literally 3 seconds. This is not an exaggeration. The first car in the turn lane doesn't even make it out of the intersection before the light has turned yellow. People run this light with such regularity that the folks heading west-bound on Shawnee Mission Parkway don't even get all that upset when it happens.

~ Shawnee Mission Parkway and Belinder, in Fairway -- Just a couple hundred yards from the above intersection, you cannot pass through here when traveling east or west on Shawnee Mission Parkway without stopping. Even though Belinder is not a busy street. And by "not busy", I mean that I've never seen more than two cars at one time on this street. Belinder is a two-lane street; SMP is a four-lane street. I have never seen pedestrian traffic at this intersection. This is a logic-free zone. Coupling it with the above intersection is a quick way to jump-start some road rage.

And, finally, the worst intersection in the history of mankind,

~ Martway and Broadmoor, in Mission -- This has been the worst intersection I've ever seen and has been this way since I was a small child. It's a four-way stop sign with left-turn lanes in each direction. No one ever seems to know whose turn it is to go next. Which leads to either, a) everyone staring and waving at each other to go or, b) everyone pulling half-way into the intersection and then waving, screaming or honking at each other. If the previous intersection is a considered a "logic-free zone", this intersection should be considered a logic black hole. All logic and reasoning is sucked into this intersection and destroyed. This intersection should be avoided at all costs.

Please feel free to add your own entries in the comments so we can all suffer together...

Late In The Office

2009-02-03T18:33:00.001-06:00

It is really quiet. Even the climate-control system has shut down. There is only the low drone of the idle copy machine.

The regular tarry-ers have all left. I'm all alone.

The last remnant of gold is fading in the west window. Below the melting horizon, flickering car headlights resemble fireflies as the working folk flutter homeward.

The scene in the west window stands in stark contrast to the field of fluorescent lights hovering overhead. They line up in a regimental matrix, keeping watch like sentries.

The south window projects a different picture. There is a lone streetlamp, inadequately illuminating the parking lot. Through the electric blue tint I can see that only five cars remain.

One is mine.

I should go home.

But I won't.

Not yet.

On The Phone Again

2009-02-02T15:36:00.001-06:00

Sung to the tune of Willie Nelson's "On the Road Again"

On the phone again
I'm in my car and I'm on the phone again
I'll cut you off while I just jabber with my friends
And I can't wait to get on the phone again
On the phone again
I can't tell you where I may have been
Distracted by my mobile confabulation
And I can't wait to get on the phone again

On the phone again
Weaving lane to lane I drift on down the highway
While I tell my friend
About some jerk who yelled, "Get out of my way!"
Last Friday...
On the phone again
I'm in my car and I'm on the phone again
I hold up traffic in my new Mercedes Benz
And I can't wait to get on the phone again

On the phone again
Ordering some spring rolls from my local Thai place
Pay no attention
While I distractedly steal your parking space
The last space...
While on the phone again

I'm in my car and I'm on the phone again
I'll start to speed up and slow right back down again
And I can't wait to get on the phone again
And I can't wait to get on the phone again

The Plan...Meets Reality

2009-01-30T10:45:00.002-06:00

I was really looking forward to today. I went to bed knowing that my boss, Mike, and the guy who sits next to me, Pete, would be in Wichita all day in meetings. Mike and Pete are both generally on the phone continuously (and loudly), so I was pleased to have a peaceful, quiet, laid-back Friday. And my other co-worker, Shrene, always works from home on Fridays. So I would be the only one from my group in the office today.

I only had about two hours of work that I needed to take care of, which would leave me plenty of time to attend to more Me-centric activities. I was envisioning a leisurely stroll through the internet, reading all my favorite sites without the unpleasant interruption of work. I thought I might head up to Lamar's and get a donut or three for breakfast. A long lunch at the local sandwich shop sounded like a viable option. And to wrap it all up, I figured I would duck out of the office early and catch a movie.

So I was in an unusually chipper mood driving in to work this morning. It wasn't bone-chillingly, mind-numbingly cold and the forecast called for a partly sunny and relatively warm, 45-degree January day. And I was wearing my t-shirt with the Big Wheel graphic.

I pulled into my common law parking spot at the back of the lot and began my trek into the building. As per my daily ritual, I systematically checked over the cars in the lot, identifying which of the other folks in my office had already arrived. Ross? Check. Rob? Check. Keith? Check. Mike? "Wait," I thought. "Why is Mike's car here? Well, they said they were going to meet here early this morning and then head out. They must have taken Pete's car." And Pete usually parks on the other side of the building.

I entered the lobby of my building and headed for the stairs. As I walked past the elevator, I glanced out the doors on the opposite side of the lobby to see if any co-workers had parked over there. And there was Pete's car. "Hmmm...maybe they're just getting a late start. So much for a 100% peaceful and quiet day," I thought. "But what are you going to do?"

I trudged upstairs and entered the office. I exchanged hellos with Pete and then he said,

"We decided to stay here today."

"Seriously?" I said.

"Yeah, we thought we'd save the six hours of driving for an hour and a half meeting and just have a conference call."

"Ah, man. I was looking forward to a peaceful, quiet day," I said with a grin.

They both chuckled as I sat down.

"Well," I said, "I guess I'll just bow out early today, then."

Then Mike chimed in.

"I've got some bad news; we need to do month-end stuff today. We'll need to have an estimate done before the end of the day."

My chipper mood spontaneously combusted. So did visions of donuts and movie screens.

Because Mike is a happy-go-lucky, glass half-full guy, he laughed. Because I have to get information from him and Shrene and a person in our Minneapolis headquarters before I can begin on my portion of the estimate, I fumed. And vigorously attempted to seal off any expletives from leaking out of my mouth.

"Well, now I'm pissed off."

They both chuckled again and got back to work.

I sat down and recalled an interesting email conversation in which some of us debated what went into making a person happy. What percentage of your happiness is derived from your genetics, your circumstances and your choice? I enthusiastically argued that your personal choice dictates the majority of your happiness. And now I have a prime opportunity to prove my hypothesis.

I also recalled an old joke:

Wanna know how to make God laugh?
Tell Him your plans.

Okay, then; laugh it up, buddy. I'll try to, too.

Inauguration Thoughts

2009-01-21T12:55:00.004-06:00

First of all, I'm glad he survived. Just the other day, I heard about a high school in Ashburn, GA that held its first integrated prom in 2007. While there has been incredible and sweeping change in this country, there are still pockets of folks who are sheltered from progress. And sanity.

It appeared to me that Obama knew the oath of office better than Chief Justice Roberts. One of the things I like about Obama is that he seems to be calm at all times. He didn't get fidgety during the flub of the oath, which I find to be very impressive. I can't imagine the kind of nerves one must have when being sworn in as the most powerful human being on the planet.

Did you see the cheap little plastic chairs that Malia and Sasha had to sit in? Everyone else in the inner circle appeared to have plush, royalty-style chairs, but they got stuck with bingo parlor seats.

These are my favorite snippets from the speech:
"Our economy is badly weakened, a consequence of greed and irresponsibility on the part of some, but also our collective failure to make hard choices and prepare the nation for a new age."
I like this because it points out that we, as a nation, loved riding the high tides but turned a blind eye toward the possible failings of our system. Now we, as a nation, are paying the consequences and are responsible for fixing our mistakes.

"On this day, we come to proclaim an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn out dogmas, that for far too long have strangled our politics."

I realize every politician says this, but I'm going to choose to believe it this time.

"The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works."

This sort of common sense approach is refreshing and has been sorely lacking. While I would prefer that the government be directly involved in my life on a minimal basis, I don't really care if they make a program for everything - so long as it works, works well and works efficiently.

"To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history; but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist."

I appreciate the lack of arrogance and the willingness to work with those who might be our enemies, so long as they are willing to cooperate.

"For as much as government can do and must do, it is ultimately the faith and determination of the American people upon which this nation relies."

Unfortunately, the most enduring image of the inauguration won't be the multitudes gathered on the Mall, the crying and hopeful faces in the crowd or the stoic presence or our new president. No, the enduring image in my mind will be hats. These hats:

Brain Storm

2009-01-14T10:42:00.003-06:00

There is a cloud of thoughts expanding and contracting in my head. Ideas are gliding and floating around. Practical ideas and abstract ideas and creative ideas are bumping into and melding with and separating from each other. When I start to work on something, the particles slow down and freeze in focused concentration. When I am finished, they are free to scatter and bounce and collect like dew drops in a mist of thought. Tiny lightning bolts snap and crackle in the gaps, new and fleeting ideas quickly making their presence known. Low rumbles of thunder roll and echo and settle into solid projects and thoughts...

I'm Sick

2008-12-17T16:13:00.001-06:00

I'm sick.

I'm sick of people patting themselves on the back. I'm sick of people seeking my approval.

I'm sick of people not knowing who I am and what I need. I'm sick of not knowing what I need, either. I'm sick of knowing what I want but having no idea whether it coincides with what I need.

I'm sick of knowing there's a plan but not knowing what it is or when it will start moving or when it will stop.

I'm sick of being patient. I'm sick of understanding that there is a greater purpose but not knowing what my role is supposed to be.

I'm sick of the sheer stupidity and emotional irresponsibility of this country's business and financial sector. I'm sick of the blind, lemming-like response of the general public that upholds the fears that this sector generates. I'm sick of the media sensationalizing instead of reporting.

I'm sick of my feet being cold all day long.

I'm sick of my apartment complex trying to soak me for every penny they can get.

I'm sick of other people always having to be right. I'm sick of myself always having to be right.

I'm sick of eating.

I'm sick people driving as though common sense is just a baseless theory.

I'm sick of my workload wandering blindly from "shoot-me-in-the-head boring" to "shoot-me-in-the-head busy" with no stops in between. I'm sick of the inanity and vanity of the conversations that take place in my office. I'm sick of being able to work faster than my computer.

I'm sick of feeling bitter and unforgiving and unsympathetic with no reason, justifiable or otherwise. I'm sick of bouncing back and forth between those feelings and normal feelings and not being able to explain to people what is going on.

I'm sick of having the desire to be creative but not the motive. I'm sick that this is the best I could muster over the last month.

I'm sick of wishing for things that aren't going to happen and I'm sick of waiting for things to happen that I know will.

I'm sick.

Suburbia

2008-11-13T15:28:00.000-06:00

"Do I know you?"

That's what she said to me that night as I picked myself up off the concrete walking path in Corporate Woods. The combination of two small, white, energetic, puffball dogs and the long leashes they were attached to had conspired to tangle up my legs and send me sprawling to the ground. My hands stung from hitting the rough concrete and the cool Autumn temperatures just added to the discomfort.

After surveying my newly-textured hands, I looked up and saw what I thought were two more small puffball dogs, only these were brown and stoic. Except they weren't dogs at all; they were the footwear of choice for this unusual woman in front of me. Her slippers were topped by what appeared to be turquoise silk pajama bottoms, peeking out from beneath a brown, full-length fur coat. The kind of coat that gets blood dumped on you. A faint red glow emanated from the cigarette she was holding in her non-leash hand.

"Do I know you?" she repeated, followed by a cough that indicated she'd been smoking since the Nixon administration.

My irritation switch had been flipped on by the two-dog take-down and I thought to myself, "What a stupid question. How the hell would I know if YOU know ME?" I took a moment to brush off the damp leaves that had pasted themselves to my knees and collected myself. I couldn't really see her face as the only other light besides her tobacco rod was a streetlamp about 50 yards behind her. As it was, she was backlit and the only feature of her head that I could ascertain was her salon-fresh perm.

The dogs did us a favor and pulled her in the direction of the streetlamp. While the cotton ball canines relieved themselves on separate trees just off the path, the unforgiving amber light accentuated her sharp features. Her bone structure indicated that her presence during the Nixon administration was accurate, but any wrinkles, creases or crevasses that would confirm this assumption were conspicuously absent. Bright red lipstick punctuated and completed the portrait.

Before she could assail me with the question again, I said, "I'm sorry. I don't believe I've met you before..."

"Weren't you a sack boy at the Hen House before they shut it down?" she cackled.

"Um, no. I've never worked at a grocery store before."

"Why are you so fidgety? Are you some sort of pervert?"

I thought to myself, If I was a pervert, would I be copping to it now?

The dogs had finished their business and were concentrating on re-wrapping their leashes around my legs again. The odd woman put the cigarette in her mouth and started digging around in her front left pocket.

Through cigarette-pursed lips, she said, "I'm going to flip a coin. Heads, you're a pervert and I call the police. Tails, you're the sack boy at Hen House and we'll part ways."

I stood there in shock for a moment. When I saw her finagle the coin out of her pocket and place it carefully on her cocked thumb, I started extricating myself from my tangled dog-web.

"Criminy, lady! I was only out for a walk and your dogs tripped me up!"

The judicial nickle twirled in the air while one of the dogs bit into my pantleg and started tugging. The coin missed the woman's hand and clinked on the pavement.

As she bent over to read the verdict, I managed to pull away from the dogs, leaving them with a khaki souvenir. As I took my first few steps to escape this surreal scene, I heard her cough and say,

"Pervert? Nah, I don't believe that. Come back here, sack boy!"

I impolitely declined her invitation and ran home, deciding that mind-clearing walks were best taken away from the suburbs.

Choose Your Culture

2008-10-15T14:24:00.005-05:00

A while back, I bought a mini-fridge. I put it next to my desk at work. To begin with, it was a solution to a cold water problem. Our office, though a branch of the largest private company in America, decided they couldn't afford an ice machine. And the refrigerator's ice maker was broken and apparently not important enough to fix. Which left the employees with the responsibility of filling ice trays and dumping the ice into a bucket. And then digging into the ice bucket with their grubby hands to retrieve ice for their drinks. This is where my cold water problem started. So I bought the mini-fridge in order to store my own cold water.

A side benefit of having a mini-fridge next to your desk is that you can stock it with snacks and lunch items. In my case, I've taken to keeping a couple of weeks worth of Lunchables and yogurt close at hand. The side benefit to this is that it stopped my daily habit of buying a snack out of the snack machine. This was a two-fold benefit in that a) I saved myself some money by buying yogurt instead of overpriced vending machine food and b) the health factor of my snacks improved considerably. I went from spending a dollar a day purchasing items such as the "Big Texas Cinnamon Roll" and "Dunkin Sticks" and "A Honey Bun Only A Bear Could Finish" to spending sixty cents a day on a snack that boasts the eyebrow-raising yet generally accepted ingredient "Active Yogurt Cultures".

Yesterday, I burned through the last of my yogurt cultures but forgot to go to the store to refresh. So, this morning I was hungry but was forced to patronize the the vending machine. "One dip into the pool of sugar and fat shouldn't be too big a deal," I told myself. None of my usual favorites were in stock, though, so I went with some Dolly Madison chocolate cupcakes.

I got back to my desk and started perusing the Kansas City Star online. While reading about local events, I opened my plastic-wrapped delights and started munching on one of the cupcakes. It tasted a little odd, but I figured it was just because I hadn't had one in quite some time. I ate the rest of it with little thought other than agreeing with Jason Whitlock about the need for Carl Peterson to be fired.

I popped the second one into my hand while reading about Sherron Collins making the pre-season All-Big 12 team. I took a big bite and realized that this one tasted far worse than the first. It was then that I finally looked at the cupcake and saw some cultures I was not expecting: It was covered in mold.

I angrily chucked the remaining cupcake in the trash and proceeded to suck down as much water as I could. I then hoped and prayed that I wouldn't throw up because there are few things in life worse than throwing up.

When the guy sitting next to me offered me a FireBall jawbreaker, I jumped at the chance to eliminate the musty taste in my mouth. And while that worked pretty well, every time I burped the rest of the morning, my stomach reminded me of the cultures at work in my gut.

It's now 3:20 in the afternoon. I haven't puked yet. But I think I may take off early and go buy some yogurt.

Happiness Is...

2008-10-14T10:10:00.004-05:00

* Putting on a sweater and grabbing a hot cup of cocoa on a chilly Autumn morning in a chilly office.

* Leaving work early on a rainy, dreary day--and spending part of the afternoon in a cozy coffee shop with a friend.

* Getting home from work early and watching Jeopardy!--and knowing a bunch of the answers.

* Having a boss that is cool with letting me leave early on occasion.

* My son telling me about how his football coach went off when some players informed him they would miss the next game because of a school band event--and then realizing that he will get a lot more playing time because of their absence.

* Anticipating a new, free phone, certain to arrive this afternoon.

* Finding one of my favorite cool-weather shirts at the bottom of my closet.

* Leaving the window cracked to allow the cool air in and wearing my favorite adidas jogging pants while watching playoff baseball.

* Finishing up a good book--and anticipating the next one.

* Stretching out sore hamstrings.

* Congratulating (and being congratulated by) my co-worker daily on KU winning the national basketball championship.

* Being so efficient at my job that I can take the time to come up with these little tidbits and write them up during office hours.

Human Magnet

2008-10-03T09:10:00.002-05:00

I am a human magnet.

I attract and repel.

I feel like a puzzle piece whose shape clearly fits, but whose edges are magnetized and thus repelled by its counterpart. Now, I'm praying that God sees fit to reverse the poles.

Until then, I am the two-dimensional bald guy peeking out behind a pile of metal shavings and a thin layer of plastic. Someone has picked up the magnetic pen and arranged the shavings into an attractive mosaic of hair. And though pleased with the outcome, they decided to shake it up and leave it for someone else.

I am a dime store Etch-A-Sketch.

I am a human magnet.

A Few Haiku

2008-09-16T10:02:00.002-05:00

The Gray Slab has passed
Sunshine radiates again
Energy abounds

Deep blue skies and warmth
Summer's not quite over yet
Please keep lingering

Autumn beckoning
But birth still trumps decay
Life is found elsewhere

Stand by the window
Close your eyes, soak in the warmth
Forget you're indoors

The Chevette

2008-09-15T09:10:00.001-05:00

"I really think you should get a Chevette."

That was what my Aunt Vicki suggested as an idea for my first car.

"Yeah, right."

That was my response as a 15-year old kid back in 1990.

"I would look like a total idiot," I said. "No way am I EVER going to own a Chevette."

She chuckled and said, "Oh, I think it would be really cool," and then chuckled some more.

**

Thankfully for my teenage ego I did not purchase a Chevette. I wound up buying my grandma's rust-colored, four-door, 1981 Toyota Corolla. Not a huge leap up on the cool scale from a Chevette, but still...

That car was like a Timex watch; it took a lickin' and kept on tickin'. I worked it over like an alum of Abu Ghraib. I busted an axle, bent the frame, warped the head and discovered several gallons of pooled water in the trunk. I don't remember ever taking it in for an oil change and I certainly never did that job myself. And yet it just kept bouncing back, taking me wherever I pleased and accepting whatever punishment I doled out.

It was a nearly-perfect first car. I made 16 monthly $100 payments to my grandparents and every single one was worthwhile.

**

Fast-forward nearly 20 years later. My most recent car, a 1999 Chevy Metro, has become temperamental. It doesn't like to start when it rains. Or if it has rained within the last six or seven hours. Or if it's a particularly dewy morning. Or if the Farmer's Almanac says this might be a rainy month.

As you might imagine, this can be very inconvenient. And irritating. And frustrating. Especially when you consider that this car has given me eight sturdy years of service. And it runs neck-and-neck with the aforementioned '81 Corolla in the race to be the favorite car I've ever owned.

But the life I lead requires that I have a car that works both in sunshine and in precipitation. Thankfully, a multi-pronged solution was made aware to me.

**

My friend Judson told me that his mom was getting ready to sell a couple of vehicles. He said they would be available at a "family discount" if I was interested. Considering the fact that my current car was hydrophobic and I had a son who was nearing driving age himself, I expressed my interest. He said that she was selling an early '90s Buick that ran smoothly but had a lot of miles. And he said that she was selling a 1976 Chevy Chevette that had only 40,000 original miles and had been used to teach himself and his siblings how to drive. I told him I was interested in both, thinking I would hedge my bets against my current car and have a cheap alternative for my son to drive when he was ready. But when Judson got back to me, his mom had already sold the Buick. He asked if I was still interested in the Chevette at the low, low price of $300. At that price, I just couldn't pass it up.

He drove it up from his mom's place in Pratt, KS and arrived at my place on a Sunday afternoon. It was a stunning orange marvel. The shape and color of the car reminded me of an orange Skittle. He had put on brand new whitewall tires and and a new pair of windshield wipers. It was a two-door with a hatchback and beige interior. The seats were faux leather and the steering wheel felt as big as an 18-wheeler's.

Being a product of the oil crisis '70s, it got 30 miles to the gallon. The emergency brake didn't work and when it was hot outside it wouldn't go into reverse. The radio seemed to work but the speakers didn't. It was a four-speed with no passenger side mirror and no rear defrost.

And I absolutely loved it.

**

When my kids first saw it, they picked up on my enthusiasm and they loved it, too. They wanted to ride around in it all the time.

But then I started dropping off and picking up David from high school. And football practice. And all of a sudden, he was meeting me out in the parking lot rather than near the entrance to the locker room. I asked him what he was doing clear out here and he said he was just making it easier on me to pick him up. I told him he didn't need to do that and he reluctantly grinned and said that he was a little embarrassed being picked up in this car.

I laughed to myself and decided I loved this car even more. And I told him he'd better get used to it because this is what he was going to be driving in the not-so-distant future.

**

Sitting at a light, I noticed a guy in the car next to me was giving the Chevette the once over. He rolled down his window and said to me, "Boy, they sure don't make 'em like that anymore, do they?"

A convertible full of high school kids was in the left turn lane when I pulled up. One kid had been eyeing me for about 30 yards until I came to a stop. I heard him as he leaned toward his buddy and said, "I want THAT car."

