Tony's Blog

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A New Place to Live

2010-07-14T22:09:00.000-07:00

To those who visit or subscriber to this Blog, my apologies. I have been busy with many things, but one of things has not been blogging. However, you can find me over on my Posterous account. It's like blogging, only a little bit easier, which what I look for sometimes - just a little bit easier.

Check it out at http://anthonysheehan.posterous.com/. Feel free to love me or hate me just as much, just in a new location. I am better at posting regularly there. It is a delightful place.

Thanks for all the comments, Anonymous!

2010-02-23T15:54:00.000-08:00

I just wanted to give a quick word of thanks to all the spam comments that I have been receiving on the recent (a relative term, I know) posts on my nearly defunct blog.

So a big thanks to Anonymous. I, too, agree that my blog has "a lot more creativity and originality." And although I am not "looking for the purpose ed drugs?", and although I am not even sure what that means, I do appreciate the time it took to pose the question.

I promise that next time I have occasion to look for "Minissha Lamba Pictures" or a video of "Obama playing on XBox," I will think of you.

And thanks to all the other readers/commenters out there as well. Here's to another consistent year of inconsistent blogging! Really, I'll do better this time. Promise.

For those interested in more-frequent, less-substantive posts I have started a "lifestream" over on Posterous that you are all invited to bookmark. Yes, all of you - especially Anonymous.

http://anthonysheehan.posterous.com/

But I promise that this blog isn't dead. It was just hibernating.

Best Movie Ever (perhaps)

2009-10-23T09:16:00.000-07:00

I saw Race Across the Sky last night, a documentary about the mountain bike race by the same name. It was fantastic. I would recommend it to anyone who can travel back in time to yesterday to watch it. (It was only in theaters one night only.)

There are very few times that I cry - when I listen to organ music, when I hear stories of dogs dying, when people make fun of my mustache, etc. However, I may have cried while watching this movie that documents not a 100-mile mountain bike race with more than 12,000 feet of total climb, but a triumph of the human spirit. How can you not cry as you watch a 65-year-old man with two new prosthetic knees be stopped at the first checkpoint because he did not make the 4-hour cutoff?

In cycling there can be a lot of douchery - what with the leg-shaving and $18,000 carbon fiber superbikes - but you can't have anything but love and admiration for the participants as they struggle through the Race Across the Sky.

Uh, apparently I don't know how to imbed YouTube videos. ... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hpf1LHfLz0o

Growing pains

2009-10-09T16:36:00.000-07:00

I am growing a mustache.

I am doing so for several reasons. (1.) I want to be Magnum PI for Halloween. It will be a trial run to see if I want to be Magnum PI for the rest of my life. As if there is any question in my mind. (2.) I feel that mustaches run in my family, and who am I to sever these familial ties? (3.) If mustaches don't make a comeback now, I am afraid they never will. Like the fedora. I feel that I need to do my part. (4.) I have wanted to for years.

The goal:

Current status:

Wish me luck.

Seattle, let me count the ways

2009-09-23T17:56:00.000-07:00

Seattle is lovely. Granted I have only been here during the summer, the brief non-rainy season, but it has been nothing but delightful in the time I have been here. I had a tough time when I first moved from New York since, by default, I was successful and trendy simply because I lived there. Regardless of how much money I made (not much) or how many celebrities I partied with (none), I lived in New York, which made me important. At least it made me think that other people thought I was important, which is all that being important really is.

But then I moved to Seattle. Now I am in a city that is remarkable for few things - Jimmi Hendricks, Microsoft, Starbucks - and infamous for others - ceaseless rainfall, incessant recycling. No one is impressed when you say you live in Seattle. No one is jealous, there is no Sex in the City, no Housewives, no CSI. (Grey's Anatomy doesn't count. Neither does Frasier.) Kind of disheartening, I know. However, it requires that I form my own opinions and not rely on others'.

It's probably the same difference between dating a hot girl and dating a homely one.

And, as I said before, it is lovely. It is surrounded by water, but is not on the ocean. I have never understood why people consider the ocean beautiful. It is just a straight line on the horizon. Where is the beauty in that? No, Seattle is surrounded by water surrounded by mountains, so while you get the beauty of water views and shipping yards and sailboats, you also get a horizon accentuated with mountain ranges and snow-capped peaks. Makes a much better screensaver than the ocean would.

The residential streets of Seattle are fun to drive on (for you lucky suckers with cars). They have tight little roundabouts at intersections. And instead of speed bumps, they have three semi-roundabouts on a straight stretch of the road - one on one side, then one on the other, then one back on the other side, forcing you to ess around them. It just seems like a much more charming way to slow down than driving over a big plop of pavement.

Seattle has pine trees. The problem with leafy trees is that they lose their leaves. Sure they are beautiful in the fall and smell good in the Spring, but in the winter they are sad and dead-looking. Pine trees stay beautiful all year round. And fortunately there is enough ivy and leaves around the city to still make the Fall look like Fall, but not so many that once the leaves have gone that the whole place looks desolate.

And then there are the hills. Hills are are great. I don't know how I could go back to living in a flat city. Everywhere you go you get a new view. It is like building theater-style seating into the city. It's an intense workout running and biking up hills. It's a roller coaster driving down them. They act as easy landmarks to find yourself, lest you lose yourself. Love the hills.

It has two floating bridges. How much cooler are floating bridges than suspension bridges? Much, much cooler. It's kind of like being on a boat. A long flat boat that doesn't move. So kind of a boring boat, but a boring boat is more fun than an exciting bridge.

I've heard anecdotally that Seattle has a good music scene, although I have yet to confirm this personally. Maybe I'll consult Wikipedia for proof later.

Seattle is a nice city to ride a bike in. That is more important to me than it is for some, but I think that bike-friendliness is generally an indicator of overall friendliness. I admit that it is no Portland or Berkeley, but it makes for a pleasant commute and for relaxing rides on the weekends.

It gives you all the excitement of a big city (professional athletics, big-name bands, etc.) paired with the charm of a small one (the Puyallup Fair gets more hype than anything I have seen in my time here).

Seattle, I approve. You're not as sexy as New York, not as glamorous as LA, not as political as DC, not as hip as San Fran, not as hippie as Portland, not as gritty as Chicago, not as proud as Boston, not as colorful as Miami, but you make me happy.

It is good that man should be alone

2009-08-02T23:39:00.000-07:00

NOTE: Mom, don’t worry. I’m talking about my living situation, not my philosophy on marriage.

So for those of you (all three of you that read this blog, that is) who don’t know, I now live in Seattle. It’s a lovely place and I have enjoyed the month and three days that I have been here very much. People are generally nice and the weather is generally good, although I know that will soon change. The weather, not the people that is … hopefully.

And something else that is lovely - I live alone in a one-bedroom apartment on Queen Anne. Now, when I first decided to live alone, I was somewhat hesitant. I was concerned that my pure, uninhibited natural man would take over and I would spend my nights wallowing in dirty laundry and running around in my underpants eating Oreos sloppily dipped in curdled milk. That has not happened - not yet, at least.

In fact, I am much more productive and clean than I ever was living with previous roommates. Perhaps it is because I have no one to blame my mess on. Or maybe it is because I have to prove to myself that I am all growed up. Or, mst likely, it is just because my apartment seems so new to me, and it is always easier to take care of things when they are new. Like why we love babies and not 15-year-olds.

Another concern that I had moving into an apartment alone was that I would become (more) introverted and (more) asocial. It is almost impossible to avoid human interaction when you have roommates, hard as you may try. So without that interaction natively built into my living situation, how would I cope? Would I watch Friends reruns late at night to pretend they were my own?

Well, it may be too early to tell. However, what I will say is that I want what I don’t have. That is simply how I am wired. When I have a salad for lunch, I wish I had an avocado BLT; when I have an avocado BLT, I wish I had jalapeno poppers; when I have jalapeno poppers, I wish I had a glass of milk; etc. Not just for lunch, but for life.

So when I come home to an apartment full of roommates, I only want to escape them and have some time alone. I want to isolate myself so that I can have what I don’t have - a place to call my own. But now, when I come home to an empty apartment - just me and my Craigslist couch - I want to be with people. I want to reach out and touch someone. This is very good for me, and something that I have had a hard time doing at other times in my life.

Living alone, as I have experienced it thus far, is a good thing for me. It makes me want to be with people more. And it gives me time to do other things best done privately.

I'm Angry on the Inside

2009-05-07T20:26:00.000-07:00

The list of reasons that I blog is extensive. To practice writing something other emails, to wake up the next morning to see if anyone has commented, to boost my sex appeal, etc. At the top of that list has to be the ability to passive-aggressively complain about the times that I have been abused.

I ride my bike to work. I enjoy it. Every morning that I get on my bike I am like a kid again. Often the only thing that drags me out of bed in the morning is knowing that after I shower and pretend to comb my hair, I get to ride my bicycle. Even if I dread every other part of my day, at least I as I ride for 25 minutes to and from work. It is faster than taking the subway, and I always get the best parking spot in the city - locked to the sign post directly in front of my building. I only have to take 7 steps before I am through our revolving doors and on my way to work. Life couldn't get better.

But today the building manager told me that I can't lock my bike in front of the building anymore. I threw the kind of fit that I throw - first by agreeing to do whatever I am told, and then nervously trying to stand up for myself and eventually walking away in the middle of a semi-coherent sentence.

The best answer that he gave me was that I'm not supposed to lock my bike there. I don't really know what that means. Here's what I do know:

It is not illegal to lock your bike to street signs as long as you don't block the sidewalk or cover the sign itself.
The sidewalk is public property, not owned by the building.
The building owner does not allow bikes inside, so I cannot take my bike in with me.
If I don't lock it up outside my building, I will just lock it up outside the building next door, then making it another building manager's problem. That's like picking up your dog's poop and throwing it over your fence into your neighbor's yard.
The month of May is National Bike Month. Have a heart.
I have been locking my bike there at that sign post for almost a year now. Doesn't that give me a legal right to continue to park there? Come on you lawyers, help me out.

Anybody who hates bikes hates childhood memories. And anybody who hates childhood memories has no soul. Why does my building manager hate childhood memories? I don't know. He is from the Bronx, so maybe he never rode a bike.

I heart New York, kind of

2009-05-05T18:42:00.000-07:00

I haven't written much about New York. The city is fascinating, it really is. Perhaps even more fascinating, in fact, than Rexburg. I would like to list my ten favorite things about New York, so please indulge me.

I am not sure why I feel compelled to list these now, but maybe it is an attempt to convince myself that the Tony-NY romance is still alive. The honeymoon is definitely over, but maybe the flame of romance can yet be re-kindled.

5pointz graffiti in Long Island City, Queens - Every day that I ride the 7 train, which is every day that I don't ride my bike to work, I ride past this place. It is a city block which is comprised of several warehouses, entirely covered in graffiti. It is right next to the MOMA PS1 contemporary art center and a fascinating urban art hub. I should go take a closer look, but graffiti and barbed wire scare me.
Softball in Central Park - I probably like this because it represents the warm summer evenings and because I enjoy kicking picnickers off the Great Lawn. Also, it is the kind of thing that you tourists just can't do. They can't come to New York for a weekend and be on a softball team.
Old Jewish guys - They are just delightful.
Williamsburg on Shabbat - It is like stepping into a different world. As you walk down the street, it is all a flash of payot and kolpik. (I don't really know those words, I just Wikipedia'd them.) Women and men walk on different sides of the streets, and I wonder if I am proud or ashamed to be a Gentile.
Street Meat - The best deal in town. With the recent Swine Flu "outbreak," perhaps I should steer clear of these vendors, but I can't help myself. The meat is undercooked, the utensils are flavored with the grease of chicken past, and the cooking surface is peppered with the same airborne particulate that makes the air unfit to breathe, but it is wonderful. Give me a falafel over penne ala Vodka (is that a fancy dish? I hope so ...) any day.
Girls that wear short skirts and stilettos on Friday nights regardless of the weather - They make the rest of us feel warm in the winter.
Bike messengers - I am biased because I love bicycles, but I'm not sure if the city would be the same with out bike messangers. They are dangerous and embody the "I live dangerous" attitude that everyone has to have to a certain degree to live in New York. Their disregard for crossing traffic and common sense is amusing.
Knicks fans - Just because the only thing they hate more than losing is winning, because they know that it won't last. The same can be said for Jets and Mets fans. It's such a bitter way to live life.
The guys who work on Wall Street - Proof that you can make a living out of being a frat boy.
Halloween - Adults dressing up like children. It's charming, really.
The F word - I found it highly offensive at first, and took it personally any time I heard it, but I now find it quite endearing and remarkably diverse. It is a word appropriate for work and play, for love and hate. I would totally start using it if I could do it without giggling and blushing.
Garbage, garbage everywhere - You have no idea how many times I have had to stop and get plastic bags untangled from the gears in my bike. The willingness to cope with the ubiquity of garbage is part of what it takes to live in New York. You don't care, you don't complain, you just step over it and keep on walking.
BET - Did you know that they actually have advertisements for shows on BET on the uptown and Bronx-bound trains? I always wonder if I am lost when I start to see more and more BET ads. Of course, I have never watched an episode of Harlem Heights, so maybe I should try it before passing judgment.
Exposed brick - New York loves its exposed brick. Not sure why, but we love it. Having an apartment with exposed brick is the holy grail of deliberately unfinished walls. You stare it for hours and call your mom to tell her about how bricky and exposed it is. Again, not sure why.

So 14, not 10. I guess you make me smile, New York. But I still hate you for charging me $900 in rent and for having so many potholes.

