Love

I’ve been thinking a lot about love lately.

I’ve always thought of love as what you feel. I feel loved when people do things for me, or tell me they love me. I feel loved when I feel safe and appreciated. And I feel love towards those who make me feel like that.

But is that really what love is? Just liking people who like you? It’s easy, it’s safe, but it’s one-sided. It’s no more interactive than miming a mirror image, and probably no more real.

I think love needs to be a verb. I’m thinking of how to love those who love me. How can I give them that same warm, safe happy they work so hard to give me? I don’t know yet. I know enough to start trying harder.

That Jet Beast

That jet beast which struts and slinks from shade to shade,

Sweeps the dark with graceful tail, and stalks

Just outside the window, just outside the light from the window.

Its siren silence, calling  soldiers, sailors,  and crones,

Has caught you too soon.

Your bright self lights a wider sky now, and though ours dims

You were the singular note sparking the song – a new chord resolved.

The void you leave is not empty: it is always you, only you,

And the memory is no less sharp for solace. We hear your place

In the song, the same song, every time.

More

We always think we have more time. Another day, another chance. Call it hope, call it desperation, but we all do it.

Life doesn’t come with a guarantee: no threescore and ten and no rose garden, nor even so much as a handful of manure to start one. Every instant is a gift. Every smile is a treasure. And the presence of those you’re lucky enough to love is a miracle to make the Red Sea look small.

So enjoy it. Presence, not absence, makes the heart grow fonder. Nothing enriches our lives more than time spent enjoying others.

Hurt

I’m not the most empathetic person. Sometimes I have trouble seeing past my little troubles to the suffering of others.

But today my heart hurts for a dear friend and her terrible loss. If I could pray for peace and comfort for her, I would.

My thoughts are with you, Beanie.

Compartmentalization

I noticed recently that two of my friends who have no conceivable connection except me are now friends on Facebook. And, oddly enough, it bothered me a bit – as if it was any of my business who was friends with whom.

I like to keep my life compartmentalized. Work friends over here, school friends over here, internet friends over here, blood relatives over here – no mingling! No comparing notes or making me take off the masks I wear with each group.

But the lines are blurring. More and more of my relatives are finding me on Facebook. This evening I decided to become a Michelle Obama fan. Shortly thereafter one of my aunts sent me a message asking if I was kidding – with multiple question marks, as if being a fan of our current First Lady was patently absurd.

I’d had a drink or two by this time, so I decided not to respond right away. This is one reason why I like to compartmentalize my life. I don’t need my very conservative, very fundamentalist family nosing around in my values. They’ve all but refused to accept my atheism: my dad cycles from “you’re an atheist? really? when did this happen?” to “you can’t be serious” to “here’s why you’re wrong, my poor misguided boy” every time the subject happens to come up. I had a charming discussion with my parents and my brother about President Obama’s birth certificate, in which I failed to convince them that no amount of evidence was going to convince some people and that it was best just to ignore their wacky doubts. (I thought about pointing out that Senator McCain was born in Panama, but I decided not to open that can of worms.)

I have fantasies about going off on them, especially my father. I’m not the supreme genius and master debater I claim to be sometimes, but I can hold my own most of the time. And I’m pretty sure there’s no one in my family tree who’s in my league. I could eviscerate them. I could make them feel utterly small and stupid. I could make fools of them all.

Or I could just go into all the “do you think Jesus was real?” and “do you want to keep the Christ in Christmas?” and “should the Ten Commandments be posted in every classroom?” polls in Facebook and post obnoxious, offensive comments denigrating their beliefs. It’s not like I’ve forgotten all the anti-religious rhetoric and contempt for people of faith I used to express so viciously and so often. I could say I was making a point, taking a stand for my own ideals by spitting on theirs.

And what would it get me? A few moments’ satisfaction. But a little payback comes at a steep price. And that’s all it would be – payback. It wouldn’t change their minds. If anything, they’d be more set in their ways than before. No one wants to side with a bully, no one wants to admit a jerk is right. It wouldn’t get them to treat my beliefs and values with any less scorn. If anything, they’d respond in kind. And whether they’re able to unleash the same level of mockery, sarcasm, and abuse that I am is beside the point. It’s a war no one wins.

So I restrain myself. I work on responding in a way that lets me feel like I don’t need to cram myself in a tiny little box and hide who I am, but doesn’t step on others and force them into the same box I hate. I stand up for myself without stepping on toes. And I have a little less need to compartmentalize.

Movement

I haven’t been running for a few weeks now. I miss it. The excuse was my shoes – a pair of New Balance crosstrainers I bought a couple of years ago – were killing me. Every time I ran I’d wake up the next morning barely able to walk because my right heel hurt like hell. And that only seemed to happen when I was wearing those shoes. Even if I was just wearing them around on the weekend I’d wind up paying for it.