After picking David up from practice one day, he chuckled and told me about the reaction one of the football managers had when seeing my car: "That is a pimp car." Feel free to interpret that in whatever manner you choose.

One of the special needs guys that lives in my apartment complex mentioned this as he walked by one day: "I really like that car. What year is it? Is it a '74? Oh, it's a '76? Man, that's a great car."

These anecdotes only complement the vast number of incidents where people have been staring at my car. I've never experienced anything like it before. I never would have expected. it.

**

I was wrong. I DID end up owning a Chevette. But I was partially right, too. I know many of the stares I get are because I look like an idiot. But Aunt Vicki was right, too; it's pretty cool. And we'll see what David thinks once he starts driving it. He might give in like me and think it's pretty cool, too.

Happyness

2008-09-08T09:11:00.001-05:00

I just got done watching The Pursuit of Happyness with Will Smith. After seeing this, I couldn't be more proud of my own children. They haven't had it as rough as the little boy in that movie, but the movie sure reminded me of all the things they've been through in their relatively short lives. And it reminded me that they are truly great people.

They haven't had to sleep in a subway bathroom. They haven't had to wait in line for the chance to sleep in a shelter. Their mother did not leave them and move to the other side of the continent.

But they were each born prematurely, neither weighing more than six pounds. David even spent his opening days in the neonatal intensive care unit to make sure his lungs developed properly.

They have lived in no less than 10 different homes in their 14 and 12 years, respectively. Long-lasting friendships were sacrificed because they moved from school to school to school, six times in all. They have had (and continue) to endure the separation and divorce of their parents. They have had to adjust to being shuffled between their mother's and father's homes for over half their lives.

They survived their parents' simultaneous bouts with clinical depression. They learned how to fix their own cereal and do their own laundry when they were much too young because their father couldn't move himself off the couch. They had to share a room and even a bed for far too long.

Their paternal grandparents moved so far away that they were only able to spend as much as 60 combined days together in 10 years, with a week's worth of those days spent mourning their grandfather. Their paternal uncle has seen them only a little bit more. And their great-aunt moved away, too.

They trailed along behind their father as he worked cleaning office buildings. They trailed along behind their mother as she submitted to receiving her groceries from a food pantry.

Despite all these losses and challenges and hardships, they've managed to persevere and learn and press on.

After touring five different grade schools in six years, Samantha is starting to come into her own in middle school. After coming to know many children in many schools, she came to middle school unknowingly having built up a large network of friends. This has allowed her to feel more comfortable at school than she has felt in years.

David decided to pursue football in his debut semester in high school. And after a rough initiation, he appears to be embracing his new lifestyle. The amount of running, yelling and physical pain far exceeded his expectations at the beginning of the year. And though he wanted to give up, he has managed to hang on.

My kids have built up skills and character traits in their short lives that have taken me twice as long to achieve, if I've managed to achieve them at all. They are kind and compassionate and sensitive. They are funny and intelligent. The are polite and respectful. They are helpful. They are self-confident. They are selfless. And, above all, they are loving.

They are not all these things, all the time. They are not perfect. But they embody all these things at their core. And only by the grace of God are these things possible, because their parents are imperfect teachers.

It's been said that what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. We all know that's a load of crap. We've all been witness to people who can't seem to catch a break. We've seen people struggle with just getting through life. There are people who become homeless or sick who never recover, who never get stronger, who are utterly consumed by life.

My kids have been through an awful lot. But they've also been incredibly blessed. And, as a result, I've been blessed. And that brings me immense pride and happyness.

Presidential Limericks

2008-09-05T09:02:00.003-05:00

McCain's VP pick Sarah Palin
Kept conservative voters from bailin'
She's a tough hockey momma
Throwing barbs at Obama
Creating some liberal wailin'

Democrats vote for Barack
Republicans think he's all talk
They think it quite strange
That he talks about change
But his donors continue to flock

The Freshmen

2008-09-04T09:49:00.001-05:00

The freshman cheerleaders were soaked. The game hadn't even started yet, but their hair was plastered to their foreheads. The cute red and black ribbons they wore were rendered pointless. When they enrolled in high school and signed up for the cheerleading squad, they never pictured a day like this.

It was the first freshman football game of the season. Just the day before it had been partly cloudy and 80 degrees. But the temperature on this day had barely nudged above 60. Rain trickled down at a steady pace. There was just enough breeze to keep permanent goosebumps on any exposed skin.

"How many demerits will I get if I leave now?" asked the cheerleader with the strawberry blonde hair and pink-framed eyeglasses. The sponsor's reply was barely audible but it was satisfactory enough for the cheerleader to immediately grab her backpack and head for dry land.

Utilizing only their eyes, the four remaining cheerleaders asked each other if they should follow suit. They silently shared their fears and reassurances and came to a consensus: They would tough it out. The sopping-wet freshman cheerleading sponsor reacted less than enthusiastically. The sopping-wet freshman football coach might have recruited them instantly.

**

"LET'S GET TOUGH OUT THERE! COME ON, DEFENSE; LET'S GET TOUGH!"

These words were being launched at the defense by the head football coach of the freshman squad. Moments ago, his kick return team committed the unforgivable sin of allowing the opponent to recover its own kick-off, deep behind enemy lines. Now the defense was backed up against its own goal line.

The ex-Marine's team was short-handed because twelve players had failed to show up for practice on Labor Day. And now the inexperience was showing up at the worst possible time.

"HOW DO YOU EXPECT US TO WIN ANY GAMES IF YOU DON'T WORK YOUR FREAKING TAILS OFF EVERY FREAKING SECOND OF EVERY FREAKING MINUTE OF EVERY FREAKING PRACTICE?!?!" he yelled at those who hadn't skipped practice that day.

One kid who had skipped practice that day was blocking out his coach's entreaty and staring blankly at the cheerleader who had justified the demerits in her life's economy and was retreating quickly to the parking lot. For numerous reasons, (some of which he wasn't even conscious of) he wished his own economy resembled hers. He stared at her while his team gave up another touchdown. He was completely unaware of his team's maladies until the freshman water girl came by and handed him some Gatorade.

**

Her friends were all on the cheerleading squad. But she didn't make the team. So to help cushion the blow, she decided to be a freshman football water girl. Sure, it wasn't as glamorous, but she got to talk to a lot more guys than her friends did. Plus, she really wanted to be involved in something. It was hard work filling giant water coolers and pulling a cart filled with giant water coolers and constantly being on alert as to when 50-some guys needed a water bottle. But she got to go to every game. And that meant she got to see her friends every game. And sometimes the distinction of their separation would eat at her. And other times she would feel just fine. And today she just wished it would stop raining.

FOLLOW-UP: Mysterious

2008-09-03T09:43:00.002-05:00

I decided to test the waters again at Adrian's Cafe. Instead of the normal egg salad on wheat, I went with seafood salad as a change-up. Of course, Adrian's Girl was on hand.

"Seafood salad? You like that stuff?"

"Yeah, sure. You don't?"

"Oh, I guess it's alright. Hey, did you go to the Royals game last night?"

"Nope."

"Too bad, 'cause you would have seen me there."

"Oh, really? How so?"

"I was up on the Jumbotron."

"How'd you manage that? Were you on the Kiss Cam...?"

(Notice my clever casting for information.)

"...no..."

"...Bad Hair-do Cam?"

She squinted her eyes at me and gave me a sly grin.

"No. I was just on the regular fan cam. I guess I'm just really talented."

"I guess you are. I'm sorry I missed it."

I sat down at my usual table by the window. I opened my book and started reading but I had a hard time concentrating. My mind was on her and my magnificent ability to construct witty banter on the fly.

After ten minutes or so, I had finished my sandwich and devoted my entire attention to The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath. I had hardly gotten through a chapter when I noticed some shuffling in my periphery. I looked up and saw her standing in front of me, wearing an apron and a playful smile.

"Whatchya reading today?"

"The Bell Jar."

"What's it about?"

"I think it's about a woman who goes insane or something."

"Hmm. Have you read Blue Like Jazz yet?"

This is the book she recommended after I had completed her previous suggestion, The Great Divorce by C. S. Lewis.

"No, I haven't gotten to it yet. It's on the list, but I have some other recommendations from friends that are higher in the queue. But I'll definitely get to it."

Just then, she realized that the cash register had been left unattended this whole time and scampered back to her duties behind the counter.

At this point, I figured she had given me more than enough evidence to show she was interested. I planned on introducing myself before I left. But as I still had ample lunch break left, I went back to reading.

After a few more scattershot minutes of reading, she plopped down in the seat opposite me.

"Well, hello there," I said.

"Hello."

I offered my hand across the table. "My name is Nick. It's nice to officially meet you."

"Hi, I'm Stacey. So, Nicholas, huh? Nicholas what?"

"It's not Nicholas, actually. Just Nick. Nick Blakeley. How about you? Stacey what?"

"Stacey Tennant. With two n's. It's Irish. Soooo...Stacey Blakeley........"

Cue the sound of tires screeching and my jaw slamming against the table.

"Uhhhh...whoa. That's a little forward, don't you think?"

"Oh, I'm just kidding. So what are you doing this weekend?"

"Ummm, uhhhh..."

My magnificent ability to construct witty banter had evaporated much quicker than the sweat beads that were forming on my forehead.

My brain finally got up off the mat and I uttered, "Well, I'm going to see the "Bodies Revealed" exhibit at Union Station. What are you doing?"

"Oh, I don't know. I've got a paper to write for school..."

"Do you go to school up the street?"

"Yeah, also at Baker."

"Alright."

She got up to headed back to her duties. Against my better judgement, I asked,

"So what are you doing Friday night?"

"Oh, I don't know. Why?"

"Well, would you like to get together?"

The look on her face cued her own inner tire screeching.

"Oh! Umm, well, umm, uh maybe not right now, ahh, umm well maybe some time as friends, uh, umm."

As off-balance as I was after the appellation scene, I was now overly-corrected and in danger of falling off the other side of my chair. All I could think to myself was "What the hell am I missing here?"

I said, "Oh, ok. That's fine. Whatever. Alright."

She paused for a moment to regain her composure and said, "Well, I hope you don't stop coming in here because of that."

"Oh, no," I said, trying to remain polite despite the fact my brain synapses were re-creating the opening ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics. "You're right around the corner. Where else am I going to get a sandwich as good as this?"

She smiled nervously and retreated behind the counter. I made a lame attempt to read again, but mostly just rehashed the previous 20 minutes of my life. After a few minutes, I decided to cut my lunch break a tad short. I looked toward the counter and saw her busying herself and not looking in my direction. I decided this would be a good time to slip out the door and head back to work.

Now the shoe is on the other foot. Mysterious? Suddenly, I'm not quite as big a fan.

Day One

2008-09-02T09:26:00.002-05:00

It's Day One.

I woke up late and flipped on the TV. Though it was creeping toward the noon hour, my favorite morning news reporter was still reporting live from a standoff in Edwardsville. There are plenty worse ways to start things off.

I flipped from the news to the telethon to the infomercial informing me of the latest breakthrough in exercise-related weight loss techniques. I flipped past Barney and Friends, through Montel and Maury, and landed on tennis.

The marquee matchup was not due to begin for another hour. Instead, there was an unseeded American taking on a guy who may or may not have been French. The possibly-French guy was getting his ass handed to him, even though the announcers had mentioned that he had loads of talent.

His body language was poor. His shoulders drooped. Every time he would hit a bad shot, he would spin through a Rolodex of reactions and choose one of his liking: drop the racket; yell; throw the racket; give a look of exasperation to no one in particular.

The American finished off his opponent with relative ease. During the post-match interview the American answered that he was thrilled to have advanced so far, especially having played so well against the allegedly-French player. This was a player, he said, that was more physically talented than anyone on Tour.

**

I flipped off the TV. I finished reading a story about a brutal, troubled, revolting French guy from the 1400s. The guy had all the resources he could ever want at his disposal, yet he still couldn't find what he thought would fulfill him. His actions devolved into the basest and most horrifying acts. He ended up being burned at the stake.

I got up from the couch and sat on the floor next to the movie that I rented last night. I still hadn't watched it and contemplated watching it now. My contemplation ended in my remembering that today was supposed to be the first day of my 90 Days of Writing project. I sprawled out on my stomach, feeling languorous. My inner dialog started up:

"What am I going to write about?"

"You have numerous sources of inspiration from which to choose."

"Yeah, but I don't know which one I should start with."

"It doesn't really matter so long as you just get started."

"But what format should I go with? A poem? Fiction? Some anecdotes with an interlocking meaning?"

"It doesn't make a difference so long as you utilize the talent you've been given."

So I sat up and turned on the computer.

I decided not to drop my racket. I don't want to be allegedly-French.

Mysterious, Part Three

2008-08-11T10:57:00.002-05:00

Continued from Mysterious, Part Two...

Adrian's Cafe boasts a mean egg salad sandwich. Adrian's also boasts an owner who does an unintentionally spot-on impression of Nathan Lane. And Adrian's Cafe boasts a particularly precocious counter girl.

I'd guess she's college age or so, but it's really quite difficult to tell these days. She's very chatty and enjoys engaging in conversation that delves into more than just the weather, often at the shock and embarrassment of the conversational participant.

Normally, I visit Adrian's flanked by a couple of co-workers, as it's one of our mutually favorite places to grab lunch. Recently, though, and on this day, I was on my own with only a book in hand as my company.

"So, whatchya readin' today?"

"Breakfast At Tiffany's."

At this point, she stopped what she was doing and stared at me as if I had just run over her dog. Repeatedly.

After about five seconds of being uncomfortably stared at, I said, "Is this a problem?"

She snapped out of her stupor as if a hypnotist had snapped his fingers.

"Oh! Oh, no; not at all! It's just that, well, I didn't think that you'd be reading a book like that."

The last time I was in, I was reading "On The Road" and she registered her disdain in saying she felt it was more of a "guy's book".

"Well, I like to read all sorts of things," I said.

She finally gathered herself and started ringing me up.

She asked, "So, what do you do?"

"I sit behind a desk all day, dreaming about the time that I get to go to lunch and read about more interesting things."

"Where do you work that you can dress like that?"

The definition of "that" was a gray and black striped collared shirt and reasonably fashionable jeans.

Rather than saying, "What the hell is that supposed to mean?" I instead said,

"I work at Cargill in Corporate Woods around the corner."

"Oh! Don't we deliver sandwiches to you guys a lot?"

"Indeed."

"Wow. You are mysterious."

This being the first time that anyone has actually recognized my innate mysteriousness, I was momentarily stunned. While she dreamily rang up my order, I tried not to ruin my newfound reputation.

xxxx

So, like I said, maybe it's the stubble. There doesn't seem to be any other common factors involved in all three of the aforementioned encounters. That is, not unless you count charm, humor, respect and politeness. But none of those factors have worked a lick in the preceding handful of years. So, I really don't know.

Mysterious?

Mysterious, indeed.

Mysterious, Part Two

2008-08-11T10:51:00.003-05:00

Continued from Mysterious, Part One...

The only regularly scheduled exercise I get is playing Ultimate Frisbee on Sunday afternoons. Ultimate Frisbee is a game that resembles soccer but utilizes a Frisbee instead. Lots of running back and forth, if you're in decent shape; lots of loafing and walking if you're in my kind of shape. Our game is a co-ed game with players of various skill levels. Thankfully, my skill level is high enough that I can loaf when I'm tired. Or when I feel like loafing. Which came in especially handy on this day.

We had already played one game and we were sitting around drinking water and taking a short break before starting up the next game. I noticed a fit, blonde girl running the path that encircles the park. Nothing out of the ordinary. But as we started playing the second game, I noticed that she had come over to where we had just taken our break and was watching us play. We're an inclusive group, so we shouted out for her to join us. She ended up joining the team opposite of me and we just happened to end up on the same side of the field. Which, of course, I was pleased about.

Since we were on the same side of the field, naturally I covered her. She was still trying to figure out exactly how the game was played so we chatted about how to play as we leisurely went through the motions. This was pleasant for me on numerous levels, including the fact that I was able to save some energy for later. As it turned out, I was going to need it.

As the game wore on, we were becoming friendly and she was starting to catch on to how the game is played. Once she finally got comfortable with the game, she started putting her athletic ability to use. While we were lollygagging in the end zone, she put a juke on me and scored a point. She whooped it up and talked some trash as I smiled wryly and headed back to my side of the field in momentary defeat. Play started up again and she started running me all over Creation, culminating in my failed diving attempt to keep her from scoring the game-winning point. She spiked the Frisbee and celebrated as if she had just won the Super Bowl.

As folks were packing up their gear and getting ready to head home, we exchanged typical post-game pleasantries. I complimented her on a good game and gently ribbed her about sandbagging early on only to stick it to me in the end. She returned the good-natured ribbing and apologized for outplaying me. Which was nice. Sort of. In a pride-injuring way.

Skip to next Sunday. Due to laundry choice, we were on the same team as dictated by the fact that we were both wearing dark shirts. While warming up, she came over and playfully pushed me around as we exchanged salutations.

Then, as the teams were heading to their respective sides to start the game, she literally jumped on me. I'm standing there with a fine, athletic, young specimen clasping her arms around my neck, feet off the ground, firmly attached to my left hip.

If there's a better way to start a game, I haven't stumbled across it. If there's a better way to completely lose focus on the game, I have yet to discover it, also.

She spent the rest of the game pushing me up the field, giving me congratulatory pats and finding whatever other excuses she could to lay her hands on me. I spent the rest of the game wondering if I had somehow become a test customer for Disney World-KC, A Place Where Dreams Really Do Come True.

Even so, that was not the last in this series of rare encounters.

To be continued...

Mysterious, Part One

2008-08-11T10:42:00.003-05:00

Maybe it's the stubble. I don't know.

I say it might be the stubble because I've become quite lax in my shaving habits. I generally have an average of three days growth at any given time. And I recently saw the results of a survey that said women prefer men's facial hair in this order:

1. Stubble
2. Full beard
3. Clean shaven

Now, I didn't really believe that when I read it. Nonetheless, being a man of the people, I decided to allow my lazy ways to assimilate to the results of this highly scientific study.

And, whaddaya know: Women have started flirting with me. Three, in fact, in the last month. Allow me take you through each incident.

xxxx

The population of available women in my office is low. The population of attractive available women in my office is zero. Which makes this first incident flattering, yet unfulfilling.

You see, she isn't ugly, per se. But she would blend in well within a community of elves or gnomes or some other race of diminutive, woodland peoples. I'm sure she was cute as a child. Now? Not so much. On top of that, she appears to be in her forties, has a hairstyle from the fifties and may or may not live with her mother who is probably in her sixties. The worst part, though, is that she's nice. I take that back; it's not that being nice is a problem, it's that she's overly eager. When most people pass each other in the halls, they acknowledge each other with a nod, a grin or a short hello. She looks longingly into my eyes and won't look away. When lunch is brought in for the office, she'll make a special trip to my desk to make sure that I get something to eat. To hell with everyone else, they can starve for all she cares. Somebody's fax didn't go through? Who gets the first visit to inquire if it may have been theirs? That's right, little old me.

But the incident that gets recorded here makes those minor irritations take a backseat. It wasn't a prolonged encounter, but the feeling remained for quite a while:

She touched me.

Bare hand on bare arm. For no other reason than I was just passing by. Now, I don't know about your office, but mine is not a touchy-feely place. Many of us have worked together for seven or eight years and could be considered friends, even outside of work. But we don't touch each other during work. Which is why this was so unsettling. In all my life, that was as close to feeling violated as I've ever come. And it made me understand why we have such strict sexual harassment laws in place.

I realize this might sound like an extreme reaction to a rather mild occurrence. But it just came off as really strange and uncomfortable. However, it was just the beginning in a series of events that one might find in an AXE deodorant commercial.

To be continued...

Freedom

2008-06-24T14:53:00.001-05:00

I just got up from my desk at work to use the restroom and felt a sudden surge of adrenaline.

"I'm free! I can walk anywhere I want to right now! I can walk to the restroom, I can walk out of the building, I can spend the rest of the afternoon walking up and down the stairs!"

It momentarily reminded me of being in school and having to raise my hand to ask permission to use the restroom. Or to get a drink. Or to get sick and head to the nurse's office. Not much freedom there, where you can't even fulfill your body's natural requirements without someone monitoring your every movement.

It then occurred to me that with freedom comes responsibility. I can run laps around my office all day if I choose, but I will probably lose my job (not to mention, my lunch and my credibility). It also occurred to me that my elementary school lack of freedom also required responsibility, namely being responsible enough to not lose control of my bladder during class (and, subsequently, causing my classmates to lose their lunches and me to lose more credibility).

So, what's the point of all this? I'm not sure except that maybe responsibility is overrated.

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

2008-05-29T14:32:00.003-05:00

Observations from last night's ballgame out at Kauffman Stadium...

THE GOOD: The Rube Goldberg-ian machinations of batting practice.
THE BAD: Watching Justin Morneau audition for his 10th inning, game-winning homerun.

THE GOOD: Joey Gathright bunted for a couple of hits and stole a base.
THE BAD: Tony Pena, Jr. couldn't get down one lousy sacrifice bunt, his only tangible offensive skill.

THE GOOD: Zack Greinke pitched eight excellent innings.
THE BAD: Zack Greinke somehow managed to walk the un-walkable Delmon Young TWICE.

THE GOOD: The Good Lord answered my prayers and sent two single women to sit next to me at the game.
THE BAD: Both women were north of 70 years of age.

THE GOOD: The Kiss Cam didn't feature me and one of the blue-hairs to my left.
THE BAD: The guy participating in the 3-hat, hidden ball contest got it wrong.