Longer than it looks

2009-04-22T20:09:00.000-07:00

Last Saturday I ran the Salt Lake City marathon. Although I did not win - disappointing, I know - I did finish. Going in my goal was to come across in under four hours, which is a fairly common marathon goal. I missed that goal by just over a minute, at 4:01:15 according to my timing chip. I'm not complaining, though, because after 26.2 miles, turns out my time didn't matter that much to me. It probably means a lot to other people who were further from dying in a pool of tired sweat. But to me, all I wanted to do was cross the finish line and eat a Creamies. (That was one of the sponsors. Chocolate ice cream popsicle after a marathon. It seemed like a good idea to someone, I guess.)

The course was pleasant, and the weather almost ideal for marathoning. The first half was cooler, about 50 degrees, with no wind. After rounding the 13-mile marker - at about 1:57 for me - the clouds blew away and the air started to heat up, but nothing more than 60 or 65 degrees. It made for a beautiful, excuse-free day for a run.

I am a heart-rate runner. It is a more consistent measure than running on pace alone since pace highly varies depending on GPS accuracy, and since it is easy to over-exhert yourself trying to maintain a pace when other variables are in play - elevation, heat, hills, etc. For the first half of the marathon, I kept my heart rate at a fairly even 147-148. After that, I wanted to push myself up to about 155 and then, with 4 miles to go I planned on "throwing the hammer down" (as I referred to it in my head, amused) to about 165-170, depending on what was left in the tank. It was especially amusing since my last four miles felt like I was trying to tow a truck and "throwing the hammer down" in reality was just maintaining an 11-minute mile.

What amazes me about marathons are the people who run them. Mainly the ones who run faster than I do. Like the 60-year-old women who run it in three and a half hours. Or the 250-pound cleidsdales that cruise on by down the home stretch. They just blow my mind. Our bodies are just miraculous. That's what I told myself as my hamstrings started to seize and my vision started to blur.

When I burst (kind of) across the finish line, it was amazing. It was almost as surreal as the time I ran my mom's new Jetta into a Hastings signpost or as walking through the Boise airport when I got back from Brazil. I am so happy I decided to do it. I wish I would have won, though.

Montauk or Bust

2009-04-07T07:25:00.001-07:00

This weekend I rode my bike to Montauk, which is the city at the end of Long Island. From my house to Montauk is a total of 136 miles, which I covered in a total of 7 hours and 15 minutes at an average speed of 18.25 MPH. I was pleasantly surprised with how well I held up to the distance and speed, especially considering last year I was averaging a max of about 15 MPH on my longer rides. (Boston, Poughkeepsie, Philadelphia, etc.) Granted, the ride to Montauk is almost perfectly flat, which obviously helps the pace, I was still pleasantly surprised.

I enjoyed most all of the ride. The weather left a little to be desired, but that comes with the territory of Long Island in the early spring I think. It didn't rain, but was gray and windy. I probably should do it again in May or June when the trees are blossoming and the family money is out and about. There's just something about getting nudged off the road by a Land Rover that makes me feel special.

The key learnings:

Montauk is kind of nasty during the first week of April
Life is better with a tail wind than with a head wind. It's the difference between 23.5 MPH and 15.5 MPH.
I need a home in the Hamptons. It is the only way I will ever truly be happy.
Any food tastes good after 136 miles.
Riding in Manhattan after riding on the peaceful, uninhabited streets of Southampton is stressful. I enjoy riding in the city, but I am sure it is taking years off my life.
I don't take pictures because when I do I regret having not taken better ones.
Having the right equipment makes a world of difference.
Being prepared doesn't always pay off.
I think I'm a lot cooler than other people do. Really, I think I am like the coolest person in the world. Really. Like almost every mile, I thought to myself, "I'm riding to *Montauk*. How cool is that? Just me and 136 miles of coastal beauty. What a story am I to tell!" But no one really cares all that much. And I'm ok with that.
Helmet hair looks a lot like homeless hair.

If you have any recommendations on where I should go on my next weekend warrior trip, I am open to suggestions. I am thinking Atlantic City or Scranton. Or maybe San Diego.

How Speed Dating Should Be, Part 3 - The Results

2009-03-12T22:38:00.000-07:00

So I am not entirely sure what I was expecting in the results. Well, that’s not true. I knew exactly what I was expecting - 29-for-29. And that previous estimate of 16 to 18? That was obligatory modesty, like when rich people say, “There’s more to life than money.”

Having known myself for 24 years now, I can’t imagine why any reasonable, rational woman wouldn’t jump at a chance to go out with me. According to my daily affirmations, I am devilishly charming, fashionable, suave, unbearably handsome, etc. I sing in the mellifluous tenor of an angel, I am a high-powered public relations executive, I can juggle, I literally could go on for hours.

But I won’t. Instead, I will outline the results. To warn you, they are a bit unsettling:

Total number of girls with whom I met: 29
Total number of girls in whom I was interested: 7
Total number of girls who yesed me: 18
Total number of girls who yesed me that I was interested in: 3

So yes, I hit the modest estimate of 18 yeses. That leaves, however, 11 girls unaccounted for, and, more importantly, 4 girls that I was interested in that were mysteriously omitted from my list. As I said before, unsettling. “Maybe you just weren’t their type” is an empty excuse made for and by people who aren’t yet ready to face reality.

The truth is that most of these 11 girls were omitted from my list due to clerical and administrative errors. I mean the event was well organized, but off the top of my head I can think of three rudimentary organizational oversights.

1. The importance of writing legibly on our name tags was not made clear at the outset. When we wrote our names and numbers on our name tags, we were not told, “Please write in such a manner that people will be able to read them.” I was somewhat careless and let the 3 in my 63 spill over the edge, which meant that it was easily mistaken for a 65 or even a 68. Since my number was really the only way that my yeses were registered, I imagine 10% of my dates were lost to lucky numbers 65 and 68. You’re welcome. We’ll say this accounts for 3 of my non-yeses.
2. The boxes were not in the most-convenient locations. At the end of the event, we were instructed to help ourselves to food and drink, and to put our lists in the boxes. However, no specific instruction was given on the location of these boxes, nor if there were boy boxes and girl boxes. I did notice a considerable confusion as we left the dating arena as people tried to locate the proper receptacles. I would estimate that an additional 10% of all attendees were not able to find the ballot boxes, or threw their lists in the garbage by mistake. Garbage cans are, after all, just large boxes. Another 3 non-yeses accounted for.
3. How to mark “yes” on the lists was ambiguous. The lists that we received has a box above which was written “Yes/no.” I wrote in mine either C or D, which was a code I used to keep track without having to risk my dates seeing my actual number of yeses or nos. (The inside scoop: C was for cat, D was for dog. Before you pass judgment, D was “yes” because I like dogs better than cats.) I saw many people who were just making a check mark or slash in each box. However, a slash is neither a yes nor a no. It is just an annotation. So what if I put slashes through every person I was not interested in, but the organizers thought the opposite was true – that slashes were affirmative responses? An innocent mistake with disastrous results. I would say, in fact, that this confusion spread as far as an additional 10% of participants, accounting for 3 more non-yeses.

In sum, we can reasonably blame 9 of the 11 non-yeses on simple clerical and human error. The other two? Come to think of it, there was one “date” that had me sitting in front of an empty chair, which I did put on my list as “Empty Chair.” The empty chair could not say yes, clearly. And the last one? The last one may have been a girl with such egregiously poor taste in men that she consciously, deliberately marked “no.” Her loss, I assure you.

I look forward to many weekends rich with dates from my yes list. That is to say weekends starting in April after the conclusion of March Madness. I have to keep my priorities straight.

Orange Juice like it should be

2009-03-08T08:25:00.000-07:00

Every once in a while I am blown away by developments in the packaging industry. Like 6 or seven years ago, someone decided that instead of selling 12-packs of Coke in boxes stacked on a 2x3 footprint, they would sell them on a 1/6 footprint. At the time, they were labeled "fridge packs," because the packaging fit better into conventional refrigerators, and, more importantly, you could easily access all the cans without tearing the box to pieces. Now all 12-packs are sold in this packaging.

I could go on and on, but I can just think of this one example in recent history. I will make the assertion that these kinds of developments are happening constantly, but I have no idea if it is true.

Yesterday I went to the store for my weekly health-food-and-junk-food shopping trip and picked up a carton of Tropicana orange juice. When I came home, I was giddy with excitement when I went to pour myself a glass.

I am not sure if you can tell what is going on here, but instead of the cap being flat on the top, it is a hemisphere shaped like an orange. How fun is that? Instead of twisting a boring cap, you are twisting diminutive plastic orange. It may seem just like wasted plastic, but I, for one, am now a Tropicana man for life.

The packaging also reads "squeeze, it's a natural" surrounding the cap. I'm not sure exactly what that means, but I can't help but giggle at its sexual undertones.

Advisory: My Blog has Changed Names

2009-03-03T15:15:00.001-08:00

I changed the name of my blog from "The Nuances of Life" to something that more accurately reflects the content of the blog and that has more substance: "Tony's Blog." I'm not exactly sure what I was thinking when I named it "The Nuance of Life." Although they are important, very few were covered in my posts.

I do not foresee this changing the blog at all, but it is now more honest with itself.

How Speed Dating Should Be, Part 2

2009-02-28T20:17:00.000-08:00

So I am now back from the speed dating night hosted by the Manhattan 3rd Ward, and I have to say that overall I was impressed. There were at least 200 people there, split almost evenly between men and women. In fact, there were a few more men than women, which, by Mormon standards, is nothing short of a miracle. My props to the organizers, although my props unfortunately have no cash value.

Each microdate was 3 minutes or 90 seconds long, depending on the flight and fancy of the guy with the whistle. 90 seconds is, consequently, my attention span. Convenient. It is also just about enough time to decide if you like a girl's lips, eyes, and accent. Which are, consequently, all I really care about.

We were given a paper with a number (mine was 63), and a grid with about 30 spaces in which we wrote the name and number of your "date," and whether you would consider to go on a real date with her in the future. At the end, they collected the sheets, compared them go each other, and advised each party of any yes-yes matches. A simple, smart system. That's why I feel kind of bad for abusing it.

There is only one way to find out what each girl thought of me if I "yes" only those I was interested in - 8 of 30, as a point of reference. I would essentially only have a sample size of 8, because only those 8 would be "yes-yes" candidates. In order to increase the sample size to 30, I would have to "yes" all 30, which could make it hard to sort through those who were actual yeses. Unless, of course, I recorded all the genuine yeses separately on a list I kept privately. And that's exactly what I did.

Of course, this was a clear abuse of the system, which probably makes me a bad person. Or just a sucker for data.

I will not go into details about the microdates specifically in order to protect their privacy. Sufficient to say, intimate details changed hands. What I would like to do, however, is make some predictions on a few key outcomes. These predictions are fairly indicative of the evening in general.

L - She will say yes because I wear hipster glasses that make me look cooler than I really am. She would not dare say yes to anyone who was not a cool hipster, or at least had glasses that played the part.

J - She will say no because she knows me well enough to know that she couldn't stand to spend more than 90 seconds with me.

M - She will say no because she was the most attractive girl there, by a wide margin. If she says yes, I have been grossly underestimating how attractive I am to the opposite sex.

R - She will say no because I asked her what she did for a living twice in a 90-second span. Asking someone what they do for a living says, "I am a boring conversationalist." Asking them twice says, "I am a boring conversationalist, and I don't listen to you."

Overall - I estimate that 18 of the 30 will be interested in a date. That may seem high, but I am an optimist. I might as well be an optimist now before I get the results and find out that only 3 could bear me for a real date and be forced into pessimism.

Even if no real dates materialize from this activity, I will at least learn that being rejected hurts, but it hurts like getting hit in the head with a kickball. It stings and leaves a big red mark on your face, but it doesn't do any permanent damage. That's a good lesson, one that most people learn in grade school.

How Speed Dating Should Be, Part 1

2009-02-28T13:40:00.000-08:00

I am going speed dating this evening, which is hosted by one of the Manhattan singles' ward. I have never speed dated, although I have seen it done on TV, never with remarkable results. Although I will withhold judgment until later tonight after I am all speed-dated up, I would like to propose a model for fool-proof (read "Tony-proof") speed dates.

The advantage to speed dating over conventional dating is its efficiency. With that in mind, the key has to be total transparency. Going into each micro-date, both man and woman should know everything about each other. So instead of being forced to slowly find out their talents and eccentricities through months of expensive and time-consuming dating, they can cut right to the chase.

I am not just talking about likes and dislikes. Who really cares if my favorite color is green and if I like ponies? The kind of woman that I would never be interested in, that's who. I'm talking about medical records, academic transcripts and bank statements. How many pushups can you do? Does anyone in your family have a history of glaucoma? Do you have weak ankles (which Mark refers to lovingly as "wankles")?

It would, of course, also cover uncomfortable questions that would potentially emerge in the developmental stages of a budding romance. It makes no sense to wait until 6 months in to address these kinds of deal-breakers when you could address them up front. How many children do you want to have? Do you want a TV in the bedroom? Would you ever consider naming your son Tiger Woods Sheehan? In terms of toothpaste tubes, are you a squeezer or a roller?

Each party would be given five minutes to review their documents, then they would be given five minutes to converse, and then they would move on. Based on their impressions from the quantitative and qualitative analyses, they would decide jointly to further pursue a relationship, and whether it would on a long-term or just-for-fun basis.

They would each be required to attend speed dating sessions at a predetermined interval - every three months, for example - to confirm that they are really not interested in pursuing other options. So they would sit through the session, and if they still are most compatible with their current girl/boyfriend, then the relationship can continue. If not, they should try other candidates that they are better matched with. No hard feelings, no tears.

It is undoubtedly the best way. Or so I say prior to my speed dating rendezvous. I'll let you know how I feel in a few hours afterward. My gut tells me it will be something like, "Speed dating is stupid. And girls are stupid. Where's my Xbox?"

If this type of speed dating were common, or even mandatory, time could be spent more productively

A Marathon Post

2009-02-23T15:52:00.000-08:00

I am training for the Salt Lake City marathon. Now, I realize that there are a few fundamental logical flaws about that statement – “Why Salt Lake, when you live in New York?” and “But marathons are for athletic types, Tony!” just as a couple of examples. But I am going through with it nonetheless.

