I, Proteus

The lesson was learned long ago:
You can't raise shields after foes pounce.
I grew to take another tact.
No shape-shifting, no lions nor snakes,
Though still tough to grasp as water.

Many mansions are in this house,
Whole neighborhoods and borroughs too.
By predicting and reacting,
I'll lead you where you want to go
And show you what you wish to see.

What I leave out you'll just ignore,
Convinced by your hypothesis
And that what's not there is hidden,
As opposed to not existing.
I know how you present yourself.

I'll tell you fundamental truths,
But couch them in ironic tone.
Then, outrageous inanities
I'll present with staunch conviction.
It's not my job to think for you.

Denigrating, deprecating,
I attack myself gleefully,
Knowing well that, though you might smirk,
A part of you believes my jests.
Who'd say such things if they weren't true?

Adaptive gestalt, mosaic,
I simply play with perspective.
Defense in depth, testing if you
Can see the forest for the trees.
In truth, it is quite plain to see.

For when words and actions diverge,
Follow not what I say, but do,
And then you will know all that is.
I remain whom I've always been.
I dance in light. I hide in sight.

I, Proteus

It's the End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)

Tomorrow the Mayans will sadly prove their prescience and we'll all be cast off the surface of the planet and into the limitless abyss or some great Cthulhu will rise from the Laurentian Abyss to devastate us in its Old God fury or hot places will freeze and cold places will melt and terror wind will spin us all to death in ice-sharded flame. Hell, why not all of that together?

Why not? Because post-diluvian apocalypses have not occurred, at least not since Toba, 70,000 or so years ago. Oh, they've been talked and written about, ad nauseum, but here we are, still prepping and predicting.

And yet, I think the preoccupation with apocalypses doesn't have to do with the mass deaths, but, paradoxically, with individual life.  No matter the apocalyptic prophecy, there are always survivors who must struggle in the post-apocalyptic era, be they the gas diviners of Mad Max, the Father and Son of the cannabalistic wastes of The Road, the bumblingly incompetent fools of The Walking Dead, or, perhaps, even all of us today since the ancient historian Josephus claimed that the Holy Spirit fled the world at the destruction of the Temple by the Romans in 70AD. Even the Christian Revelation, for all its horror build-up, ends with judgment of the living and dead. We all, secretly, despite the scarring torment of seeing our friends and family die, want to believe we have what it takes to make it through.

"*They* might die.*They* might have to die. But not *me*. *I* won't die. *I* can't be killed. *I* have a plan."

Three years ago, I was having dinner with a buddy and the bubbly waitress, cute as a button and as smart as one to boot, chatted us up.  Somehow, she got wide-eyed and asked us if we were scared of the Mayan Apocalypse that was coming in a few years.  I explained I was a former Army officer just getting ready to willfully go to Afghanistan and he was a Force Recon Marine who'd served in both warzones so, no, we weren't particularly scared.  She pressed. 

"But what if they're right?"
 
"Oh, well, then I suppose I'd go to the coast, find a sailboat, and ride it out.  You don't want to be on land for the apocalypse.  Noah taught us that." 

"Can you sail a boat?" 

"I used to be able to. I have a few years to get this all figured out."

"Can I come with you?!"

"Sure, we need pretty girls to rebuild civilization."

"I don't know how to build anything."

I looked at my buddy. He looked at me. I kept my straight face.

"I'll explain it to you when it's time."

"How will I find you?"

"Head to the coast. Stay off the main roads.  I'll be in the sailboat."

"Okay!"

At that point, she went off to fetch us another round of beers. He asked me if I needed to borrow his wheels to take her out after she got off shift. I declined because I don't mess with button-smart women, regardless of how cute.

I mention all of that because, again, deep down, I think we all want the apocalypse, any apocalypse, to happen, prepostrous as it might seem.  For Y2K, my cousin and friends and I stayed up at my pop's place in the mountains. I joked we should do it there because if everything went to hell, it is eminently defensible.  Of course I was joking, but, you know what?  It *is* eminently defensible.

It dawned on me this morning, perhaps the last we'll ever know if/when the Mayans are right, that I now live on the coast. I bought a sailboat and learned how to use it (sorta), and I live a 30-minute, weapon-laden run from my marina.

Mandee, wherever you are, head to the coast, stay off the main roads, and look for me in the sailboat.  Bring scented candles and some wine.  We'll rebuild civilization. Trust me.

1st Open Mic: I am *NOT* a Comedian

So, Tuesday is Trivia night.   It just is. I go, I yell out answers to questions the part-time comedian/part-time journalist/part-time trivia host asks and often times, my friends and I get free drinks or, God Willing, cash.  The host asked us out to an open mic night at a local place where he was going to perform.  A friend and I said we'd go.

I've kept a scrolling list of standup bits for years.  Something hits, I'll write it down and email it to myself so I have a record of it.  Last night, I started listening to the local amateurs (no judgment with the term; just fact; they ain't being paid) and I got the itch.  But like Luke with his targeting computer, I turned off my phone.  Most of getting comedy across is the delivery and style, moreso often than the words.  That's what I was getting from listening to the guys read off their notes.  And earlier in the day I'd listened to a podcast where Louis CK extolled the virtues of winging it.

So on the fly, I came up with an angle, and I wrote it down, and I wanted it real so I'd remember it without having to read it much (because reading kills it) and slugged a few beers and asked the guy to let me go on.  I got to go on last.  The host introduced me as a "first time comedian." So the recording starts after that.