THE BAD: A Royals fan tore in half the homemade sign of a Twins fan.
THE GOOD: Said Royals fan later apologized and made up with said Twins fan.

THE GOOD: The Royals offense woke up and scored eight runs.
THE BAD: The Royals pitching erased that positive occurrence by giving up nine runs.
THE UGLY: Five of those nine runs came in the ninth inning, further demoralizing the handful of Royals fans that still crawl upon the Earth.

-----

Side note that helped lessen the blow of last night's catastrophe:

I arrived at Kauffman Stadium early yesterday to watch the Twins take batting practice before they tore the hearts out of Jose Guillen and myself. There were a lot of Twins fans around and some of them were hollering up to the press box to try to catch the attention of Bert Blyleven, who calls Twins games on TV.

These guys managed to pique Bert's interest and before long, Bert started throwing peanuts from the press box (a good 50-foot toss) in an attempt to get them in the Twins fan's cap. After a couple of misses, he started hitting the fan's cap with regularity and probably threw about a dozen before smiling, waving and returning to more announcer-ly duties.

When you're a Royals fan, you have to find joy in the little things, even if it means watching your opponent's broadcast team shoot 50-foot free throws into the caps of eager fans.

Collaboration

2008-04-23T15:42:00.002-05:00

While waiting for Dave to get out of school yesterday, Samantha and I joined forces and wrote the following piece. We mostly followed the pattern of writing every other sentence, but not strictly. See if you can figure out who wrote what:

One day there was a guy named Bob. Bob didn't like to throw up. But he liked to fart. So he would experiment with the foods that he ate to see which foods would make big, juicy farts but didn't make him barf.

So, the other day, he was in his front yard and he farted so big that he now lives on Mars. Except now he's kind of hungry because there isn't a lot to eat on Mars. He invented a machine called the "Fart Pack". When he farts in this tube, it blows him into the air and takes him to any planet. He made lots of money marketing his "Fart Pack" to people on Earth and the other planets he visited.

When he got back to Earth, he ate twelve pounds of beans and packed a bunch of food. Then he made a huge fart that too him past the Milky Way to some old solar system. He landed on Planet Zarnack and met some of the aliens that lived there. They tried to eat him but when he farted, the air turned orange and green. So the aliens passed out and left their spaceship available. He was glad that he didn't become a Zarnack snack and decided to see if he could operate their spaceship. He got it turned on but when he pushed the gas, it went full speed into the Moon and the Moon hit Earth. The Earth bounced closer to the sun and affirmed Al Gore's fears about global warming.

The North and South poles started to go bye-bye and the water said, "Hi-hi!" Soon, there were beaches in Bob's home state of Kansas. When Bob went to the beach, a huge tsunami hit and killed Bob. Uh, oh.

Bob's family was stricken with grief over Bob's death and worried about the Earth's imminent demise, so they strapped on some "Fart Packs" and traveled to Pluto. They got there and they all dressed up in leotards, tutus and ballerina slippers. Then they all started jumping around and dancing. Bob's granny was old but she could jump and dance really well because of the low level of gravity. But Grandpa, on the other hand, fell off Pluto and landed on a meteorite. It crashed into the Earth and he drowned. Since Grandpa was old and had lived a full life, they weren't as upset as they were about Bob's death. So instead of crying, they had a party because they didn't have to clean his dentures any more.

This was a great celebration because his dentures were always covered in mold and slime and barnacles. So, in memory, the lake was shaped like open dentures with a spider in between the two front teeth. The spider was named Earl and he would decide who would and who wouldn't swim at his lake. He only let the two members of the family that were left (Grandma and Aunt) swim. Mom and Dad crashed 50 years ago in an airplane. Aunt Trudy could only doggy-paddle, so she would climb trees instead. She accidentally fell off one and broke her neck. The doctors had bad news.

Trudy was dead, leaving poor, poor Granny all alone, swimming in a lake shaped like dentures and guarded by a talking spider. The spider was secretly stalking her, so after an hour, the spider attacked her and ate her hair. Grandma died from shock and baldy-ness-phobia!

An Ode to Distraction

2008-04-16T11:57:00.002-05:00

As I sit on my couch
With my notebook in hand
And the radio tuned
To the A.M. band
I would like to create
And God knows that I've tried
But I can't concentrate
Guess my brain must be fried
You see, all my attention
Has been grabbed by the game
And my sheer lack of focus
Will keep me from fame
My love for the Royals
Divides my weak brain
And to root for this team
Has rarely seemed sane
But this year is different
As they've really been good
The pitching's been solid
Not so much for the wood
And now my pen has failed me
It literally broke
Frustration increases
The M's bats have awoke
It was a tie ballgame
But we're now down by six
And my pen's replacement
Learned the former pen's tricks
The ink has stopped flowing
Just the same, Royals runs
And as for this poem
I believe I am done

Gee Whiz

2008-04-03T12:19:00.002-05:00

The first four batters in the Royals's lineup today are:

Gathright
Grudzielanek
Gordon, and
Guillen

Batting seventh is:

Gload

Pitching?

Greinke

Gee Whiz

Walking Home

2008-04-02T23:33:00.001-05:00

This week, I began in earnest my plan to ride the bus to and from work on the weeks that I don't have to take the kids to school. I've always enjoyed using public transportation, probably because I've lived my whole life in a city that doesn't really use or value public transportation. And, being an infrequent patron, I've probably romanticized the notion.

But today, the part of my journey that struck a chord wasn't the bus ride but the walk home.

It is a bright, sunny, cloud-free day. According to the Mission Bank thermometer, it is 58 degrees. The sunshine makes it feel warmer, but an occasional breeze reminds me that summer isn't making an early appearance. The breeze makes my hooded sweatshirt proud to do its job.

I push the cross-walk button and wait patiently for the red hand to give way to the white stick figure. Birds are singing. People are out walking. A police car rolls by with its lights flashing, but not in pursuit of anyone. The final bits of another eight hours of work day experiences start to blow away while the first tiny particles of "I'm home!"-excitement sweep in behind them.

All of this suddenly reminds me of walking home from school in second grade. It was days like this when I would stuff my jacket in my backpack in mini-rebellion towards Mom and in reverence towards Spring and the warmer days to come. Of course, I'd pull out that jacket and put it back on a block from home so that Mom wouldn't know I hadn't been wearing it. Of course, she would find out anyway.

There was a crossing guard that would guide me safely across the street then. In addition to birds singing, I would hear geese honking; one house kept several of them as pets rather than the more conventional dogs or cats. And I would stop the police if they were driving by to see if they had any Royals baseball cards left to hand out. I would look forward to getting home and riding my Big Wheel in the driveway or playing with my Star Wars guys in the front yard.

A lot of things have changed since I was in second grade. Today, I kept my jacket on and didn't encounter any geese. And my Chevy Metro, while small, is no Big Wheel. But I'm glad some things remain the same.

National League Haiku

2008-03-04T16:28:00.000-06:00

Pittsburgh has both sides
PNC Park is gorgeous
Pirates? Not so much

Griffey's twentieth
He still flips his cap backwards
Hey, baseball is fun!

Ausmus still employed?
At least the 'Stros have Hunter
To squeeze the Juice Box

They've got Prince Albert
And arguably best fans
Denkinger haunts, though

Wrigley Field is great
Almost as good as Fenway
Less World Series wins

Bernie Brewer goes
Down slide, into the beer mug
Sausage races? Eh

Nationals are dull
MLB stole the Expos
Thanks, Commish Selig

Miami has flair
Only Hanley's got it, though
Please give him some help!

Smoltz keeps on tickin'
Glavine's back, but not Maddux
Glory days still gone

Ryan Howard rakes
Jimmy Rollins sure can burn
Sounds more like yardwork

Most talent in league
Wright, Reyes, Johan; Oh, my!
Mets are Amazin'

So long, Barry Bonds
Giants will sink to the depths
Of McCovey Cove

Edged by the Rockies
San Diego was not pleased
Pads will overcome

Joe Torre in town
Can he bring Yankee magic?
Just play the youngsters

Rocks had a great run
All the way to the Series
Won't happen again

D-Backs battle heat
And some tough division foes
To rise once again

American League Haiku

2008-03-04T15:30:00.002-06:00

Spring's almost here
Royal blue optimism
Only exists now

I hope Zack Greinke
Continues his improvement
And finds his eephus

Sweeney hits the road
I'll surely miss his heart but
Not his injuries

Chicago Pale Hose
Totally uninspiring
Royals could pass them

Traded their best guy
Play in a dump of a park
Twinkies fans are screwed

"Mistake By The Lake"
No longer applicable
Cleveland boys can play

Tigers grow more claws
Picked up Miggy and D-Train
Motown is Go-town

A's roster gutted
Of stars by genius GM
Potential simmers

Not Subway's Jared
But Saltalamacchia
Rangers hope bat's fat

Ichiro is fast
Seattle gets lots of rain
Death, taxes exist

Inside, outside or
Completely over his head
Vladdy will connect

Tropicana blows
Hurricane of young talent
Rays still can't catch Sox

Toronto Blue Jays
I can't think of a single
Interesting thing

O's look to the youth
Miggy and the ace are gone
Pass the crab cakes

ARod is unreal
The other guys should step up
You, too, Cap'n Jetes

Hard to argue with
The success of Theo's Sox
Dynasty in place

Smoke Scenes

2008-02-19T22:42:00.002-06:00

Three people are huddled together. They stand outside the rear entrance of their office building. One doesn't have a jacket, the other two are bundled in their warmest winter wrappings. It's 12 degrees above zero outside.

"Why aren't you wearing a coat?" one of the swathed says to the hunched and trembling one.

"I don't want it to stink."

The trio mutters succinct anecdotes about their work day to each other between drags. Somehow, this both calms and exhilirates them.

-----

Your buddy picks up a twig from your yard and lights the end on fire. He puts the non-flaming end in his mouth and encourages you to emulate him. You are confused as to why this seems like a sensible activity in which to participate.

-----

Jack and Becky are a little on edge. They've been in the air for nearly seven consecutive hours. They've been to Hawai'i numerous times, but this time they're going to stay and start a new chapter in life.

The plane touches down in Honolulu and proceeds to taxi to the gate. Jack fidgets in his seat and repeatedly think to himself,"C'mon! Hurry it up!" Becky digs through her purse, locates a new pack and moves it to the top of the pile.

Finally, the paggengers deplane and Jack & Becky have one thing on their minds: The open-air terminal!

They hurriedly drag their carry-on luggage through the bricks-and-mortar until they reach paradise. Becky has already begun peeling off the silvery packaging while Jack rummages in his pocket for some matches.

At last, they each light one up and take a deep drag. After a pronounced exhalation, Jack says, "God, I love the fresh, clean Hawai'i air!"

-----

A kid sits through the "Just Say No!" presentation. He fills out the survey that asks him about his reactions to drinking, smoking and drugs. He feels like it's pretty much a waste of time, but he understands the message they're trying to convey. He hands in his questionaire and heads out the classroom door.

He drops his bike in the yard and enters his front door. His backpack gets flung into room and he makes his way to the kitchen for something to eat. Before he gets there, he pauses at his mom's office door. Since neither his mom nor his dad are at home, he walks in and opens the bottom, righ-hand drawer of the desk. It's no secret -- this is where she keeps her supply. He takes a pack out of the carton and shuffles the rest of the packs to look as if nothing ever happened. He runs to the kitchen to grab a pack of fruit roll-ups and call his mom.

"I'm going to play across the street, Mom."

"Okay, honey; just be back for dinner."

"Okay, Mom. Love you!"

"Love you, too!"

-----

Dad lays dying in the tiny emergency room. As the doctors prepare to run some tests, one of them pulls us aside and says that if there are any other family members that would like to say goodbye, you should get them here, post haste. I turn to my mom and brother and we all have a frantic look in our eyes.

I said, "I'll go home and grab the kids."

Before I left, the three of us stepped back in to see Dad. We each said, "I love you!" and Dad mouthed "I love you" back to us three times.

I rushed to the car and hurried home. The rest of the family piled in the car and we made for the hospital as quickly as possible.

Once we got back, the doctors were moving Dad to a more private room so that we could all be together as a family. But on the way there, Dad couldn't hold out any longer. He left us in the hallway.

Mom screamed, "Hurry!" as we were walking towards the rolling procession. We ran to catch up, but he was already gone.

Dad had finally quit smoking a couple of years back, but the forty-plus years preceeding finally caught up to him.

Reverse

2008-02-19T22:02:00.002-06:00

am I .dark is It .asleep am I

get I .minutes thirty for drive I .home

I .airport the exit I .car my in

witty write I .plane the deboard

,"Shopgirl" reading finish I .observations

mile a half walk I .Martin Steve by

.tram the deboard I .gate my to

the use I .tram the board I

rental my off drop I .restroom

office the from walk I .car

rental my to cold frigid the through

my with pleasantries exchange I .car

of couple a send I .colleagues

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Airplane Observations

2008-02-19T21:47:00.002-06:00

This guy's haircut evokes a caricature of Elvis. A little flip in the front, a sideburn for each side and perfectly jet black. The red fleece pullover and burgeoning bald spot slowly dissipate the comparison...

This other guy wears a hunting shirt. Who the hell wears a hunting shirt? Not a hunting vest or a camouflage, multi-pocketed jobby, but a shirt that at first glance seems camouflage, but is actually just depicting some kick-ass bow hunting scenes. So as to not hide himself completely in the wooded environment of an airplane cabin, he dons a Sesame Street-green ballcap. He does keep a neatly-trimmed beard, so he's got that going for him. As he flips through the SkyMall magazine, I wonder if he secretly wishes that he'll stumble across the one rifle scope he's been dreaming about his entire life. I'm secretly hoping that he doesn't happen to look back at what I'm writing and start pummeling me, air rage consequences be damned. While I wouldn't mind being mildly famous, I don't desire the infamy of landing on the national news becaue my plane had to touch down in Des Moines to allow the flight attendants to scrape my bloody carcass from my seat in Coach.

Now we're taxiing toward the runway. If you think about it, it's a little confusing. I normally equate the word "taxi" with a taxi cab. Yet I don't see too many folks standing along the tarmac, arms outstretched, lips pursed and whistling, attempting to hail an airplane. I also like how we call them "airplanes". Are there planes that don't fly through the air? Maybe we should start calling boats "waterplanes" and cars "roadplanes".

This is starting to sound like an Andy Rooney piece. I guess I shouldn't complain; I'd love to get paid to come up with one semi-coherent rant per week and still be revered as a clever old curmudgeon.

I look out the window and realize that I'm staring at an engine. I've always been fascinated with the occasional occurrence of an engine falling off a plane and landing in someone's yard or on someone's roof. I think it would be fun to witness something like this first-hand. Maybe not smashing through my roof and certainly not injuring or killing anyone. Which makes the recent story of a mid-air collision of two planes both disturbing and morbidly interesting. Apparently (obviously), body parts were dropping from the sky.

I have nothing else to add here.

Dreams & Onions

2008-02-19T21:32:00.002-06:00

As I sit alone in the back room of the coffee shop, rubbing my face in dismay, I realize my fingers smell like hamburger and onions. What a shitty thing to discover about yourself. I smell like onions.

The permeating punk music isn't helping matters. But then neither does the deafening roar of the recently-activated furnace. Oh, yeah; my iced chai tastes like somebody forgot to wash the glass.

Awesome.

So I sit here thinking about what an overwhelming task it is to actually follow my dream when I finally decide to just write out what is most immediately annoying to me. Friend of the coffee shop owner? Your voluminous ranting has just deposited another ounce of ink to my pen. Milky shadows gliding along the wall? You give me axiety that your owner will walk in and see me staring at you. Kitschy lampshade emblazoned with constellations? You remind me that I only recognize Orion and his freaking belt...

Mmm...another sip of dishwater. With any luck, there will be just enough soap residue in my drink that I'll wake up in the middle of the night with diarrhea. Which would be great because I have to be up two hours earlier than normal to get to the airport. To travel to Minnesota. Where it's -6. At least I'll be back the same day. Just in time to miss three quarters of the KU basketball game.

I think I just saw a guy who lives in my apartment complex. I didn't see his face, but I recognized his walk. He walks on his tip-toes all the time. I wonder if he walks like that because he is eager to get to what's next. I wonder if he knows any other star formations besides Orion. I wonder if his drink was mixed correctly. I wonder if he is following his dream. I wonder if he smells like onions.

Toy Box

2008-01-21T23:14:00.000-06:00

It is time to try something new. In my constant search for inspiration, I have found something worth exploring. The concept of artistic collaboration has been an underlying theme that I've been looking to experiment with. But until recently, I didn't know how to go about executing this process. Now, after doing some reading and conversing with a fellow artist, I've found a small toy chest of opportunities to play with.

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Dad

2008-01-21T22:34:00.000-06:00

It's taken a while to figure out when was the best time to write this one. I've been thinking about it off and on for some time now. And since Dad would always tell Seth and me “Remember, your mom's birthday is coming up,” and “Don't forget to get something for your mom,” I thought this would be a pretty good time to finally put these thoughts down.

I learned to love Dad. I didn't think he was the greatest dad around when I was young. And I suppose he wasn't. But he was a lot different then. At least it seemed that way to me. He could be gruff and blunt. He didn't always seem interested in what we were doing. He definitely wanted us to be quiet and not cause a lot of racket. But there were a lot of unique things about him, some that I picked up over time and some that I didn't realize until much later.

He was a morning guy. An early bird. Some of that had to do with the fact that he had to be at work so early in the morning, but I'm sure most of it was just his personality. The early mornings were his quiet time. He would spend that time sipping coffee, reading the newspaper and getting ready for the day. I never much understood the allure of this lifestyle, being a late night person, myself. I found it particularly distasteful when he would wake me up before I wanted to be up. His signature move? Flipping on the light and going back to the living room, making me get up to turn off the light, subsequently ensuring that I wouldn't be able to get back to sleep. I also remember early Saturday morning lawn mowings that seemed to linger right outside my window. At least I thought they were early. He'd probably been up for over four hours by then.

Because he had to be at work so early in the morning, this meant that he was finished with work fairly early in the afternoon. This enabled him sufficient time to partake in one of his favorite chores/hobbies: fixing dinner. The kids at school thought this was a little strange, having your dad cook rather than your mom. But I didn't care so long as somebody was making dinner. Of course, he had his favorites and sometimes it seemed as if we were on a never-ending cycle. Monday was pork chops. Tuesday was cube steaks. Wednesday was goulash. No matter what day it was, though, there was going to be some sort of meat served. The weekends were reserved for other meat-themed treats. Saturdays often found dad out on the deck grilling the biggest burgers you'd ever seen. And Sundays were always pot roast, slow-cooked in the crockpot all day. Unless he was feeling adventerous. Then he would give the crockpot a little variety and cook up the best chili in history. Whatever it was he was cooking, he enjoyed the process, the creativity.

Creativity was something that I had no idea my dad possessed when I was young. I always just thought that he was a slave to routine and didn't want to venture outside the unknown. But looking back, I realized that this wasn't true at all. Dad seemed willing to take on new things and try out new ideas. Not all the time, but often enough to make me understand that he wasn't as boring as I thought.

He and his buddies built a deck in our backyard. I remember thinking how cool it was that my dad had all those tools and actually knew what to do with them. He had a quadrophonic stereo system, basically surround sound for the 70's. I always wanted to duplicate that in my own place. When he had an addition built onto our house, he employed alternate energy sources, like passive solar and a wood-burning stove. He built the coolest bunk beds that two kids could ever want. He embraced soccer before the term “soccer mom” was ever invented and even bought season tickets for the local indoor squad, the Kansas City Comets.

His passion for soccer, though, was a mixed bag for me. He thought the sport was so great and fun that he wanted Seth and I to play. And we did. A lot. And it was fun and we were good. Dad even coached my team for a while, which was great. What I didn't realize at the time, though, is that my great passion was being squelched.

I had always loved baseball from as far back as I can remember. I owned a 1980 “George Brett for President” bumper sticker and a Hal McRae t-shirt. I had a sack full of 1982 Fleer baseball cards. I played Whiffle ball in my grandparents front yard, drawing up the lineup cards of the current Royals teams and pretending to be each one of them as I threw the ball up to myself and hit it around the neighborhood. But I never played organized baseball as a kid because Dad had convinced me that soccer was the greatest thing going. And, like I said, I was good so I didn't really complain too much because it's always fun when you're good at something. But as time passed and my passion for baseball grew, my interest in soccer waned.

I told Dad and everyone I knew that I wanted to be a Major League baseball player when I grew up. Dad always did his best to keep me well-grounded by reminding me that the chances of becoming a baseball player of that caliber were slim to none. Regardless, he took me to the batting cages and even bought me time with an instructor. I fought hard and made the baseball team at Shawnee Mission North my junior year, but by then I realized that he was right; I might be good enough to make my summer league all-star team but I wasn't going to the Major Leagues unless I bought myself a ticket.

The best thing about playing baseball for those few years came one summer when my summer league team was short on pitching. My coach asked if I would be willing to try pitching. I had never done it before and I knew my arm wasn't particularly strong, but I agreed to do it anyway. Since I knew very little about how to pitch, I asked Dad. I had heard stories about how he was a pitcher when he was a kid in Little League, so I knew he would be able to at least give me the basics of what I needed to know. So, out to the yard we went. He would tell me how to set up on the pitching rubber, how to throw from the wind-up and the stretch, how to keep an eye on the baserunner to keep him close to the bag. I would throw and throw, doing my best not to chuck it past him or throw it in the dirt. He would occasionally grimace when the ball would hit his glove. Of all the times he tought me how to do something, this was the only time I can remember not really getting frustrated. I somehow managed to appreciate the moment of him taking time to show me how to do something he had once done in an area of interest I loved so much.

