I notice things

In the new Frosted Flakes commercial, who the hell takes the kid outside to throw the football BEFORE feeding him?  Also, when I was a kid, I wanted sugar, sugar, sugar.  As an adult who gets exhausted around hyperactive kids, I'd be more tempted to feed him Valium Flakes, "They're...mellow..."

Nerds, Geeks, and Dorks: A Definitive Explanation

I've been awfully quiet of late, I realize, but a) I've been writing a good deal (a collection of short stories about Afghanistan and Iraq) and b) I've been dealing with more than a little flare up of depressive funk having to do with my return.  The funk was not unexpected, to be sure.  In fact, in 2005, when I got out of the army (and out of Iraq), one of the reasons that I didn't immediately try to go to school and took a year off instead was to give myself time to re-acclimate.  At any rate, I seriously misjudged how long it would take to bridge.  I'd figured a month or three at best and yet here I am, four months in, and still dealing with it.  It's nothing to be overly concerned with.  It just is what it is and these things simply take time, no matter how much I'd love, right now, to be laughing and playing with puppies in a fresh mountain meadow of dandelions on a cool summer morning while unicorns graze in the idyllic distance.

I like mocking people. I just do. It's not the best personality trait of mine, but it is what it is.  As I've been doing it for a very long time, I feel I'm an expert on the subject.  When you also take into consideration my years of being mocked as a small child, boy, young man, and now man, I think I know mockery from all angles. Thus it is that I feel it is my duty to clear up what, to me, has become an inexcusable conflation of three of our dearest pejoratives.  Now, you may think that Nerd, Geek, and Dork are interchangeable, but you are wrong.

I, however, am not wrong. Ever.  I do have entirely too much free time and so consider things that others would  consider not worth consideration.  Fret not, my loyal readers.  I shall make this very simple.  I'll give the basic definitions and examples so that you may venture forth and rest assured you're not making inadvertent fools of yourselves.

You're welcome.

1. Nerd- The defining characteristic of nerds is, as we all know, intelligence.  However, nerdery requires a specific kind of intelligence, namely educational/intellectual.  Nerds did very well in school.  They read all the assignments and, even more so, read things that weren't even on the syllabus just to lord it over the rest to show just how advanced they were.  They are intellectuals.  They're the people who read Russian literature or Nietzsche in high school.  They do not outwardly show their nerdery in the way that geeks or dorks will.  What I mean by this is, whereas a geek will dress up as a red shirt and go to a Star Trek convention or a dork will dress up as Obi-Wan, a nerd will not dress up as Baudelaire, unless it's Halloween.*

*One area of blending that's difficult to determine is historical reenactors.  While amazingly dorky, if the reenactor is historically obsessive, the research and attention to detail thus are very nerdlike.  I leave it to you to choose whether they are dorks or nerds.  I can't explain it, but medieval reenactors seem dorky, but Civil War reenactors seem nerdy.

Utility of Nerdery- While nerds also memorized the quadratic formula and the periodic table of elements, scientific excellence is incidental to true nerds because the key to nerdery is that the intelligence has to be completely impractical.  Understanding Raskolnikov's parental issues and how they allude to Dostoevsky's resentment towards his father is all well and good, but it in no way, shape, or form produces anything that remotely contributes physically to society.  Sure, it's smart, but it's pretty useless if a nerd is stranded on a desert island.

Example of Nerds- people who read and discuss the merits of Jane Austen. 

2.  Geeks- Geeks are similar to nerds.  They, too, are intelligent, but in a very specific way.  They are intelligent about technology.  The guys writing code, the guys who insist on building their own computers, the guys who hack their cell phones to get the most out of them, those are all geeks.  They are unlike the nerds in that they might very well have not done well in school at all.  They didn't care.  They like gadgets, dammit, and they like trying to one-up their fellow geeks with the newest hardware or by developing the most innovative way to maximize performance of the gear they have.  Where their geekiness does truly shine, though, is in their love of science fiction.  Geeks will take the ideas of sci-fi books, magazines, and TV shows and devote a phenomenal amount of time to expounding on what was simply a plot device for the writer(s) and adding a startling degree of pseudo-religious fervor.

Utility of Geekiness- Sadly, geekiness can be very practical.  Advancing technology by pushing it to its limits is actually quite handy, but where they go off the rails is their cultish devotion to sci-fi.  Spending one's time determining the mass, velocity, hull composition, and shield strength of a ship that was on an episode of Star Trek Voyager for fourteen seconds is a phenomenal waste of one's time.

Example of Geekiness- Star Trek.

Dorks- Dorks' intelligence is incidental.  If there's something intelligent about dorkhood, it's completely by accident.  Dorks like magic and fantasy and become just as cultish about it as the geeks do about sci-fi. The Dungeons and Dragons kids? Dorks.  The Myst kids? Dorks. Though magic and fantasy are involved, a key component is that dorks have to go overboard with the object of their obsession.