Below, I'll type out the transcript of what I wrote, and I'll attach the mp3 of what I actually said (look, I pay all this money for this damn phone, so you're damn right I recorded my first attempt).

The audience was encouraging or at least not pissy (which would be weird since open mic means they all want to succeed and see others succeed, but I wouldn't say they felt I revolutionized comedy).  Since my wheelhouse is that uncomfortable place of "that's either rude/depressing/angry or hysterical" and I start by going after the audience (people trying to be comedians) about their jobs, I think the smattering of applause when I hit the required beats are about right.

Whatever. I'm hysterical.
 

_____________________________________________________________
What I meant to say/what I wrote down (NSFW):

"I'm not going to be a comedian.  I can't be.  It's fine.  I'm cool with it.  It is what it is.  You know how I know?

Comedians work food and bev, retail or some "clearly I'm biding my time til my stadium tour" bullshit job. "I host trivia!"

I work a job. Like, a career.  And, holy fuck, it's not even my first career.   I have a gay man bullseye on my face and I was in the Army.  But, I want to be clear, I didn't stab babies in the face, or anything like that.

Not. NOT that I was against that, but because I was an officer.  I had other people do the "distasteful" stuff.  But that kinda sucked.

Which is weird.  Because growing up, until people could do them back at me, I thought explosions. were. awesome!

"FIRE! God, I have such a boner right now! AMERICA!"

But then it was

"IED! Fuck you! You shit yourself too!  Do I still have my dick? Praise Jesus! I want my mom..."

But now I work an office job.  I sit at a cubicle.  You can't be funny doing that shit.  There's no escape.  When shit is bad and your boss sucks, you laugh, because laughter's the best medicine, but years with no escape and it's not funny.

It's depressing and your soul dies and you just rage.  But you rage and you'll get fired.

And I'm not funny at work.

But, and this is key, people, office drone "I'm excited about shopping on Thanksgiving" fuckwad assholes aren't funny either.

However, and this is my saving grace, they have TVs and they know the sound of someone trying to be funny.  "Bah, dah-dah-dah-dah bah!" and then wait for the laugh...which, frankly, is fucking weird in any other context.

But whatever.  Normal people are polite and don't want to admit they don't get it and they want to fit in.

When I started this career, the mundane horror was funny and I did that and what I said, regardless of what I said, I said the "funny" way and so they laughed and I became the office "funny guy."

Which, thank God, because now I'm dead on the inside and drunk most of the time and I say hateful shit...and they LOVE it.

Like I'm a deadpan absurdist.

"Gail, if you don't fill the coffeemaker again, I will burn your house down and fuckstart your face."

"Oh, you rascal!" she laughs.

"Bob...Bob...Just...fuck off..."

"Oh ho! That boy's going places!" Bob says, delighted.

"Yeah," I respond, "the bar"

"Ha!" he chortles.

"And then over to your house to fuck your fat wife."

"Ho boy! What a joker."

Diana Neptune Aeolus Pluto

The moonlight danced upon the dappled dales,
And shattered as it struck the frothy hills.
And though it gave the sky its navy hue,
It could not penetrate the dark below;
No verdant scape, instead, a shimmering,
A play of lightning upon mottled ink.

As each crest approached, spurred on by the blast,
I reacted to the pitch and yaw.
Instinctively, I rolled and flexed and braced,
Still acrobat, mindless upon the till,
I felt and heard and saw the mighty air.
My game: to catch it in my canvas grasp.

At peak! At trough! At roar! At lull! O Sea!
O how spritely does thy rolling action
Soothe one as softly as the Sirens' call?
With the celerity of lover spurned,
Thy metronomic face morphs dissonance,
Thy sweet and supple lips 'come terror maw.

As men since dawn of time, all grace then fled,
In quest of life, I grappled, jerked and heaved,
I struggled all my force unto its brink,
All to weather the maelstrom symphony.
Better to withstand cacophonous tune
Than succumb and be embraced in silence.

I am mine

He's mine! he screams.

He's mine! she roars.

You bitch!

You motherfucker!

Whose am I?

I think I know,

but I do not.

For I am but a child.

The judge gives

his decision.

I am awarded.

He's mine! he triumphs.

A few years and

same again.

I am awarded

but this time

He's mine, she says,

in spiteful glee,

but weary.

I travel time.

I decide what is all that can be true.

I am,

have been,

will always be

my own.

G. Roapers' Fun Time Saloon (Seeking Investors)

Piss Poor Persuasion

I am mad. 

Read this article from the Washington Post:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/magazine/will-law-school-students-have-jobs-after-they-graduate/2012/10/31/f9916726-0f30-11e2-bd1a-b868e65d57eb_story.html

Now read this plate of hot garbage, an op-ed by the Dean of Case Western Law:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/29/opinion/law-school-is-worth-the-money.html

I like how he passed over the low percentage (50%) on first jobs at law firms. You know what happens if people don't get first jobs at firms? Public sector pays just enough to pay the minimums on that "mortgage" he tried to blithely disregard. Solo practitioners have a stunning failure rate and most are buried by the necessity of that "mortgage payment" and have to give up. The problem with the mortgage crap is when you have a mortgage for a house and you can't make the payments or don't want it anymore, you can sell it and walk away. Law school debt is a mortgage for a house you never see and you can't sell.