And while I never became good enough to play baseball beyond high school, Dad still managed to connect to my passion through another one of his creative ideas: He decided to buy the baseball card shop that I'd spent so much time (and his money) at as a kid. The baseball card industry was booming at the time and he must have figured that it would be a decent risk to get in the game. I was like a kid in a candy store. I was now required to spend my time at the baseball card shop now, instead of having to beg to go there. My expertise was leaned upon as Mom and Dad learned the ins and outs of the baseball card business. I learned a lot about retail business, people, baseball and my dad because of that shop.

By this time, my dad had become less gruff and more personable, less irritable and more patient. I appreciated the fact that he listened to and respected my input regarding the shop, even though I was still young. Of course, he would still get on me if I did something stupid. For instance, the time that he came to the back room of the shop and asked my opinion on whether Walt Whitman was any good or not. I was sitting right by the door when I laughed and said that, yeah, I'm sure he was a pretty decent poet but I didn't know about his basketball skills. Dad shot me the evil eye and whispered at me to shut up, that the customer who had asked about Walt Williams was standing right outside the door and that I should be more respectful of customers and less of a smart-ass.

The shop seemed to be successful enough that eventually Dad decided to retire early. This was another decision that wasn't exactly by-the-book, but one that I thought was cool nonetheless. He didn't have to work the crummy job he'd been working at for over 20 years and that seemed to breathe some life into him. Enough life, in fact, that he started drawing up designs on his next big idea: permanently moving to Hawaii.

After the baseball strike in 1994, the shop took a hit and never quite recovered. Eventually, Mom and Dad closed it up and started figuring out how to take this next big step. Dad had seen his mom die young, crushing his dad and their dreams together in the process, and decided that he wasn't going to let that happen to him. So up they moved, Mom and Dad, to Hawaii to live out his dream. I thought it was a bullshit move at the time, because my two kids were under the age of five and I wanted them to know their grandparents like I had known mine. But after I had visited them their the first time, I realized how right it was. And while I still wish that we would have been able to spend more time together, I'm proud of my dad for taking the risk and living out his dream.

Unfortunately, he didn't get to live his dream as long as he might have wanted. While he got to spend a quarter of his adult life (10 years) with Mom out in paradise, he didn't make it to his 60th birthday. But he lived his life pretty fully and I learned a lot from him. I may not have learned how to change the oil in my car from him or how the stock market works, but I learned that it's okay to pursue your ideas and dreams, even if they're unconventional. He and Mom bought me the computer that I'm writing this on as an encouragement to keep pursuing my other passion, writing. And I know that he was proud of me for what I've written and what I will write. And I know he loved me. And I know that I loved him and still do.

The Man

2007-11-03T23:34:00.000-05:00

The Man.

He's walking his dog. He's getting exercise.

The Man.

He's got a good job and a well-groomed goatee. He's got a separate pair of shoes for work and for running and for nights out on the town.

The Man.

He keeps up the maintenance on his sensible car. He drops his punctually-paid bills into the mailbox.

The Man.

He regularly attends his place of worship. He volunteers at least once a month.

The Man.

He mows his lawn on Saturdays and calls his parents on Sundays.

The Man.

He does all the things he's supposed to do. But he still feels like there's something he's missing.

The Man.

An Open Letter To The Men Who Work On My Floor

2007-10-19T11:25:00.000-05:00

Dear Sirs -

It has been a sheer delight to share the same floor of this office building in Corporate Woods with you for the past 7-plus years. The fact that we've been working shoulder-to-shoulder as soldiers of industry and capitalism has imbued upon me a great sense of pride and patriotism. If not for the vast army of men collectively named "Joe Lunchpail", this country would come to a standstill.

That being said, I have a concern that I feel I must bring to your attention.

As you all are obviously aware, we share a single men's restroom on our floor. It is not a large restroom, like the women's restroom that has a separate changing/smoking/napping/deep-tissue massage room. No, we are left with two urinals, two stalls and three sinks. Since we have upwards of 20 men working on this floor, that means we have a lot of traffic coming through our tiny place of refuge. Add in the handful of men who commute from the 3rd floor while their restroom is being remodeled, and you have a lot of waste being eliminated in a small area.

This brings me to my issue: Half of the time I go to use the urinal, there is urine remaining from the previous person's discharge. And why is that? Because many of you continue to retain the mind-boggling habit of flushing midway through your expulsion yet NOT flushing after you are completed, leaving half of your legacy to remain for the next poor sap who comes in to relieve himself.

This leads me to ask: Are you not repulsed by the presence of urine in the fixture you're about to use? Are you not affected by the smell of said urine, left to marinate until the next person comes along? The only response I can reasonably predict from you is a resounding "Maybe."

Maybe it is a case of revenge: "Someone left this gift for me, so I will, in turn, leave a gift of my own!" If this is the case, I vehemently urge you to PLEASE break the cycle. It is like the never-ending cycle of child abuse, handed down from one generation to the next. Or the Kansas City Chiefs' never-ending cycle of fielding competitive football teams that, year after year, fail to win even a single playoff game. The cycle must be broken!

Maybe you are just hopelessly lazy: "Flush the toilet TWO times?!?! You must think time grows on trees!" If this is the case, may I suggest looking at this situation as a matter of timing, then? If you just wait 15-20 seconds longer, you can flush both the previous man's urine as well as your own urine away in one bold stroke.

I hope you will give careful consideration to my concerns and possible resolutions. I would really hate to have to start using the 1st floor restroom; those guys are just animals.

Yours in bathroom etiquette,

--Nick

Hearing, But Not Listening

2007-10-18T10:34:00.000-05:00

Two attractive, blond, young women sit on a park bench just outside their office. For them, it is break time, a time to vent about what's going on inside or with their boyfriends or how their families are completely loony. They sit casually, cross-legged and turned towards each other. There is a slight breeze but not enough to justify how often they each touch/adjust/flip/pull their hair. They take turns speaking, as those who possess manners tend to do. There is much hand gesturing and animation while one of them talks and what appears to be thoughtful, polite attention from the one who is listening. But upon closer inspection, one wonders whether they are really listening or just hearing. The body language speaks volumes. While the expressive, earnest story is being told, the other will occasionally look at the cars that glide past in the parking lot. Or she'll adjust her skirt. Or look to see who's coming in and out of the building. It even sounds like she's listening because on cue she'll offer up an encouraging head nod or say "I totally know what you mean!" But really she's just listening for the hint that tells her it is her time to speak again. And once she starts talking, the other girl picks up where the former left off. Both girls look forward to their daily breaks when they can go outside and get a few things off their chests. But neither of them feels any better afterwards and they can't quite pinpoint why.

I Have A Dream...

2007-10-17T13:33:00.000-05:00

...and it isn't meant to mock Dr. Martin Luther King. I've had that Regina Spektor song "Real Love" stuck in my head ("stuck" carries a poor connotation; let's just say it's been on a continuously pleasant loop) for the last couple of days. And today, while listening to that song in my head, I have this vision: A bunch of friends laying on a couch; intertwined but comfortable, not sitting stiffly side-by-side; blankets on those who want them. It would be cool or cold outside, making it reasonable for everyone to be inside cozied up to one another. And nobody would be talking. Not necessarily silent; there might be that song playing or some other soothing, melodic music. But no one would utter a word. For maybe an hour. Those who felt inclined to nap would do so. Those who wanted a foot rub or massage of some sort would receive one. Those who just want to lay back and have someone stroke their hair would be permitted to do so. It would be peaceful and warm and dreamy. I realize this echos the sentiments of a couple of earlier posts, but it's a bit different. It has a feeling of utter contentment, if only for a while. And total understanding without having to voice it. I suppose "intimacy" would be a good word. Anyway, it was just a dream I had on a rainy Wednesday afternoon...

Addicts

2007-10-16T09:29:00.000-05:00

Denny is an oddity. Not in a bad way, though. See, nearly everyone in his family is an addict. Three alcoholics on his dad's side. A sex addict on his mom's. His father-in-law, while not blood related, is another addict in his life; a Webster's-certified workaholic. And every single person in his family smokes. Every. Single. One. All but Denny, that is. Denny doesn't smoke. Oh, he'll puff on the occasional cigar or pipe. But he's never even placed a cigarette between his lips. And he partakes in his fair share of alcohol. Except that he rarely drinks alone. And he spends a fair amount of his time alone. That is, when he's not spending time with his friends. And he's been doing a lot more of that lately. In fact, when he isn't spending time with his friends, he expends a goodly amount of energy thinking about them. He'll call to see what they're up to. He'll text them to let them know he's thinking of them. He's constantly creating new ways for them to interact, whether it's by email, internet or planning events. He's often inspired to buy them gifts. And he feels so safe and secure when he's with them. He'll share all his ideas and plans and worries. He tells them about his Family-O-Addicts and breathes a sigh of relief that he managed to avoid being like them. And his friends sigh in agreement.

Real Love

2007-10-15T22:47:00.000-05:00

Sunday night. The new week is nearly here. But they're putting it off as long as possible. A small candle burns on the coffee table, their three wine glasses sit nearby. Kendra and Lily are curled up cozily at each end of the sectional sofa. In between them, Neal sinks deep into the corner of the couch. The blond glow of the candle rests lightly on their faces. Their conversation slows to a stop and the only thing that interrupts the peaceful silence is the soft melody of a piano from the radio. Minutes go by and no one says a word. Tension and anxiety do not exist in this place, at this time. Everyone is lost in their own thoughts. Finally, the conversational hiatus reaches a conclusion when Lily says, "It feels so wonderful to be free of drama and stress and conflict, just for this moment." Neal, parroting the currently playing Regina Spektor song says, "You know why? It's because of what we have. It's real love." Lily furrows her brow and says, "It's not just the three of us that share that." And Neal responds, saying, "I know, Lily. That comment was supposed to be about 30% truth and 70% wit." After a few beats of silence, Kendra admits, "I still think it was sweet." And the three of them silently agreed that it was.

These Five Stand Alone

2007-10-11T15:28:00.000-05:00

A couple of weeks ago Chad, Lisa and I went up to the gallery where Chad's art was being displayed and wrote a number of short stories about the various works. I wrote eight stories in all and I will eventually post them all here. But I want to get pictures of the pieces that inspired these stories to post alongside. The five stories I am posting today are ones that I feel can stand alone, art or no art. But these are much more meaningful to me when one has seen the art and heard what it has said directly. The titles of these stories are the titles Chad gave his pieces.

COMFORTING TOUCH / WHY DO I PULL AWAY?

"Look at that guy over there."

"Yeah, what a fat slob."

"Dude, I dare you to go over there and touch him."

"Touch him? Are you nuts? That's sick!"

"Come on. I bet he wouldn't even feel it."

"Seriously, he looks like a toad. He's just staring blankly into space."

"Fine. I'll give you five bucks if you do it."

"Five bucks? Alright. But you better pay up. When's the last time you think anyone's touched that guy?"

That's exactly what the fat, toad guy was thinking just before he got up and walked home.

I FEEL PASSION / YOU ARE GRACE

Why does everyone think I'm beautiful? I mean, I see practically why they say that. I look in the mirror on occasion. But do people say it just because everyone else does? Is there some sort of beauty equation that I'm not aware of? Has there been an oral tradition, handed down over the years, that has created and shaped the accepted definition of beauty? I don't know the answer, but I know what I am and that is beautiful.

YOU TURNED YOUR BACK / I PICKED YOU UP

That was the final straw. She had had it, though she couldn't explain why. There he was, so comfortable and confident and lacking in nothing. But he still didn't fill her with passion. She turned away from him, searching for a painless way to end things. Painless for him. And painless for her. But things don't always work out the way you plan them. He reached out and touched her shoulder. Lightly at first and then pleasantly firm. And the passion that she didn't think existed started to glow like a long forgotten ember. And once that fire started to burn, there was no putting it out.

SO MUCH TO CONSIDER

He had to think everything through. Thoroughly. That's why she loved him. That's also why she hated him. See, she was nothing like that. For her, things flowed freely. Conversation. Decisions. Wine. Love. But he agonized over everything. Fish sticks or taquitos? Should he have another drink? When will she discover that he is an unworthy companion? But she stays true to herself. She pours another glass of wine and decides that whatever will be, will be. And he stays true to himself. He goes to bed early. And lies awake for most of the night. And decides that whatever will be, will be.

I'M FOUND WHEN YOU SEE ME

Does he even remember what I look like? Does he remember what it feels like to feel me? To be felt by me? When he is alone, am I one of his Top 5 thoughts? Have I ever been? Will I ever be again? I can still smell his scent. Does he remember mine? Does he even care? Do I? Does he remember the way he used to say my name? Does he remember my name? Does he remember who I am? Who I was? Who I can be? Does he remember what we had? Does he remember?

Merge Lane

2007-10-03T01:45:00.000-05:00

His girlfriend was driving. He sat in the passenger's seat of the '89 Cavalier. Things weren't going well. Not in their relationship. Not in their car. "Why does she always do this? She always looks back and slows to a stop, not realizing that if she just looks forward she'll see there's plenty of room to operate."

A Bald Man

2007-10-02T13:03:00.000-05:00

A bald man walks past me in the hallway. A bald man with sad eyes and a goatee, wearing an 80's vintage striped Polo shirt knockoff that is tucked into his dark blue jeans that are cinched to his waist by his brown leather weaved belt that resides three feet above his bright white tennis shoes. He is holding a large, hardback novel that he is keeping open about halfway with his thumb and it is making a slight crinkling noise because of the cellophane book jacket and his slow, measured steps. He softly says "Hey." I nod and say hello as we pass. One more bald man in a sea of bald men.

Dis/Comfort

2007-10-01T20:23:00.000-05:00

The four of them sit on the couch, boy-girl-boy-girl. Layla with her legs across the laps of Nate & Karen and Charlie on the end. A soft, periwinkle blanket encompasses and unites them. They drink wine. They watch "Categories". They tease one another. They are warm and comfortable. They talk about creating things that are controversial. Their confidence swells and imagination blossoms from the nourishment of their shared intimacy. Though they were once apprehensive, now they are emboldened. Alas, it is late and they must go. With great care, they tuck Karen into bed. And then they evaporate into the night.

The Widow Kowalski

2007-09-30T20:42:00.000-05:00

"If those kids kick that ball into my yard one more time...," Mrs. Kowalski thought to herself. She was drying dishes at her sink and looking through the cheesecloth-like curtains at the handful of neighborhood kids playing kickball in the street in front of her house. She looked on as Stevie Nichols kicked a screaming line drive past Peter Schaub and on down the street. As Chris Perkins retrieved the red rubber kickball from the drainage culvert, Mrs. Kowalski thought to herself, "How many ball have I confiscated and yet they just seem to find another one and keep playing..." Just then, Ben Simmons hooked a ball that seemed to hang in the air forever before it dropped directly into the rose bushes beneath Mrs. Kowalski's nose and kitchen window. Before the ball had even landed, boys were scrambling in all directions to escape the Wrath of the Widow Kowalski. "That one's mine!" shrieked Mrs. Kowalski while she hustled away from her sink and out the screen door. "You boys come back here!" But none of them did. Mrs. Kowalski gathered up her sixth round, red annoyance and wished that, just once, one of the boys would try to talk her into returning their kickballs.

In Her Head

2007-09-28T22:20:00.000-05:00

Debbie had a gift. She can write. It doesn't matter what the style, short fiction, social commentary, satire, reflections. The thing is, her muse comes and goes. One day, Debbie will be really excited and whip up something very satisfying. Then three weeks will pass when all her ideas careen around the inside of her skull, ramming into the sides and each other, doing their best to become nonsensical. A friend will comment about what a delight it is to read her work and will ask why she doesn't write more. Another friend encourages her to stick with it, that her talent will shine through and some day she'll make it big. Debbie files these comments on a shelf in her brain and wonders what the true definition of a gift really is. If she only uses her gift sparingly and not for commercial gain, does it stop being a gift? If it is only a hobby, does that make it less of a talent? She doesn't want to waste what she's been given. And she desires to use her gift to give to others. Sometimes it's just hard. "I think I'l write about that," Debbie says to herself. But the idea ricochets off a dozen other thoughts and sinks to the bottom of her head.

Counsel

2007-09-27T14:38:00.002-05:00

A good friend from work finally went out to lunch with us the other day. He had been out of the office because his wife was diagnosed with kidney cancer. Sleep was hard to come by, he told us, just as positivity was hard to hold on to. I told him that times like these enabled us to be more compassionate towards others who may be suffering unbeknownst to us. He agreed as we got up from the table. On the way home that day, I delivered a number of invectives against my fellow motorists.

Lunchtime

2007-09-27T14:38:00.001-05:00

I finish eating my food and pick up my book. The driver's seat of my car cradles me. Small streaks of light filter through the pine tree that I park beneath. My mind wanders from what I'm reading. I am tranquilized by the shade and soft breeze. Hazy shadows that resemble a woman's long eyelashes bat at me from the page. My head nods. It is time to return to work.

People Helping People

2007-08-29T12:03:00.000-05:00

I just saw this quote on ESPN.com today:

"I want to call him and support him, you know, be there for him."

--Ron Artest, on hearing Michael Vick's public apology for his involvement in a dog fighting scandal

This is like Paris Hilton calling Lindsay Lohan and offering to be her designated driver. Or Pete Doherty volunteering to be Amy Winehouse's AA sponsor. Or Jason Giambi proposing to be Barry Bonds's workout partner.

As you may recall, Ron Artest is the former Indiana Pacers guard who charged into the stands to fight a fan during a game in the 2004-2005 season. To be fair, Artest IS trying to clean up his image and make a positive impact by his involvement in Wheelchair Charities and Xcel Universities, a virtual university to help out youngsters in New York City with academics and no emphasis on basketball. And he should be commended for trying to help out someone who obviously needs some guidance.

But doesn't he understand how ridiculous it sounds when he comes out and makes a statement like this? It's like hearing a public service announcement from Snoop Dogg about not smoking pot. Or Michael Jackson telling you to get involved in the lives of children.

Believe me, I am all for giving folks a second chance and using your platform to make a difference in the world. But sometimes you just have to keep your mouth shut and work from behind the scenes. Ron, next time send Mike a note and save yourself the ridicule.

He Moves In Mysterious Ways

2007-07-25T15:50:00.000-05:00

Great Mysteries of the Universe:

* Is time travel possible?
* Why are yawns contagious?
* How many licks to the center of a Tootsie Roll pop?
* Why don't young Hollywood starlets get someone to drive their booze- and narcotic-addled selves around?
* Why does Royals starting pitcher Scott Elarton continue to get payed to play Major League baseball?

---

I find this last mystery particularly relevant given the Royals' 9-4 loss to the Yankees last night, a contest in which the aforementiond Mr. Elarton pitched. I had debated as to whether I should attend Tuesday's Elarton/Chien-Ming Wang pitching matchup or Wednesday's Gil Meche/Mike Mussina matchup. The past history of Elarton's previous starts told me I should wait until Wednesday, but the siren's song of receiving a Powder Blue #5 George Brett Pine Tar-stained T-shirt was a tempation I was forced to give in to.

I should have trusted my instincts.

I knew Elarton had been lousy all year (meaning the handful of starts he's been able to make when not camped out on the Disabled List). Little did I know just how awful he's been until I looked up the stats this morning. Here are a few nuggets to chew on:

* He's pitched 37 innings this season--and given up 44 runs.
* His monthly ERAs look like this: May 7.65/June 11.15/July 37.80 for a Grand Total of 10.46.
* He's given up at least 3 runs in every start and he's never pitched 6 innings in a start.
* He's given up 12 homeruns, with at least one in each start before last night when he didn't need a homerun to give up 7 runs.
* He only has one more strike out than homeruns surrendered: 13.

In case you hadn't figured it out, this is mind-numbingly terrible. The only saving grace is that he missed all of April, part of May and most of July.

But what I find most galling ISN'T that Elarton himself is a miserable pitcher. He seems to be a nice, hard-working fellow who really cares about his performance on the field. He just doesn't have the ability he used to have before a cascade of injuries reduced his effectiveness to Nick Blakeley-level.

No, what's most galling is that Dayton Moore and Buddy Bell keep running this guy out there, knowing full well what results should be expected. It isn't hard to find a pitcher who can give up less than a run per inning, it really isn't. And you can find them on the cheap.

The only reason I can see for the stubborn insistence by management to allow opponents to carpet bomb the Royals while he's on the mound is that they want to showcase him for a potential trade. The only problem is that by showcasing this set of skills, they're just insuring that NO ONE will want to take him off our hands.

The time has come to release Elarton. I realize millions of dollars have been spent paying his contract and rehabbing his multiple maladies, but the Royals need to face it: It's a sunk cost. You aren't getting that money back and by continuing to play him you're making the cost less bearable.

This is a mystery that shouldn't be so difficult to solve.

***UPDATE***
7/26
My prayers have been answered: http://www.kansascity.com/385/story/205082.html

Gazing At My Reflection in a Pond...

2007-07-20T13:00:00.000-05:00

A few narcissistic nuggets for your consumption:

* I can't stand it when drawers and cabinets are left open. I have no idea where this comes from, as I'm not much of a neat-freak.

* Any food that has reached or surpassed its expiration date is totally off-limits to me. If it's milk, I may not use it even if it expires the next day. This goes back to drinking some expired milk in high school. I had a drink before I left for school in the morning, but by 3rd hour I was feeling awful. So awful, in fact, that I barfed in the bathroom at school. This is monumental because I don't like to throw up AT ALL, much less in a public place. I went home and spent the rest of the afternoon puking and dry heaving. I even went to a Young Life meeting that evening, thinking I couldn't possibly ralph any more. I spent more than my fair share in the bathroom, though I never actually let myself blow chunks. So my reasoning is "Better to be safe than yakking up your guts in a porcelain germ factory."