Utility of Dorkhood- None, per se.  It's fine to like Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter.  It's not fine to dress as Gandalf and insist that you be called the Grey Wizard.

Example of Dorkhood-people who go overboard for vampires and zombies. Goths, despite their predilection for depressing poetry, are a subset of dorks.  Emo kids are neither Nerds, Geeks, nor Dorks.  They are simply a blight on humanity.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Okay, I feel that's all pretty understandable.  Where the true confusion seems to be is when Nerds, Geeks, and Dorks blend.  The key to being correct is that one must identify the combination to determine the predominant trait and not simply and inaccurately mislabel based on first appearance.  I shall thus give these differences to help you with classification. The real difficulty isn't in separating nerds and geeks from each other, since the technology/sci-fi distinction is obvious enough (nerds read books; geeks read manuals), but in separating dorks from nerds and geeks.  As all their knowledge is ultimately trivial, trivia helps to separate them.  Nerds know general and historical trivia; a geek knows Matrix trivia; a dork knows Twilight trivia.

Dorks vs. Nerds

A dork obsesses over Lord of the Rings.  A nerd likes those fine but has read Tolkein's Book of Lost Tales. A dork likes The Chronicals of Narnia.  A nerd likes The Screwtape Letters.  A dork loves the various Romero Zombie movies.  A dorky nerd loves Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.  It's important to note that if literature becomes involved, then nerdy becomes the dominant trait. 

Dorks vs. Geeks

Star Wars is mostly dorky, with a slight tinge of geek, but mostly it's more about the Force, which is magic and thus dorky, as opposed to the space ships and light sabers, which are geeky.  It definitely makes no pretentions towards scientific plausibility.  Well, it tried with that cockamamie Midi-chlorians debacle, but I'm pretty sure everyone with sense decided not to admit the prequels existed.  A Dork makes his official religion The Force.  A Geek tries to build a light saber.  If you're still not getting it, check this out: http://stardestroyer.net/Empire/Essays/FiveMinutes.html

That guy is a dorky geek.

To end, I shall give a personal example.  I consider myself a nerd (though without the usual scholastic excellence).  I casually and pretentiously reference Ancient Greek literature (though if it were only mythology, as that might be considered magical, it could therefore be considered dorky).  I like Star Trek and Star Wars just fine but only "just fine." I've read the unabridged Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire and know the accurate title is really The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Lastly, I spend thousands of words drawing distinctions between words that no one else cares about.  Thus I'm an occasionally dorky or geeky nerd.

Shameless Whores (Cussing Included)

So...

I know it's not 1855, or even 1955.  I'm not saying it should be. 

People have sex.

Good. Great. Grand. Wonderful. Terrific.

I don't think women (or men) who have premarital sex are whores.

However, standing in line today at the grocery store, I saw a tabloid with the headline:

"My Affair with Ashton"

and then with a tagline about the woman spilling the beans on her "X-Rated" night fucking a tv-star.

When the hell did adultery become something to proclaim and profit from?   I've never considered buying an US Weekly, but I sure as hell won't now.  And don't get me wrong, it's not because of this particular strumpet.  Sara Leal is her name,  I believe.

It's the same thing with Tiger Wood's whores.  Some of them were professional sex workers, sure, but the others were whores too. 

I'm bothered by the fact I know who Rachel Uchitel is.  I'm bothered I know things about her.  I know that her fiance died in one of the towers on September 11th.  Why is she being given money and put on magazine covers and granted TV interviews where they don't  simply say "she wrapped her vagina around someone famous and siphoned his celebrity"?

Again, this is not to say that Ashton or Tiger are not shitheads.  Of course they are.  But they're not trumpeting.  It's the shamelessness of it all that appalls me.

We don't even consider the fact that the reason the Kardashians are all over the internet and TV and magazines is because Kim banged a rapper, had it filmed, and (according to people who know about such things) had her people sell it to a porn company, all the while claiming it had been stolen so that she could have deniability about being a shameless whore (That particular move is called the "Pam Anderson"). 

Recently, you may have seen (how would you not have seen), she got married.  And wore a white dress.  Hysterical.

She banged a dude on film. She exposed herself in Playboy.  She went raw dog in "W", but was covered in silver paint, as though she weren't naked.  Then she had the gall, later, to cry, literally cry, about the pictures being more racy than she thought they'd be. 

Really?

The camera that took the photograph of you posing full on frontally wasn't invisible.  And yet you're crying because people can see your nipples? 

Shameless.

And the thing is, I'd bet good money that Sara and Rachel and Kim would take extreme exception to being called whores.  I don't know what their arguments would be, but I guarantee they'd have them.

"We're not whores!"

"You are literally profiting from fucking."

"But we didn't cause it.  It was going to come out anyway so we were trying to make the best out of a bad situation!"

"That makes as much sense as a woman getting payment from her rapist."