The main reason that I am doing it is squarely in line with the assertions outlined in the disgustingly accurate blog StuffWhitePeopleLike.com. Beyond that, I am doing it because (a.) Lance Armstrong did it, (b.) girls do it, and I am not one to be beat by a girl, (c.) training for it is cheap entertainment, (d.) entrance into the New York Marathon is on a lottery basis and (e.) it gives me an excuse to wear running tights.

Although I am far from being ready for the marathon – I am about 1/3 of the way into my training – I have a few observations thus far. I’ll keep it to four for the time being, although I could offer many more. Running gives you way, way too much time to think.

(1.) There are few physical sensations that are more persuasive than having to go to the bathroom. Granted, I have never been water-boarded, which some say is unpleasant, but when you are running and you know you are 5 miles from the nearest bathroom, it is stressful. At the first inkling of tinkling, you start to run both more quickly and more smoothly. It makes life one big cardiovascular potty dance.

(2.) You only meet people who are running faster or slower than you. Everyone who is running at the same pace as you will stay the same distance in front of you or behind you. I’m sure there is a life lesson to be learned in that somewhere.

(3.) 26.2 miles is long. To date, the farthest I have run is 18 miles, and that was actually a 16-mile training run during which I got lost running circles in Brooklyn for 2 miles. Our bodies are remarkable adaptive because I remember when my knees gave out after 3 miles. (That is not a testament to my body specifically, but to bodies in general.) Or maybe it’s just a testament to how much I complain.

(4.) There’s room for improvement. Always. I am looking at finishing the marathon in about 4 hours, 3 hours 45 minutes best-case scenario. That’s chump change by marathon standards. But I won’t be able to run better than that until I’ve run at that pace. It’s like lower-tier mediocrity is a necessary step to upper-middle-tier mediocrity.

I'll try to provide periodic updates on how goes the training. And trying is half the battle.

For eternity, or so we can assume

2008-09-08T20:38:00.001-07:00

I went to Mark and Cori's wedding two weekends ago in the Redlands, CA temple. It was lovely, and they seem happy enough. It was a special and joyous day for both of them, in part, I am sure, because they were joined in the eternal bond of marriage. And also in larger part because it's the first time that either of them has seen me in more than a year. It's enough to make anyone ebullient. Something like that, at least.

The ceremony (using the non-secular term here, for the sake of reverence) itself was inspirational. They always are. To be honest, though, it would have been a little more pleasant for all if Mark hadn't cried like a toddler stripped of his binky. I think we all wanted to walk up and punch him in the arm or put him in time out until he composed himself.

It was nice to see a few old friends and both the families of Mark and Cori again. I have fond memories of all of them, way back from my college days. (You know, way back 13 months ago.) As I watched them and their families and friends interact, I started to think how incredible it is that more marriages don't end in disaster. I don't say this as a cynic whose longest relationship has lasted 3 weeks (with whom, for the sake of this post, will go unacknowledged ...), but as a realist. Or -- how does it go -- a cautious optimist.

There are so many moving parts. Marriage, if it were just between man and woman, would be (is?) terrifying in its own right. You could have done better. It is always true. If we assume otherwise, then we are assuming that we have lived our lives perfectly. If you were more kind, more dedicated, more athletic, more hygienic, you could have married a better woman. But you aren't, so you take what you can get. That will haunt you the rest of your life. And, of course, the same is true of your wife. She could have done better. As it is, you have settled for each other. You are both entering marriage with a somewhat deflated version of your true potential, simply because you are imperfect.

In life, there is such a thing called repentance and agency. So if you have chosen a path that is less than perfect, there is a chance to right yourself. That is your choice. But once you are married, you can't go back. If you have settled for a wife, regardless of how drastic of an upturn you take in your own life, you can't change who you have married unless she changes into a better person as well. (For the sake of this argument, of course, divorce is not an option.) This is not true of anything in life anymore except for marriage. Career paths constantly change, we cycle through friends and lifestyles and cars, but that ring is one eternal round. That always sounds so ominous, like swimming towards the surface and never being able to reach the top. One eternal round indeed.

And then come each of your families, and that has to be a mess. No one likes their in-laws, for whatever reason, and the inlaws know that their children could have done better. Parents hate to see their children settle, or so I would assume. That's how it worked out, at least, in The Fiddler on the Roof. Siblings are all over the place, aunts, uncles, pets. If I took a girl home and Winston didn't like her, it's over, no questions asked. (Yes, I trust my dog's instincts over my own.)

Beyond the actual people involved are each of their distinct eccentricities. I would live in Seattle, but not Portland. I eat peanut M&Ms individually, but chocolate M&Ms 3 at a time. Does that make sense? No. But what if, 7 years into our marriage, I find out the opposite is true of my wife. All of a sudden everything is upended. I'm not sure if we could work it out with such differences between us. I know there have been rumors of compromise in marriages, but it seems like a more-pronounced form of settling.

It is like unboxing a puzzle, throwing it on the table, and hoping that all the pieces fall into place. There are too many variables. It will never work.

In the end, I find it miraculous that divorce rates and uxoricide rates are as low as they are. (Uxoricide means the murder of your wife. I had to look that up, so if you are ever browsing through my search history, don't be worried when you see things life "Kill my wife," "Spouse murder," "Spousicide," etc.) To all those of you who are married or to those of you who have had a relationship that has lasted for more than 3 weeks, I tip my hat.

Schwinn to Win

2008-07-11T14:33:00.001-07:00

A lot has happened in terms of bloggables lately, and I guarantee that I won’t cover all of them. But I will try to touch them all, at lease in brief.

In early May, I bought a bicycle. It was a $100 Craigslist job that had brakes that worked (kind of) and wheels that only slightly wobbled. It is a Schwinn Continental road bike that is the beautiful burnt umber ubiquitous in the ‘70s, complete with chrome hardware and lugged joints. It even has a steel kickstand lugged into the frame. In sum, it’s a tank of a bike.

My plan was to ride the bike to work. That, I figured, would make the city more Rexburg-y, which in this context I am referring to as a good thing. It would free me up to softly whistle to myself as I rode, liberating me from the social pressure on the subway to not whistle. I could, much in Rexburg style, ring my bell and wave at people on the sidewalk as they walked jealous of my freedom. I could take Sunday afternoon rides through the alfalfa fields and past the rope swing over the irrigation canals full of crystal clear, clearly potable water. It would transform my world, that tank of a bike.

Once I bought the bike, I knew that, regardless of my naïve Rexburg-y attitude, I should purchase a lock. Before I proceed, I must point out that during my 3 years at BYU-Idaho, I locked my bike once. This was during an overnight trip to Sun Valley I was taking for the Steinbeck festival in Sun Valley, and I thought to myself, “What the heck. Might as well throw this thing on here.” Upon my return, my bike was gone. It seemed strange to me.

It turns out that the bike was stolen by some local hooligans (referred to by the Rexburg police as "Mexicans") and later thrown into a half-empty canal when they were pursued by the authorities. I was able to recover the bike, and, as it turns out, I did not use the lock properly. I locked the frame to the front wheel, but not to the bike rack itself. A minor oversight, I assure you.

Anyways, I go to the local bike shop here in NY and ask what kind of lock they recommend. Their response: “We don’t recommend any of them.” Interesting response, right?

“I see. Then what should I do?”

“Just don’t lock your bike up, ever. If you do, it will get stolen, we guarantee it.”

“Oh, I see. What about that big one there, with the inch-thick chain that weighs 18 pounds.”

“Yeah, it doesn’t work. You see, a hacksaw right here and a hydraulic car jack there … just like that your bike’s gone.”

“So if I can’t park my bike inside …”

“Just don’t ride it. You’ll be throwing it out the window.”

I turned around and walked out, a bit dejected and feeling like a failure. I was a victim of the worst salesmanship of all time. It seems like a counterproductive business model for a bike shop. Not only did they not sell me a lock (which can run up to $80), but they did not give themselves the opportunity to sell me a new bike once mine was stolen.

Eventually, I went to a place closer to my apartment out in Queens where no one speaks fluent English. Even if they wanted to discourage me from buying a lock they couldn’t. (This is just an example of how complicated the path of least resistance can be.) I then had everything that I needed, happiness just moments away.

A quick anatomy of my commute. From Sunnyside to Long Island City, a piece of cake. There is a marked bike path on Skillman Avenue until you hit Queensboro Bridge. The bridge has a bike/pedestrian path seperated from traffic by a cement barrier, so the level of danger is very low. I mean, I get dripped on (I find it best not to ask what is dripping, as a general New York rule) and have to avoid bums driving shopping carts occasionally, but nothing to complain about.

However, once across the bridge, things get a little more complicated for a cyclist. You then hit midtown Manhattan. This is a place where lane markers are only gentle recommendations and where blinkers only indicate that you are from out of town. As I came off the bridge and ventured into traffic I felt the same as I felt wandering into Mrs. Webster's Kindergarten class 18 years ago. Where to go, what to do, TBD.

The first few days I just parked my bike on a corner and waited for a fellow cyclist who looked like he or she knew how to ride without riding under a bus. I would then try to keep up, learning the unwritten rules of riding in NY.

And so it went until I soon became more comfortable and knew where the danger zones were. I soon realized that I needed to be in the right-most lane at 58th Street or I would be toppled by the traffic turning left onto the bridge. And that pedestrians are equally as vocal in their dissaproval as cab drivers. I learned that two-lane roads are scarier than one-lane roads, especially when you are riding down the double yellow. I also learned that one-lane roads are scary when you're going the wrong way down them.

I am happy to say that in almost 3 months of parking my bike at Bryant Park, it has not been stolen. And I am also happy to say that since I started riding to work, I have lost more than 20 pounds. I attribute 60% of that weight to excercise and 40% to the anxiety of 19 blocks' worth of vindictive motorists and pedestrians with an inordinate sense of entitlement.

The True NY State of Mind

2008-06-17T07:17:00.000-07:00

This post is long overdue, but it is about something that burns every time I think about it. I am generally an ace at pretending that things that hurt don't ever phase me. It is part of what classifies me as a bona fide badass. (Poll: Can I be a badass and still use words like bona fide?) So for the most part, I like to bring up painful topics before someone else does, just to prove that I have moved on, much as you would expect from a badass. You know, like, "You remember how Boise State lost to East Carolina in the Hawaii Bowl? Yeah, I don't even care about that."

Well, this is different. I get so frustrated and so bitter that I have just trapped it inside, which is the healthy way to deal with problems, as I understand it. Anyways, I take us back to May 10. I have a few friends at church who wanted to go to a Mets game. That is fine, of course, but they aren't what you would call true baseball fans. As a matter of fact, they had never been to a baseball game and were in it for the baseball experience. The problem this created were 1) the Mets and 2) the weather.

The Mets have not been the creme de la creme of baseball teams lately (read "for the last two decades"). And unless you can really respect fielding errors and drunken fans, you will have a hard time getting the true baseball experience out of the Mets. As for the weather, it was raining.

In an unfortunate lapse of judgment, we had decided that I would purchase the tickets and the others would pay me back at the game. In total, I purchased 6 tickets, one for me and one for the five others who agreed to go with me. Come the day of the game, the other five decided they did not want to go, for various reasons (mainly those listed above). This left me with 5 more tickets than I needed and five fewer friends than I thought I had.

It was a gametime development, so I couldn’t sell the tickets on Craigslist. But it seemed like such a waste to let the tickets go to waste. I figured that I could give the tickets away to whoever needed them, but the problem was finding people who would actually take them. I would say that 95% of people coming off the subway already had tickets, so it would be so inefficient to stand around trying to find the 5% interested.

I figured that the only place where 100% of the people passing through are actually looking for tickets would be the ticket line. I know that selling tickets is illegal on the Shea Stadium premises, but I figured that giving tickets away would not hurt anyone. Just doing my nice deed for the day, and who would possibly want to punish me for that?

Four people approached the ticket booth, I told them I had tickets I was giving away. Then a short fat man wearing a Mets cap and bug-eye sunglasses came over. “See those cameras over there? The NYPD now has evidence of you attempting to sell tickets on Shea Stadium property.”

“But I was just trying to give the tickets away, and …”

“Sir, just shut up and listen to me. You don’t have to be difficult about this. Do you want me to call in the authorities?”

“Are you serious? I was just giving these away …”

“OK, because you are trying to give them away, I already know that you are doing something wrong.”

Eventually I walked away and threw the tickets in the trash. “Because you are giving them away, I know you are doing something wrong.” That made me so mad. It was one of those New York moments where the city is so well-trained to distrust any unselfish act. If there was ever a moment where I wish I could have roundhouse kicked anyone or anything, it was that moment right there, where I wish I could have roundhouse kicked those bug-eye glasses right off his face.

Because you are being nice, I know you are doing something wrong. What belligerent arrogance. There is no other attitude that will destroy a society more quickly or more viciously, but probably the one phrase that best sums up the New York state of mind.

Put that on a t-shirt.

My new best friend ChaCha

2008-04-25T20:45:00.000-07:00

Walt Mossberg is the personal technology columnist in the Wall Street Journal. I don't like the guy because he is a shameless Apple fanboy, but I'll read his column because I subscribe to the paper. And because he has a sidekick by the name of Katie Bohret ... and I like her.

Anyways, his latest column was about a new service called ChaCha. It is a free service that allows you to call a toll-free number, ask a question, and receive a response via text message. There are actual real live people who receive $.20 per repsonse as questions come through the queue. Mossberg said that they are mainly stay-at-home moms and college students who search online for the answers, but I don't really trust what he says all that much. In my mind, I see hundreds of grey-haired, monacled men who are frantically scrambling around the Library of Congress searching for answers. You know, they are knee-deep in scrap paper woth one or two of them clinging on to those ladders on wheels as they try to find the right page of the right book.