* I try to walk softly. I don't like it when people bang around on their heels. I'm not a big fan of unnecessary noise (as you'll find out in upcoming paragraphs). Some of this originates from an experience in early grade school. Our class was walking up some stairs and generally making a big racket, as 6- or 7-year olds are apt to do. And I was wearing cowboy boots. But my teacher stopped and said to me "You're doing a great job! You are the quietest person I've ever heard while wearing cowboy boots." That phrase stuck with me my entire life, so now I sneak around like a ninja, avoiding detection at all costs.

* The sound of my own urination bothers me. I've always thought the fire hose sound of someone taking a leak was quite uncouth, though I don't hold anyone else accountable to my way of thinking. But I do whatever is possible to minimize the decibel levels of my own excretion.

* I patently refuse to buy beer at sporting events. Out of principle, I just can't pay $8.00 for watered down Bud Light. And it never ceases to amaze me how many people will take out a seond mortgage on their home just to get plastered on ballpark beer.

* At work, I start out with twelve different windows open. They must be in the same order, every time. First, program: Microsoft Outlook. I keep a tight reign on my email inbox, so it deserves the top spot. Next is our company's accounting software. I only have to use it in the morning, but it serves as a buffer between Outlook and the third program, Microsoft Excel. I generally have at least six spreadsheets open at any given time, so I use it a lot and like to have it seperated from Outlook. The fourth program is an Internet Explorer window opened to one of the pages on our intranet. I keep it in this spot so that I remember to check on it several times a day to see what's been updated. Next is another Internet Exporer window that allows me to access the next two programs: one, a program that shows the real-time market prices for wheat and the other a program that keeps track of the trades we've made in the market. After I open those two programs, the IE window I had to use to open them up becomes my go-to window for surfing the internet. The first site I go to each day? ESPN.com. The last five windows are all IE windows opened to the various railroad websites that I use to track where our railcars of wheat are currently located. The Union Pacific railroad gets first billing followed by the Burlington Northern Santa Fe (which uses two windows) and finally the generic Steelroads website that keeps track of cars on the short lines. If something happens during the day that closes out one of these windows, I'll most likely close out the whole lot and recreate the original order. Then, I put my trash in a brown paper sack, fold it neatly, wrap it in aluminum foil and carefully place it in my waste receptacle...

Morning is Broken

2007-07-19T12:26:00.000-05:00

Recently I've been fully engaged in thinking about myself and my endless number of quirky personal preferences, habits and lifestyle choices. Writing is included in this list, but I have sorely neglected it over the past few months. So I thought it would be a fun idea to start a series of self-absorbed essays that folks can read and yawn over in between watching "The Girls Next Door" and watering their lawns.

I figure a good starting point would be in the morning. Actually, that's not completely true; I don't really like the A.M. portion of the day. Regardless, it seems to make sense chronologically. But more importantly, I should repeat that I dislike the first few waking hours of the day.

I suppose my disdain for daybreak stems from the fact that my body seems to be naturally wired to stay up late. Also, I actually enjoy staying up late. That doesn't bode well for morning's bid to win my affections. To me, morning just seems desperate and over-eager. The sun popping out and disturbing the tranquil pleasantness of sleepy darkness is the morning's way of repeatedly tapping me on the shoulder and saying "Look at me! Aren't I pretty? Please give me your undivided love and attention! Please?! Please! Please!!!"

Physically, the beginning of the day is irksome. I wake up in the morning with "sleep"/mucus/eye boogers. My stomach feels unsettled. I have an urgent desire to use the restroom. If I've excercised the day before, my muscles are sore. My mouth tastes like the bottom of a dumpster. My ear hurts because I've somehow slept on it while it was folded over against my head.

To add to my auricular miseries, I have to listen to the bubbly morning news anchors who somehow manage to report on the brutal murders of the evening before with the same sing-song delivery of a Sesame Street character. And it's tough to find a forecast from a weatherman who isn't zany, jolly, or chipper on top of being, most importantly, inaccurate.

The drive into work provides some respite. It allows me time to be quiet and let my body wake up to the inevitability of another day. I manage to sing along to a couple of songs so that my speaking voice doesn't sound like the torturer's in "The Princess Bride". This comes in handy when spewing invectives at fellow drivers who are too busy shaving/putting on makeup/brushing teeth/reading the newspaper to stay between the white dashes painted on the street.

Once I get into the office, I look forward to completing my only deadline-oriented task of the day without being bothered. It generally doesn't work out that way. The-Guy-Who-Inexplicably-Always-Comes-In-An-Hour-Before-Anyone-Else-Does feels like it's his duty to say "Good morning, Nick!" because someone once told him that he wasn't personable enough. After I grunt "Hello," I plop down in my chair and attend to the responsibilities set before me, all the while wondering why people insist on using the greeting "Good morning!" My boss comes skipping in, glowing like a LiteBrite, ready to tackle the day like a linebacker drilling a quarterback. I just try to duck and move until I finish my task.

I then head down to the snack machine to purchase some nourishment. No coffee for me. I don't see the appeal of drinking dark brown sludge to wake myself up. All I need is some small offering from the Sugary Bread food group. If someone brings in donuts or bagels, all the better. If not, I'll scrounge up a buck to buy a honey bun or some Hostess cupcakes. This delectable treat combined with time to scour the internet for news and baseball scores added to the three hours I've now been awake equals a much more manageable morning. Not a good morning, mind you, but that will have to work.

Birds

2007-03-27T12:49:00.000-05:00

I don't like birds.

Yet, I've been forced to think about them fairly regularly for the past few days. First, though, a little background...

I have thoroughly disliked birds since I was a kid. I don't remember how old I was when my severe distaste developed, but it doesn't really matter. I saw the Hitchcock movie "The Birds" when I was a kid, but that didn't really bother me. What really bothered me was a dream I had. I was on my grandparents' front porch and I was being repeatedly attacked by a bird, fluttering around, beating its wings furiously against gravity and my face, pecking and clawing and scratching. Every time I'd try to wave it away, I would miss because it had flown to some other hemisphere of my head. Needless to say, I did not wake up in a good mood that next morning.

Which leads us to the present. This week has been bird-filled, kind of like the pie in "Sing A Song of Sixpence". (What sickos came up with classic nursery rhymes, by the way? A King digging into a pie filled with blackbirds? I guess that's a topic for another day...) First of all, it's that time of the year when Canada geese are migrating and the office park I work in happens to be a popular rest stop along the way. So I'll often hear the honking of geese throughout the day as they fly over. Or, as the case was yesterday, two of them just decided to hang out on the sidewalk in front of my building and honk. They were kind of milling around and honking, looking like they were trying to hail a cab or something. It was like a Far Side comic come to life. And as my desk is right next to a window, I had a good view of their antics. This, of course, led to one of my office mates coming over to see just what it was I was staring at. He cracked that I ought to go down and grab one. I cracked back that I ought to bring one up into the office and watch hilarity ensue.

Then it hit me: I could never do that.

All I could picture was myself holding this medicine ball-sized creature in my arms while its two-foot-long neck/beak combo unleashed its worst on me like an out-of-control fire hose.
I sat back down at my desk and listened to the sultry tones of goose honking the rest of the morning. After a while, though, I decided to look outside and see if the two wayward travelers were still loitering on the sidewalk. To my surprise, they had left, leaving only their greenish-brown calling card on the pavement. But I still heard faint honking. I looked all over the place for the source, but I couldn't find it. At this point, I was starting to wonder if the ventilation system was making this noise but I couldn't pin it to that, either. I remembered seeing geese standing on the roof of our building a while back, so I figured that must be it: They're holding a board meeting on our roof and I was the unlucky chump who had to record the minutes.

Several nights previous to these encounters, I had a less sonorous bird experience. I was walking out to my car at night. Just before I got to the parking lot, something bowling ball-shaped zipped silently past my face. I realized that an owl had been perched on the handicap parking sign a few feet to my left and as I was starting to walk past, it hurled its seemingly un-aerodynamic body right past me. Thankfully, it happened so fast that I didn't have time to freak out.

Today, I went to Wendy's and got some lunch to eat while sitting in my car. I rolled the driver's side window down as it was pleasant outside, but not the passenger's side window. And thank God I didn't. As I was eating my burger and listening to sports radio, a robin came flying right at the closed window and perched itself on my door. In response to this action, I let out a decidedly unmanly "Aaahh!" The robin looked in at me with its evil, soulless eyes while I tried to catch my breath. One of its buddies then came along and challenged it to a worm eating contest that I viewed as it played out in front of me in the parking lot.

After the robin had its fill of worms, it then decided to challenge another robin. Except this one appeared to be a familiar opponent: Itself. It was perched on the door of another car in the parking lot, looking at itself in the side-view mirror, posturing and pecking as if it was another bird. I watched this for a couple of minutes with my hand at the ready to roll up my window in case it should come back my direction. I then noticed that it had relieved itself upon the door of the car it was sitting on. I thought to myself, "That poor sucker. He's going to be wondering why he has such a large concentration of bird crap on his door even though he's parked out in the middle of the lot, away from all trees and overhead lines." Of course, the next day I went out to my car to find a nearly identical pattern of bird droppings on my car door.

And to top it all off, the only birds I really like, the Jayhawks, picked the worst possible time to play their worst game of the year and were eliminated from the NCAA Tournament one game short of the Final Four.

Man, I hate birds.

Losing It

2007-03-02T15:53:00.000-06:00

I was driving home from work one night, thinking about how I really need to make an effort to get in shape and drop a few pounds. Should I start going to the Community Center, maybe 24 Hour Fitness? Maybe I should get one of those contraptions they sell on TV. Of course, I also need to cut down on the double-cheeseburgers and Chipotle mega-burritos.

As I emerged from my fitness daydream, I realized that a car had been following me for some time. Since I take a fairly distinct and circuitous route home, it seemed more than a coincidence that this car would be still be tailing me after such a long while. From what I could tell, it was a Ford SUV, an Explorer or Excursion or Extortion or something. It was black, so black that it was almost green. And its windows were tinted, including the windshield, which I thought was illegal. The windshield wasn't as dark as the rest of the windows, though, so I could still see into the car if the light was right.

I decided to alter my course a bit, just to see what would happen. I waited as long as I could and then veered off onto the exit ramp for Shawnee Mission Parkway. Sure enough, the driver of the SUV wrenched the steering wheel and continued the pursuit, fishtailing through the grass and back onto the pavement.

Just as the car righted itself, the sun shone perfectly the windshield and illuminted the driver. It wasn't a man at all; it was an amorphous blob with no actual arms to steer with, just extensions of goo wrapped around the wheel. It was somewhat translucent but with a shade of pale yellow or beige, kind of like the last few sips of a watered-down iced tea.

While my mind was trying to sort out this bizarre set of circumstances, I noticed the personalized license plate of my pursuer: THEWGHT.

And then it all clicked:

I was trying to lose "The Weight".

Somehow, the combination of my physical flab and my mental picture of it had loosed itself from my body and become its own entity, chasing me through the streets of Johnson County.

I regrouped and focused on the road ahead, intent on losing "The Weight" for good. I accelerated and started zipping in and out of traffic. "The Weight" was not to be deterred; it deftly manuevered through the holes that I had navigated and stayed right on my tail.

Then I had an idea.

I picked up an apple that had fallen out of Samantha's lunch sack that morning and started eating it. I also grabbed the passenger-side seatbelt and started doing curls. I looked into the rearview mirror again and noticed that "The Weight" had lost some ground. Quickly, I lowered my seat back as far as it could go and started doing mini-crunches, leaning just far enough back that I could still see where I was going. With each sit-up I completed, I noticed "The Weight" dropping further and further behind.

When I finally got home, I looked around, hoping that disgusting sack of fat wasn't lurking behind a bush or fence. Once I realized that the coast was clear, I breathed a deep sigh of relief. I had lost "The Weight". Right then and there I resolved to start eating less Twinkies and to quit using elevators.

Loosely Based On A True Story

2007-02-02T13:24:00.000-06:00

The following story is a fictional account of what might have happened at Samantha's Spelling Bee recently if she and I were both stark raving jerkwads. I was going to post a "sweet" and "sour" version, but I've done sweet before and this just seemed like more fun. So, enjoy and remember that while based on a true story, this did not actually happen...

"Dad, I'm going to be in the school Spelling Bee tomorrow. It's at 1:30 if you think you can pull yourself away from the office."

"Thanks for the late notice. I'll be sure to ask my boss if it's acceptable for me to leave for two hours in the middle of the day. Do you think you have any shot at winning?"

"If you mean 'Do I think I can win and go on to surpass the crowning achievement of your pathetic grade school career?", then the answer is 'Yes.'"

"Listen, finishing sixth in the District spelling bee is not pathetic. Of course, I should have finished first if it wasn't for that idiotic word 'goad'. I knew every word that came after I was eliminated. I should have won. 'Goad', my ass."

"Well, if you've finished reminiscing about your past failures, then I think I'll go study now. You know, kids are a lot smarter these days than they were in 1985. I'm guessing 'goad' doesn't even qualify as a spelling bee word anymore."

"Hmmph."

----------

The day of the Spelling Bee arrives. Samantha sits in her Bit-O-Honey-colored metal folding chair along with the rest of the Spelling Bee contestants. She sits in a leisurely slump, legs crossed and arms folded with a disinterested yet smug look on her face. She knows she's going to win this two-bit snooze-fest. And she'll show her dad just how much smarter she is than he ever was. "How do you get eliminated on 'goad'?" she thinks to herself as she gazes out upon the entire population of her school; teachers, support staff and parents are dotted among the kids who are just happy to be out of class.

The practice round comes and goes without incident. Samantha gets in front of the school and spells her word with ease, all the while looking like a kid you'd like to punt. Dad disguises his feelings of irritation, envy and a little pride with a stare that could pierce a bullet-proof vest.

Round One begins and Samantha is given the word "vacant".

"Pretty tough word to begin with. We'll see if her over-confidence betrays her," Dad thinks to himself.

"Vacant. V-A-C-A-N-T, vacant."

"Very good!" comments the emcee, eminently proud that she gets to preside over such an illustrious educational endeavor.

As she heads to her seat, Samantha shoots a glance at her dad that is one part "Duh!" and two parts "Top that, old man!"

The first round ends with a dumpy little girl stumbling over a 3rd grade-level word; she's the first of the herd to be culled. Samantha cruises nonchalantly through the next two rounds.

"G-E-R-B-I-L"

"M-A-G-A-Z-I-N-E-S"

As each round passes, a couple more kids are banished to the loser seats. In the fourth round, the pressure begins to mount.

The emcee announces, "Your word is 'jealous'," through permanently smiling teeth.
The first crack in Samantha's demeanor appears. The cockiness melts away. Dad's right eyebrow raises.

"Jealous. J...E...A...L......"

She stops and looks nervously at the judges and then into the crowd. She briefly catches her dad's eye and just as quickly looks away.

"...O..."

"...U..."

"...S!"

"That's correct!" beams the Botox-enhanced emcee. A sigh of relief washes over the crowd. Samantha smiles and reclaims her seat. Dad's icy gaze refuses to melt.

There are only five kids left. Dad is starting to think that she might be able to pull this off and relegate his grade school legend to the scrap heap. But just as he started plotting a way to sabotage her challenge to his spelling throne, fate intervened.

After the other four contestants managed to weave their way through "cabbage", "merchant", "height" and "kernel", Samantha stepped up to the podium and was greeted with the word "tantrum."

"T-R..." and she stopped. She knew that once you spit out a letter, you couldn't take it back. She stood there fuming, trying to decide whether it was worth her breath to even try spelling the word correctly. She knew the word; she had just gotten careless and jumped ahead of herself. She decided that if the stupid rules wouldn't allow you to take a letter back, then she wasn't going to bother with spewing out any more letters.

She spun toward her seat and inadvertently knocked the microphone to the ground. Still furious from her lapse in concentration, she left it and gave a swift kick to her seat in "Loser's Row". The clanging of the metal chair interrupted the murmuring of the school children and startled the now-bewildered emcee who had just finished meekly declaring that it was, in fact, in incorrect answer. One of the teachers who was helping facilitate the Bee tried to put her arm arround Samantha and comfort her, but Samantha wasn't having any of it. She just pursed her lips and stared into the eyes of her father who was staring intently back at her, with just the smallest trace of a smirk on his lips.

The competition finished with Whitney Taylor successfully spelling "molecular". The eliminated contestants each shook the victor's hand out of sportsmanship, all but Samantha. She slowly made her way to her dad who was still stationed at the back of the gymnasium.

"Nice job, kiddo," Dad said as he reached out to put a hand on Samantha's shoulder.

"Oh, shut it," she snapped as she slapped his hand away. "I hope you're satisfied that your 'legacy' is still intact."

"Well, truthfully? Yes, I am. But you'll be back next year and I have a feeling that fifth place won't be good enough for you."

Samantha didn't respond. She slipped on her coat and walked out of the school with her dad. The whole way home, the only phrase that ran through her head was "Just you wait, old man. Just. You. Wait."

A Complete and Utter Meche

2006-12-13T13:52:00.000-06:00

The returns are in. Many a pundit has sounded off. One of the most mind-blowing free agent signings in recent memory has folks talking. Here's what some of them have to say:

"The Meche deal probably will not be remembered as the worst of this off-season, but at the moment it's the No. 1 candidate." --Rob Neyer, ESPN.com

"I think if you wait to get good before you add pieces like Gil Meche, you never get good." --Dayton Moore, Kansas City Royals General Manager

"But they can't win if they don't try, and mostly over the last two decades, they haven't tried, haven't spent the kind of money they needed to spend to give themselves a chance. They've got the money now, in this lucrative era for baseball, and the Royals' options are to spend it or keep it. Kansas City has chosen to spend its money. The Royals have chosen to try." --Buster Olney, ESPN.com

"Look, we could have gone out and spent 4 to 6 million dollars on a fourth or fifth starter. That's how much those guys cost now. But we didn't want to do that. We look at Gil Meche, and we think he's a guy who could be ready to take off and become an upper-echelon pitcher. He has dominant stuff. He has tremendous makeup. And he wants to be here. To me, it was a no-brainer." --Moore

"To give a very average pitcher who has never thrown 200 innings a season $11 million a year is pure madness." --Joe Posnanski, Kansas City Star

"5.40" --Projected ERA for Gil Meche in 2007 courtesy of Nate Silver, Baseball Prospectus

"I don’t think there’s a whole lot of evidence that 'statement' signings eventually lead to enhanced credibility in dealing with future free agents." --Joe Sheehan, Baseball Prospectus

"They've committed $55 million—a magic number in the history of Stupid Free Agent Tricks—to a pitcher with no track record of being anything better than a #4 starter, who’s never been healthy for three straight years, who has been incredibly protected pitching in Safeco Field in front of good defenses." --Sheehan

--------

So, that's what the experts say. But what you really want to know is what some anonymous fan in Kansas City has to say. Personally, I think this is one of the worst pick-ups since Datsun was making trucks. I think this could end up as bad as the Mark Davis acquisition in 1990. Of course, Davis was the reigning National League Cy Young Award winner; Gil Meche finished with the third most walks allowed in the American League despite pitching only 186 innings.

What I can't seem to wrap my mind around is the contention that just because David Glass has loosened the purse-strings, they should start spending money like there's a tree full of it just beyond the left-field fence. There are plenty of opportunities to spend money and spend it wisely and, in fact, Dayton Moore has taken advantage of a number of those opportunities. He's added another minor league team in order to increase the odds of developing cheap, in-house talent. Only one other team in the major leagues has as many minor league affiliates. The Royals are opening an academy in the Dominican Republic in 2007 and making international scouting a larger priority. And Moore has been constantly finding ways to add young pitching prospects in hopes of bolstering a system that has produced nearly zero bonafide major league pitchers in over a decade.

I had been heartened by those moves, moves that looked to strengthen the long-term success of the franchise. But this signing does nothing but evoke the old idiom "penny wise and pound foolish". I understand the fact that Moore doesn't expect the fans to have to endure any more 100-loss seasons. I respect the fact that he wants to create a culture where top-notch free agents want to play. But I really believe that money would have been better spent on long-term contract extensions for young players in the future. Or more talented free agents who will be available in the next couple of years. Nobody expects this team to win 90 games next year or even the year after that. Why not stock-pile money and cheap young talent until the time comes when it makes sense to overspend for top-notch talent instead of mediocre, high-risk talent?

All of the folks who keep whining about how the system is unfair and that we can never compete if we don't spend money should take this as the first example in what I've been preaching for years now:

IT DOESN'T MATTER HOW MUCH MONEY YOU SPEND IF YOU SPEND IT UNWISELY.

And signing an injury-prone, middle-of-the-road pitcher to a 5-year, $55 million contract does not bring to mind the wisdom of Solomon.

Hope Takes A Beating

2006-10-23T16:15:00.000-05:00

Once upon a time, there was this thing called Hope that lived in the KU football program. It used to frolick in the fields, thinking of Bowl Games of yesteryear and good times to come.

Then one day, Hope took a road trip to Toledo. Hope got smacked upside the head. Hope took another roadie to Nebraska. In Lincoln, Hope received a punch in the stomach. Getting tired of the welcomes it was receiving in foreign lands, Hope decided to come home. Unfortunately, some Aggies were waiting there to trip Hope and Hope landed on its face. But Hope picked itself back up in order to meet with some Cowboys. It was a pleasant encounter for a while. Then the Cowboys decided to push Hope over and kick Hope in the ribs. Hope was feeling pretty sore and insecure and decided that a little time away might cure what was ailing it. So away to Waco went poor Hope, looking for a fresh start. All Hope got was a reminder of the previous mistreatments as Bears mauled it and send it back home.