"Well, maybe she should..."

"No, you goddam shameless whore! No!  She calls the cops and they put him in jail where he gets sodomized repeatedly."

"But..."

"If someone 'steals' your sex tape, you sue the living hell out of him and never sign the release for it  (which any of those sex tapes need to be broadcast).  If you fuck a married golfer and people ask you about it, you don't sell them the voice mails he sent you.  If you fuck a hipster, camera-hocking douchenozzle, keep your fucking mouth shut and hope you aren't infected."

"But.."

"If I fuck a hooker, and I mean a real prostitute, I know that if people find out about it, people are going to label me as a loser and think I'm disgusting and pathetic.  I sure as shit wouldn't broadcast the fact that I did because I wouldn't want it impacting the rest of my life.  If I put it in the papers, I know I'm relegating myself to paying for sex for the rest of my life probably. Or sleeping with crazy women who somehow get off on my name being known (which apparently works for some).  No way."

"That's not how it is! Kim got married!"

"Yeah, and that guy should be ashamed.  Any men who are seen with any of you should be ashamed."

"You're an asshole."

"Yup, but I'm not a shameless whore."

When I Die and End Up in Hell, I'll Know Why

My mother's mother, Gammie, was my favorite person.   

And that was even after she subjected me to the indignity of not only setting me up on a blind date (unusual but not unheard of) but then proceeding to go on it to ensure I didn't screw up. Read Here

(Shoot me in the face! I'm still embarrassed about that.)

To be clear, she wasn't clueless.  No.  She was a general's wife.  She was switched on.  She was aware.

She was aware that her youngest grandson didn't date much.  She dropped hints that maybe I should get on it.

Some subtle. 

Some blatant.

Even so, she kept it to prodding.  She knew it was up to me.  She would just be "supportive" because, while I may have been a slow goer, at least I was normal.  

Until the following episode.  Then she took the reins and hijacked my dating life in an attempt to save me from the eternal fires of perdition.

_____________________________________________________

It was my freshman year of college.  I was living in the dorms. I hung out with friends.  I drank beer.  Clearly, I didn't chase girls, but I'd furtively stare at them across the quad/cafeteria/classroom/whatever.  I'm just saying I was pretty damn run of the mill.  Painfully shy with women, but normal.

What wasn't so normal, perhaps, was that I would drive down to Charleston to spend a weekend with my Gammie at the retirement home every month or so.  The way I figure it, my friends went to see their parents more often.  Gammie was like my mother, so I'm saying it was normal.  

Normal. Normal! NORMAL!

Anyway, when I was down there being perfectly normal, we would go to restaurants and we would watch movies or TV together. Watching movies or TV together involved Gammie sitting in her high-backed salon chair next to her bed and me lying on her bed.

I'd be watching the movie/TV show.  Gammie, though she participated in choosing what we were going to watch, usually only glanced at it occasionally while looking at her newspapers or catalogs and, mostly, catnapping while pretending to look at her newspaper or catalogs.  That meant I got to "choose" watching Masterpiece Theater on PBS a lot.  By myself for the most part, since she was reading or sleeping.  And heaven help me if I changed the channel because "we were watching that!"

After a few visits like that, I'd had enough.  I was going to watch something I wanted.  I delicately explained that watching the same late 70's Agatha Christie adaptation every time I came down wasn't doing it for me.  She let me go to the video store.  I had Carte Blanche.

I knew what movie I was getting.  The funny guy in the dorm, Jonah, had been going on and on about a sketch comedy called Kentucky Fried Movie. It was just the thing an 18yo guy would love.  The sketches he'd described sounded hysterical to me. 

And they were.  Gammie, as per usual, fell asleep within minutes.  I woke her up with my raucous laughter at the sketch "Danger Seekers", the funniest one Jonah told me about.

 

NSFW for one particular word.

Unfortunately, that meant she was also awake for the sketch "Catholic School Girls in Trouble", which he did not tell me about.

Around the time that a fantastic pair of Catholic School Girl naked boobies were pressed against a glass shower wall, a propos of nothing whatsoever, was when I made this face

And immediately jumped off the bed to turn off the tape.  It wouldn't turn off.

It was too late.

"Ajax!!!! Why would you show me a pornographic movie?!!!" she said, perplexed.

"NOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!"

My grandmother thought I rented us a porno to watch together. That seemed like the worst thing I could ever imagine.  She upped the ante, unfortunately.

"Your grandfather used to try to take me to blue movies...That Jezebel, Angie Dickinson..."

"NOOOOOOOOO!!!!!! PLEASESTOPSAYINGANYTHING!!!"

Yeah, so not only did my sweet, adorable, wonderful grandmother think I was a pervert of the highest magnitude, now she was telling me about something that might possibly be related to her and my grandfather having sex. 

The discomfort and awkwardness you feel when your parents bring up their sex lives is amplified by 100 when your sweet, adorable, wonderful grandmother launches in to it.