However it happens, in about 3 minutes you receive a text message response. The first time that I read about the service, I was between Queensboro Plaza and the 45th Road Courthouse Square stop on the 7 train on my way to Manhattan. I wanted to give it a shot, but didn't want the hundreds of people that were pressed up against me to think I was strange if I just asked a random question to my cell phone. Part of me wanted to ask something like, "Hi ChaCha. How do you stop explosive episodes of diarrhea every five minutes?" just to see if I could get a little breathing room on the train, but I thought better of it.

Instead, I asked it what the population of Boise was. About 3 minutes later, I received the following text: "The U.S. Census Bureau estimated Boise's population to be 190,117 in 2003. Idaho's population is 1,366,132." Just like that, above and beyond the call of duty. I was impressed, but also had to think it ironic that there were more people on my subway line that morning than there were living in the great state of Idaho.

Now, ChaCha has not been perfect. For example, I asked the question, "What is the day Cinco de Mayo," and it told me that it meant "May 5th." Kind of a slap in the face. I responded to the text (one of the features is that you can follow up with text messages, as if it were a regular converstion) with "No no, what is the holiday's significance?" Pretty straightforward stuff, right? Well, I got in return, "Festivus is an annual holiday invented by writer Dan O'Keefe and introduced into popular culture by his son Daniel, a scriptwriter." Although informative, and a great episode of the '97 season of Seinfeld, obviously not the answer to my question.

An interesting system nonetheless. But it seems like a hard system to monitize, especially since it is run from the phone, not the Web site (i.e. little advertising space). I figured that some company is buying the questions and answers for market research. Or maybe this is a way for the government to collect information about me to sell to the Russians. Something like that. I had a question, I needed an answer ... Where could I turn? Where else but to ChaCha? I called and asked the question, "How does ChaCha make its money?" The response: "ChaCha generates revenue by its strategic partnerships with various entities." AKA Russians.

It has been fun to play around with it, although I'm not sure how productive it is. In many circumstances it may be, but in the context of me sitting at work in front of my computer with Internet access, not so much. I will have you know that through ChaCha I discovered that my horoscope calls for success in professional endeavors and that April 25 is the National Day of Silence for an anti-bullying campaign (sure, that'll convince the bullies to stop beating you up. Just sit quietly.).

The best part, by far, is getting text messages that I pretend are important. It's almost like having a real friend.

Problem solved

2008-04-15T17:32:00.001-07:00

UPDATE: Earwax debacle solved, thanks to Guy Lin, MD. I would classify him as one of my heroes, but by rule my heroes have to be able to fly. He had great head of half-silver hair. I was thinking about how I could talk about this without sounding a little too impressed with him (i.e. "If I were a woman, I would have wanted to play with his hair."). Instead of saying that -- because that would have been awkward -- I am going with this: If I were a 6-year-old boy and my mom bought me a GI Joe, I would want that GI Joe to have hair just like Dr. Lin. There we go. Not awkward at all.

The first of the three pigs

2008-04-14T16:11:00.001-07:00

I have now been out of college/out of Idaho/in the real world for close to 9 months now. That means that for nine months I have been my own fall-back plan, my own caretaker, my own shoulder to cry on, etc. In short, I have been my own mother. What have I learned? Well, it's harder than it looks.

I won't go into a lot of detail, but I will give some examples from the past two days. Two days, out of more than 250. Just two days. Keep that in mind.

My most recent calling in church is Sunday School teacher in the Young Single Adults class in the Queens Astoria Ward. (Who counted the qualifiers there? Diagram that one, Petra.) The lesson was on Jacob 5-7, the allegory of the Olive Tree/vineyard. I casually spent my Saturday preparing the lesson, along with watching the Mets lose to the Brewers and the Yankees lose to the BoSox. You know, graft a bit here, dung a bit there. I had it pretty well figured out.

Come morning, I was ready to rock and roll. I woke up, I showered dressed myself, chose a good spring tie, put on my stripey shirt, ready to go. I arrived on time and even sat through sacrament meetings without falling asleep. I know, impressive. Then came time to teach my lesson. Once we were through the class announcements and had gotten over the "... Because you're engaged ..." joke (which goes, "I had a good weekend ..." [interruption] "Because you got engaged?!" [blank, dry stare; scattered, sympathetic laughter]), I had 18 minutes to teach. That threw me off a bit, but nothing summarizing and ignoring raised hands couldn't solve.

When there were about 5 minutes left in my lesson, I noticed that my left sleeve was sagging a bit more than my right. Strange, but not uncommon. I looked down again and saw that I, in fact, had a hole in my sleeve that exposed my entire elbow worn into the shirt. I stopped teaching and just looked at it, inspecting it as if that would help. "Did you see this whole in my shirt?" The class's response, "We just thought you had a rough morning." A rough morning. What, was I dragged behind a bus on the way to Church? Why didn't someone tell me that I had a hole the size of Cuba in my shirt?

Then it occurred to me that such wardrobe matters as gaping holes in the elbows fall under Mom's jurisdiction. I'm sure a Mom invented the elbow patch. And the phrase, "You're not actually going out in that, are you?" Neither of which I had the luxury that morning before leaving the house to teach Sunday School. A first example.

A second example finds us in bed this morning, 7:00 as the alarm goes off. I woke up and I felt that my ear was a bit waxy. I may have overactive wax ducts, but every so often I need to give my ears a good cleaning. However, from past experience and from myriad warning labels, I knew that Q-tips were not the answer. Once when I was on my mission (during which time, I must mention in this context, Sister Peixoto was my surrogate mother) I had Q-tipped (i.e. ramrodded) ear wax into my ear to the point that I could not longer hear anything. I was effectively deaf. Not a pleasant experience, believe me.

So 7:00, I knew that Q-tips were not the answer. When Sister Peixoto sent me to the doctor, all he did was use some special water squirter to blast the buildup out. If some doctor can blast out earwax with water, then why couldn't I? Now just to find enough water pressure ...

My first thought was just to turn my head sideways in the shower. If figured if I just positioned my head just right the water would shoot down my ear canal. Well, I did get water in my ear, but to no avail. I had to take a far more proactive approach. I needed to concentrate the stream.

I turned to turning on the bathtub faucet. That's a whole lot of water coming out of one place, right? PhD nothing. Water pressure, here I come. I turned it on full blast and stuck my head directly underneath, my ear facing upwards. Water came blasting in, into my ear, up my nose, all down my back, onto the floor, under the door and onto the carpet in the hallway, you name it. But after all that fanfare, it did nothing to solve my problem. Now it was personal.

I looked in the kitchen, no turkey baster to be found. I looked under the sink, no squirt guns. No funnel, no enema kits, no water picks. What was left to do? I had to be resourceful. I had to tap my inner Macgyver.

I started started to shuffle through the medicine cabinet until I found it. The perfect makeshift medical instrument. A tube of toothpaste. It was genius. All I had to do was cut the back end off, remove all of the toothpaste, fill the tube with warm water, stick the squirty end in my ear, give it a good squeeze or two, and just like that, no more earwax. I was so proud of myself.

After executing the plan, I was a little disappointed to discover that water being discharged from a tube of toothpaste has the same effect on excessive earwax buildup as a Q-tip has. At that point, I had to go to work, completely deaf in one ear. I then realized that I had no idea who to call. Was this an emergency? I wasn't bleeding, and it was by no means life-threatening. But then again, it rendered one of my senses virtually useless, and I've only got five of those. Should I go to the hospital, or a pediatrician? Where could I find a pediatrician in New York, and could I explain my problem to him if I didn't know Yiddish?

After looking in the yellow pages for a pediatrician for about 30 minutes, I realized that I really should have been looking for a physician. Ok, physician it was. But they all had such difficult names to pronounce, and what if they only worked on a referral-only basis? And what about insurance? I knew that I have insurance, but is it PPO or HMO or HIPAA? BlueCross, BlueShield ... BlueCross, BlueShield ... which one was it? (I later came to find out that it was BlueCross/BlueShield.)

As I sat at my desk with my headphones in (so that I would have an excuse to be unresponsive when people called my name), I finally decided to call St. Clare's Hospital, and they could at least tell me where to go. I dialed the number. "For English, press 1, para Espanol poste 2." Ok, 1. Well that was easy. "You have reached St. Vincent's Hospital, formerly St. Clare's. We are closed, effective August 31, 2007 ..." (212-586-1500. Try it yourself if you don't believe me.)

I then called a big general family physician place, their number was disconnected. (212-687-4106. Try it yourself.) I called the Manhattan Eye, Ear, and Throat Hospital (MEETH), the automated system told me to enter the extension that I was trying to reach. I didn't know, I dialed 0, not a valid entry.

At that point, I needed to get to work. So I went about my work throughout the day until about 8:00 at night, at which point I went home, still as deaf as I was when I left in the morning, and as deaf as I am as I finish this post. I'll get it taken care of tomorrow, I'm sure. (Keep in mind it doesn't hurt, isn't infected, etc. It is just plugged up, so no risk of permanent damage.)

I wonder at what point the first of the three pigs realized that straw was a bad idea. My bet is it was now when the wolf came knocking at his door, but far before then, when he went to Church with a hole in his shirt, or some morning before work when he found himself in the bathroom with a re-purposed tube of toothpaste filled with warm water shoved into his ear.

Malcom X Blvd.

2008-04-13T12:42:00.000-07:00

I live in Sunnyside on Bliss St. How could life get any better? I admit, it may be a somewhat deceiving name for a blue-collar street in a blue-collar neighborhood in Queens (in 7-line Queens, nonetheless), but it is safe and relatively clean. Clean by outer-borough New York standards at least. I cannot think of a time in which I felt in any significant danger. Well, other than the one isolated road rage-turned fist fist fight-turned 7-iron assault incident, which was technically in Woodside, not Sunnyside.

I live here for various reasons. I work just a few steps from the Times Square stop, and that is the terminal destination of the 7 train. It gives me a 25-minute door-to-door commute, which is better than anything you'll find outside of Hell's Kitchen. So one reason i live here is the commute. The second reason is that it is about 10 minutes from Shea Stadium and Arthur Ashe tennis complex. I can literally leave my apartment as the Met's pregame show starts and make it to the stadium for the first pitch if I wanted. And since Shea has $5 seats in the nosebleeds from time to time, it is hard to pass up. I love me some baseball.

I also live here because the rent is cheap compared to anything that you'll find in Manhattan. That is to say cheap compared to anything not on the Lower East Side or in Harlem/SpaHa. About a month ago I was a signature away from moving in with a friend in a reasonably-priced apartment on 111th, just north of Central Park, just on the Harlem of the Upper West Side/Harlem border. I guess that I regretted it a bit over the past month since there are benefits to actually living in the City: the NY, NY address, easier access to the rest of the city, (for us young single adults) membership in a YSA ward, etc. But then I went and visited that same would-be apartment this week. Never again (never) will I consider moving to Harlem. In comparison, Bliss St. in Sunnyside lives up to its name.

I took the 7 to the 2, where I got off and started walking up the stairs. In the break between stairwells I came across a dilapidated tile mosaic with broken excerpts from a quote. The legible part read, "We are all brothers and sisters ..." before the tiles became too broken and scattered to read. Plus, it's not good manners to stop in the middle of a staircase.

When I came out of the staircase, I was confronted (as a manner of speaking) by a disheveled man selling a Velcro wallet. After having living in NY for as long as I have now, I consider myself somewhat of an expert at coldly ignoring beggars/salesmen. Or so I thought. When he asked me, I shook my head without making direct eye contact and continued walking. "Sir, excuse me. Sir?" Persistent little bugger, he was. Then I made eye contact. Once I did that, it was all over. After all, he wasn't going to buy rugs or booze with the money (his words, not mine), and he had just lost his job. He just needed money for a bit to eat and (again, his words not mine) I do have a good heart. So yes, I gave him a dollar. Damn my good heart.

The first street intersection that I came across was Central Park North and Malcom X Blvd. All I could think to myself was, "I don't think I'm in Sunnyside anymore..." I can't explain how or why it felt different, it just did. For some reason I felt like someone was going to pull a prank on me. Like they were going to give me a wedgie or "Got your nose!" me. I made my way to my friend's apartment. It's a fairly nice place, but about the same as what I have in Sunnyside, only a few hundred dollars more. Again, what you might expect from anywhere in Manhattan.

That night I went out to grab a bite to eat because I often get hungry. I'm funny that way. I went to this pizza and chicken joint that looked like a place where good fast food went to die. Inch-thick Plexiglas separated the customer from the staff, with a hole cut out through which you could fit any various-shaped food containers, but probably not large enough for a man to fit through if he had the occasion to. As I contemplated my order (and the choices were many) a man who smelled of hard liquor and a hard life asked for something to eat. Just a slice of pizza, that's all. Again, I looked him in the eye. I'll learn better some time.

As he waited for his slice of pizza to be heated up, he and I shared some casual conversation.

"You know, we like you people in Harlem."

"Oh?"

"Yeah, we want more of you whites here. You respect our women, and we respect yours." For a moment I felt like we were having some sort of cowboy-Indian barter. I believe that they used women as currency.

"Gee, thanks!'

"Lots of good white people out there. I even like Obama." Obama ... is he white? I thought it best not to ask.

"Obama, good guy. He's a democrat, you know ..."

"I don't like that Hillary. My man Obama, he's about equality and change. Hillary's all about asses. (As he said that, he put his hands where his ass might be if he were Hillary, apparently.) Who do you vote for."

"Me? Well, I don't generally share my particular political persuasions in such an informal forum." A slight pause, him looking me in the eyes.

"You're a good person. And I can tell in your eyes that you have a good woman. You do, don't you? And when you have a baby, I can tell. It's going to be a beautiful baby. I can tell that in your eyes." I wish that I had a pen and paper at the time. I wanted to put it in my scriptures as an amendment to my patriarchal blessing.