Will Hope be able to frolick and play any more this year? Only if Hope toughens up and starts winning some freaking football games.

I Know What I Like

2006-10-19T15:50:00.000-05:00

I like trotting out to the infield, getting the feel of my cleats in the dirt. I like taking the slow, rolling warm-up toss from the first baseman and slinging it right back. I like pounding the leather of my glove, readying it for its future occupant. I like the ever-so-slight taste of dirt in my mouth. I like looking at the other team's third base coach, who seems to have an easy-going, "We shouldn't have a problem scoring on these guys" look on his face. I like knowing that smug look won't last long.

I like the butterflies in my stomach as my pitcher winds up to make the pitch. I like the tension in my legs as I take a step forward into a half-squat, anticipating the pitch being hit to me at third base. I like the split-second of time that elapses between my recognition that the ball has been hit and the realization that the ball has been hit at me. I like watching the ball bound toward my glove and find a temporary resting place. I like feeling the seams underneath my fingers as the ball rolls off of them on its way to first base. I like seeing the umpire cock his arm into a right angle: "OUT!"

I like sitting in the dugout, waiting for my turn to bat, clapping and shouting "Let's go!" and "Come on!" to my teammate in the batter's box. I like selecting just the right bat and taking practice swings in the on deck circle. I like taking both right-handed and left-handed swings, imagining that the other team is getting nervous trying to decide which way I'm going to come up to bat. I like high five-ing my teammate as he walks past me after scoring a run.

I like stepping into the batter's box, eyeing home plate and fixing myself just the right distance from the both the plate and the catcher. I like looking back at the catcher as he sets up and the umpire as he gets ready to crouch. I like surveying the outfield, looking for the one gap in the defense that I'm going to exploit. I like looking at the pitcher who mistakenly thinks he can get me out. I like the tingle in my hands as the pitcher goes into his motion.

I like the non-feeling of hitting the ball squarely on the sweet spot of the bat, a feeling that would seem jolting and violent, but turns out to be completely missing. I like seeing the ball arc into the gap that I had picked out just seconds earlier. I like seeing the outfielders converge and run towards the outfield wall as the ball skips past them and just keeps rolling.

I like the feeling of my legs pumping, trying to make my body move at maximum speed. I like putting my head down in complete concentration on swinging my arms and alternating my legs. I like hearing the opposing team's bench collectively moan as I round first base. I like hearing my teammates yelling "Run! Run! All the way!" I like knowing that the third base coach will be frantically waving me around even before I've looked up to see him doing exactly that. I like knowing that I'm running as fast as I possibly can and I don't even have to break stride in order to hit the inside corner of the second base bag. I like the growing feeling of urgency as I rush past third base, knowing that relay throws are madly trying to catch up to me. I like the feeling of my legs turning to rubber, yet still charging as hard as can be for the last few strides to home plate.

I like seeing the eyes of the catcher and umpire tracking the ball as it hurtles toward its final destination. I like the feeling of hard earth hitting my leg as I slide past the catcher and his desperate attempt to tag me out. I like the cloud of dust that arises and the hazy figure of the umpire stretching his arms out wide, signaling what I knew to be true before I had even reached first base: "SAFE!"

I like the feeling of being out of breath, panting out "Thank You"s to my teammates who push out congratulatory knuckles to be bumped. I like sitting back down in the dugout, eager for it to start all over again.

I like baseball.

Football Fiasco

2006-10-18T11:40:00.000-05:00

I had a vested interest in three football games this weekend: David's on Friday night, KU on Saturday afternoon and the Chiefs on Sunday. Coincidentally, all three games wound up with the same outcome: a blowout loss.

Usually, David's games are on Saturday afternoons. But this past week was an exception. His team (named the Fighting Irish, for some strange reason) plays their games on a field at the Derrick Thomas Academy in KCMO. The field is very nice and the atmosphere is competitive, but not out of control. A fairly typical suburban youth athletic event.

But this night was different.

The Fighting Irish were pitted against the home team, the team from the Derrick Thomas Academy. And it looked like a scene out of "Friday Light Nights", without all the Texas rednecks. This team of 6th through 8th graders had a marching band, cheerleaders and a flag squad. The atmosphere was raucous, which was cool, but totally distracting to Dave and his teammates. Of course, that wouldn't have made a bit of difference, anyway; the DTA team had a significant edge in athleticism. Being that they play flag football, there's a pronounced emphasis on speed and quickness. And these teams were at opposite ends of that spectrum. The kids from DTA looked like waterbugs skitting about the field, spinning and juking and breaking away from their pursuers. And the band dutifully played the SportsCenter theme each time they scored a touchdown, which was at least seven times (I can't remember as I lost count). And as if they needed more of an advantage, the band would only play during the Fighting Irish's offensive possessions. Dave's team couldn't hear a thing. Throughout the game and well after, David and his teammates all had a glazed-over look on their faces. It was rough.

On Saturday, I traveled to Lawrence to witness what I was confident would be a victory for the Jayhawks. And the first half lent credence to my thoughts with KU up 17-0 at halftime. Oklahoma State turned the ball over four times and was making one stupid decision after another. KU didn't seem to be taking advantage of every opportunity, but there was no reason to think this wouldn't be a blow-out win in the Jayhawks' favor.

Then came the second half.

KU's secondary was torched for three passing touchdown in both the third and fourth quarters. KU's offense could barely get into field goal range until they inserted freshman Jake Sharp at running back and gave fullback Brandon McAnderson a couple carries. And after that, it was essentially garbage time as OSU tacked on two more scores. At least it was a pleasant afternoon weather- and company-wise.

Sunday came with the Chiefs being my last shot at redemption for local pigskin squads. I should have known something was wrong when I needed to count on the Chiefs to improve my fortunes.

They made the defending Super Bowl champs look like defending Super Bowl champs, even though Pittsburgh had a shiny 1-3 record heading into the matchup. The only highlight of the game was the The Best Tackle Of The Year. Pittsburgh safety Troy Polamalu intercepted a pass in the 3rd quarter and was streaking towards yet another touchdown. But Larry Johnson never gave up and lunged to make a tackle. Johnson could only grab Polamalu's hair, but he dragged him down, nonetheless, to save another score. Unfortunately, Johnson pulled him back to his feet by his hair after the play and was assessed an Unsportsmanlike Conduct penalty. It was still pretty cool, though.

So the weekend was not a keeper when it came to football. Oh, well; KU basketball season is just around the corner...

Breaking News

2006-09-21T16:00:00.000-05:00

City considers banning "Thinking Arby's" in cars

Roeland Park, KS -- City officials in Roeland Park, KS have proposed a groundbreaking ban within their city limits. In a move similar to the ban on using a cell phone while driving in New York, drivers in Roeland Park would face a fine of up to $100 dollars if caught "Thinking Arby's".

The proposal has been made in response to the current national advertising campaign by the fast food roast beef chain. Television advertisements show various people completely unaware of unusual or catastrophic events happening around them, all the while a "thought balloon" hovers above their head and a voice-over says, "I'm thinking Arby's."

Mayor Steve Petrehn is concerned for the welfare of his town's residents. "Imagine the consequences this could have on the citizens of our great town if people are allowed to drive their vehicles completely distracted by the mouth-watering goodness of an Arby's Regular Roast Beef Sandwich, topped with zesty Horsey Sauce."

Yet, others in the community have reservations over what some have called "thought legislation". Ron Milner, a Roeland Park resident for over 35 years, doesn't think the government needs to intervene in the personal freedoms of those it represents. "They're already making me put on my seat belt -- now the government is going to tell me I can't daydream about curly fries and a jug of sweet tea? Why don't we put our resources towards something useful, like drilling for oil in the old Indian Mission?"

The proposal has not been well received by Arby's officials. Judith McPheeters, General Manager of the Arby's franchise in neighboring Mission, KS, says the ban on "Thinking Arby's" could have a devastating effect on her business. "All of a sudden, you would have people who have a clear desire to purchase a delicious Arby's Market Fresh Southwest Chicken Wrap suddenly fearing the possibility of being pulled over and fined. Most of our potential customers will find it far easier to just visit the McDonald's across the street. They may have their "Snack Wrap", but let me tell you, it is most decidedly not Market Fresh."

And while there is still time before the issue is put before the Roeland Park City Council, Roeland Park resident Bill Chumley may sum up things best:

"I'm not sure what the big deal is. When was the last time you went to Arby's?"

Daft Draft Philosophy

2006-09-20T17:11:00.000-05:00

The Royals have escaped both the praises and criticisms of my keyboard for some time now. They have been playing reasonably well over the second half of the season, but not well enough to really get excited about. The only thing I have been really paying attention to is the fact that, despite their recent successes, they still had a lock on the first pick in the draft next year.

Well, due to the flailing about of the supposedly up and coming Tampa Bay Devil Rays, the Royals no longer have dibs on the top pick.

Shouldn't that be a good thing? Shouldn't finishing without the worst record in baseball be something to strive for?

Normally, I would say yes. But two reasons make me disagree this year.

First, the record we finish with this year is virtually meaningless. Sure, pride factors in at some point, but pride hasn't helped the other four iterations of 100-loss Royals teams from escaping such a lowly designation.

Some good things have happened this year. Mark Teahen appears to have put it all together and will be one of our better hitters for the next few years. Ryan Shealy has been allowed to show why he was regarded so highly as a prospect in the Rockies' system. David DeJesus has put together another very solid year as a leadoff man.

A solid core of youngsters has been incubating in Wichita. Wrangler third baseman Alex Gordon won Texas League MVP and was named Baseball America's Minor League Player of the Year. Right fielder Billy Butler won the Texas Leauge batting title and contributed to the USA Olympic qualifying team. Outfielders Mitch Maier and Chris Lubanski had solid campaigns. Zack Greinke got back on track to being one of the more intriguing pitching prospects in the game. Billy Buckner and Tyler Lumsden added solid performances in the Wichita starting rotation. And last year's number one pick, Luke Hochevar, ended up making some starts in AA in his first professional season.

All of these things add much more to the pride of the Royals organization than the title of "Worst Record in Baseball" can subtract.

Secondly, and more importantly, the opportunity to make the number one pick is significant. In his 11-part study of baseball's amateur draft, Rany Jazayerli from Baseball Prospectus gives us this piece of evidence:

"Draft Rule #1: The greatest difference in value between consecutive draft picks is the difference between the first and second picks in a draft. The typical #1 overall pick is worth more than 46 WARP (Wins Above Replacement Player) in the first 15 years of his career; no other draft slot comes within even 10 wins of that total. Just as importantly, the benefits of the #1 overall pick do not extend to the #2 pick; in fact, historically, the #2 pick has been worth slightly less than the #3 and #4 picks, and from that point random variation kicks in and strongly influences the downward progression for the rest of the first round."

Unfortunately, some disturbing comments emanated from the Royals' scouting director Deric Ladnier today:

“Actually, I’d rather pick third next season, rather than first. Picking third would mean we really had a strong finish. I’d trade major-league wins for draft leverage any day.”

Now, I like to see the Royals win as much as the next guy. But a few extra wins in this forgettable season is not worth dropping two spots on draft day. It's not even close. I understand that the Royals' front office can't come out and condone tanking the rest of the season just to secure their draft position. And the players (most of them, anyway) are competitors and don't want to lose. Not to mention the fact that they get paid to win ball games. But the Royals really have something cooking right now and to be able to add another top-notch talent in the form of a #1 pick will only strengthen their growing youth movement.

Here's hoping the big club loses just enough to ensure yet another impact player gets on board.

Coolio

2006-09-20T15:43:00.000-05:00

The past few mornings have been chilly. What does this mean? That the carefree days of Summer are over and the god-awful cold of Winter is not far away.

Some people enjoy Winter. I understand that viewpoint about as well as I understand quantum physics. What is the least bit enjoyable about cold weather? Certainly not these things:

* The "Gray Slab" of clouds that hangs over this town 75% of the winter
* The fact that it never snows during the Christmas season
* January, February and March
* Scraping the frost off your windshield in the morning
* Going outside to scrape off the frost on your windshield in the morning
* Going outside in the morning
* Going outside
* Staying inside but not being able to stay warm without setting the thermostat to "Melt Polar Ice Caps"
* The Chiefs' annual collapse
* Decline in laundry efficiency (no shorts, short sleeves; more pants, more sleeves more fabric, more quarters for the dryer)

I can find some positive things about cooler weather, though, such as:

* Breaking out long-sleeve t-shirts and sweatshirts
* Turning off the a/c at home and sleeping with the windows open
* The idea of cozying up to that special someone on a chilly night (though it's been a long time since reality trumped fantasy on this one)
* The leaves changing color
* The climate in my office will now be closer to Earth's and less like Pluto's
* Hot chocolate, hot chai, hot buttered rum and the fact that it's the only time of year I can drink coffee
* New, Fall TV season
* KU basketball just around the corner

Honestly, that's about as good as it gets. There are far more reasons to despise the cold weather, but we have to take advantage of the seemingly short Fall season before we get to Winter. Otherwise, the despair just gets stretched out over a couple of extra months. But I hold on to one thing that makes Winter even the least bit bearable: Without it, I would really take Summer for granted. Sure, I would love for it to be 80 degrees and sunny all the time, but I think I wouldn't appreciate it as much if I didn't have three or four or five months to pine for it.

A Real-Life Dillema

2006-09-13T15:37:00.000-05:00

As a follow up to the Crocodile Hunter post, I have another interactive post. This time you, the reader, can directly intervene in my life. Sound like fun? Keep reading...

Over the past few months, I've been seriously considering going back to school to get my degree. Obviously, this is not a decision to be made lightly. Particularly, since there are risks involved. Maybe not stingray-barb-through-the-heart kind of risks, but risks nonetheless.

Coincidentally, it sort of comes down to a decision between the relatively comfortable life I've presently carved out for myself or an attempt at following some passion. But, of course, it isn't even quite that easy.

To start, let's go over what I have. I have a good job working with wonderful people in a division that is making lots of money in a company that is the very definition of stable. I have a 401k plan, excellent health insurance and a manageable, though not overwhelming, salary. I have time to sit at my desk and write essays about my favorite sports teams or the choice between wadding and folding or whether I should even continue to sit at this desk. One other benefit that adds a wrinkle to this situation: tuition reimbursement.

Additionally, I also have a parent with health issues that lives 5,000 miles away. And a monthly child support payment to make. And the looming fact that I'll have one child attending college in six years, with another on his heels.

Something else I have is a reasonable amount of free time at home to read, research interesting topics and write. And someone's unsecured wireless network from which to "borrow" broadband internet access.

Now, what don't I have? I don't have a college degree. I don't have a plethora of options in which to advance upwardly in my company, and if I did, I'm not sure if I would even want to. I don't have the occupational flexibility to be able to move somewhere else in the country and be reasonably assured of finding a job. While I like my job, I don't have a passion for doing it.

Additionally, I don't have a car payment. Or a high car insurance payment. Or a cable bill. My electricity bill is low and I don't have to pay for natural gas, water or trash pickup. Not to mention all the other miscellaneous expenses that come with living in a house rather than an apartment. I don't have a car that feeds on gas like Mark Mangino feeds on hoagies; my car will run for two weeks on $25 worth of gasoline. The only debt I have will be completely paid off in about eight months. For the most part, I don't have many expenses. This is advantageous when thinking about living the college life.

Most importantly, I'm not sure I have a real passion. Sure, I really like to write and seem to be moderately skilled. But I don't have the longing to do it as much as I have/had the longing to play baseball for a living. Writing about baseball is fun, but it doesn't hold a candle to actually playing. Of course, playing baseball for a living isn't a realistic plan, but it doesn't diminish the feeling in my gut about wanting to do it. What bothers me is that I don't have that same feeling in my gut about writing. Or anything else, for that matter. But maybe that's just the way it is; you start doing something you like and go from there.

So, what to do from here? Mull over the scenarios.

Do I stay at my low-risk, low-reward job that allows me to write and do other things in my free time as a hobby that may or may not go anywhere OR go to school to acquire skills and a degree that allow me to either move up in my current company or make a living somewhere (almost anywhere) else while writing full-time.

Do I go back to school and, as an additional benefit, give my children a good example to follow OR do I stay where I'm at and continue to lead a content life in which I'm able to give my kids the attention that they need?

If I don't go to school, do I continue to write merely as a hobby and creative outlet OR do I make a concerted effort to try to get something published?

If I do go to school, should I go part-time while keeping my current job and benefits (such as tuition reimbursement) and complete my degree in who-knows-how-long OR should I quit my job and concentrate on school full-time, forsaking health insurance and trips to Hawaii along the way?

I've been praying about this and will continue to do so. What makes it hard is that I feel like I can honor God no matter what decision I make. Maybe that should make it easier. I don't know. Feel free to chime in or spout off. Or feel free to just sit back and think about how this might apply to your life.

The Talk

2006-09-12T13:31:00.000-05:00

Saturday was the big day.

I had finally carved out some time (and cojones) to have "The Talk" with Dave. I had two tickets to the KU football game, accomodations for Samantha and a 45-minute car ride each way from Lawrence in which I would have a literally captive audience.

The only thing I didn't have: A way to start off the conversation.

I had been mulling/agonizing/hashing over what material I was going to cover and how I was going to cover it for most of the summer. I had a decent idea of what the message was going to be, but I asked God to help me make it intelligible. And for a way to break the ice.

Thankfully, I remembered that two years ago David had a couple of girls calling the house wanting to talk to him/harass him. That was my in.

First, I asked him if he had seen kids from the schools he had previously attended. Then, I asked him if those girls who used to call him now went to his new school. He said that they did but that he didn't really talk to them.

"So, with all these kids and a bigger school, I bet there are a lot more good looking girls wandering the halls, eh?"

He smiled a sheepish grin and managed to utter a barely audible "Yeah."

I told him that I noticed the fact that he was now looking at the girls who jogged by just like I did. Again, he begrudgingly agreed, though he added,

"I don't look all the time but you turn and look at every one, Dad!"

It was my turn to sheepishly agree.

I told him that it was okay to glance but not stare. Then, I asked him if girls were less disgusting now than they used to be. He replied with another "Yeah" accompanied by some gazing out the window at the passing fields.

The next 10 minutes was a blur of conversation about Sex Ed class, puberty, what to do if a girl asks you to do something you aren't comfortable doing, love, lust and masturbation, all sprinkled with about five or ten entreaties to make sure he knows that he can talk to me about any of those situations. There were nervous giggles, honest exchanges and some horrified glances but we managed to somehow make it through one of the most uncomfortable conversations you can have in life.

I came away relieved that the whole ordeal was over and assured that he understood that he could come to me with any question or crisis. I think he came away glad that the whole ordeal was over and assured that he would soon be in Memorial Stadium thinking about football and eating a bbq brisket sandwich.

Croc Questions

2006-09-07T00:12:00.000-05:00

The recent untimely death of Steve Irwin, "The Crocodile Hunter", brought up an interesting thought. Is it okay that he died while doing something he was totally passionate about even though it left his wife and child without a husband and father, respectively?

There are quality arguments from each point of view. My first thought when I heard about it was that it was about time: when you put yourself in a position to risk death enough times, statistically, your chances of surviving those chances dwindles with each occassion.

My mind is just inundated with a number of questions:

What he did affected a lot of people. Was that impact enough to put his life and family at risk? Will the number of people he touched due to his passion outweigh the major impact to his family? Will the fact that he followed his passion (even unto death) have a positive or negative on his family? Would it have been possible for him to scale back on the dangerous activities he pursued in order to minimize the risk to himself and his family? Or would scaling back on his activities have reduced his impact on the world at large? Which impact is more important? If his passion isn't inherently immoral, is it acceptable to pursue? Is it immoral to pursue a passion to the degree that it puts his life at stake in the face of leaving his family alone? To compare, is it okay for a soldier to risk his life for his country even though he has a family that counts on him? Is it any different for Steve Irwin to pursue his lifestyle even though he has a family that counts on him? Is the honor of serving your country more important than the educational and entertainment value Irwin brought to the world?

Personally, I don't have an issue with him pursuing his passion. God gives you certain abilities that you should maximize to honor Him and better the world. And he did, quite successfully, as a single guy with no familial attachments. He continued this lifestyle even after getting married and committing himself to another person. And he continued this lifestyle even after he and his wife had children. My thinking is that you can justify those risks as a single individual who has no one depending on you financially, emotionally, spiritually, etc. And I think you can justify those risks once you're married, considering your wife is on the same page with you. I have a harder time justifying that risk once you have children. Each child deserves a chance at growing up with the love, support and guidance of both parents. I suppose if both the husband and wife agree that the risk is worthwhile, it is up to them to make the ultimate judgement about what is right for their family. But, to me, it just doesn't seem right to continue a high-risk lifestyle once there's the chance that someone could lose out so drastically.

It seems to me that Steve Irwin had plenty of opportunity to impact the world-at-large with his nearly insane passion for the animal kingdom. Could he not have scaled back his risk (and, admittedly, the impact of his broadcasts) for the overall sake of his wife and children? He could have still followed his passion, be it at a lesser degree, and still given his family a significant chance of keeping their patriarch. According to Wikipedia:

"Irwin was as enthusiastic about his family as he was about his work. He once described his daughter Bindi as 'the reason he was put on the Earth'.His wife once said, 'The only thing that could ever keep him away from the animals he loves are the people he loves even more.'"

I'm just not convinced that the Irwin children will be just as well off knowing their dad died while doing something he was passionate about rather than having him around to share his slightly less dangerous experiences, wisdom and knowledge with his them. It all just seems like a failed experiment in risk management. An experiment in which the Irwin family unnecessarily loses.