"And we had a wonderful sex life..."

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!I'MSORRYI'MSORRYI'MSORRYIHADNOIDEATHATWASONTHEREJONAH'SGOINGTODIEAGRUESOMEDEATHANDI'MSORRYI'MSORRYI'MSORRYBUTPLEASESTOPTALKINGPLEASESTOPTALKING!!!!"

She did not stop talking, however, so I did the only thing I could.  I ran out of the room screaming so I wouldn't hear about Gammie and Grandaddy gettin' it on.  I didn't know what to do.  I called mom and told her what happened.  This was a significant trauma and I needed support.

She laughed and laughed.

I couldn't handle it.  I was embarrassed and ashamed and I packed up and hightailed it back to the dorm.  Mom called me the next day. 

"Yup, she's informed the family that you're a pervert who tried to show her a porno."

After a month or so,  I finally had the gumption to go back down to visit.  I still didn't want to watch Masterpiece Theater so I went to the video store.  I grabbed a normal movie.  It wasn't even one I wanted to watch.  I figured that old people like Woody Allen.  I certainly didn't watch his movies.  I just knew he was old and other old people thought he was funny.  His most recent movie had just been released on tape.

Gammie was not sure if me playing another video was a good idea.

I put in the movie.  It started.  There was some sort of family picnic going on.  Julia Louis-Dreyfus went in the house to get something.  Her brother in law was in the house.  Out of nowhere, this happened:

AGAIN??!!! WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS TO ME SATAN?

"Ajax, I cannot believe that you'd show me another blue movie!!!"

And that's why Gammie felt like she needed to set me up with a girl, any girl.

My grandmother was convinced I tried to show her porn, not once, but twice.

If that doesn't get you an express ticket to Hell, I don't know what does.

How on Earth Did I Manage This?

So...I've been hollering at Hawt Chick™.  Don't ask me how I've managed to pull it off; I certainly don't know.  I think it's like how I don't really understand the exact process whereby the nuclear reactions happening 93 million miles away result in my skin turning red, then brown.  I mean I get the gist of it, but not the details.  I figure sometimes it's best to just accept and get on with your day.  No good will come from trying to figure out exactly why talking to this woman hasn't resulted in a tasering.

Yes, Hawt Chick is very good looking.  The women I go after tend to be on the Sweet-Jesus-Out-of-My-League end of the looks spectrum.  Still, there's gotta be more.  I've met lots of women on that end of the spectrum and a great many of them were as interesting as paint.  Looks are a stellar foot in the door, but if you are boring, I will go elsewhere.  As hung up as everyone is on looks, it's amazing how common good looking people are.  I run across them all the time.  Women I want to date though?  Hardly ever.

Anyway, Hawt Chick is very good looking.  But that's not it.  She jumps out of airplanes and surfs and practices yoga and competes in triathlons and runs long distances on the beach just for fun and speaks German fluently and rowed in college and has lived abroad and, in general, is sorta fearless.  Well, if not fearless, since the truly fearless are abjectly stupid, she's one who overcomes her fears or doesn't let fear get in the way of new experiences.   

She's also a law school graduate who's just taken the bar exam. 

So, she's adventurous, athletic, intelligent and Hawt. And she somehow lets me pester her.  They make those? I had no idea. Yes, please.

When I stumbled upon exactly how monumentally fantastic she is (she's not one to air it), I took note and made the command decision to pounce.  There's no dilly-dallying or cowardice when a woman like that comes along.  You either go for it or you kick yourself forever. A woman like that is not to be dismissed or ignored or put on hold while you figure out how to man up.  Not if a man has any sense.  That she was somehow single shows that men must not have any sense.

Thank God.

I somehow convinced her to pick me up from the airport the day I arrived back from Afghanistan.

I can only assume her judgment was compromised from studying for the bar exam.   

If guys didn't go after women while their defenses were down, they'd never get women out of their league. 

It was July 4th.  Independence Day for the country.  Independence Day for me.

This is me exiting the airport.  I met Hawt Chick one night last year when I was back for vacation. Other than that, I've not spent time around her.  Other than a few photos on Facebook, I don't really remember what she looks like.  I know she's good looking.

This is Hawt Chick as she gets out of the car to help me with my bags.

This is me taking one look at her and realizing how far out of my league she is.  Note that subtlety is not my forte. 

I regain my composure.

Then I make sure this is happening for real.

Then I either become a genius or really stupid. I'm not sure and I don't think it matters.

It works.

Looks aren't my strong suit. I know that.  I have to work the other angles.  Fortunately, I know women's Achilles Heel is laughter.  I turn it on.

I get a little over confident and try to ad lib

This is me horrified at my own stupidity.

This is me going back to what works and her letting my idiocy slide.  Again, I have no idea why.