For the large numbers of folks that don't get law firm gigs or public jobs, that means an unrelated field that not only didn't need a law degree in the first place, but in fact, the JD can make it more difficult to get hired. Plus they still get to pay that invisible house mortgage.

If this is representative of the rhetorical skills that dean's school imparts, then all I have to say is Hell with Case Western and Hell with that fella.

Sagacity

My Gammie was my favorite person on earth. She was the only grandparent that lived in town and I was the only grandchild she had who lived in town. Partly because of the divorce and custody battles, but mostly because she was just fantastic, I considered her my rock. Beyond that though, she really was more like a mother to me, as I was a son to her. As she got older, when she would start rattling off names of her children, I'd be in there ("Bill! No. Pat! No. Ajax! Whoever you are! Bring me a glass of water!")

Gammie was an Army brat, born to an artillery colonel with roots in Texas. Though she moved around as a child, she was always raised to be a proper Southern lady. At the same time, because she grew up around the Army, she could be tough as nails. 

Artillerymen used to be avid equestrians. Prior to World War Two, the cannons were all pulled by horses and mules. One day, as a girl, her father, the colonel (though I'm not certain of his rank at the time of the story) took her riding on post. She was thrown and her arms were badly skinned.  Before she had a chance to wail, a superior officer rode up and tersely commanded her to get up and back on the horse. She looked at her father and he nodded at her (unable to countermand the man, though apparently Great Grandaddy was not very pleased by the officer's intrusion). She complied and pulled herself up, as ordered, the blood running down her arms.

The superior officer smiled and barked, "A girl getting back on her horse! That's what I like to see!" Then he rode off.

That was Patton.

She married my grandfather when she was 19. He was 29. As he rose up the ranks, she did too, in her own way. Though unofficial, military wives partially carry their husbands' ranks. They are expected to police the community. When the soldiers are away, the commander's wife leads the Family Readiness Group. She insures all the families are taken care of in the absence of their husbands/fathers.

My grandfather was a brigadier general. If you think someone lower-ranking was not going to treat her seriously, just because she was not in the Army, you are dead, damn wrong. If somebody told the general's wife "no," they'd better have had a fantastic reason. She was appropriately polite and demure, but, having raised a family of four children while her husband was off at two wars, she had an adamantine will.

What with moving around so much, I considered her house home. Gammie was a large woman and that finally caught up to her my senior year of high school. She'd had a heart episode so she and the family decided she couldn't live on her own anymore (at that point she was also on bionic knees). The retirement home where all of her friends were didn't have an opening at that time. So, Gammie came to stay with us.

I had been in classes for the grade ahead of me the entire time in HS. Therefore, nearly all of my friends graduated the year before. In fact, I could have graduated as well, but a) I wasn't giving up my final season of baseball and b) why rush to responsibility? Far from cramping my style, I thought my grandmother living with us was great.

When she first came down, while we still weren't sure about her heart, I stayed in the same room with her. What with her replaced knees and her size, she had very poor circulation in her legs. I would rub her legs and feet with salve and put on her compression stockings. I would help lift her legs up on to the ottoman when she sat and on to the bed when she was ready to go to sleep. I adored that woman.

I can sleep through a hurricane, but I would wake up if her breathing changed.

One night, I heard her feebly calling out for me from the bathroom. I jumped up and rushed to her. My eyes were greeted to the sight of...well...

She'd had an "accident." It was the middle of the night and I suppose her stomach was upset and she...she...she...didn't quite make it.

I was horrified. Not because of the mess, but because I could tell she was mortified. I did my best to make it seem that there was nothing unusual. I got her cleaned up and put back to bed. I scoured the bathroom. I went back to bed.

I laid down in my bed, facing hers. She was facing me. She had not gone back to sleep. She was looking at me with glassy eyes and didn't say a word. As I looked back at her, tears welled in mine.

"Ajax," she said softly.

"Yes, Gammie," I replied, tenderly.

"You know what they say..."

"What's that, Gammie?"

"Shit happens."

That was the only time in my life I ever heard my grandmother cuss.

I adored that woman.

Kindergarden

People lie to themselves. They just do. I myself have before [usually concerning my true *feelings* (groan) about a girl I couldn't get. "Nah. I'm not into her...(tear)(sniffles)...Nope. Not into her at all."] and, get ready for it, IT'S A DISASTER EVERY TIME.

Now, I must be perfectly clear, it's not that I think people who lie to themselves are stupid (though it's possible) or bad (also possible, and definite if they are willing to hurt others to spare their own discomfort), it's that they're typically weak, in that they can't muster the strength to face reality/facts/the truth.  It's easier to believe something that isn't true and can't be true than accept unpleasantness ("Sucks that you're that taken with her, Ajax, but SHE IS NOT INTO YOU.").

I've said it before and will say it always: believing something that isn't true and can't be true is insanity.

As much as it sucks to accept, or at minimum acknowledge, one's impotence, sometimes you don't get to eat the bear; sometimes he eats you. And yelling "I'm eating you, Grizzly!" while he has his chompers in your thigh isn't doing anything to figure out a way to get out of that situation, other than possibly give him (confused) pause if that particular Grizzly comprehends English.

I must admit though, self-delusion is useful for tolerating an untenable situation. That's why people do it.  The problem is not while you believe the lie though; it's when the curtain's drawn back and it's revealed. The shock and self-loathing are fairly typically monumental (unless the person doubles down and figuratively screams "LALALALALA I CAN'T HEAR YOU!").