What do you think?

Part Two: The Eternal Debate

2006-09-01T15:43:00.000-05:00

The toilet seat
A sordid place
From which to choose
The bum or face

In continuing yesterday's scatological theme, today we visit the age-old question of whether to throw up or rapidly move the bowels.

If your stomach is in turmoil and you want to alleviate that feeling, you have to make a decision. Do you bend down and curl up next to the most reviled fixture in the house or plant your fanny firmly atop it?

To me, the decision is easy: keep your mouth shut.

Is there a more unnatural bodily function than having food and beverage you previously enjoyed reverse its course? Well, yes there is. Having that same food and beverage manage to take a detour through your nose. This may not happen every time, but the possibility is always there. I suppose the benefit to choosing this path is that you can expedite your misery more quickly. But I don't see how it can be remotely worthwhile. Your stomach cramps and you can't breathe momentarily; you have remnants that find their way onto your face; you can't get the taste out of your mouth or the smell out of your nose. Even the terms to describe the function sound icky and painful: yack, barf, retch, blow chunks, puke, heave, spew, vomit.

Conversely, the names for diarrhea sound almost comical: runs, Montezuma's revenge, backdoor trots, loose stool, blow mud, Aztec two-step. While the descriptions sound humorous, the act seems much more civil. In general, this is a function that is performed quite often. Most folks sit on the pot at least once per day. Some even look forward to this time away from the hustle and bustle of everyday life, a chance to drop trow and collect one's thoughts. The only difference in this situation is that the results can sometimes be explosive. But at least it's completely contained. Splash-back, you say? Definitely a risk, but no more so than vomiting. And, sure, the odor can be offensive, but it's a temporary affliction, not one that parks itself within your sinuses. Plus, it gives you a chance to refine your wadding skills.

The clincher for me is this: which body part would you rather have nearest the toilet, your rear-end or your face? Even the most anal retentive housekeeper has to admit that the toilet is not a place you would prefer to be within nose-reach of. Yet, people have been known to camp out on the cool, unsanitary tiles 'round the latrine all night, if need be. And the ladies sometimes require an assistant to hold back their hair. All of this is unnecessary if you just keep your head above your heels.

The Eternal Debate

2006-08-31T15:32:00.000-05:00

To fold or to wad, that is the question.

Or, perhaps, to vomit or to defecate.

Two ongoing debates that deserve to be heard. Whether you want to read about them or not is up to you.

Let's tackle the first question, to fold or to wad. "Fold or wad what?" you may be asking. Toilet paper, of course. Most people can agree that they don't want to complete their business only to look down and see evidence of their most recent product on their hand. That's where this debate starts. Which is the better way to make sure the fudge remains in the bowl?

One of the first things "Folders" will tell you is that by neatly folding the t.p., you can make multiple passes while neatly tucking away each subsequent swipe. They'll tell you that this is both civilized and efficient. They'll also inform you that it lessens the probability of a clog. They'll tear down the technique of the "Wadder", saying that making multiple wipes with the wad is both unpredicatable and dangerous. "A waste of resources!" bellows the Folder. They will claim that if you use that much toilet paper, you're sure to stop up the fixtures.

So, how do the Wadders respond? First, the highly important issue of keeping an adequate "buffer zone" should be addressed. Popular Wadder comments: "I want plenty of material between my fingers and my bum." "I don't need to know my backside like the back of my hand." "If there's a slip-up, that wad will keep me safe while your fold will betray you." They will denounce the claims that wadding is inefficient. And even if it is, isn't that like collateral damage, acceptable losses in the midst of war? And are the Folders' hands too frail to use a plunger in the case of an occassional clog? Again, that's the price you pay for keeping a brown-free hand.

Is there any common ground these two factions can agree on? Maybe one. The sweet, sweet sensation that pulses through your veins when you realize you've made the perfect poo: a look at the fold/wad only to find the lilly-white goodness of unsoiled paper staring back in your face.

Tune in next time for the age old argument between those who would rather blow chunks and those who would rather blow mud.

Stroll of Consciousness

2006-06-14T01:43:00.000-05:00

I left my apartment at a little past 5:00pm. I had my iPod Shuffle on and I was ready to go. The following is a stream of consciousness tale of my 3-mile walk today:

"Stepping Stone" by the Monkees. Sweet. I love this song. Definitely a good song to start out on.

I should walk on the left side of the parking lot so that I can see cars coming at me. I don't want one of the maniacs that comes blazing through my lot to drill me.

There aren't any cars at Chacko's. I sort of know the folks that own that place. They go to Jacob's Well. I hope they're doing well.

Rush hour traffic on Johnson Drive. I'll let this first wave pass and then cross. One of these days I'm going to get killed in my one-man effort to remind drivers that pedestrians in crosswalks have the right of way.

I don't see the kid I went to grade school with at Hickory Grove working in Mack Hardware. I still can't remember his name. I wonder if he recognizes me whenever I walk past the hardware store. I wonder how often people come by and steal bags of peat moss that they display on the sidewalk. It'd be pretty tough to catch someone. Maybe they have cameras.

The USA Today paper machine is empty. That's unusual. Maybe I should stop by Town Topic on my way back and get some dinner.

There are two women up ahead leaving the veterinarian. I wonder if I'll catch up to them before they get into their cars. Nope. One gets in her car. The other is still up ahead, though. I might catch up to her by the time I reach Mr. Goodcents. Wait; she's gone. She was walking fast. I wonder if she was creeped out by me following behind her. Or maybe she just turned onto Horton. Oh; there she goes on Horton. I'm glad I didn't catch up to her. It may have been awkward.

One of these days I'm going to get nailed by the door at Mr. Goodcents. Someone's going to pop out with their sandwich in hand and drill me as I walk past. No such luck today. No one sitting on the little patio, either. Must be too hot.

I take a look at the line of cars waiting at the red light on Lamar. Some look at me. Some don't. I wonder what they're thinking.

There are a couple of kids up ahead. I wonder if I'll catch up to them. One kid's carrying a wooden stake. He just dropped it in someone's driveway. People wonder how weird crap ends up in their yard; this would explain one such incident.

Ooh; just caught a whiff of R. J.'s Bob-B-Que. Yummy.

One kid turned onto 58th Street. The other kid realized the first had turned and quickly followed. I didn't catch up to them. I'm glad.

I wonder if people driving by see me tapping my leg to the beat of a song or move my hand as if I was strumming a guitar and think I'm a lunatic. Tough; I can't help myself.

Here comes a women toward me with a dog, no, make that two dogs. I'll get over into the lawn to give them room. Oh, man; there's a sprinkler going in that lawn. I wonder if I'll make it past the sprinkler lawn before I meet the dog woman. Yep, just made it past. I nod and say hello to the woman and pet the dog nearest me on the head when it makes a move to sniff me. Nothing like warm dog smell on your hand for the next 2.5 miles.

My shin splints are kicking in pretty good. This is a good time to learn how to deal pain. It's certainly not debilitating, so the more I get used to it, the easier it will be to tolerate in the future. Hiller said he could walk forever. I think I could, too, if I had the right size shoes on. These shin splints will be less painful once I get past 53rd Street.

Here comes a dude jogging. He's wearing a royal blue Royals shirt. You have to respect that. I nod and he nods in return.

I haven't been in the best mood today. I wonder if people who see my face think I look pissed off. I should probably try not to look like a jerk.

I'm walking past 56th Street. I wonder if I'll see Nave. I wonder if he'll call to see if I want to watch the late Royals game tonight.

They're still working on the new driveway at the house across the street from where I grew up. They tore down the basketball goal that I learned to shoot on as a kid. That kind of sucks. Life moves on, I guess. Just look at the crappy sea green vinyl siding on my parents' old house. At least our neighbor's yard looks nice.

That car is coming up fast to the red light at Lamar and 55th. One of these days I'm going to get nailed by someone not paying attention when I cross the street.

There are a couple of kids trying to do skateboard tricks in their driveway. There's an older guy going inside from his front porch next door to them. I wonder if the guy has any concern for the kids as a strange dude (me) walks past them. Apparently not, as he hasn't reappeared from his house.

There are no cars parked in the driveway that leads up to the curve in the sidewalk that goes around the tree. That's unusual.

There's Chad's old house.

I wonder if I'll see Foster or his parents coming down Lamar. Probably not; they usually don't have a reason to come south on Lamar. I wonder if I'll see Jeff's truck at my aunt's old house once I walk past it. I'll stop in and give a hand if he's there.

I'm looking forward to 53rd Street and heading down hill for a bit.

There's a rabbit in someone's lawn.

I'm at 53rd Street and in no immediate danger of being run over. The buzz of the street light relatively loud. It's downhill from here. I better look back over my shoulder to make sure no one is running or biking behind me. One time I had to walk up a steep hill in someone's lawn to give a girl on a bike some space. She actually thanked me verbally. I thought that was cool. Doesn't look like I'll need to worry about it this time, though.

Here's the street that Rushton Elementary is on. That wooden fence reminds me of the one I used to kick boards out of as a kid. Cars parked on the street means there must be little kid baseball practice at the school. One car has an MU license plate on it. Loser. There's only one team practicing today and they're pretty young. The dads aren't even using gloves to play catch with them. I'm always amazed at the skills we can teach little kids. I enjoyed helping coach David's baseball team. I hope an errant throw doesn't nail me in the back of the head as I walk past.

There's that yard where the guy was using an electric trimmer on Saturday morning at 7:30am. How freaking inconsiderate. Doesn't he realize that Saturday morning may be the one morning someone gets to sleep in? This couldn't have waited a couple hours? If I was living in this neighborhood I'd be seriously pissed.

I'm cutting across the circle drive of Rushton. I hope I don't get nailed by a car inexplicably pulling through this lot at 5:30 in the evening. I made it across safely. There's a school janitor leaving for the day. There's another car pulling in to the back parking lot. I wonder what she's doing here?

Can I cut across the 90 degree angle in the street here? Nope; a car is coming. I'll cut it, but not by so much.

I hope all this traffic clears before I have to cross to the other side of 51st Street. I don't like having to stop once I get a decent pace going. Good; no stopping.

There's the house that Eric who worked at my parent's baseball card and comic shop grew up in. I should tell Chad about him for his summer project. And I should make an effort to see if Duane Cunningham's business is still up and running.

That guy in that car looked kind of like Kenny Carpenter. I wonder if it was him. He was a Marine, I think. I remember enjoying keeping tabs on him when his Guard unit was deployed to Iraq a year or so ago. I wonder how Aaron is doing over there right now. He's an Army guy. I just finished reading about a first hand account from a Marine in Viet Nam. Those guys went through some unbelievable stuff.

There's a Saturn. It's blue, not maroon. Janna's Saturn is maroon. I wonder if I'll see her on my walk today. I'm fairly surprised I haven't ever seen her on any of the numerous walks I've taken past her neighborhood.

Will I be able to cut the intersection at 51st and Nall catty corner? Traffic is pulling up to the four-way stop. I'll have to slow my pace if I want to cut across. No dice; too slow. I'll start crossing Nall and then cut across 51st. Whoops! I better let that car go first.

Jeff's not at his place (gotta remember it's not my aunt's house anymore).

There's a guy up ahead walking his dog. I wonder if I'll catch up to him. He stopped and his dog is sitting obediently at his side. That's odd. What's he waiting for? Oh; he was waiting for traffic to pass so he could cross the street and pick up a pamphlet about that house that's for sale. Good; I didn't want to have to pass him. Now he's crossing back to my side of the street right behind me. I hope my pace is quicker than his. I don't want someone tailing me for blocks on end.

Ugh. I can hear him beside me, but I can't see him out of my peripheral vision. He must be keeping a decent pace. How annoying.

I wonder if I'll see Matt when I pass his house. That was odd that I finally saw him this weekend on the one walk I took at 7:30 in the morning. I doubt I'll see him this time.

That guy is still behind me. I hope he turns soon. There's that house with the two dogs. I wonder if they'll bark at the guy with the dog behind me. It looks like they're not outside right now.

There's always some sort of liquid draining from that house's driveway. It's not even making it a hundred yards down the street before it's evaporating. That seems like an awful lot of water to evaporate that quickly.

That guy's gone. He and his dog must have turned at 53rd Street. Good. I don't have to concern myself with him anymore.

There's a girl up ahead. Which way will she turn? Oh; she's heading south on Nall. Wait; now she's heading west on 55th Street. She's got a dog, too. I wonder if I'll catch up to her. I'm pretty sure I will.

Matt's car isn't in front of his house. He's probably not home from work yet. I didn't figure I'd run into him again so soon.

There's another person up ahead. I can't tell if it's a boy or girl as they come around the fence and shrubbery. Hey! It's Janna! She points at me in a state of surprise. I return the double point.

She says,

"Hey! What are you doing on my sidewalk?"

Buh duh, buh duh, buh duh, think of something witty to say, dumbass.

"Just getting a little exercise."

Nice work, bonehead.

She says,

"Man, what happened to that nice weather we had yesterday?"

"Yeah, I don't know." She was just walking. I wonder if she normally walks or runs? She's in good shape. I wonder if she walks or runs right after work? "It's a little warmer today."

"Yeah, and I think it's supposed to get pretty hot this week."

I say,

"Yeah, I was just thinking the other day about how hot it was every week when we played ultimate last summer. It was probably good once I got used to it. It'll shed a few pounds of this flab I'm carrying."

"Yeah, you'll end up losing five pounds of water weight alone."

"Yeah, it's kind of like wrestling."

Brilliant observation and even more brilliant turn of phrase. I'm a smart guy; why am I totally going blank in this conversation? Don't I have anything interesting to talk about besides the weather? She caught me by surprise; that's why I don't have anything interesting to say. I wonder if she's thinking the same thing?

She says,

"Well, I'm gonna keep going. Have a good week! I'll see you this weekend!"

"Yeah, you too! See you later!"

Wow. I'm a doofus. I should have asked her if she wanted to grab something to eat or something. Oh well; it was nice to see her. I wonder if I can catch up to that girl with the dog now? Not likely. She's got a couple of blocks head start now.

The sun is right in my eyes. Should I have worn a hat? Nah, it would have been hot on my head. Plus, I'm a tough guy; I can still look ahead without squinting that much. Look at me, Dude In The Passing Car; I'm looking in the direction of the sun and I'm not even really squinting!

Alright; I'm picking up the pace now. My legs feel good after that little pause to converse like a kid who just met Shaquille O'Neal or Derek Jeter. With these legs, I might catch up to that girl by the time she gets to St. Pius.

Who's that guy over on Maple? That's the guy with the dog who was tailing me before. Hah, hah, sucker; I'm blazing past you now. You'll never catch me.

Looks like the girl turned south on Woodson at St. Pius. No question I'll catch up to her now. Assuming she doesn't turn off somewhere.

No cars to worry about at Woodson and 55th Street. Good; I can cut over to the St. Pius sidewalk.

There she is in the field with her dog. She's walking back toward my direction now. I knew I'd catch up to her. I remember her now; I saw her a while back in nearly the same spot. She walked clear over toward the church rather than on the sidewalk. Now she's doing it again. Her dog sees me and is looking at me. I'm looking at the dog from a distance. I'll switch my glance from the dog to her and back again so as to appear friendly, but not stalker-ish. She passes and I say hello. She mouths something I can't hear over my iPod.

St. Pius's field still has a jumping pit after all these years. I'm amazed that it has lasted this long. How often does it get used? Is St. Pius some sort of long jumping haven? Is this the only event kids can participate in during Field Day?

I'm going downhill again. My legs feel good. The Doors are playing "Light My Fire".
There are two kids down the way playing on the sidewalk. They see me coming, yet they continue to dart on and off the sidewalk. Are they brave or just curious? Are their parents watching them to make sure some maniac doesn't walk along and steal them? This situation always makes me a little nervous. I want to be friendly to the kids but I don't want to seem overly interested in them should the parents be watching. What a jacked up world we live in. I can't even smile and say hello to some neighborhood kids without fearing the possibility of looking like a perv. No parents around. I say an emphatic "Hi!" to the little girl. She just stares. Before I can look at the little boy, he says hi. I turn and say "Hello!" and keep going.

I'm now entering the WT portion of Woodson. There always seems to be someone who enjoys the Blue Collar Comedy Team a little TOO much hanging around outside, drinking a can of beer and leering at the passersby. I intentionally look at everything but that guy.

It's amazing how infrequently your eyes focus in on any one thing when you're walking. If I think about it hard enough, I could probably make myself motion sick. And I never get motion sick.

There's a car approaching the stop sign at 58th Street. I don't have to worry about the timing of our intersecting paths as she just rolls through the stop sign. That's nice that I don't have to worry about that. It's kind of annoying that she just ran the stop sign, though. Well, how about that! She's pulling into the apartment complex parking lot that I'm about to cross. I wonder if she knows the person who lives in that second floor apartment that has all the junk on the balcony? I wonder if SHE'S the person who lives in that apartment? I don't think so; that balcony has looked pretty much the same for as long as I can remember.

The person pulling out of this next parking lot looks like they might not make the U-turn they're attempting and hit the sidewalk next to the building. Nope, they made it and now they're heading straight for me. I wonder if they see me? Even if they hit me, it won't be very hard; they aren't going very fast.

Will I make the light at Johnson Drive? Nope. This is usually the only place that I have to stop for any extended period of time on my walks. The light turns green for me and stops a bunch of traffic on Johnson Drive. I'm guessing a number of those people are ticked that they have to wait at this light just for me to cross. Sorry, suckers; there's not a button to push for pedestrians here. It's just your bad luck and bad timing arriving at this light at this particular time. One of these days, I'm going to be crossing Johnson Drive and someone is going to nail me from the farthest right lane because they didn't see me behind the car in the left lane and they're in too much of a hurry to stop at the brick crosswalk.

Looks like that eBay business is for sale. Who starts a bricks-and-mortar business based off eBay? That's counterintuitive.

The Keyhole smells like cheap beer and 30-year old beer-stained carpet, furniture and people. I need to get a beer there sometime.

The little used book store appears to be going out of business already. That's too bad. There's a book in the window by Garrison Keillor and one by Phil Keoghan. Weird.

I'm back in my apartment building's parking lot. Should I roll up the windows on my car? Yeah, I don't think I'll be going out later. Looks like the guy who lives below me is home. Man, I'm hot and sweaty. The young couple with the little boy has their screen door wide open and I can hear music. They're a sweet little family. I'm looking forward to cooling off and writing this strange look into my head. I think I'll watch a little TV first...

Speculative Hope

2006-06-07T22:09:00.001-05:00

Hope has been restored to fans of the Kansas City Royals baseball organization.

Sort of.

Three events have occurred in the past week that have given the gluttons-for-punishment faithful a reason to open their sports page in the morning:

* General Manager Allard Baird was fired and replaced by Dayton Moore, formerly the Assistant GM to John Schuerholz in Atlanta.

* Zack Greinke makes his first rehab start for Double-A Wichita.

* The Royals draft Luke Hochevar #1 overall in the 2006 MLB Draft.

First, and most importantly, the Allard Baird Era has finally come to an end. His tenure may go down as one of the worst GM stints in history. His legacy is one of botched trades, misguided free agent signings and bungled drafts. As George Costanza would say, "I've got it all!"

But that's not the whole story. In the days and weeks leading up to the dismissal of Baird, more and more stories were leaked about how owner David Glass and his son, team president Dan Glass, entangled themselves in some of the baseball decisions. Tales of trades vetoed and draft picks scuttled due to money issues are just some of the ways in which Baird was supposedly (read: likely) handcuffed by ownership.

So, Baird being gone definitely feels like a step in the right direction, but is it really? Not if the Glass family continues to harass their general manager. But this is where things are starting to look up. According to new GM Dayton Moore, he was given every assurance that he would have full autonomy over baseball decisions. Now, we can only wait and see if this holds true, but it certainly sounds like the Glasses have come to the realization that running a Major League Baseball team is better left to folks who have experience in running Major League Baseball teams.

If things go according to plan, the Royals organization might end up following in the footsteps of two other teams who had similar situations. Everyone remembers what a nightmare it was to be an executive in the Yankees' front office back when George Steinbrenner thought he was Branch Rickey. Of course, once George realized that he was better off letting the qualified people he'd hired run the show, the Yankees reeled off a string of World Series wins and playoff appearances that left every other team salivating. And you can make a similar parallel to the Braves, circa Ted Turner Era. The Braves were nearly as bad in the 80's as the Royals are now, with some of the responsibility falling on Turner's over-inflated ego. Then he hired John Schuerholz away from the Royals and the Braves proceeded to win their division every year since. The Royals can only hope that the GM merry-go-round comes full circle with the hiring of Schuerholz's prodigy Moore.

The second event that should have got the blood flowing in Royals fans' veins was the recent rehab start for one-time phenom Zack Greinke. Greinke had missed the first 2+ months of the season with psychological problems. Those issues have apparently been ironed out and Zack made a solid, if not dominating, start for the Wichita Wranglers. This is good news as Greinke was supposed to be the anchor of this year's pitching staff (although, "anchor" in this case sounds more like a weight intended to keep something immobile rather than a stabilizing force). Not too long ago, one baseball analyst exclaimed, "I have seen the future of pitching and his name is Zack Greinke." When you have that sort of potential and the track record to back it up, it comes as a major blow when your team finds out that you may not be pitching for the next couple of months, or possibly, ever again. With Greinke back in the fold, that's one less rotation spot the Royals will have to fill with the likes of Joe Mays and his ilk. Of course, we can only hope that Greinke comes back as strong or stronger than his impressive performance in his rookie year.