For some reason I don't comprehend, she agreed to hang out with me again.  I'm running with it until a judge orders otherwise.


Or she reads this.

Great Grandfather (William Mellard Connor II)

Two weeks back and I'm only now getting around to visiting mama.  Amazing how priorities shift when you're chasing after a Hawt Chick™. 

At any rate, I stumbled upon a "Who's Who in South Carolina: 1934-1935" on her family bookshelf.  Inside was a write-up of my great-grandfather (maternal so I don't have to change his name to Carpenter to post this).

I've always shied away from those Who's Who deals because they mostly seemed to be sketchy rip-off deals at best and shameless self-aggrandizement at worst, but having gotten an opportunity to learn about my great-grandfather, I think maybe they're a pretty cool, or at least useful, way to pass on family history to future generations.

William Mellard Connor II, Lawyer; Judge Advocate General's Department, U.S. Army, Major.  Born Charleston, S.C., August 31, 1878.  Son of William Mellard and Theresa Olivia (Moorer) Connor, of the Connor and Moorer families of old Orangeburg and Colleton Counties.  Educated: Public and High School of Charleston; Wofford College, A.B.; Law School, University of Virginia, LL.B.  Fraternities: Kappa Alpha.  Assistant Attorney and ex-officio prosecuting attorney for Moro Province, 1903-08; attorney for Moro Province and ex-officio member of Legislative Council thereof, 1908-13; city attorney of Manila, 1914; Judge, 18th Judicial District, Philippine Islands, 1914-17; Major and Lieutenant Colonel, Judge Advocate, U.S. Army (World War emergency); Major, Judge Advocate, Regular Army, July 20, 1920, to date.  By War Department Orders dated May 14, 1934, detailed as Professor of Law at United States Military Academy, West Point, New York, effective July 1, 1934; Judge Advocate Philippine Islands, member of War Department Special Clemency Board; General Board of Review, Office of the Judge Advocate General; detailed as assistant to Major General E. H. Crowder during his special service in Cuba, 1921; served on War Department General Staff as Personal Representative of President Wilson, 1921-24; member S.C. Bar Association; admitted to practice before Supreme Court of the Philippine Islands an Supreme Court of the United States; by request of Chairman, detailed in 1932 and again in 1934 as Special Assistant to Military Affairs Committee of the House of Representatives.  Author: "Reviewing Authority Action in Court-Martial Proceedings"; "Philippine Criminal Procedure" in Virginia Law Review.  Mason.  Unitarian. Clubs: Army & Navy Club, Washington, D.C.; National Sojourners.  Married Artemisia Katherine Peyton (daughter of Chancellor E. G. Peyton, Miss., granddaughter of Chief Justice E.G. Peyton, Mississippi Supreme Court), October 26, 1911.  Children: William Mellard Connor, Jr. Home Address: Spartanburg, S.C.

That's pretty damn cool, but I have a long way to go before I can feel like I'm keeping up with the family history.

Jetlag and Customer Service Calls

Even though I did my best to prep for my return, staying up to strange hours in hopes it wouldn't be so bad once I got back, jetlag has bitten me badly.  I'm hiding out at a friend's house and catnapping.

Yesterday, I bought a new phone.  It's my first smartphone.  I didn't have a cell phone until 2007.  I held off on texting until 2009.  I pretty much did everything in my power to avoid having the company give me one in Afghanistan.  I don't like the things.  I think of a cell phone as an electronic leash. 

I'm also fully aware of how idiotic that is considering my minor (substantial) internet addiction and the fact that I just spent the past 16 months basically glued to the computer.  Um, I'm anti-cell-phone-radiation/brain cancer.  Yeah. That's it.

Anyway, when it comes to phones, I'm a Luddite.  Except that now I'm a super-duper techie simply by virtue of buying this phone.  It can pretty much do everything, including changing babies' diapers. 

To make sure I am satisfied with my handheld Skynet, Verizon had a lovely young woman give me a phone call just now.  "Kelly" just woke me up from my catnap.

After the various pleasantries and asking me about my purchasing experience, we finally got to the meat and potatoes of the call.  Don't call me in the morning if you're just wanting to hear your own voice. If you're going to ask me a question, I am going to want a real answer.  I realize Kelly was doing her job, but I figured it was time to play with her.  I was feeling a little punchy.


Kelly: What do you do for a living?

Me: I was a contractor in Afghanistan, but now I'm back to work on my own projects.

Kelly: This phone will certainly be able to help you with that.

Me:  Yeah, I've only owned it for 22 hours and I think it's already achieved sentience.

Kelly: So, did the salesman explain everything satisfactorily to you about your bill?

Me: Yes, he did.

Kelly: Is there anything else I can do? 

Me: Can you lower my bill by 90%? 

Kelly: No, I can't, unfortunately.

Me: So you're saying Verizon doesn't support the troops?

Kelly: No! That's not what I'm saying!

Me: Oh, you're just saying Verizon hates America?