At first I thought I wasn’t stretching enough. (Probably still true.) I looked into it and found some additional stretches designed to help with heel pain. That didn’t help. And I do a lot of walking at work. So I let myself be discouraged from running for a while.

But I thought about it every day, especially when I felt tired or stressed or just generally down on myself. I’m back on Prozac now, which has made a world of difference. I can hear other things besides myself thinking now. But Prozac’s not a happy pill. I still have to put in the effort and give myself stuff to be happy about: accomplishments, pleasures, victories great and small. Running does some of that for me. Fresh air and sunlight, the pride of taking better care of myself, feeling healthier and stronger and happier.

I bought new running shoes today. Up until I bought those New Balances, I’d been wearing white Reeboks for as long as I can remember. (At least as long as I’ve been buying my own shoes.)  They were comfy and I could wear them with pretty much whatever. But today I wound up buying these Asics running shoes. They’re a lot flashier than anything I’d normally wear. They’re the same silver I painted my model P-51 when I was a kid. They look like some kind of advanced alien bio-technology. And my feet love them already. Haven’t been out running in them yet, but I can’t wait.

I also haven’t done enough writing lately. I’ve got some ideas bouncing around in my head, but I keep letting myself off the hook for sitting down and writing. Hardly seems a fair way to repay my ever-generous muse. I’m going to try writing every morning first thing when I get up. I have a couple of hours before work each morning, so I may as well use them productively and get some pleasure from it.

How I Do It

Once I get an idea that interests me, I like to play with it a while. I roll it around in my head, looking at it from different angles. I like to see how far I can bend and twist it. What do people expect from an idea like this? How can I tweak that and surprise them?

Often I like to inhabit the main character’s mind. Probably that’s why so many of them wind up acting and sounding like me. I have a lot to learn about creating living characters.

I come up with a title. A title pins it down – sets the tone and direction of the story. I usually find a song or songs that carries the feel of the story for me.

It’s usually a few days later that I actually start writing. (Unless it’s something for One Draft, like this one.)  I write the scenes that resonate the most with me – the heart and bones. It’s all the connecting tissue, all the muscles and organs and skin-covered contours that are hard for me. Sometimes I think maybe I should write screenplays – am I really cut out to write whole stories, much less novels? Only one way to find out.

The stories tend to flow. I don’t always know where they’re going. I have my ideas, but my muse usually knows better. She likes to surprise me. I like that.

Don’t Get Me Wrong

I poke around a bit on Yelp now. Some of my fellow reviewers are a lot of fun to read, and it’s interesting to compare notes on places I’ve visited.

Today I noticed a review for a place called “The Heart Attack Grill“. Their shtick is simple: waitresses in sexy nurse outfits serve giant portions of fattening food.  If you manage to eat their biggest burger (two whole pounds of beef), you can get one of the sexy nurses to haul your overindulgent ass out in a wheelchair.

I’ll leave the ethics of pointless overeating for another post. What interests me right now is that I can think of three similarly themed restaurants in my area: there’s also the Tilted Kilt, and the Library, and of course a couple of Hooters sports bars. If you want to ogle the young woman bringing you your order and not feel guilty about it, there’s plenty of places that cater to you. And you can harden your arteries, too.

I’ve been to the local Hooters once or twice to meet friends after failing to convince them to meet elsewhere. The food was just okay. (I refuse to believe anyone who tells me they go there for the food. Sure, and you read Playboy for the articles. Just admit you’re there for the titillation and we can move on.)  The service was poor – even in a nearly empty bar, the waitress was more interested in hanging out at another table than taking or bringing my order. This left me a lot of time to reflect on how insulting it was that they seemed to assume you didn’t need to have good service as long as you had sexy waitresses in skimpy outfits – and how shameful it was that this business model actually works.

Don’t get me wrong. I like girls in sexy outfits as much as the next guy. And that, right there, is the problem.

There’s nothing wrong with having a healthy appreciation for the female form. It’s the fact that taking pleasure in looking at women’s bodies is so intrinsic to our notion of masculinity that we have to make these defensive little disclaimers or risk having our sexuality called into question. A gay man is still typically perceived as less manly because he prefers men to women. A gay woman isn’t necessarily thought of as unfeminine. (Yes, there are stereotypes about some lesbians. But I think those stereotypes have more to do with women using traditionally masculine forms of self-expression than with their actual sexuality.)