What an interesting place for so many people to live, Harlem.

A wooden ring

2008-04-09T21:37:00.000-07:00

NOTE: I do not write this post to incite sympathy, because things are pretty darned good. I only write this because I feel it is worth writing about. In fact, it seems a shame not to. So to those people who care about me, don't offer me your condolences, just savor in the irony with me.

NOTE II: I have finished this post and have now reread it. I think it is fairly well written, so I will post it. However, I warn you that it is overly melodramatic (read pathetic). So much so that I was about to delete it. But I hate to let a good post go to waste.

According to universal missionary lore dating back thousands of years, there exists the Law of Wife Points. This law states that for every hardship a missionary endures without complaining, he gains Wife Points. For every long night spent in the cold rain without an umbrella or afternoon spent under the scorching sun walking on the dusty roadside, in a parallel universe a missionary's to-be wife is perfecting the art of brownie baking or is putting in a few extra hours on the treadmill. (This law may be derived from the same eternal truth as the 40 Virgins in Heaven for a Muslim Suicide Bombers Law, but let's pretend it isn't.) It is a beautiful principle, in principle. In practice, we can only see how it works in retrospect.

I lived by this law (among many other laws, of course) for two years of my life. Ah the sweet flavor of Wife Points! Some say that they are the best two years of your life, others say that they are the best two years for your life. I was much more of the "for your life" school of thought because it promised such a bright future, that it only prepared you for better things. Yes, it was a time to accumulate Wife Points, only to cash in once the investment had time to grow.

In my mind, I had everything figured out. As I neared the end of my mission I had accumulated a nice cache of Wife Points. I picked up a few when I was bent over the toilet at the hospital in Chapeco, I caught a few more that leaked in through the silver-dollar-sized holes in the bottoms of my shoes in Ipomeia. I was pretty much set, ready to cash out. And I knew exactly where I was going to invest. My own personal soy, you might say.

Her name was Girl A, who, although she was (is) a real person, was of more an idea than anything. I met her when I was 16 years old and didn't see her again until much later in my life, just before I left for my mission. During that time, I referred to her as Girl A to my friends; she was all that I wanted in a woman. Attractive, spunky, coy, unattainable, etc. I never knew her well enough to know what she was really like, but I knew who she was in my wandering imagination, which is all I ever needed.

During my mission, we corresponded three or four times, which was three or four times more than I corresponded with any other girl not related to me. It may have meant nothing to her, but it meant everything to me. It was as if I were confirming that my wife points were indeed accumulating. Kind of like when you peek in the oven to make sure that the bread is rising - perhaps a perfect analogy, since in both cases the result is a deflated, dissappointing reminder of what could have been.

Ah, Girl A, the idea, the person, either one. As I neared the end of the mission, I purchased two wooden rings, one that was the size of my finger, and one that was whatever size Girl A's finger would be. (I knew that it was cheezy at the time, as I know now, but everything related to love before a couple is 70 years old is cheezy. After 70, it's cute.) I put these rings in a small cardboard box that was to be saved for when the time was right, when I would give the ring to Girl A as a present. Not as an engagement ring, but just as a present, just to make sure that I was being cheezy enough.

Fast-forward a few months, I am in Rexburg thumbing through a set of index cards nervously in one hand, my thumb hovering over the talk button on my cell phone in the other. I will not fill in the details here because they are too painful for a third party to bear, but in sum Girl A never answered my calls again. And so I was left with nothing else to do but wonder about those Wife Points, figuring that all that happened was that this supposed Girl A must not have actually been Tony-caliber. Or that the ring wouln't have fit. Her hands were far too petite and perfect for my wooden ring, I was sure.

And thus Girl A the idea went elsewhere. She went for a short stint somewhere she never belongs, and that is to a girl with a real name, with a real connection to me and to people close to me. Again, just a short stint (I never even sized up her hands to see if the wooden ring would fit) and now she is back where she belongs, far away from me. And apparently just moments away from being engaged, although that is strictly heresay because she is where she belongs, far away from me.

Two days ago I was looking for my W-2 form to do my taxes, and I stumbled across the small cardboard box that has sat unopened for two-and-a-half years. I opened it and looked at the two rings lying there, happily unattached. But carpe diem, I thought. I put on my ring because I wanted to. Because even though my Wife Points had fallen through the cracks, and because even though I found it painfully awkward to talk to girls with any Girl A qualities, and because even though I am carrying 7 or 8 (or so) extra pounds from a few years back, I can wear this ring.

I can put it on and remember everything that Wife Points stand for, that we are rewarded when we do the right thing. I can remember the long days and restful nights in Brazil, and why those two years were the best years of my life. It was like a CTR ring that carried so much more weight, so much more meaning. That's not to say that I was cutting off Girl A, but that I was putting her back where she belonged, far away, farther away than she had ever been before. Maybe far enough away that I could stop caring.

Today at work , a colleague who I am close to (I actually referred her to her job), who is married, who is a member of the Church, saw my ring. She, of course, didn't know what it was or the value I had arbitrarily assigned to it. but she looked at it and laughed at it, in a way that I have not been laughed at since 6th Grade. You're wearing a ring? Nice jewelry! It was painful, silly as that may sound. As I walked away I took it off and put it in my pocket.

It's now back in its cardboard box with Girl A's ring, where it belongs, with the lid closed. I never was able to find my W-2 form.

My Pipedream

2008-03-10T20:31:00.000-07:00

So I have now been working as a real, salaried worker for 7ish months, and it's great. Really, I love it. I work in a cubicle, I deal with IT and HR, I stare at a computer and occasionally change my wallpaper. In short, I've done everything that is requisite to laugh at all Dilbert jokes. But I really do enjoy it. However, every man has a dream, and if that dream is reality, then what more can we dream?

So at about 2:30 or so this afternoon, I came to terms with my dream job. The job that, in a perfect world, in the perfect time/place/position in society/etc., I would have. This, mind you is a very fluid concept in my mind that was a basketball player from ages 0-12, a lawyer from ages 12-16, a journalist from ages 16-17, a firefighting journalist from ages 17-19, a seminary-teaching puppy-rescuing child-adopting hair-parting philanthropist from ages 19-21 (ah, the dreams of young missionary minds), and something just a skosh better than superman from ages 21-23. But now, the tides have sloshed towards something better than all of that. Yes, better than Superman.

The new dream is to become a pipe organ builder. Wouldn't that be great? A highly skilled profession in which you get to work with metal and wood and buckets full of power and hand tools. You work with your hands and when you tell people that make organs for a living, they have to be interested, right? And when we talk about job security, there is nothing that can replace a pipe organ, other than 23,000 floutists of varying shapes and sizes. Or at least 23,000 floutist of the same size with flutes of varying sizes.

Now, this idea of course came from my time listening to the best radio program that American Public Media offers, Pipedreams. My BFF Michael Barone takes me on these virtual tours of pipe organs throughout the world and makes me feel so smart by saying things like, "As you probably guessed, this piece was originally scored for the harpsichord," and I nod my head and say, "Of course, it was, Barone. Nothing new here ..."

Today, we went to Macon, Georgia, of all places (Baptists love themselves an organ!). This was the first time that Pipedreams featured the C.B. Fisk Organ , which was (as I already knew, of course) installed in 2000. I guess that it had never occurred to me that people would still be making organs. I thought they might have died out years ago when Rock n' Roll was invented. (I blame Elvis for everything bad that exists.)

But then there's these Fisk Organ folks, out there in Gloucester, Massachusetts, with technical facilities with 2 cranes and 3-D design rooms and a paint and finishing shop and "A fully-equipped woodshop and mill room capable of making every kind of wooden part or structure, with dedicated space for seasoning 5,000 board feet of lumber." And there it is on their Web site, the job description: "C. B. Fisk, Inc. is always interested in talking to talented individuals about joining our team." I wish you could have see the smile on my face.

As you can imagine, they will soon have to be more specific about what they mean by "talented individuals." Because I'm ripping into a "talented individual" resume with bullet points cascading off the page, things like "Learned to juggle with tuna fish cans in one day" and "Proficient at inserting both of my contact lenses at one time" and "Obtained complete mastery of the between-the-legs desperation tennis shot" and "Able to play 'That Old Grey Mare Ain't What She Used to Be' on the trumpet in every major and minor key in the chromatic scale. Also able to play the same on the harmonica."

I'll tell you how it goes. And, if you need a pipe organ made, go ahead and give me a call. Shouldn't be long now before I'll be your go-to guy.

It is not dead, nor doth it sleep

2008-02-14T20:30:00.000-08:00

Who said romance is dead? Not this guy. Now, don't get me wrong here. Although in my own life it is - ummm - dormant, it is alive and well in the streets of NYC. Thank you, St. Valentine. I'd like to shake your hand some day. Maybe even give you a noogie.

For one day, the city changes. While 364 days a year millions of people walk the streets with the phrase "Go f*** yourself" deliberately written across their foreheads, Valentine's Day changes that, somehow. Instead, they walk the street with a stem rose in their hand. Suddenly, the phrase on their foreheads is different, friendly. Something like, "So I'm holding a rose. Go f*** yourself." If that's not romance, then what is?

My roommate flew off to Arizona and then to Las Vegas to spend Valentine's Day with her beau. Romantic? Afraid not. In order for romance to exist, there needs to be some sort of conflict, some sort of gravity. If two passionate lustbirds take a week off of work to go to Vegas and spend a lot of time yowzering each other, there is no conflict, there is no passion. In order for it to be romantic, there needs to be something else, something to make it real. Like if they lost all of their money and had to sleep in a sleeping bag in abandoned construction zones. Otherwise, it would be like sitting on the couch and eating fudge for a week.

Along those lines, there is no romance in the young man and woman who sit on the train and take turns licking each othersl ear lobes, unashamed of their busy, inquisitive hands. Romance inolves self control of sorts, like the couple who sit next to each other with almost no physical contact, but somehow interested in what the other is saying. No licking or nibbling involved, dull as that may sound.

By far the most romantic couple that I saw were two women who obviously had clearly defined masculine and femenine roles to play in their partnership. The woman of the women was doing the nice womanly things like telling the man of the women to tuck in her shirt, not to scratch herself, etc. Basically, telling her not to be a man, which is, of course, ironic given the situation. As they sat there on the train the "man" started to beat box and rap real seductive-like. Much like you'd imagine from Sinatra if he were an egg-shaped hispanic lesbian from the Bronx. And the woman seemed so taken by her, so happy to have found such a lovely masculine woman. It only seemed romantic because they found each other, somehow, probably online.

So romance exists, regardless of what the cynics (read "I") may say. And whether you consider it romantic to do things like waking up at 5:30 in the a.m. to clean the toilet and looking up the optimal viewing distance of a 32-inch LCD screen and rearranging the living room accordingly to accommodate what would be loosely classified as a date - and even more loosely as a Valentine - doesn't matter. What matters more is whether you consider it romantic to get a call at 7:45 at night with an excuse on the other line. I'd like to think it is.

Bland Insight

2008-01-27T16:41:00.000-08:00

Friendship will only get you so far into a person's personal life and I, with much hesitation, am going to give you an uncomfortable amount of insight into me, who I am, and (realistically) why I have very few long-term relationships.

All of this information is probably accessible somewhere on Facebook (what isn't?), but I think it will streamline the process if I just list it here in one place. After reading through this, you will know me about as well as I know myself.

NOTE: I did not know that my bullet points show up as sunflowers. Not sure how to change that, but not my personal preference ...

My Pandora Radio Stations, in order of creation:

Miles Davis
Earl Scruggs
Mark Murphy
Cyrus Chestnut
Louis Armstrong
The Vocal Majority

Books that I am currently reading:

Merle's Door, Ted Kerasote (about dogs)
An Inconvenient Book, Glenn Beck (about sarcastic solutions to serious problems)
Eats, Shoots and Leaves, Lynn Truss (about grammar)

Last movie that I watched:

Fiddler on the Roof

Solution to the world's problems:

Apologize and split a Snickers

My perspective of the true puropse of life:

To come out with a good story to tell. This means that regardless of what happens, it is worthwhile as long as it makes good dinner conversation.

General storyline of a majority of my dreams:

I marry someone because she pressures me into it, I am too scared to tell her "no," and I end up living the rest of my life with someone that I loathe. Someone like the wife and/or mother on Everbody Loves Raymond. And the dream then concludes with some sort of treasure hunt and foot race.

Publications to which I subscribe:

WIRED
GQ
Wall Street Journal

Favorite color of socks:

Brown

In retrospect, this post was kind of lame. Maybe that is the bigger insight into my personality. If you read this, give me a call and I can send you a check to reimburse you for the precious time of your life that was lost. My bad.

The result are in ...

2008-01-24T18:07:00.000-08:00

So it turns out I am a INFP. Not exactly sure what that means, which is to say that the entire excercise is wasted on me.

But I have a problem with the whole thing. We did the exam in two parts, one that was done online beforehand and the other that was done in a group. My primary concern is with the introverted/extraverted deal. The online portions that we did were very pointed towards our relationships with people. So things like, "Do you prefer large groups at parties," to which my answer is obviously "yes." But then when we did this group portion, the questions were like, "Do you like to interact with people/things?" Do I like to interact with things? What kind of piss-poor question is that? Of course I interact with things. I can think of few questions that could be more broad.

Sure, I quite enjoy breathing air. Technically, that is interaction with air molecules, which are technically things. Or if I go camping for a weekend to reflect on nature, would building a fire for warmth classify as interacting with a thing? I think by definition it would have to be, right? So in the group portion I definitely classified as an E because, yes, I like to interact with things. At the end of the group portion we got our online portions back, and, of course, I scored a 30/30 as an introvert. After that I lost a lot of faith in the Myers-Briggs test.