Finally, the Royals bucked conventional wisdom and selected Luke Hochevar as the number one overall pick in the 2006 MLB Draft. While most (including myself) were touting left-hander Andrew Miller as the obvious first choice, word spread that Miller's contract demands would be problematic. And while it looks like another pick on the cheap by the Royals, four other teams felt the same way and let Miller slide to #6 overall.

I think this is still a decent pick by the Royals. If you'll indulge me, allow me to pretend for a moment. Hochevar was considered a top five talent in last year's draft, a draft that was considered longer on talent than this year's. Let's pretend that instead of picking Alex Gordon (a junior at the University of Nebraska) with the #2 pick last year (when he had #1 talent), we picked Hochevar and Gordon stayed in school. Hochevar wouldn't have been thought of as a reach and the Royals would have been assured the best talent in the draft the next year. I realize that it's sort of convoluted logic, but the main idea is the same: we got the best possible player available last year and a player that last year was considered to be more talented than anyone in this year's draft.

The only concern one might have about selecting Hochevar would be in having to deal with his agent, the notorious Scott Boras. But the Royals certainly had the framework for a contract worked out before they drafted Hochevar or else they would have drafted someone else. Combine that with the fact that Hochevar might be a head-case (considering his hold-out and agent shuffling last year) and you have some real reasons to be concerned. But during his press conference and subsequent interviews, the phrases he kept repeating were, "I just want to pitch my tail off for the Kansas City Royals" and "I'm ready to put my nose to the grindstone" and "I'll work harder than anyone on the team."

Now, new GM Dayton Moore was not allowed to participate in either the Royals draft or the Braves due to conflict of interest. But you can bet your bottom dollar that he wasn't sitting on his front porch in Atlanta sipping mint juleps either. Word is that Moore didn't have Miller #1 on his draft board. Which implies that Moore at the very least sent some sort of telepathic signals to the Royals scouting department before the draft. This draft will be the first measurable data point in the Kansas City career of Dayton Moore. We can only hope that Luke Hochevar pans out and proves Moore right.

This is why the title of this column is "Speculative Hope". There are no assurances that any of these moves will pan out. If we look back at Allard Baird's career, we can find a number of transactions that looked reasonable at the time but ended up blowing up in his face. So while hope has been restored to Royals fans, there's still reason to be leery. It's like being a dog who has been abused by his owner. You get walloped enough times and you're going to cringe and scamper the next time he makes a move. And even if the owner has a miraculous turnaround and starts treating you nicely, it will still take a little time before you trust him enough to let him pet you. And Royals fans are due for a little petting.

Garbage In, Garbage Out

2006-05-18T14:34:00.000-05:00

Since my last post, the Royals have tanked every game and are back on track to be one of the worst of all time. Their poor performance elicited this comment from an anonymous reader:

"Why can't we have a discussion about how baseball as a professional sport is an absolute joke due to the fact there is no salary cap whatsoever (and don't even give me that crap about the luxury tax) and parity is non-existent. if they don't fix this, baseball can be in serious trouble, not only in KC but in many towns across the nation."

My reaction is this: Yes, the financial structure of Major League Baseball is a joke. It is a situation that desperately needs to be fixed. And there have been numerable suggestions on how to go about righting the ship.

For instance, I've seen proposals where both a salary cap and a salary *floor* are put into place. This would force teams to spend a minimum amount of money on salary while keeping teams from grossly outspending the competition. It would be a way to keep stingy owners from pocketing their revenue sharing money rather than re-investing it back into the team. But it would be tough to regulate. Spending $50 million on salaries doesn't mean your team is going to compete (see: Kansas City Royals, 2006). If you could regulate that a certain amount was spent on player development, competent front office personnel, etc., that might improve teams to a certain degree. But, as in the Royals' case, it doesn't matter how much or how little money you spend if the decisions on how to spend it are ill-informed or misguided.

Look at the Baltimore Orioles as an example. Peter Angelos has spent significantly more money than the Royals over the last several years (the Oriole's average payroll over the last decade was $66 million, ranking 9th highest overall in MLB) and what does he have to show for it? Only two playoff appearances in the last 10 years and a .475 overall winning percentage.

How about last year's Mariners? They went out and picked up two big ticket free agents. The result? A payroll of $88 million and 69 wins. Is that what the Royals should be striving for? I hope not.

We all know how successful the Rangers were after giving Alex Rodriquez his otherworldly contract. They averaged 72 wins per season and finished last in their division every year until they traded him to the Yankees.

Also, I don't buy the parity argument. Here is a list of the World Series winners since the latest Yankee dynasty ended in 2000:

2001: Arizona Diamondbacks
2002: Anaheim Angels
2003: Florida Marlins
2004: Boston Red Sox
2005: Chicago White Sox

That's five different winners in five years. And two of those teams hadn't won a championship since World War I.

Additionally, 17 *different* teams have made the playoffs in that same time frame. Over 50% of the teams in the majors have made it to the postseason at least once in the last five years. That sounds like parity to me. Or should we reconstruct the playoffs to look like the NHL or NBA where nearly everyone gets in every year? Maybe we should ask the 12 people who actually watch the NHL playoffs or the three dozen who get excited for the NBA playoffs.

My point is this: Yes, the system baseball has in place is flawed. Seriously, in fact. But teams that don't make smart decisions with meager payrolls shouldn't be expected to make smart decisions with increased payrolls.

I'm not sure exactly what the best solution is. The NFL has a "hard" cap, the NBA a "soft" cap. Each of those leagues is thriving. But so is MLB. Attendance has never been higher. Same with overall revenues. It's just certain teams within MLB that are barely treading water. Of course, the same could be said for Portland, Golden State, and Atlanta in the NBA. Or Detroit, Arizona and New Orleans in the NFL. Are those teams hampered by the system? Not likely. They're just poorly run organizations.

So, fix the system in baseball! I'm all for it! Unfortunately, it isn't going to help teams like the Royals until someone can manage them competently.

Halley's Ballclub

2006-05-11T15:52:00.000-05:00

Uh, where did this come from?

After doing their best to challenge the all-time mark for futility in a season, the owner threatening wholesale changes throughout the organization and calling up one of their best prospects for no other reason than to rot on the bench, the Royals have done the unthinkable: They swept a 3-game series from the Cleveland Indians. Now, this may not be as impressive as last year's sweep of the Yankees, but we'll take what we can get. Usually, when a sentence contains the words "streak" and "Royals", there's a high probability that the words "extended" and "losing" are included as well. A three-game winning streak is as common as an Alex Gordon rookie card.

Does this mean the Royals are finally starting to figure things out? Absolutely not! Over the course of a 162-game season, even the worst of the worst manage to pull off the occasional miracle.

But we shouldn't shrug off this accomplishment, either. In fact, this time should be cherished. That's right; I said CHERISHED. Why on earth would I say that? Because there will be relatively few opportunities to revel in the Royals' success this year. This is quite possibly the hallmark of the season. Can you see this team sweeping another series against a quality team like Cleveland? I certainly wouldn't wager my next paycheck on that improbability.

But that's not the only reason to be excited about this juncture of the season. The fact that David Glass is finally looking to blow up one of the most inept and long-tenured front offices should bring at least a smug grin, if not a full-blown smile, to your face. I realize that the chances of competent front office personnel being hired by incompetent ownership are slim, but, as my favorite fortune cookie scroll told me, "Discontent is the first step in the progress of a man or a nation." If you want better results, you have to change something.

So, rejoice Royals fans! Two good things are happening simultaneously. It's like seeing Halley's Comet: A rare and fleeting bright spot that won't come around again for a long time. Only, we get two viewings in one week!

Sunshine

2006-05-04T10:22:00.000-05:00

I've been thinking for a while now about writing some reviews of my favorite movies. Not your run-of-the-mill Ebert & Roeper reviews, mind you, but reviews with a little more meat to them. At least, meat that's significant to me and quite possibly to you. I'm not real sure how I'm going to format these as of yet, so bear with me for this first one and I'll improve as I go.

One of my favorite love stories is "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind". It's not your typical love story, which is why I like it so much. I rented it within the last year and I finally purchased it recently and added it to my DVD collection. And since it reminded me of my desire to start the movie review series, it gets the honor of being the first film reviewed.

So, as I said before, "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" is not your typical love story. In fact, it's quite odd. The basic premise is that Joel (played by Jim Carrey) meets and falls in love with Clementine (played by Kate Winslett of "Titanic" fame). As their relationship progresses, they become tired of and irritated with each other. Clementine decides to go to a company that provides a service wherein they can erase any and all memories of a specific person from your life.

Joel finds out that Clementine has had the procedure and, in a final act of frustration, decides to have Clementine erased from his memory as well. But, while he's in the middle of his brain alteration, he realizes that their relationship wasn't all that bad and wants to stop the procedure. Unfortunately for him, he is in a sort of coma-like state and is unable to "wake up" and tell anyone to stop the mindwashing.

Instead, he follows the advice of the Clementine that still resides in his head:

"What if you take me somewhere else, somewhere where I don't belong and we can hide there until morning?"

Thus, the pair travels through the unmapped areas of Joel's brain in an attempt to escape from the forces that are trying to wipe her completely free from his skull.

Again, strange and atypical.

At the same time, though, it is sweet and redeeming.

To see why, let's look a little deeper into who Joel and Clementine are. Joel is a quiet and introspective guy who prefers to live within his own world and finds it difficult to deal with those around him. He's not totally antisocial, but he seems to fear the process in which people open themselves up to one another, particularly when it comes to a relationship with a woman. His hair is unkempt and his clothing is colorless and drab.

Clementine, on the other hand, is colorful in nearly every way. When we first meet her, her hair is dyed bright blue and she's wearing an orange sweatshirt. She's outgoing and willing to share just about anything about herself with just about anyone. She's almost intimate to a fault.

When they first meet, their personalities shine through. Clementine is somewhat pushy and overbearing while Joel is doing his best to just survive this encounter with this stranger. But things change. Joel goes out on a limb and offers Clementine a ride home, an act he would never normally do. Then, when they arrive at her place, he accepts her invitation to come up for a drink. Again, totally against the grain. She makes him promise to call when he gets home. He does and they end up going out again. They end up walking out on a frozen pond with Joel once again warily waving off his insecurities, his journey out onto the ice an obvious metaphor for the mini risks he's been taking in the early stages of his relationship with Clementine.

That's one of the first things that I really appreciated about Joel's character: His ability to finally put his fear aside and act on his feelings. That's definitely something that I've struggled with and continue to try to improve in my life, so I find it reassuring in this instance that he finds that the risk is worth taking.

There are a couple of other lessons that are somewhat interrelated:

-- People are unusual and cause each other pain.
-- People make mistakes, but love overcomes them.
-- It's better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all.
-- Things are usually more complicated than they seem.

The first one is a message you don't often get in your run-of-the-mill Hollywood movie. It seems that you'll usually find some gorgeous person who falls for another gorgeous person and ends up going through some minor conflict or miscommunication but they end up with each other in the end. That's really not how life works. People are weird. Everyone has some idiosyncrasies. Often times, those idiosyncrasies cause other people to hurt.

But true love finds a way to overcome and accept those oddities, which is the second lesson. People screw up. All the time. And people get hurt by those screw-ups. But true love deals with those mistakes and moves on. True love is the effort that people put out to get past those unintentional (or sometimes even intentional) wrongs.

The third point is a ridiculous cliche. But one that has weight. As the characters in this film demonstrate, they would rather have both good and bad memories of a relationship than no memories at all. And, honestly, you learn more about yourself and others from the lousy memories than the blissful ones.

The last message is a truth that goes largely unrecognized. There are many circumstances that play into how people interact with each other. Some are direct and some are VERY indirect. But it's unfair to judge a person or circumstance just by its outward appearance. There is usually a great deal going on behind the scenes that lends credence to what is actually happening. Just think about any regular situation in your own life. Then think about all the factors that have gone into why it has happened the way it has. Rarely do things occur in an isolated fashion.

So, there are my observations about "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind". If you haven't seen it, I highly recommend it. If you have seen it, I recommend seeing it again through the goggles of this review.

And now for a couple of random observations from the movie that I enjoyed, but didn't really fit into the theme of this essay:

Clementine had a collection of potatoes that she dressed in miniature human clothing. One was a nurse smoking a cigarette.

Random quote: "I'm making a birdhouse!"

Fantastic song that totally relates to the sweetness of this movie: "Somewhere Only We Know," by Keane.

Look for more reviews to come in the future. Until then, have fun!

Snack Attack

2006-05-02T15:01:00.000-05:00

I officially started boycotting my snack machine yesterday. I had started to boycott it earlier when they upped the prices from $.85 to $1.00, but I caved in to the sweet satisfaction of the giant honey bun.

Then, last week, I went downstairs to get a snack and the stupid machine had a light on that indicated that it couldn't accept bills, only change. No matter that half the items in the machine are priced at exactly $1.00. So I went back upstairs to my office, got some change and went back down to purchase my morning sugar jag. But when I put the change in, the machine immediately spit it back out. I was not pleased.

I came back upstairs and perused the machines that are actually in our office. But, as is typical, the machines were nearly empty because the guy who stocks them rarely does his job.

The next day, I went back downstairs to see if circumstances had changed. Lo and behold, the machine was re-stocked, which must mean that the guy added some change so that the dollar bill slot would work. I looked down and that flipping light was still on. I futilely tried toget it to accept my dollar to no avail. Change was rejected just as ithad been before. My irritation level leapt at least 2 more degrees.

So, this morning my boss informs me that the machine downstairs works again. I asked him if there were any cinnamon rolls or honey buns (which were the target of my hunger last week). He replied in the negatory. That was the final straw. The machine was nearly fully stocked last week and nothing could be purchased. The guy finally fixes the change issue but switches out the only worthwhile inventory. So, I am now boycotting that machine forever. Just my little way of sticking it to the man.

Links

2006-04-28T17:25:00.000-05:00

I'm not sure how many folks actually visit the links on the right side of the page, but I've added one that I find to be absolutely outstanding:

http://www.waiterrant.net

This guy is a career New York waiter who writes about his daily experiences, both good and bad, in most excellent fashion. I highly recommend reading him. Especially if you get bored reading my drivel.

Revelation

2006-04-28T10:10:00.000-05:00

**********DISCLAIMER**********THOUGH SPORTS-RELATED, THIS MIGHT STILL BE INTERESTING**********

The Royals finally ended their 11-game losing streak last weekend with another streak: Two in a row over Cleveland. This also temporarily put to rest my intestinal aching about how bad this team is.

Over the course of the streak, I kept asking myself (and others) the same question: Why I should continue to follow this team. I mean, isn't this like the kid who touches the hot pan on the stove yet, for some unknown reason, touches it again even after finding out it's painfully hot? And then keeps touching it repeatedly for the next 15 years? Why on Earth would someone continue to subject themselves to such an utterly hopeless pursuit?

Maybe we should start at the beginning.

My first memories of being a Royals fan go back to 1980. I was six years old but I remember that the town was on fire because of George Brett's amazing run at .400. That and the fact that the Royals were on their way to yet another Western Division title. My grandma had a "George Brett for President" bumper sticker and she took my brother and me out to get a t-shirt with Brett on it. Unfortunately for us, all the Brett shirts were sold out and we had to settle for Hal McRae. But my allegiance had been cemented: I would be a Royals fan from then on.

I had run-ins with kids about who was better, Brett or Mike Schmidt. I would simulate Royals games by myself with my Whiffle ball and bat, writing up the lineup for the Royals and their opponent for the series and then throwing the ball up, hitting it and deciding what play had happened by where the ball had landed. I would listen to games on my grandparents' front porch with them. I remember listening to an exruciating Royals/Tigers ALCS game in 1984 in the car with Dad on the way to soccer practice.

Then the Royals made it back to the World Series. Against the hated Cardinals. And they weren't supposed to come within a mile of beating St. Louis. But that didn't phase me. I watched every game and stuck with them even after they went down 3-1 in the Series. And they did the improbable. Until then, the nearly impossible. They came back and won the World Series. And I remember going to bed that night thinking that my life would never be the same.

The Royals stayed competitive throughout my youth, never making it to the playoffs again, but always managing to be within striking distance. Little did I know back then that they were fading gradually, just like the skills of an aging ballplayer. The difference between a .300 batting average and a .280 batting average is about two hits per month. You don't really notice it as it's happening, but at the end of the season you look back and realize that you just missed a few opportunities. That's how it was with the Royals after 1985. They didn't appear discernably worse. And as each year passed, those little differences continued to add up until they were just a shell of the organization they once were.

Finally, Ewing Kauffman realized that he wasn't going to be around forever and then started to make rash decisions concerning personnel, trying to capture that championship glory one last time before he passed. Those decisions began a downward spiral that the team has yet to pull itself out of.

For a while, my allegiances were split. Will Clark and the San Francisco Giants had captured my fancy in the playoffs of 1987 and 1989 and Clark had become my favorite player. I was rooting for the Giants because I wanted his team to do well. But I never stopped rooting for the Royals. As bad as they got, I still derived a great amount of pleasure from listening to them on the radio as a companion to whatever it happened to be that I was doing.

The last gasp of respectability was breathed in 1994 when the Royals had made an impressive run, only to be lost forever to the strike. From then on it was a steady stream of mediocre players, mediocre seasons and mediocre expectations. They cycled through guys like Jeff King, Greg Gagne, Gary Gaetti, Jay Bell and Dean Palmer.

But toward the end of the '90s and the beginning of the new century, some talent started to trickle through. They had Johnny Damon and Mike Sweeney; they had "Dos Carlos", Carlos Febles and Carlos Beltran; they traded for a young Jermaine Dye. They were starting to score runs in bunches. Unfortunately, they employed one of the worst bullpens in major league history. Lead after lead was blown. Prime seasons for young players were being wasted. And then began the exodus of talent.

Johnny Damon was not willing to take less money from the Royals than he could get on the free market. So that forced the Royals to trade Damon and try to get some value out of him before he left via free agency. In the deal, the Royals picked up Roberto Hernandez, a washed up closer and Angel Berroa, a young shortstop who turned out to be a Rookie of the Year. The Royals had the same situation arise with Jermaine Dye. The bounty? Neifi Perez, an overrated shortstop from Colorado, who will go down as one of the worst offensive regulars in modern baseball history.

Predictably, the exact circumstances of the previous talent dumps came together one more time. Carlos Beltran was quickly becoming an elite player. And there was no way the Royals could afford to keep him around. But this time, the situation played out a little differently. The Royals started out the 2003 with a 9-0 record and rode that momentum to their first winning record in nearly a decade. I hadn't had so much fun during a Royals season since I was 11 years old. I bought a partial season ticket package the next year, thinking that I might get first shot at playoff tickets the next season. And the season started out spectacularly. Opening Day, Beltran hit an extra-inning, walk-off homerun to win. My spirits couldn't have been higher.

But the roller coaster had begun it's terrifying descent. The Royals wouldn't come close to duplicating their magic 2003 and, in fact, would lose 100 games for the second time in three years. On their way to accomplishing that dubious feat, they had to try to get some value out of pending free agent Beltran. The return on that trade has been numbingly similar. Three fringe major league players all trying to prove they were worth the enormous price given up for them. And not doing nearly enough to justify their roster spots.

And so now the Royals have carved out a niche all their own in Major League baseball. They've now lost 100 or more games in three of the last four years and are an even bet to make it four-for-five. More mediocre, overpriced talent has come and gone. More hopeful young talent is trying to peck its way out of its minor league shell. The Royals' management is doing everything within its incredibly limited talents to extract the most out of this team.

But the question remains: Why do I continue to root for this team?

It certainly doesn't have anything to do with success. One winning season in the last 11 years is tough to swallow. It's not because of the young talent we've developed; they spend their peak years in someone else's uniforms. Speaking of uniforms, could that be the reason? Am I, like Jerry Seinfeld quipped, "rooting for laundry"? It sure seems that way considering the constant flow of players from team to team. Plus, it's hard to cheer for players you know won't perform.
But one day, while whining about the Royals most recent plight, a friend of mine gave me the answer:

"Keep rooting for the Royals. They need fans like you."

It was a simple yet profound statement. I had never thought of it that way before. Normally, I'm thinking about how the Royals can best satisfy my needs for sporting entertainment. But the simple fact of the matter is that the Royals (or any other professional sports franchise, for that matter) wouldn't exist without fans like me. People who stick with their team through thick and thin are the lifeblood of a sports franchise. They are the ones who continue to buy the tickets, watch the games on TV, listen to the games on the radio. Fans like me are directly responsible for paying player salaries, landing TV contracts and selling advertisements. Without fans like me, the Royals are literally nothing.

So, I suppose I could become a free agent myself and solicit the services of another team to follow. But what would be the point? A fan and his team build a relationship over time, something that can't be duplicated in a bandwagon's ride for the latest flash in the pan. All the history I've built up with this team MEANS something. I've been with them through the ultimate highs and the absolute dregs. Sure, my history doesn't compare to a New Englander who waited his entire life to see the Sox finally win a World Series, but the Sox also didn't lose 400 games in four years, either. And wasn't it all the sweeter for that guy when they did win and his loyalty had finally paid off?

But maybe that's the point, after all. Does winning a championship mean that my dedication has suddenly become justified? I suppose it does in the short-term. But I think it might be more along the lines of the journey being more special than the destination. Sure, it's great to win it all, but you still remember all the fun and sorrow and laughs and stomach punches that you went through to get there. You can't get that sort of satisfaction jumping from team to team, casting loyalty and history to the side. You've got to stick with it, continuing to hope for the payoff in the end, but also savoring the little payoffs along the way.

The Royals got hammered yesterday, 7-3. It was certainly disappointing but definitely not as bile-inducing as it could have been had I not come to this revelation: I need the Royals. And the Royals need me.