Kelly: No. No, I'm not saying that.

(pause)

Kelly: Is there anything else I can answer for you today?

Me: What rhymes with orange? or silver?

Kelly: I'm sorry. I can't help you with that, sir.
___________________________________________________________________________
Unless you're going to give me money back, don't call me after I've already bought something from you.  And don't wake me up.  If you do, I'm going to mess with you.

Back Up In This Piece

I got back to the states yesterday and I'll be in Charleston for the next few days as I try to deal with jetlag and meet up with all you fantastic folks where were kind enough to keep in touch with me while I was away.

4th of July, Independence Day, of course, was quite fitting to me personally as the marker of my escape..  Hawt Chick picked me up from the airport and then off we went out in the harbor.  Bikini'd babes, beer, and water.  Three things I absolutely was not around in Afghanistan (Filthy Taliban...).  A fella could get used to this.

America!

The Thrashing

The harvest that you feared
is finally at hand;
twenty pathetic years
to draw to conclusion.

No desired bright report
you thought you could control,
but a dull, growing roar,
an avalanche building
momentum until it
is inexorable.

There's no pleasure felt in
vengeance finally wrought,
just melancholy thoughts:
what might, what should have been

The sins of the father
are borne not only by
the children, but by all.
You reap what you have sown,
but then I do as well.
For that, I resent you.

All the Little Children of the World

I'm posting this on a Sunday because a) I've been catching up on my cousin's blog and my favoritest posts are the ones she writes monthly to her (now) three-and-a-half-year-old fraternal twins (the quotes from those kids make me nearly cry from laughter) and b) I'm pretty sure I get most of my blog hits on the weekdays when people are trying to avoid the drudgery of their cubicles. 

Anyway, usually the people who would comment "Haha! Fag!" are a) too lazy to type comments and b) too hungover to be reading blogs on a Sunday.


"Jesus loves the little children,

all the little children of the world.

Red and yellow, black and white,

All are precious in His sight,

Jesus loves the little children of the world."

-C. Herbert Woolston

"Napalm sticks to little children,

all the little children of the world.

Red and yellow, black and white

glowing brightly in the night

napalm sticks to little children of the world..."

-banned US Army running cadence

I kinda LOATHE being serious publicly; though prefer it in private life.

"Laughter is the closest distance between people"-Victor Borge

When people read that quote, I don't think they really grasp the subtle significance of it. 
Even though humor brings together in many ways, it still sets a barrier, regardless.  There's often a defensiveness to humor, an unknown.  Indeed, it's the very hallmark of humor, that it's unexpected (even if the beauty of a great joke is that it seems inevitable once it's been cracked), that causes this divide. 

Paradoxically, it's the experience of shared irrationality that brings people together, even as it keeps them apart.  That's why I feel that humor's a great way to get to know people initially, but you have to bridge the remaining divide with sincerity.  You make people like you with humor (the unknown); you make them love you through trust (the known).

Anyway, I'm a funny son of a bitch.  Perhaps not so modest, but I call a spade a spade.  People like the "funny" persona I've shaped and I like playing it for them.  As I said, it's a great way to bring people together, to a point.  The trouble is bridging that final divide.  As I also said, sincerity and trust is how you do that, but it would be the height of utter foolishness to try to bond with everyone you share a giggle with.  Not everyone needs to be your confidante or closest friend.  There's nothing wrong with that.  There's absolutely nothing wrong with having buddies.  So much the better in fact. 

Still, it's a real pain in the ass when you want to bridge that divide and people just don't quite get it.  It's exhausting to be divided all the time.

"I stood

Among them, but not of them; in a shroud

Of thoughts which were not their thoughts"

-Lord Byron, Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, Canto iii, Stanza 113

"What the hell are you talking about? You haven't made me laugh in 45 seconds.  I'm uncomfortable. MOAR JOKES!"

-Silly, Simple-Minded People I'm hoping are not reading this because they're too hungover or gave up when they didn't see drawings or pictures of boobs

Getting out of Afghanistan, bearing these last few days, has me in a contemplative mood.  I am exhausted. 

I tend to have two speeds, zero and "Holy Jesus! The Wheels Are About to Come Off!" (aka "I'm giving her all she's got, Captain!").  I can maintain that much longer than most, but once the wheels do come off, it's time to pull over and cool down.  For anyone close to my age, think "Excitebike" (NES).

Anyway, when I'm like this, it brings out that very divide between myself and some people, because they haven't even remotely considered that perhaps I'm more than the funny persona.  That kind of saddens me because what this really indicates is that most people aren't more than their shell so they don't consider others are either (which makes sad sense, I suppose).

I'm a whole host of things and capable of a wide spectrum of perspectives.  I typically wear the funny persona because I like to make people happy and entertain them, but, even then, mostly it's to entertain myself.  When you mix it up with the hoi-polloi, if you can't make yourself laugh, you'll go super-duper crazy/miserable. 