If there's anything I've learned on this marble, it's that nobody likes to feel bad about themselves and nobody, readily, likes to acknowledge that they're powerless.

The true downside with lying to yourself is that by doing so, you're accepting the crap situation that got you to lie to yourself in the first place. It's, ultimately, a failure of assessment. You're going to keep losing if you're playing a game you can't win. Keep playing if self-flagellation is your thing or you legitimately believe you have a chance, but call a spade a spade or find a way out of the game.

All this is a preface to what I'm up to these days. I might sound a bit melancholy (don't fret...jokes forthcoming), but better to acknowledge than delude.

Awareness brings the possibility of control.
_____________________________

I am performing Document Review. Allow me to explain to those not in the legal biz:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/magazine/will-law-school-students-have-jobs-after-they-graduate/2012/10/31/f9916726-0f30-11e2-bd1a-b868e65d57eb_story.html

Document Review is where dreams and aspirations go, if not to die, then to hibernate.

What is it? I can't give my particular situation because I signed a non-disclosure agreement. But I can give an example.

The Gulf Oil Spill.

Again, I am in no way involved in that, but of course BP is getting sued by a billionty people.  The courts will hear motions from litigants.  To figure out what happened, there's a fact-finding stage to start called "discovery".

The plaintiffs will make motions to acquire all pertinent, relevant documentation from BP. BP must (MUST) comply in good faith. If there were a document that said "Let's blow up the rig! Lolz!", they would have to turn it over. Courts seriously expect defendants to do that.

Since the Smoking Gun so rarely exists, the proof of malfeasance has to be pieced together from subtler sources. Plaintiffs will cast a wide net in their discovery requests. Better to have and not need than need and not have.

So the court will say, "BP, turn over every document (email, spreadsheet, slide presentation, telegram, etc) that involves oil rig maintenance in general, anything about that rig 'The Deepwater Horizon' in particular, and, what the hell, anything you got on the Kennedy Assassination."

BP is a massive multinational. That production order will end up being millions, if not tens of millions, of documents, each ranging from one to several thousand pages.

That is where Document Review comes in.

BP has lawyers. They can't look over that much information. There are not enough of them and their hourly rates are too expensive to have them doing that. They farm it out to cheaper labor.  What kind of cheaper labor?

They can't just give it to high school graduates. A judge wouldn't believe they were acting in good faith if they did that. Also, there would be a chance the uneducated would let a key document slide through or perhaps sell it to the other side. No, they need people with training and something to lose.

That's why JDs, not bar-sworn lawyers, but people that graduated from law school, are required for document review. They have a legal education but can't take clients and practice because they haven't passed a bar exam and been admitted to practice anywhere. But they have an advanced degree that most other career fields will avoid like the plague since it's typically assumed that a) JDs in a non-legal field will be argumentative pains in the ass and b) they will leave the second they pass a bar exam and get a job at a firm.

Sadder than JDs though, in their own special way, are bar-sworn attorneys who do document review.  They haven't been able to latch on to a firm (as the link above explains, a great many graduates will be having a very, very difficult time finding steady employment as lawyers) or they are burned out from practicing.  JDs have the hope in their mind that they might be able to improve their station if they can just get sworn in. Doc Review lawyers don't have even that.  It is a treading water occupation.  Always has been and always will be.

What makes document review maddening, and therefore what makes so many document reviewers (that I've seen, at least) lie to themselves, is that it is dummy-proofed to require no more than a kindergardner to perform it.

Colors and shapes.  If you can handle colors and shapes, you can do kindergarden and you can do document review.

All the documents, if not digital already (like emails and computer docs) get scanned and then all get run through a computer filter.  The filter looks for key words, in this instance, the word "Rig" and maybe "maintenance" and definitely "Deep Water Horizon" (and maybe, what the hell, "Kennedy Assassination").  The filter will assign those words colors or a color, signifying "Hey! This is probably Relevant!"  They like to make Doc Review festive, so let's say those get coded Chartreuse!

As a document reviewer, the first stage is called "First Level Review" (FLR).  All you're supposed to do as an FLRer is see if anything's relevant.  That means they give you a set/"batch" of documents, you pull down on the scroll bar on your computer for each document, and see if chartreuse(!) flashes past your eyes.  You're not really reading.  You're just looking for the color.  Sure, it doesn't hurt to glance at the gist of the documents, but you're not there to make yourself a roughneck foreman on a gulf rig; you're there to pump these documents to the next stage of document review, Redaction.  When you get through a document and there's no chartreuse, you code it "not relevant" and move to the next document.  When you get one that is relevant, you have to check it for that next stage.  Does it have material that should be redacted?

How to explain redaction?

Out of the unfathomable amount of information that is in the relevant documents, there is an equally unfathomable amount if proprietary information on non-related subjects that could seriously damage BP. Say BP had invented the only drill of its kind in the world that would open up unexplored areas and revolutionize their business. And what if someone suggested in a company email they put it on an oil rig or even The Deepwater Horizon in the future? BP doesn't want its drill design or plans for use or even the knowledge of its existence getting out to competitors. Hell, a competitor might be behind a litigant solely to data mine through discovery.

To prevent BP from, justifiably, refusing to comply with discovery, courts let defendants redact proprietary information from relevant documents.