My second major concern with the test is that we would separate ourselves into groups to provide insight on how the different sides of the dichotemies think about and manage life differently. But no one answers honestly. We all answer with our lettered caps on, depending on what we just jotted down on our grids. So, for example, we were asked to analyze a tea bag. The Intuitives vs. the Perceptives in this one. And we all knew exactly how to answer, it didn't matter what we actually thought. We just wanted our instructor to stand back, look at the boards at the opposite side of the room and say, "Now that is interesting. Isn't that interesting, class?" And then we can look over to the other side of the room, to those Ps, and say, "Oh, you're all bad people, thinking about a tea bag that way ...", and so that they can do the same.

But in the end I am an INFP and there is only 4.5% of the U.S. population that is like me. I was hoping for ENFJ, because that's the creme de la creme, the exculsive 1.5%. After all, diamonds are expensive because they are rare.

Myers Briggade

2008-01-23T19:52:00.000-08:00

Back on the home front, my friends and I had somewhat of a weekend ritual of sitting on what we called "the bench." It was, as you might imagine, a bench. It was downtown on Idaho St., and we would go there as spectators in a phenomenon common to downtowns nationwide called the cruise. This was a time and place where teenagers would drive around in circles waiting for something to happen, although I was never sure what. Instead of driving around, we sat on the bench, ate pizza and drank Dr. Pepper. Good times, fond memories, etc.

At one point, we thought we could make good (better) use of our hours spent on the bench by finding me a date to homecoming. You see, I was a rare breed of social outcast, one who thought he was better than everyone else, yet was petrified of the world outside of his basement or beyond the sound-proofed walls of the band room. As such, I did not go to many school dances because I said I was too good for everyone but actually because I was scared of everyone. Anyways, we actually Kinkoed ourselves some flyers to hand out on the cruise which consisted of a brief checklist that would qualify or disqualify my would-be dates.

I will not go into too much detail, but generally things like "Are you an heiress to a thrown" and "Do your friends describe you as 'easy'" (there was much dispute as to whether this was a qualifier or a disqualifier). One of the questions that to this day I consider to be most brilliant was this: "Do you take offense to fat jokes?" Although it gets the point across, it does so with the utmost diplomacy. It is a question to which no one can take offense, but that everyone has to answer honsetly. That was the idea at least.

The reason I mention this is because I took the Meyers-Briggs exam today and I found a lot of the questions to be along the same lines as "Do you take offense to fat jokes?" Now, I don't know the results (I will find out tomorrow morning), but here's what I understand so far. You don't want to be an overly emotional, paranoid loner who can't mind his own business. However, the questions in the exam try to ask you exactly this as subtely as possible.

"So, ummm, do you have a lot of friends?" (Are you a complete loser?)
"And do you generally trust those around you?" (Are you paranoid of everything in life?) "
"Do you frequently give others advice?" (Are you a nosy busybody?)
"Okay then, do you eat brownie batter and watch SpongeBob Squarepants late at night on Nickelodeon?" (Are you an absolute emotional wreck?)

In the end, I think that it just tells you if anyone will like you. Any bets how my test results will be?

Conde Nast, etc.

2008-01-17T22:26:00.001-08:00

I have a friend here in my ward in Queens who works in the Conde Nast building just across the 43rd Street from me. She and her husband are good people, the kind that make other people better people. You know the kind. Anyways, she works at Vanity Fair (the 22nd floor of the building, for those who care). I think that Conde Nast is such an interesting company because it has its hand in so many cookie jars at the same time. They have magazines that are self-proclaimed competitors like Vogue and Glamour and Vanity fair. They have their own sort of autonomous capitalistic organization within an organization.

I bring up Conde Nast because I subscribe to two publications, both of which cater to men's interests, both of which have a substanital readership, and both of which are under the Conde Nast umbrella. One is Wired, the other GQ. I got both of the latest issues in the mail today, which is always fun, mail. On the cover of each is a picture of a woman. Same overarching idea, of course, that sex sells. But here's where it gets interesting. (Yes, I put in cues like that in hopes that someone will keep reading, not necessarily because it will be any more interesting.)

The GQ cover is a picture of Rachel Bilson (I only know her from Chuck) in a patriotic bathing suit, saluting, because that's what you do when you wear patriotic swimwear. Anyways, it is tactful, but alluring nonetheless. The message is, "Yes I like to dress nice and read about men's fashion, but it's cool because this magazine has a girl on the cover." So there's GQ.

Then we have Wired. Again, a woman on the cover. But this time the message is very different. The featured female is Sarah Silverman. Those of you who know she is know that she ain't in a bikini. She's in jeans and a t-shirt that reads "tech support" across the front and, although she is not saluting, she does have a hand to her head scratching it as if to say, "I am pretending to be thinking about something." Interesting, right? The message here is, "Yes I like to write in my diary in binary code and introduce myself to people by my gamertag, but it's cool because this magazine has a girl on the cover."

I guess the only difference in men is that some like bikinis and others like tech support.

Gesundheit

2008-01-15T21:16:00.000-08:00

Cont'd from previous post ...

For the scores upon scores of friends (read Purple Petra) who read this, some of y'all may have heard this story before. It is something that Mark and I have told after every reference to New York over the past year, which is quite a few times considering I started at least two out of three sentences with "When I was on my internship in New York last semester ..." to try to impress girls at school. This story admittedly will lose a lot of its effect because Mark can't contribute with his tactful reenactment. And because we can't hand the baton to each other using subtle verbal cues such as "You'd never guess what happened next!" and "And then when I thought it couldn't get worse" etc.

Mark was in town visiting me during my stint as a NY intern and we were on our way back from a thumpin' (or bumpin' or jumpin', whatever the cool way to say it is) Mormon party at a yet-to-be flipped 5-story townhouse. For those of you who don't know, Mormon parties are much like regular parties, only people act drunk as opposed to getting drunk. And instead of having sex we wink at each other. Anyways, we are on our way back and we find ourselves in the tunnel between Port Authority Bus Terminal and the Times Square stop. Those familiar with the matter say that we were right next to the vendors selling "You're going to hell, sinners!" signs in 45 different languages. Again, a somewhat late night (by Mormon standards, of course) and a moderate walk ahead of us.

As we were walking, a man who appeared to be looking for something better in life (i.e. a shower, shoes with soles on them, perhaps a home, more vodka) was walking towards us. He stopped, looked contemplative. Now, this was not going to be the first time that I had been asked for money, and, being the philanthropist that I was (not am), I often obliged (not oblige). I began to feel through my pockets for change or scraps of food when he deliberately brought a finger to one side of his nose, wound up, and blew out a (this is where Mark would come in handy, not only for visual support but also for adjectiving) snot rocket. But all in slow motion.

I spare many details here because they are both nauseating and insufficient to describe the scene, but I give you a few: grey, viscous, 5' 7", remarkable. It was perhaps my first true MTA moments, the kind you can't forget. The evangelical signs, the transcient suddenly realizing he left his kerchief in his other jacket, the woman shielding her son and gasping "Oh come on!", all came together and made a story worth telling. Not like the story, "You know ... that one kid who rides a bike with baskets."

Next time I'll take a picture.

Another hundred people (Sondheim reference, FYI)

2008-01-15T20:50:00.000-08:00

So the best part about living in a big city is mass transit. Serious. When I was back in school (way, way back seven months), I rode a bike everywhere. It was a yellow-and-black Raleigh Retroglide with whitewall tires, fenders, paperboy baskets on the rear, headlights, tail lights, a bell, brakes, the whole works. (Sometimes I avoid blogging about my life because as I read back through the post I want to beat myself up. This is one of those times. The bike was a lot cooler than it sounds, I swear.)

That bike (along with my feigned casual yet charming disregard for intrapersonal relationships) defined me as a person. I took pride in having pedaled my way across campus every day of the Winter Semester '06, even on one morning that was rumored to have dropped to -40 with wind chill. Even when I reasonably had enough money to buy a car and enough roommates with cars to get a ride. Even then, I rode my bike to school, ringing my bell when I felt the urge, no helmet, no worries, no rules. (Well, I was pulled over once by a loyal member of the Rexburg police force, but only received a warning. I was clocked going 18 in a 5 zone. Lucky I didn't get my library card revoked.) I rode my bike not because I loved the environment or because I wanted to stay in shape. I rode that bike because I was the only one who would.

Fast forward seven months, and that bike is sitting in my parents' garage. I now ride to work through a system of tunnels that millions of other people also ride through. There is nothing that sets me apart, nothing unique. Some days I sit, others I stand. I usually try to enter through the middle door on the second-to-last car at the 46th Street stop so that I get off directly in front of the escalator at Times Square. Again, nothing unique. But the hours that I spend in those musty tunnels wearing a badge that mutters "Nobody Special" tell the most interesting stories of the last seven months.

Vegas, a big well-lit place

2008-01-13T19:40:00.000-08:00

Vegas is amazing. I went there last week on work, and I was fascinated by the intricacy of a city built on nothing. The city is host to many of the modern architectural marvels of North America (Of course, since I know nothing of architecture, that is simply an equally meaningless, slightly more pretentious way to say, "It has lotsa neat buildings"). I didn't know that the world still produced that much marble for columns and floors and ceilings and fountains. But it apparently does.

The city must put on more Broadway shows than Broadway does now. Every taxi cab and every buildingside is covered with an ad for Phantom or Spamalot, although all the shows are advertised as being able to turn me on or to excite my desires. Not sure how they do it, because when I saw Phantom of the Opera in San Francisco I don't remember getting all that randy. Of course, I was pretty young so maybe I just missed it. Whatever the reason, Vegas has a knack for making everything sexier. (Case-in-point: Madame Tussuad's Wax Museum in New York came out with the first-ever interactive wax figure. Her name was J-Lo, and when you whispered into her ear she would blush. Vegas also came out with an interactive J-Lo who also blushed, but not when you whispered into her ear. She blushed when you grab her "back forty.")

What I could not believe was that all of this exists not because of people's hard work and vision of a brighter future. This exists because of gambling, alcohol and sex. I love the place, don't get me wrong. But I find it a bit unsettling that the most opulent, beautiful parts of our culture exist thanks to what can be accurately called dirty money. As far as I see it, the only things that are built to this scale are funded by one of two things: sin or religion. Maybe that's ironic, maybe it's convergence. I hope it's ironic.

The excitement I call my life

2008-01-13T19:27:00.000-08:00

So today I realized that the person in my life with whom I have shared the most intimate moments in the last 7 months is the Mexican woman who works in the laundromat. I don't know her name or what her situation in life is, but I do know that I have folded my underwear in front of her. That's something that I have done in front of a select few people in my life. My mom, my missionary companions, peeping toms as the case may be. It's an exclusive bunch.

We are not so intimate that I let her actually fold my laundry, but she's seen me do it. If there is a more accurate measure of intimacy, I don't know what it is. We are so close that I saw her in the street walking her dog once. Kind of awkward to meet her out of context, of course, half expecting her to ask me about my underwear.

I am afraid that she will some day confront me about overloading the washers (I try to get my money's worth at $2.50 a pop) or about putting my wool blend pants in the dryer. Or the fact that I put my detergent in at the beginning of the cycle as opposed to waiting after the prewash just because I don't want to wait around. Or about occasionally mixing my lights and darks/reds and whites etc. You know, all the classic laundry faux pas. I'm sure she would if she could speak English or if I could speak Mexican.

My dream is to some day be more intimate with a woman than I am with my stocky Mexican laundry mat attendant. Preferably someone who speaks the same language as I do.

Guitar Heroics

2007-10-20T05:53:00.000-07:00

At the Javitz Center a couple of weeks ago, the Ziff Davis conglomerate hosted the DigitalLife technology trade show. It's fun stuff, really. Lots of gadgets and gaping black holes into which you can throw hard-earned money. Oh yeah, and one booth handing out lollipops, which I thought was kind of creepy, although delicious.

At DigitalLife, there was a big booth featuring Guitar Hero 3. Now, I have played guitar hero just a few times in my life. I am fine if we are playing a meandering rock ballad on Easy, but anything beyond that just adds extra stress to my life, which is one thing that I don't need. But these kids at DigitalLife, who I consider to be my guitar heroes, are phenomenal. But after watching these guys pleay guitar hero, it makes you wonder if their talents aren't being a bit misguided.

Of course, this is what the video game industry is doing and has done for decades now. When I was younger (what I condescendingly tout as the "before my mission" days), I played my fair share of video games, starting with Sonic the Hedgehog. I could wax off the first level in 32 seconds with my eyes closed. Then came RBI Baseball 2, where I could run up the score into the hundreds before my eyes would dry out and crust over. It was often a crash course in problem solving and perseverence, although I admit that I was never really that good at any video games. (I always played RBI baseball on Rookie and never defeated Dr. Robotnik on the final level, where Sonic flies in a surprisingly agile biplane.)

Essentially, it taught me how to solve problems that didn't really matter and that didn't help me in life. The only times that video games have ever really come in handy is as a networking tool and conversation fodder. ("How you doing, Chris. It's been a while .... so have you played the new Resident Evil? Lot's of ill-tempered zombies in that one ...") And as technology has progressed, the industry has become progressively more capable of tapping highly specialized skills towards meaningless pursuits. Enter Guitar Hero. Enter Dance Dance Revolution. Enter Bass Masters.

The real danger is that these meaningless pursuits aren't as meaningless as we outsiders (we that are jealous) make it out to be. This really matters to a lot of people, mainly a lot of overweight 20-somethings and anemic computer programmers at the Javitz center. It's not because it is a waste of time that it becomes a problem. It is because people don't realize that it is a waste of time. The line separating reality and a false albeit satisfying sense of reality is dissappearing.