Anyway, for some people reading this, I'll be explicit: No, there's nothing wrong with me.  Yes, I'm exhausted.  It happens.  This is just a part of who I am that you don't usually see. If you insist on trying to force me into my funny mode when I don't feel like it or go on and on about something being off, you'll just further the divide.  Most of the time, I'm amenable, but sometimes, just sometimes, I won't dance for you.

I got like this with my friends Chris and Liz when we were in the Army.  We were buddies to that point, but it was pretty exhausting being "on" for them all the time.  We'd been to a dinner party the night before and it was a great group of people.  They were entertaining.  I was having a good time.  I didn't have to be on.  I could enjoy myself.  Chris and Liz, though, they thought something was wrong.  "What's wrong?...Tell that story!...Oh, Ajax, do the bagpipes!"  I frowned and demurred.  There hadn't been anything wrong but they were making it wrong.

The next day we were going somewhere in my car (God, I miss that Audi).  They brought it back up again. 

"What's wrong? You're grumpy! Something's definitely bothering you."

I sorta snapped.

"I'm not your goddam monkey! I have, you know, moods!  I like to be entertained sometimes! Jesus-@#$!ing-Christ!"

Chris raised his eyebrows and leaned back, surprised at my vehemence. 

Liz, unaware of how close she was to sheer and utter rage, said, "Dance, Monkey!"

Despite the maniacal urge to do so at that very moment, I didn't murder her and we are, and have been, friends.  Chris as well.  I probably should have handled it better, but once they figured out I was more and not MOAR! we've been on solid footing.

Anyway, what my friends know, but my buddies do not, is that I'm an intensely private person, truth be told.  I have my barriers that I reserve for "buddies" (humor), but they don't even realize the barriers are there.  That's how it should be. 

Just because I've put them there, I don't want the buddies thinking I don't like them.  I do.  As I said before, not everyone needs to be your confidante or closest friend.   I like my buddies.  There are some whom I'd like to connect more with and become friends.  Not all, but some.  If you're not one of those, again, I mean no ill will and there's no lack of affection, it's just that for myriad reasons, though primarily that you can't be a friend to any if you're a friend to all, it's not a good fit.  If I've made that determination, I know I can keep you from even considering this issue if I distract you with "shiny!"  We'll share laughs.  That's not a bad thing.  It's the closest distance between people, after all.

_____________________________________________________________

So, all of this has actually really been a long (VERY LONG, I know) preface to what I actually want to write about, but a) if you're the kind of person who wants to, you should know all of that about me and b) people who would have given this blog post up well before this nearly 1000 word mark are the ones who wouldn't get this anyway. Verbosity as an editing/winnowing device.  I'm &%$!ing brilliant.

So, even as I am perpetually sarcastic or a smart-ass or cracking jokes, there is more.  There are very sincere things I believe in and/or enjoy.  Actually, that's mostly who I am.  That's the depth.  The funny is the veneer.  The depth is dull.  The funny is shiny.  I feel like being a bit dull. 

I love kids. 

As I said, my cousin's blog posts about her little kids, I positively adore, even while I know banned, horrid running chants (and have sung them with glee) which are, sadly, ironical and also, even more sadly, deadly serious at the same time.  But, I love kids. Really.

Why do I love kids?

The unadulterated joy, mostly.

Yes, kids have all sorts of issues.  They can be whiny and annoying.  What? It's true.

But kids have a capability for joy that very few of us are able to retain.  Life just beats us down too much.  Too many things happen for us to keep our hearts wide open enough to really let loose with that sort of feeling.  We have to protect ourselves.  Shoot, that's one of the primary lessons that parents have to teach kids, how to protect themselves.  "Don't talk to strangers." "Don't touch that; it's hot."

Kids are raw.  They're exposed.  They feel, for good and for bad, and intensely.

They're helpless.  They're trusting. They're uncomplicated.  They're kinda wonderful.

There's just so much potential bursting out of them.

Though I've not gotten in the neighborhood of marriage (hell, I've not gotten in the universe of marriage, let alone the galaxy, solar system, planet, country, state, county or city), I always kinda thought I'd get married by twenty-five and have kids by thirty.  Having a family has always been what I've wanted most since I was capable of contemplating such things.  But, like I said, I've not gotten in the neighborhood of that.  I'm not going to dive into that sorta thing lightly or in an unthought-out manner simply because of desire or a timeline. 

If it will happen, it will happen when it should of its own accord, not on my deadlines.  In the meantime, I just sit here tapping my toes saying, "Hurry the hell up, already. I know, intensely, that I only have so much time here."

I guess people reading this will think, "Oh wow, he sounds kinda desperate about it."  I am and I'm not.  Do I want that?  Yes, absolutely.  But if I were desperate, I'd have gotten a lot closer to it than I have.  I'll jump at it and go full bore for it...in the right situation.  I'm not going full bore for a bad situation. 