FLRers are given a redaction list. Once they spot chartreuse(!) they pay a bit closer attention to the doc and skim it looking for keywords for redaction. If they find those words, they mark it "relevant" and "redaction needed" and move to the next doc (or they mark it "redaction not needed" if it isn't). The FLRed document sets/batches with docs that need redaction go to Redactors.

Redacting is shapes, specifically rectangles. Using your mouse, when you look over a document, you draw an opaque box over all the non-relevant, and specifically redactible, material. If an employee mentions how great his lunch was on the rig, you don't redact the part about the lunch. It's not important. But if the email said that during lunch on the rig it dawned on him that the experimental drill would be great for yadayadayada, you sure as hell redact the part about the drill.

Redacting is censorship. Think of WWII letter that would arrive home with Dear --- and Love --- and everything else was blacked out for security purposes. They didn't burn the letter or keep it from the sweetheart, they protected what they thought was secret.

Redaction can make documents indecipherable or mostly pointless. And that's fine. Because so long as a relevant term is visible on the page, the doc has to be turned over, even if the word "rig" in a sea of "redacted" does the plaintiffs no good. That's the system.

Quality Control (QC) is the next step. QC reviews the docs that FLR said weren't relevant or need redaction to make sure they are correctly coded. They do the same thing for the redacted items to make sure nothing was missed nor that too much was redacted nor that relevant materials were mistakenly redacted.  If there was a mistake, they correct it by coding and re-redacting.

Here's a little secret: people that went to law school consider themselves to be very intelligent. Just like anything else, some are, and some are not. But they all think they are. They think they are far too smart for such a menial job.  Far too smart to be doing kindergarden work. Far too smart to be doing kindergarden work when they spent over 6 figures on their education. Far too smart to be being paid like an assistant manager at McDonalds.

This causes a double problem for QCers. It means that many times FLRers and Redactors hit "$&*! This!" mode and code the docs or redact them willynilly, because gawddammituniverseIamnotsupposedtobedoingthis!

When you are in the same position as people who have already burned out, and you have to correct them, it's not a good place to be.

The turnover is high.

I got "promoted" to redaction, and then QC, in 41 days. "Promotion" does not mean more pay, it just means more responsibility and expectations. When I got moved to QC, I asked what the benefit was, and they told me that I could work more hours. And that as the project wound down, I would be among the last to be fired.

The cognitive dissonance that working in QC causes is startling. Some (Group A) seem to pretend they work for BP, discussing minutiae on how best to protect the company through perfect redaction/coding. They willfully lose sight of the fact that a) whether they redact the preceding article or not is of no importance because b) the equally burned out document reviewer on the litigants' side, having to actually read all of that gibberish, is not paying attention since c) there are tens or hundreds of millions of documents and so d) it will take a decade or so to sift through all that before e) the lawsuit settles anyway.

Some of the others (Group B) hear how ridiculous Group A are, and shake their heads, and then I catch them (Group B) saying they work for the law firm. Law firms that do document review are typically huge, and therefore prestigious. Working for them would be a great, big feather in the cap. The only problem is, we don't work for them, and we never could work for them. The best law firms don't hire document reviewers because document reviewers can't get jobs, especially not with good law firms.

We all work for temp agencies that funnel people to doc review. Hiring, firing, and dealing with people just quitting is much easier that way.

The management at document review take advantage of all of that self-delusion. I don't mean that in any nefarious way. It is what it is. Overtime is not additional pay. So management constantly encourages people to work extra hours. The self-deluders think they are doing their part to save BP or working hours appropriate for an associate at the firm.

Associates at good firms do routinely work 10-16 hours a day and come in on weekends.  Associates at good firms get paid like associates at good firms though. Again, we get paid like assistant managers at McDonalds.

If you're not deluded, the only reason that you're working extra hours is because you need the money, plain and simple. The deluded brag to each other about how many hours they're working.

A junior manager or two, promoted up from the cubicles to inspire us, has tried to test me out. "You're coming in this weekend, right? You're only at fifty hours so far." My laughter as I walked out for the weekend has confused them. 

I worked at McDonalds as a 15 year old. I shook my head at the others who would jockey and compete to get promoted there. I knew I was meant for bigger and better things, just like now.

Good thing I'm not kidding myself?

Play Dating

Making friends as an adult can be quite peculiar.

Growing up, in school, of course you're going to have friends. You're always around each other. People in school take making friends for granted. The fun and pleasant people think, "Well of course I'm going to make friends! I'm fantastic! That's all that matters!" The not-so-fun-and-pleasant people, the passive-aggressives, think, "I don't have to change how I act; people *have* to put up with me."

When you get out and about in the real world though, it's a different story. If you're not careful, you'll take your school mentality to work.That mentality is, "I'm around these people all the time; I must be friends with them." That mentality results in Cathy down the hall giving you updates on her cat and her food diary as you placidly smile and imagine hitting her with a tackhammer. Repeatedly.  That mentality will drive you to drink before too long.

That is the glorious thing about being an adult though...eventually you figure out that you don't have to be friends with people that you don't legitimately want to be friends with and, once you learn that proximity does not equal affinity, let alone compatibility, you start looking for new friends.

Or you don't. There are a great many people that look around and say "I have enough friends. I have my school chums and people from work are fine. Besides, you live long enough, you'll meet plenty of people."

But let's just say that you are trying to make friends, even if the friends you already have are fantastic and all.