This is the argument that I give, and the argument that countless others would give if they had as much time on their hands as I do. So with that in mind, I am going sit on the couch and watch college football. And then I am going to cheer on the Red Sox as they beat the Indians in Game 6. After that, I might read the last few chapter of Frankenstein or go see a show on Broadway.Or otherwise escape reality with a false sense of reality. And I will be joined by the concourses of countless others who purport that Guitar Hero is a waste of time, a senseless squandering of talent. All of whom are really just jealous that we can't play Strutter on Expert.

Land of opportunity

2007-10-19T20:12:00.001-07:00

I have been on vacation this weekend, which I am never naiive enough to enjoy. I went determined to discover the joys of New Englandish carelessness in the Can-American peninsula of Maine. It seemed a shame to miss the leaves turn in the leaf-turning capital of the world when I was so close. I mean, it was either that or Florida, and I figured since Florida is nice all year round and since I have lived Florida sufficiently through countless episodes of Miami Vice, I should give something else a try. (That's the same reason that I drive a Lincoln and not a Ferrari.)

Anyways, while en route I also stopped by to meet some family in Massachusetts and found pretty much everything that I was looking for in Maine. The weather was beautiful, the fall colors were vibrant, and the sidewalks were not hidden by splotches of chewed gum. We went for a walk in the woods with their dogs (neither of which have names worth trying to pronounce, let alone spell) that would have made any transcendentalist proud. Well maybe except for Thoreau because he was a hack. A big fat hack. And he couldn't build a house that would last long enough for the emminent rush of tourists to ogle. It was the perfect day (plus a couple of hours) of the anti-Times Square.

But during my stay, the cleaning ladies came to clean. That's what they do best, you know. Turns out that they were Brazilians, which makes me happy because I will find any excuse to practice my Portuguese. (Well, more accurately, I am always looking for easy ways to impress people, such as speaking in Portuguese. Really not that impressive, I guess, when it is something that hundreds of millions of people can already do. Regardless, please forgive my selfishness.) After speaking to them for a while, I asked if they were here with their families.

The two women, it turns out, are sisters, and they live with their other two sisters who also clean houses. So the four of them, and all of their four spouses live together. Probably not the ideal conditions, but certainly livable. So eight people under the same roof is nothing to complain about, right? And cleaning for a living isn't a bad way to live. I even envy the guy at work who gets to run the floor waxer. But these poor women.

They left their children--one left 4, the other 2--all under the age of 12 back in Minas Gerais, a state in northern Brazil. They had not seen them for three years, during the time they have spent here cleaning houses. Now I don't have kids (none that I have made public, at least), but I can't imagine how a mother's heart must hurt as she cleans houses of families that have everything (and often take it for granted, I am sure) as she thinks of her children thousands of miles away who have nothing.

Damn those selfish good-for-nothing immigrants.

Living Large

2007-10-07T16:29:00.001-07:00

So my roommate and I are getting along great. No major arguments, no large grease fires, no larceny to speak of. We are both considerate of each others' personal space and beliefs, level of cleanliness, etc. I really have no room to complain, but those who know me know me better than that.

My rommate is a nice young woman, 22 years old from South Carolina. It goes without saying coming from the home/mission/BYU-Idaho background that graces my past 23 years that this is the first member of the opposite sex that I have lived with. (Of course my mom and sister don't count. Don't be silly.) "Interesting" perhaps explains it best, with "educational" and "experimental" close behind.

She's a very nice girl, and not necessarily unattractive. I mean, I am in no risk of throwing away a shot at eternal salvation or anything, but she is datable by most standards. But let me tell you a couple things about the totally platonic state of cohabitation in which I have found myself. A couple of observations, not complaints. No, no complaining here.

I am happy that I have had this opportunity to live with a woman before being married to one. Some of the things that would have shocked me during the first few months of living with my wife have now surfaced, which will take a few surprises away from the adventure called matrimony. And believe me, the last thing that I want in marriage are surprises, except for good ones like new sets of golf clubs and power drills for my birthday/anniversary.

For example, you and I know both know why God invented Saturdays: college football. It's a special day where we can get all of the sports out of our systems so that we are ready for Sunday. Well apparently this memo is just attached to our Y chromosones, boys. Let me tell you what has been broadcast on the new Samsung LCD television and HD cable box (both of which I bought specifically to watch college football, mind you) over the bast two saturday afternoons. Vanity Fair (shoot me now, I beg of you), Working Woman, several excruciating seasons of Sex in the City and Friends, Miss Congeniality (I will let that one pass because Sandra Bullock is my future bride), and Must Love Dogs. That's not right. It just ain't.

So instead of watching football, I thought I could at least vaccuum my room. But our vaccuum just doesn't work like the commercials have told me it should. Its little motor whirs away, but it absolutely sucks at sucking like it should. I flip it over to make sure there is nothing stuck in the unercarriage (such as a Snickers wrapper, stray kitten, etc.). All that I found was hair. Miles of hair, all wrapped up in the vaccuum that just wanted to get its job done. So much hair that the brushes on the plastic roll were not even visible. And people don't buy dogs because they shed. You don't want hair all over the place, get a dog and don't get married (or don't move in with a woman).

And the bathroom, boys, don't even get me started. My rooommate dies her hair red, and although I am not sure how the process works exactly, one step (apparently) also involves dying the grout in the shower the same color red. And when I walk in after she has applied makeup, every exposed surface (mirror, sink, toilet seat, tile floor, toothbrush, etc.) has a light dusting of that powdery stuff. You know, the stuff inside those plastic clams that women always carry in their purses. And I never feel totally at home with my pants down when I can see brushes and combs and curling irons peeking over the edge of the shelf above me.

In the end, what I have in a female roommate are all of the caveats of marriage with none of the benefits. You know, I still have to cook my own meals and my Friday nights are still lonely. For all intents and purposes, all I want back is Mark, Dan and Kyle, who didn't mind when I left the seat up.

A Litany of Regret

2007-10-07T11:30:00.001-07:00

I am now a real person, at least idealistically. I am out of college, I no longer live with my parents (my mom just sent me the remaining contents of my closet at home; what was once "Tony's room" is now in the process of becoming "Dad's office," a titled previously held by a makeshift desk secured by a piano hinge sitting in front of his toilet downstairs), and I have a job that makes enough to both pay the bills and sustain select guilty pleasures (you know, eating, paying rent, and going to Mets games). That means that I should only have real concerns, I should only commit real mistakes, and I should only make really good decisions. Again, idealistically, perhaps not practically.

However, I do feel that now is a good time to outline the litany of regrets that I have about some 23 years of life. And this is not a confessional, but a reflection. It may be of consequence that this is being posted between sessions of Conference, but I would like to think that it is something more than that; that is to say that it is a genuine and pensive attempt to leave some things behind and not a spontaneous admission of guilt that will be deleted (both figuratively and literally) tomorrow morning.

I have not valued many personal relationships with good people. I am sorry that I did not remain friends with Ryan (safer that full names are omitted, huh?), one of the purest people that I have ever met. In choir in fourth grade we were voting on who was to be choir president, and he asked me to vote for him. We voted by a raise of hands, and when his name came up, I didn't vote for him. Neither did anyone else. He cried in class, in front of everyone. I am sorry, Ryan. I regret not voting for you. And I am sorry that I was not your friend through what I'm sure were some of the hardest of your life.

Once in Brother Sanford's seminary class we were playing somewhat of a scriptural muscial chairs, and it was a showdown between Betsy and me. The music stopped and I pulled the chair out from under her. She fell and she cried. I'm sorry, Betsy. Sorry I cared more about winning a childhood game involving the scriptures than I cared about your physical safety. Ironic, really. The scriptures, which I'm sure advise people not to pull chairs out from under others. (Probably in Exodus somewhere, one of the "Thou shalt not"s.) I regret that I let my competitive nature get the better of my civility.

I sold a cornet on Ebay with a post which I said that the valves were recently overhauled, which was not true. Sorry about that, guy in Minnesota that bought it. The thing barely even played. But you found that out soon enough, I'm sure. I regret having lied in that Ebay post.

Once I tried to take a corner too fast in my mom's new Volkswagen Jetta (the first new car that she ever bought) and running into a telephone pole at Hastings on Overland. It was a dumb move in a car that I shouldn't have even been driving. My mom let me take it to school while she took the bus to work. The last day of high school, someone keyed the front door and quarterpanel on both sides, which was something that I undoubtedly deserved. I regret having tried to take that corner too fast, I regret that my mom had to take the bus to work, and I regret having offended someone so bad that they would key both sides of my (e.g. my mom's) car.

I have spent most of my life trying to be cool, to little avail. Cool (in the conventional Will Smith sense) is something that I am not, and something that I will never be. I regret having tried.

I never learned the course of romance. (All I know from what love is I have learned from Sinatra lyrics.) I tried taking the physical side of the relationship too slow and taking the emotional side too fast, which broke my poor confused, dillusional heart. Then I tried taking the physical side too fast with little emotional attachment, which just made me a bad person in so many senses. I regret that I broke my own heart and that I undoubtedly hurt others along the way (I won't say "broke others' hearts" because I would be giving myself way too much credit).

I have said things that I have thought would be fun or funny or witty, all in the name of good fun. But in so doing I crossed lines and entered arenas where "good fun" does not belong. Some of these statements have been lewd, others cutting, others self-depricating. I regret having not respected that line.

I have been pefectly pessimistic and unduly cynical for most of my life, which is maybe one of the most unbecoming characteristics (aside from being homocidal, of course) that a person can have. It repels the kind of people that I want to be around and represses the kind of man I know that I should be. I regret calling pessimism realism, an idea which is absolutely repulsive.

I will not go on for fear that people will stop reading or stop caring, although this is by no means the end of my list of regrets. I hope that those who have been offended (such as the person who keyed my (e.g. my mom's) car and those who I offended by virtue of my relationship idiocy) at least understand that I am trying to be a better person. After all, I am now here in real life where I know that my actions have--and my actions have had--real effects on real people.

A Bigger Pond

2007-08-04T05:51:00.000-07:00

So I am now back in NYC, back from Rexburg and the rows of alfalfa on Sunday afternoons. I found an apartment in a part fo Queens called Sunnyside, which sounds like such a lovely place. I say it doesn't matter if it is or not, with a name like Sunnyside. I have started work, which means that I go to a place every day where everyone else is better than me at what they do and I only have the right to smile sheepishly and say "Yes'm." So I sit in a cozy cubicle with three others, labeled as the new guy, which will be my title until I stop enjoying gazing at the flashing lights and impatient lines of taxis in Times Square.

It's life now, I guess. It's not the all-inclusive pleasantries of school or a mission. My life is comprised of work and, well, life, I guess. It now comes down to how I will fill that ambiguous void, those hours of the day where I am not allowed to work. So far, it has been coming home and watching Barry Bonds and Alex Rodriguez swing too hard at inside sinkers and fly out to shallow right. But soon they will pass their landmark homerun marks and I will have to fill the void in some other way. I like to think that I will fill it with something productive, but it is so hard when the void is so great (from here to eternity) and my goals in life so broad. Not nonexistent, but broad.

Reading is always a productive pastime, but if I am not reading to accomplish something specific, I feel like I am firing in the dark. I am sure that I can learn or thing or two about the enigmatic nuances of life or about the childhood of Abraham Lincoln, but I am sure that I can focus that learning on something, you know? I have never had the opportunity to be productive and no product to work towards. I guess that this is the reason that we have hobbies and collections and friends, unfortunately none of which I actually have.

I'm not too worried, though, because life is good. I am happy and healthy and live in Sunnyside, where the world always smiles, even when it doesn't. I am not worried about what fills that uncomfortable void, because something good will fall into place. If all else fails, I can start to collect stamps. Or I can write mediocre blogs about how I don't have anything to do with my life.

Antisocialitism, you say?

2007-02-17T18:40:00.000-08:00

So the other day, I had my first house guests here in my Queens apartment. For those of you who thought that I wasn't "cool" enough to drum up a solid friend base here in New York, well just listen up. My charisma and gregarious charm naturally attract and draw people to me, in case you hadn't already noticed. The other day I had a little get-together with a couple of these newly acquired "BFsF," Elder Chamberlain and Elder Chase. (Yeah, they're missionaries. What of it? I take what I can get.)

It was actually the first time that I had sat down and talked to missionaries after I got back from my own mission one year and four months ago. I felt like my world had imploded, leaving me on the far side of the nametag and pavement-thrashed shoes. But I won't get into that because I fall into "I'm a spiritual failure" mode, comparing my intern self to my mission self. Whatever though.

What I also realized is that I don't have a social life (other than the Elders and a couple of gracious BYU-Idahoans also here in NY). Although this is not significantly different than any other period of my life, it's different this time because I feel like I don't have a choice. You know, in high school, as long as you fish low enough in the social barrel, you can find someone to befriend you. You know, the AP Calculus and marching band kids. But here, it is not so easy. First of all, I live in Queens. It is a lovely neighborhood, but I think that I am the only non-Spanish- or non-Hindi-speaking person here. I of course have nothing against diversity, but it becomes problematic with a language barrier securely on all sides.

Also, living here in Queens, I am kind of detached from the Manhattan mainstream. Granted, I am only a 20-minute subway shot away, but the boroughs define not only geographic boundaries, but also social ones. There is somewhat of a sentiment of a superiority/inferiority/separatism that plagues us here. Kind of like how everyone at The Ridge is too (quasi-) rebellious for the rest of the riff-raff at BYU-I. And how everyone at Colonial House is too Utahan and everyone at Arcadia is too frugal, etc. On top of that, consider that there are only singles wards in Manhattan, and not in Queens. Again, not an excuse in and of itself, but it is all part of the larger excuse equation.

Check out my co-workers. They socialize, but do so by drinking (more accurately categorized as "getting sloshed"), which is hardly social if you don't drink (which I don't. Well, only DP). My roommates do the same, only for extended periods of time (Stu's nights on the town last at least 36 hours. His endurance amazes me). Sobriety is a prize too great to sacrifice for a stint as a socialite. Or so they tell me.