Any woman reading this who might be the least bit interested in me romantically is probably going "I like guys who think and can express themselves, but this is a bit much. Jesus. Enough already.  Shut the hell up for your own sake."

She's probably also going, "Get a haircut, shave, stop wearing Hawaiian shirts, get a stable job, buy a house, get a car, be serious occasionally..." (though "she" typically freaks the hell out when I am serious-Ed.)

That those women don't quite "get it" is why I've not gotten anywhere near marriage.  That they're more than likely imaginary is another reason.  Whatever.  My act's not for everyone.

Back to it though.

Why do I love kids?

I'm thirty-two.  I'm not old.  I'm not young.  I'm past "boy" and "young man".  I'm a "man" now.  Life's crapped on me a fair bit.  That happens to all of us.  I'm not whining, just stating a fact.  Life's also been fairly mind-bogglingly fantastic.  Intentionally or not, I don't do things half-way.  Still, I miss that joy, that elation, I was capable of as a child.

It's a wistful thing, really. I miss that capacity to be open and exposed.  I want that more than anything.  I also said I wanted a family of my own more than anything, but those two things are interwoven, because I believe I'll be able to be open and exposed with them.  At least, I want to be.  I'm not sure that's possible, but that's what I strive for, what I yearn for.

I'm very big into ideas, into ideals.

I love being around kids when they're giddy and everything's new and exciting and wonderful.  Capturing even a hint of that feeling is why I adventure, because, really, new experiences and new worlds is what being a kid is all about.  Adulthood is mostly about routine from what I see.  That's fine.  It is what it is.  It's reality.

Fighting reality is a losing proposition every time.

Note I say that despite the fact that I'm very big into ideas and ideals.   It makes me think of the most brilliant, insightful thing my father's ever said: "A cynic is a romantic who knows the world will let him down."

I'm not saying I'm Peter Pan here; I've been doing the responsible thing and progressing as I should; and I'm not saying I want to be a kid again.  No, I firmly believe that the only real way to appreciate the phases of life is to know while you're going through each that it's finite and should be enjoyed while you're going through it.  But I can remember the joy of childhood and want to be a part of others experiencing that joy.   

So, yeah, I love kids.  I love being around them.

My cousins have been popping out babies left and right for some years now.  It's fascinating watching my new cousins develop.  I haven't been around for all of them because I've been off being me.  Even beyond that, I didn't really get to be around their parents that much.  On dad's side, I'm the baby of the family by quite a bit (except for one cousin, the rest of the first cousins are at least seven years older).  The kids have actually been a great way for me to bond with my first cousins.

When I got out of the army, I was three months removed from getting out of Iraq.  I was, as I am now, more than a bit exhausted.  I retreated, as often as I could, to my spiritual mecca of Saluda, NC, where my family's had a place, in one form or another, for around one hundred fifty years.  Saluda has a yearly festival that I adore, Coon Dog Day.  It's my favorite holiday.  Not Christmas. Not Halloween. Not even St. Patrick's Day (Mom's side is Irish, so that's saying something).  No, it's Coon Dog Day.

I get to go up to my favorite place and my cousins are up there; it's an informal family reunion.  Since the grandparents are dead and buried, we don't see each other as often as we did, and as I said, because I was comparatively so much younger back then, I couldn't really connect. 

In 2005, I ambled over to my uncle's place and there were my little cousins I'd never met, bouncing off trees and chasing each other all around and generally driving my curmudgeon of an uncle absolutely insane (though he actually only plays at being cranky; I watch him follow the kids room to room and start loudly complaining about all the noise just to exasperate his daughters; to the imaginary woman contemplating me, you have that to look forward to; we Carpenters go to strange, sometimes antagonistic lengths to amuse ourselves). 

Two of the first cousins, Augusta and Llewellyn, managed to have daughters the same year and then sons two years later. So each had a five year old daughter and a three year old son.  I went in the house and spoke to my cousins.  They told me about how they'd had the kids praying for their cousin, "Soldier Ajax."  Then we went outside and they hollered for the rugrats.  A whirlwind of blond hair and dirty, panting, beaming faces materialized. 

They'd not met me before.  I still carried myself somewhat like a soldier.

The former baby of the family was meeting the new babies of the family.

Within moments I was a jungle-gym for absolutely, maniacally ecstatic children. 

Yelps that didn't mean anything,

"Cousin Ajax, look here!",

tugs at my shirt,

fists tugging at my hair. 

Bear hugging all four at once, lifting them off the ground as they squealed. 

Chasing them around the yard.

Complete trust.

Complete acceptance.

Complete joy.

I love kids.

"²He called a little child and had him stand among them. ³Then he said to them, “I can guarantee this truth: Unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. ⁴Whoever becomes like this little child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. ⁵And whoever welcomes a child like this in my name welcomes me."