Trying to find people to make friends with is like trying to find people to date. You usually base the attempt around activities.
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These days, I'm in the car driving to and from or working 12-17 hours a day. I get to see my friends on the weekend, but during the week, I'm pretty much done. My lone outlet, at present, is bar trivia.

For people that don't know, bar trivia is not a bunch of lonely nerds with drinking problems. Well, I suppose it can be. Typically though, it's groups of clever people, clumps of friends, having a good time and trying to get their drinks and food covered. Some of these groups are dodos, but, if they're coming to bar trivia and didn't just happen to be there when the game started, they have at least one smart person.  Over time, you start to learn the other teams.

My roommate and our buddy and I are a team. We are...Angela Lansbury's Vagina.
Yes; you read that right.

Angela

Lansbury's

Vagina

We play against "Cats",  "Motards and Sex Gravy", "Anal ---- (Their name even appalls me)", "You Can't Fuck to a 'Rush' Song", and then a team or two who will make a name up based on current events with a sexual/morbid twist like "Little Sandusky Urban Achievers" or some such.

If you don't get it, I don't know what to tell you. It's a bunch of people, clever and not-so-clever, drinking at a bar. It's not town hall or church. It's bawdy and that's just how it is. The trivia host tells blue jokes and teases folks.

I love trivia because I'm clever and I like being vulgar. Plus, I enjoy beer. Also, not insignificantly, we're really good at it. Since the beginning of law school, I can confidently state that my friends and I are easily in the thousands of dollars in cash and bar credit.  So, yeah, drinking and cracking jokes with my friends is not just our activity but it's also kinda a part-time job.

On Mondays, the game the roommate and I do is like a job. We win virtually every week so we have to go even when we don't necessarily want to. $50/week in free food and drinks add up. But we don't really talk to anybody there, other than the staff and the host.

Tuesdays are a different animal altogether. We don't win that one very often at all, about once every month or two (Still, Tuesdays are $100 cash). We're usually right in the mix to win, but there a lot of good teams. That means there are also a lot of other clever people who like to drink. The teams hoot and holler and taunt each other. We look forward to Tuesdays.

One of the teams, "...Rush Song", is a pack of medical students. They're our main competition. After months of teasing and cursing at each other (fine...me cursing at them) we're trying to be friends.

For the most part, other than the fact that we like trivia and drinking and we're (relatively) young, we don't have a whole lot in common. Lawyers typically come from the humanities and doctors typically come from the sciences. Sure, we might know what a bronchiole is and they may have heard of the Categorical Imperative, but... It's a good thing we know a bunch of gobbledygook or else we'd have nothing to say to each other.

Having something to say to each other is important, because, otherwise, why the hell are you talking to each other?

When you were a kid, your parents would make you hang out with some kid just because, dammit, you're both breathing. Yeah, it's your mom's friend's kid, but what the hell does that have to do with you?

It's called a play date. 

You're in the kid's back yard while your moms are drinking wine on the porch; he looks at you; you both shrug your shoulders; then you slap him, say, "Tag! You're it!" and off you go.

As a grownup though, you feel like you need a reason to talk to strangers. It feels like you can't say "I just wanna be friends because." It's a fine line. If a stranger is friendly?  Fine, he just wants to have a chat. If a stranger is TOO friendly? He's trying to get in your pants.

Rush Song is girls and guys. The girls are dating some of the guys. My roommate brings his girlfriend sometimes but our buddy and I are single.

Trying to make friends means selling yourself as someone the other person would like to be friends with. You have to be interested and interesting. This is *really* similar to dating.

Again, fine line. Friendly, but not too friendly. You want to talk about beer? Sure. You want to buy me a beer? Oh...I get it...

Of course that's an issue with the Rush girls. They're flirty and fun. Play flirting is fine, of course, but I try to be wary of perception. "Is that guy playing along or is he trying to steal my girlfriend?" Have I mentioned the Rush girls are smokeshows? Yeah. Totally are. Fun, smart, flirty smokeshows. (Dammit).

I've taken the path of making sure to engage with the guys as well.  Of course, they don't know I'm not gay. "Maybe this guy is chatting my girlfriend up to get closer to me. Why the hell is he asking me random questions?" That goes double for the single guys on their team. "He seems a little *too* interested in what I'm saying about this local sports team."

And that doesn't even take into account the vice-versa: the girls could be legitimately flirting (keep telling yourself that, Ajax) and so could the guys (keep telling yourself that, Aja...wait. what?)

Concerns about genitals were not an issue on the playground. Other than vague but pervasive fears about cooties, obviously.

But, hey, sometimes you have to just go back to being a kid because it's not that complicated. "I wanna just because." Shrug. Slap. Play.

Technically, it's simple enough, but making friends as an adult can be quite peculiar.

Ataraxia or Apathy or Nihilism or Reality

Everybody wants a nice little story, because they like to think of their lives as stories.  They want a beginning, middle, and end, because they can grasp that. They understand that.  But that's nuts.  There is no end, necessarily. Not until the final one.

We want to know we have some modicum of control.  We want to have someone we can overcome, because that means we can, in fact, overcome.  

But the truth is sometimes things just happen and sometimes there's nothing you can do about it, or maybe there is something you can try to do about it but it doesn't work, or there's something you can do about it but it's not enough to "win" or succeed. 

Nobody wants to hear that though.  They don't want to read that. They don't want to see it on the TV.  They don't want to pay money to see it on the stage or screen.