In the end, a social life in its purest sense is hard to find. I have the luxury of not having to worry about it too much because I am only here for three months. I will then go back to BYU-I for one more semester, where socializing is as easy as compulsively laughing at inappropriate moments. After 14 weeks of extensive flurries of social activity (or more accurately, 14 weeks of deferred social opportunity), it will then be over. I will come back here to New York for the rest of my immediate life, and I will have to either come to terms with my situation or just complain about it in blogs that no one reads. Either way, I will be a better man for it.

One pleased, please.

2007-02-13T20:26:00.000-08:00

As I was growing up, my mom, by virtue of her calling as a mother, was a cornucopia of handy advice. You know, things like, "Oh, it didn't hurt that bad," "It'll only hurt for a second," or "that didn't hurt, did it?" For some reason, my childhood is full of memories that hurt that probably shouldn't have. In retrospect, she was probably always right, again, if by nothing else than by virtue of motherhood. That and the fact that I was (am) somewhat of a pansy.

Anyways, my mom also gave me advice that didn't come when I was crying because I bumped my knee on the piano bench or when I saw a bug. She said, "If you please yourself, then that's one pleased." Although there may be several ways to interpret that statement, I will use it in the context that it was given to me. Essentially, in the case of tough decisions (such as what I should do on Friday nights, what I should have for dinner, whether I should go to zero hour BC Calculus, etc.), she would advise me to do what I wanted to do because I understand myself well enough to know what pleased me. I didn't have to worry about anyone else but myself because in trying to please others, there is no guaruntee. Since my mom is a math professor, she lives her life based on expected value. (She will even play the lottery when there is enough money in the pool to have a postive expected value.)

In theory, the probability of pleasing yourself entirely if you make decisions based only on your interests is 100%. This would make the expected value of pleasing yourself 1. If I can be 80% sure that I please, strictly for the sake of argument, my girlfirend Grendel (she may not be a lot to look at, but you should see her move furniture), then I have an expected value of .8. Now consider that when I act strictly to please myself, I still have a 20% chance of pleasing Grendel. That's an expected value of 1.2. Good deal, huh? The reason that I say this works only in theory is because there is a serious logical fallacy at work.

First of all, let's imagine a 12-year-old Tony. The probability of having what I thought would please me actually be what would please me was probably around 15%. I might have said to myself, "You know what's good for lunch? Snickers." When I was 16, I might have said, "Friday night? Halo here I come!" When I was 19, "Procrastinating research papers until the night before they are due is what all the cool kids do. And boy am I cool ..." Much to my surprise, none of those would please me in the end. Fortunately, I slowly learn from my mistakes. That percentage rises gradually, so today it may be something like 25%. But after this first fallacy of a grossly overestimated percentage of success, there is still a second concern to address.

I soon came to find that I could not be happy when other weren't. I think that this is not so much a sign of unbridled magnanimity, but more one of envoronmental paranoia, much like as if I were a skittish social chameleon. In other words, I have a 0% chance of being happy if my delicate Grendel is not absolutely ebullient. And perhaps the converse is also true; Grendel is happy only when I am. This becomes fallacious because the process to arrive at mutual happiness is circular. Optimistically this would be called a symbiotic relationship, but I deem it more appropriately labeled a dysfunctional one. As I look at the problematic nature of contentedness, I see why it is so intrinsically imbued with contention.

In the end, the only way out is slowly developing an understanding of what brings us pleasure coupled with pure, undiluted selfishness. At least I have one of the two, right?

An embarassing addiction ...

2007-02-09T21:43:00.000-08:00

Every day I give thanks that I don't drink and that I never have. There are, of course, the health benefits and the financial freedom as a result, but the main reason that I'm glad of my sobriety is because I know that I would be a sloppy drunk--truly a crippled alcoholic. Although I have never experienced the addictive power of alcohol, I have let myself become addicted to another substance. However embarrassing this is to admit publicly, I feel that it is necessary for the purgation of my inner suffering.

Ever since my childhood, I have had a particular attraction to something that piques all of our carnal passions from time to time. But I was not only attracted, I was infatuated, even titillated, stimulated. As I grew older, I felt the same sensation seep through my body, and soon enough I had to act on the desires of what is so accurately labeled "the natural man." The self control that I once firmly grasped was soon dross next to my drive to attain the physical whims for which I so yearned. It started small and has now swelled into a gigantic, obstreperous monkey on my back.

When I went to the store with my mom, while she was deciding between 2% and 1% milk, I stole away and found myself wide-eyed in front of rows and rows of my new-found best friend, which I now know is my unavoidable worst enemy. They came in all shapes and sizes. Of course, the best ones were wrapped keenly in plastic to keep scavengers at bay, but I knew that I soon would be able to get my own passionate fingers around a couple. Then it happened. I won't be specific about the wheres and hows of the story, but it suffices to say that I had my first experience. And once you have experience, you are never the same. I might call it a right of passage, really.

Of course, in this day and age, there are plenty of places to go. You aren't safe at home, work, or even at school, however disturbing that is. Adolescents and children, girls and boys don't have to look too far anymore. The corner store. Dad's "special collection" on the top shelf. The locked drawer in Mr Engleking's desk. Rupert's backpack in health class. Everywhere and everyone seemed to be a resource. Before I even realized it, I was sneaking around behind my parents' back trying to be clandestine in my now compulsory tendencies. Before I knew where I was going, I was on the road to addiction, where I still find myself trodding along in embarrassment. And of course small things don't stay small.

I knew that I had a problem when I got into the serious stuff--double stuffed, to be specific. And once I had tried double stuffed, I had to try the mint and cream and the peanut butter versions of the same vice. Why stop there? My Oreo fetish began to sink in deeper and deeper. My dreams started to involve giant cups of milk spattered with Oreo icebergs. Although I started by indulging myself maybe once a month, it soon became once a week. Then it was twice a week. Now it is almost a daily routine. This morning I was barely able to get the package back into the cupboard before my roommate Stu came around the corner. Can you imagine what he might have thought of me (a self-touted "Mormon") if he saw me with a chocolate crumb-covered mouth at 6:30 in the morning? It was a close call, but when your desires are so intense, your uncommonly strong passions cloud your common sense.

If there is anyone out there than reach down and bring me back from my Oreo addiction, I am reaching out to you. I would do anything to become the man I was before I let myself become the shell of a man that I am today. Oh, reopen (if you caught that play on words, please accept my hand in marriage) the gates to my happiness.

It's made for whom?

2007-02-05T19:58:00.000-08:00

We have this intricate set of personal tastes that no one really understands. These tastes dictate our romantic lives, or so we tell ourselves. In reality, they only exist to give girls an excuse to criticize guys they don't like without feeling bad about themselves. I am not so naive (or so gender-biased) as to imply that this only works one way, but I will tell the story from a man's point of view just for the sake of saving awkward gender-sensitive phrases such as, "When a man/woman and a woman/man fall in love/lust, he/she just can't help him/herself to treat his/her honeybuns/stickybuns to a romantic evening under the stars/makeout sessions during the halftime show."

These tastes become so important to girls that they become somewhat of a code, or a set of rules. Of all of these rules (aka excuses), there are essentially only two categories. The first category is "Too much" and the second is "Not enough." I will ask your pardon in advance to the poor grammatical structure that I will use, but often parallel structure is more affective (not effective, in this case) than grammatical accuracy. "He is too much affectionate." "He is not enough compassionate." "He is too much loud." "He is not enough funny." "He is too much stinky." "He is not enough relaxed." The only time that a woman thinks that she is pleased is when a guy is neither "too much" nor "not enough." But those are just excuses. Contrary to what is most comforting to think, we cannot quantify love.

There is no formulaic answer to the already nebulous question of "what is my type?" In my life, I have "fallen in love" (in quotes because I use love in the Hollywood sense and not a true love, which still eludes me) with all types. I have "loved" a girl that was too loud and liked to dress up and throw parties. I have "loved" a girl that was a fireman's daughter. I have "loved" a girl that liked to read fairy tales in the back seat of my Lincoln (and no, that is not a euphemism). I have "loved" a girl that liked to do puzzles until all hours of the morning. And with every one, I was "too much" something and "not enough" something else, which was just a self-preserving way that they had of saying, "I don't like you."

However difficult it may seem for us guys who try to become the right amount of everything, it is a waste of time because girls don't really want what they say they want; they just want a guy that they love. Until they find that guy, they will make up "too much" and "not enough" excuses about why they don't like those would do anything to make them happy. And I guess that is okay.

Success: A Falacious Ideal

2007-01-30T19:10:00.000-08:00

Success is a problematic goal. The word "success" itself acts as an absolute. According to the explicit English lexicon, you can either be successful or unsuccessful. You can't interpret success in varying degrees--again, according to the dictionary definition. Although the same could be said about other attributes that are dependant upon our human judgment (i.e. ugly and beautiful, fat and skinny, smart and stupid), success is a nebulous deviation from these other classifications.

We will take first the category of weight. I will not focus on scientific measurement because those in and of themselves could be argued, I guess. I wouldn't argue them, but someone would. I will concentrate on aggregate perception. If a man (in this and subsequent cases, I will use "man" so as not to sound sexist) is overweight, and you ask 100 people if he is overweight, an overwhelming majority of them will say that he is. If a man is ugly, a majority of people will say that he is ugly (or at least unattractive). There will always be the few who think that overexaggerated features (such as a kaiser roll-sized nose) are unduly becoming, but the aggregate opinion will lean towards the side of "dang, that ugly!" However, success is different. There will never be a majority opinion because the proverbial tape measure used to quantify it is existentially relative.

A most basic definition of success is "someone better off than me." In other words, you define what determines success. Within that definition, there are constantly variable categories of success: money, family, position with God, pairs of shoes, number of children, record of the football team (which is the way we Boiseans measure success ... Go Broncos! 13-0, baby!), etc. I don't think that we can label anyone who is better than us in these categories (whichever ones we use as our "tape measure") as unsuccessful. For example, I do not feel successful yet because I do not have a college degree. Therefore, anyone who has a college degree is successful. Once I have a college degree, the tables will turn. Then, anyone without a college degree is unsuccessful and anyone with a college degree and a job will be successful. Once I have a job, the unemployed will be unsuccessful and those with a higher-paying job than mine are successful. And so it goes.

If we were to say that those underneath us in any given category are successful, we are saying that we have already crossed the plane of success and are far above it. In other words, we have already achieved success. If we are successful, then why progress? After all, since success is absolute, we have nowhere to go. After all, if God had intended us to somehow achieve beyond success, why didn't he give us the word "successfuller"?

This is admittedly an oversimplified "success model," but the principle is true. And it's vicious. We cannot let our happiness be dependant upon our success or else we will never attain either of the two. We can never be successful, but only closer to success than we were yesterday. That's what I'm trying to do. If my goal were success, then failure would be my only option. And failure hurts like a well-executed wedgie.

Apple my eye

2007-01-27T21:17:00.000-08:00

Apple's image is a lie; I hope that everyone realizes that. The image that they are trying to portray--and that they have successfully portrayed, I might add--is a "let's stick it to the man" fringe group of liberal non-conformists. It really was. Just look at the induction of the Macintosh into the market: an anti-1984 campaign that was meant to give the common man what he deserved--a cheap personal computer. It appealed to proletariat and empowered them. And look at Apple now.

There is recent controversy in Europe over iTunes--that you can't play music that you downloaded on iTunes on other portable media devices. Recently, Norway banished iTunes for this very reason. I am not arguing who is right or who is wrong here, but I just think that it is ironic that Norway has essentially stuck it to the man, which is now Apple Computers. What does this make Apple? Well, hypocrites.

The advertising campaigns that Apple uses are geared to the young generation. A generation that likes to at least pretend it is making the world a better place. A generation that drives hybrid cars and refuses to wear leather shoes. It is a generation that will sign petitions to stop the fat-cat capitalists from killing children in Iraq. This is Apple's market. However, the business is moving in an opposite direction.

During the recent Consumer Electronics Show, all of the major electronics companies were unveiling their breaking technology. All of the companies, that is, except for Apple. They were holding a show of their own, which was not an underground gathering, but a soiree sordid with elitism. The company unveiled the iPhone, which is a name that was already trademarked by a VOiP provider. They knew that it was trademarked, but went ahead with the iPhone anyways, which is the corporate version of a distinct and inconsiderate "up yours." In short, Apple is now the man; the world now has to find a way to stick it to them.

My inaugural blogging

2007-01-26T18:05:00.000-08:00

I have always wondered what this would feel like. It is refreshing, really. I am now blogging. Anthony P. Sheehan, blogger. I like the way that sounds.

I just moved to New York City a couple of weeks ago for an internship at a public relations firm in Times Square. I admit that it's a change from my lovely (a.k.a. uneventful) hometown of Boise, Idaho (I acknowledge that as a gross understatement). The first week I walked around bright-eyed and frightened as I tried to figure out which way was uptown and which way was downtown. As I would wander and bite my nails, I was shoved out of the way and "politely" asked to step aside (New York uses "dumbass" in the same context as Boise uses "please," as in "Get out of the way, please/dumbass."). I have now acclimated myself to the atmosphere to a certain extent, but I still feel like people can still smell my Idaho-ness as I walk down the street. I have tried everything, too. I bought a Knicks hat. I avoid eye contact with everyone. If people ask me directions, I point to my watch and pretend like I know where I am going. But it just doesn't work. I don't strike up a conversation unless I have a direct connection and a selfish motive (which is every New Yorker's mantra). In short, I disguise myself as a New Yorker. But I fall short.

I am still something different. I am still timid when I order doughnuts in the morning, and I don't even know what a felafel is. I answer "yes" every day to the shish kabob guy on the corner to a question I don't understand. I still gawk when I see a street performer or a Hasidic Jew. After thought and consideration, I now realize that no matter how hard I try, I am plagued with chronic un-New Yorker-ness, and there is no cure.