Men almost automatically do the “elevator eyes” thing as soon as a woman comes into view. We learn it in adolescence, and since most women probably don’t feel like fighting the same battle every five minutes we don’t get called on it that much. So most of us keep doing it. We take objectification as our birthright. We don’t even think of it as objectification – we think of it as just harmless natural fun. After all, look at all the work they put into being pretty. Shame to let that go to waste, right? But “I want to look nice” is not the same as “I want to be leered at by every male I meet”. It’s not all about us.

It’s such a habit that we actually have to be formally reminded not to do it to our coworkers. I work in a predominantly male business, and it’s an almost constant struggle to keep the place from turning into a hostile work environment. Stop using the DVR to put bouncing cheerleaders on repeat and calling it “training”. No, I don’t want to check out the woman over there in the low-cut blouse – you’re a manager, you shouldn’t even be talking about this. Stop suggesting that my nineteen-year-old employee can sit on your lap if we can’t find a desk for her.

The sexual harassment training is pretty clear, and though no one comes out and says so it’s mostly aimed at men. Don’t stare down Suzie’s blouse or you could get fired and sued.  That’s the worm in the apple right there – that’s the refutation of the “it’s just male nature, we’re visual creatures” argument. If you can learn not to ogle the women you work with, you can learn not to ogle the women you don’t work with. Maybe if women had the right to sue for being mentally undressed wherever they are men would catch on faster.

I’ll admit I do it, too. (Not at work.) I try not to. I work on remembering that women aren’t GSO’s (Girl-Shaped Objects). I remind myself that as much as I enjoy looking at women it’s neither healthy for me nor fair to them to act as if I have the right to stare. It’s aggressive. It’s invasive. I wouldn’t want to feel naked and self-conscious everywhere I go just so some random strangers can get their jollies.

So why should I inflict that on others? Is that really what being a man is all about – being a selfish, aggressive, exploitative jerk?

Whatever “manly” means, it doesn’t have to mean “loutish”. I don’t like the way popular culture exploits and reinforces our very flawed notions of masculinity. I don’t think I’m less of a man because I like to cook, own a cat, don’t watch sports, and can think about something other than getting into her pants on a date. I don’t think I’m less of a man because I find it unpleasant and inappropriate to be actively encouraged to leer at women young enough to be my daughters.

We need to get away from the whole “boys will be boys” thing. Dogs will be dogs, after all – they bite, they bark, they chew on your furniture. But a responsible pet owner teaches them not to. A responsible parent teaches his kids how to behave like civilized people: treat others with respect and empathy. Look, don’t leer.

Three Days

I worked last Saturday for a friend at work, so he covered my Friday this week. Hooray for three-day weekends!

I started with a delicious breakfast at Morning Glory Cafe. I’d heard good things, and it turns out they were all very true. What a great way to start the day! It was a beautiful morning and the food was just wonderful: French toast made from thick slices of sweet bread, served with hot maple syrup, apple butter, and pecans. I have to go back to check the rest of the place out.

After breakfast I needed a little nap. So I took one, and woke up to catch “Where The Wild Things Are”, which was good but not great. There were a lot of kids in the theater, but it really wasn’t a kids’ movie. I don’t think the kids who are of an age to enjoy the book would really get everything that was going on. Then I went home for some more napping.

I met some friends to see “Law Abiding Citizen”, which was just OK. We went to dinner afterward at an Italian restaurant I’d been wanting to try. I’d heard it was a nice casual place with good food. The good food part was right. But we all felt very under dressed in jeans and T-shirts. We had fun anyway.

I ran errands and did housework on Saturday. And after having lunch with a friend, I spent most of today reading. I made fajitas for dinner. Yum!

Good times were had by me. Makes going back to work tomorrow just a bit more bearable.

Carnage

While I was gone, one of my colleagues got the axe. I don’t know why. As far as I knew, he was doing well.

He wasn’t the first. Over the last year and a half, four or five of my peers have been fired. A couple of others quit without notice. And today my boss’ boss was abruptly shown the door. We’ll see if any meaningful changes follow – I suspect “meet the new boss, same as the old boss”, but we’ll see. The new boss is a friend, and I respect him, but I also recognize that the culture of this company is toxic.

We lose an average of one person a day. Most of them just stop coming to work. Each time I’ve gone for a promotion, I’ve made my proposals to address and reduce attrition a big part of my pitch. I didn’t accuse or point fingers. I just pointed out the high cost of constant turnover and how we could manage it better. I don’t think anyone was interested. My commitment to creating and maintaining a positive, professional environment is central to my management style. I would have done myself and them a disservice by not highlighting it.

I’m not worried for my job. Partly because I keep getting kudos, partly because I don’t care enough about this job to worry. (Kind of a dangerous place to be. I’m getting better.) But I just don’t get the “everyone is expendable” mindset. It’s just not profitable. And who wants to work with threats over their head all the time?