If I were writing a book or movie, I would have a brilliant, courageous protagonist and a dastardly villain, and I would fill it with love, loss, betrayal, redemption, victory, and defeat, and it would end with a culminating battle for the fate of men's souls.

And then BAM! A super-volcano would erupt and everyone on that side of the planet, participants in the story and disatisfied plumbers unclogging toilets hundreds of miles away, would all be incinerated together at once.
 
And then I'd finish by showing the other side of the planet as some pauper-woman was doing the wash in a stream and she'd look up at the fast-encroaching, ominous clouds.

And that movie or book would be an absolute failure. 

And if that were too esoteric, I'd set it in Aztec times and a sick Indian would come into Tenochtitlan, and he wouldn't be a character and his arrival wouldn't be a plot point. The characters wouldn't know about him and I might not even mention him.  All that would happen is that in the heat of the moment, the climax, the showdown between the hero and bad guy, nearly everyone would die of smallpox, no matter how noble or despicable they might be.

And Cortes, oblivious, would enter as a conquering hero as the Aztecs coughed and sputtered to death around him. And then I'd finish with an widower dumping his chamber pot out the window and onto the street in Edinburgh.

How do you think that would be received? The intelligensia would claim it was a War and Peace knock-off, if I were lucky, and normal people would avoid it in droves.

We put ourselves in books or movies to escape what we already kind of know and suspect.  We don't have that kind of control that typical characters have. But then we come out of the book or theater and subconsciously want life to be like what we just read or saw and we lie to ourselves that life is always controllable.  And a lot of it is. So we convince ourselves that, in fact, all of it is. And we are dead, damn wrong.  Believing something that isn't true and can't be true is insanity.

When it comes to the world and everyone else in it, all we can really and truly do as individuals is (possibly) influence. The only thing we can control is ourselves, and I don't even mean our bodies since some of us go bald and some get cancer. I mean our thoughts, and behaviors and attitudes. That's an amazing realization. And yet it's not enough. It depresses people. They don't want to have control over themselves. They want to control everything else.

Because if we try to control others and they succumb, we get to gloat in our domination. And if we try and fail, they were too blind to see what was good for them and we can relish masturbatorily as though martyrs to wisdom . "If only they'd listened..."

But self control? That's terrifying. Sure, all success is ours if we achieve, but, so too is failure. People would rather avoid success than court failure.  Failure to control oneself means very little if one never sets about trying to in the first place. But to acknowledge our innate impotency by failing to control the one thing we possibly can? Nope. Not gonna happen. 

If there's anything I've learned on this marble, it's that nobody likes to feel bad about themselves and nobody, readily, likes to acknowledge that they're powerless.

An Open Letter to Amber Heard

So. Amber. Let's get serious here.  This needs to happen.

You.

Me.

Dating.

And don't try pulling that "Who in the hell is this raving lunatic" thing.  Like I haven't heard that one before... I don't fall for that little ruse.  You know exactly who I am. I'm sure Blake and Melanie told you all about me.

Speaking of which, this is about you and me and the future, and not them and the past.  I'm not going to get into details, but we both know how badly that whole deal went down.  I dated Hawt Chick™ so Blake pulled the classic move of revenge marrying pretty boy in my town and Melanie went all self-destructive and ended up on Jersey Shore.  And Hawt Chick™? I'll just be civil and say "it wasn't meant to be", so long as it's understood that "it wasn't meant to be" means...

You know what?  No. I'm not going to speak ill of her because I'm a gentleman and not bitter at all (and I don't want her setting fire to any more of my things). Okay. Fine. A trifle bitter.

No.  This is about you and me and why we're going to be together forever, just as the Fates decreed at the Dawn of Time.

Oh, I know you're going to pull that, "I am not into you. Seriously. I dated a woman for years and now I'm with, you know, Johnny Depp.  Well, maybe. I'm not saying I am and I'm not saying I'm not. But I'm pretty much saying I am."

Look. I'm a master of psychology, so it's fairly obvious to me that the woman who pulls the "bisexual" card to entice Johnny Depp is going to pull the "I'm dating Johnny Depp" card to get my attention.  I mean, that's practically chumming the water.  Like I don't know this. And like you don't know I know this. And like I don't know you know I know this.  Yeah. See that? Psychological Master.

You're not fooling anybody.

It all comes down to the beard.

"Wait. What?" you might say, as if I haven't heard that one from family, friends, shrinks, police, that judge, and a few really unprofessional dominatrices.

Fact: women don't want girlie men.  And what's the number one way to distinguish between men and women? Facial hair. Duh.  I mean, I know a guy who has made a mistake or two in Phuket and he basically told me that the only way you can tell if a person is a woman isn't to assume she is based on looks.  You have to assume everyone with a beard is a man and everyone without a beard might also be a man.

But not all beards are created equal and thus not all men are either.  Let's talk about Johnny's beard for a second.

Clear lenses and a curling wisp of hair? For Shame, Sir! For Shame!

Clearly that's not a goatee.  Those are passé.  No, that's a Van Dyke or "French" beard.  And it's lame as hell.  I'm not saying it's Orlando Bloom lame.  But it's lame².

LAME ³



So, that's also my beard style.  Except, I actually have French blood (the good kind, before they lost all those wars).  And don't act like you don't know that.  

This beard has 4 phases and the later the phase, the more manly the man. 

Phase 1- Gay French Waiter (Orlando Bloom)

Phase 2- Muskateer

Phase 3- Conquistador

Phase 4- Confederate General

Where is your beloved Johnny?  Well, it depends on what we're calling Mr. Bloom there.  If he's a 1, then Johnny is a 1.5.  I'd say Mr. Bloom is a .5 and Johnny is a Gay French Waiter.

Me?  

I apologize to any bystanders this picture may impregnate.

I'm pretty clearly hovering at a 3.5.  Okay, probably no less than a 3.86.  And that's how it should be because if I let myself get to Confederate General, I'm pretty much obligated to switch my accent and patois to Foghorn Leghorn, which is freaking boss! but not really sexy. And, let's be honest, you and me is gonna be all about the sexy. I'm a hirsute MAN after all.

Now, some things have changed, as I mentioned, since I wrote that letter to Blake and Melanie.  I came back from Afghanistan.  I decompressed.   I bought a sports sedan. I bought a sailboat. I took La Arsoniste to Mexico.  I replaced most (MOST) of the stuff  that Miss Pyro set ablaze.  I ran out of money. 

Yeah, yeah.  Hindsight is 20/20, my dear. 

But, yeah, now I'm actually having to practice law and I'm going to let you in on a little secret: it's every bit as mind-numbingly awful as I have always said it was.  Pop's an English Professor and Mom's an artist.  Do you really think I'm supposed to be in an office?

No. Of course not.  There are certain things we're made to do.

You're made to be looked at.  I'm made to make up whatever it is that my heart desires.  You're stupefyingly good at what you do and I'm off-the-charts amazing, but, sadly, my skills are a bit more subtle and so have, so far, gone mostly unnoticed by the masses. Hey, no one said life was fair.

Anyway, yeah. I've tried this working thing.  I did it overseas.  I've been doing it here. I've given it a good go. And it's not me. Nope. Not one bit.

That's a big reason for why we need to date.

You're going to be getting me, which is reward enough, of course, but you'll also be furthering culture and art as I create whatever the hell it is I create out by your pool.  So this should happen. For humanity. And my tan lines. Which are, frankly, appalling.

And, because, as I say, my skills are more subtle than your slaps-you-so-hard-it's-like-a-bat-to-the-face beauty, you don't need to ever worry about my taking the attention away from you and your career.  Because, let's face it.  You're not the one who should be the second banana.  What you need is someone happy to be in the background.  

You dated a woman. You don't want to be just some girlie- man's arm candy.  And that's all you're ever going to be to Johnny.  No. I'm more than willing to let you have the spotlight.  And the fact that you'll be off all around the world shooting films and photo shoots? I'm totally cool with that. I love to travel. Or stay home while you pay the bills. 

I'm easy-peasy.

But, hey, I don't want to come off desperate or soul sucking here.  I mean, look at me. I got options.  I do.  Well, sorta. And that ties into your only real protestation.

"I have a boyfriend.  I'm not going to cheat on him. I'm not a bad person," you say.

Trust me, I know. It's a conundrum.  Yeah, I know you're dating someone right now, but that's precisely it.  You've been quality-checked.  Because you're dating someone, you prove that you are, in fact, dateable.  Quality girls always have boyfriends.  They just do. 

And hot, single girls are, by definition, intolerably insane.  Why the hell else would they be single?  I would feel bad about saying something like that if I hadn't tested the hypothesis repeatedly.  I have the skin grafts to prove it (you think Hawt Chick™ waited for me to take the clothes off before she set them alight?).  

No, I pretty much can only date girlfriends.

And therein lays the problem:  I can't steal a guy's girlfriend.  Because I'm a gentleman. I'm not a jerk.  There is a code of honor after all.

Also, this is fairly obvious, but any girl who'd ditch her guy for me, I clearly can't date because she'd be a crappy, disloyal person and would probably do the same thing to me.  Don't even get me started about the women who date someone just because they prefer the security of being in a relationship to being on their own and jump ship the second a better option comes along.  "Eh, you'll do" is not something that should be in a prospective partner's decision tree.  But I digress.

Slightly less obviously, but even more important, is that some other guy's girlfriend has shown bad judgment in the first place by dating someone else and not me .  You cannot be surprised I think that highly of myself. Yes, I bang my drum: I'm awesome.

So I can only date girlfriends, but I can't because, you know, they have boyfriends, which is precisely why you and I need to happen.

Amber, you're perfect.  You're the deus ex machina that will allow me to escape this otherwise unsolvable moral quagmire.

 I mean "morass", not this ass.

I'll tell you why.  Fine. Date(ish) Johnny Depp.  I'm patient.  One of you will get tired of the charade.  You'll break up, thus being single and undateable, but then, no doubt, you'll get back with a woman again. 

At which point, with conscience clear and honor unstained (as there is no boyfriend but you're still a girlfriend), I can swoop in and "save you"/steal you so we can live happily ever after.

Until then, my (currently) forbidden fruit...

With Much Affection,
Ajax

P.S.  Since I clearly don't date much, I'm gonna need you to lead pretty much all of our interactions. I'm a feminist.  I'm empowering you.

P.P.S.  Also,  of course, I'm not joking about this; you'll kinda have to pay my way, which is really the only way it can be, because otherwise all of this would be misogynistic and not empowering to you, which it so clearly is. Thanks. TTYL, Sugar Buns.