Month: December 2005

In Love with an Idea, Part II

About two years ago around this time someone said to me that she liked the fact that I had no expectations. We were in the early days of our relationship then and while I’m still not entirely sure what she meant by that, I suspect it had something to do with me not expecting us to be doing certain things[1] or for either of us to be fulfilling a particular role. We just acted naturally and were comfortable with whatever came our way. No pressure, no requirements, just a relaxed pace to our time together.

Unnecessary expectations may be tied to the appealing assumptions we make regarding someone to whom we know we are attracted but do not fully know.

Once the boyfriend/girlfriend exclusivity threshold has been passed, we assign different standards of behavior to the other person. These are expectations, and they vary from person to person. Perhaps it was the case that I had only the most essential expectations for our relationship: thou shalt not mug down with others, and thou shalt show affection often. Some people may extend these to more complex rules and regulations: thou shalt always call me at least twice daily, thou shalt have sex with me nightly.

Relationships work best when there is balance, and a balance of expectations is essential. However, for those of you who may find yourself discontent in your dealings with others (romantic or otherwise), examine your expectations and make sure they aren’t the problem.

Do I sound too much like Dr. Phil? I’m sorry. I just write this stuff as it comes and try not to judge it. Also a good way to approach a relationship…

1.) Maybe I wasn’t being pushy for sex.

Oh the Wells Fargo Wagon is A-Coming Down the Street…

Somehow a song about “the UPS truck” doesn’t quite fit. Maybe someone needs to update The Music Man. Anyway, shiny red keyboard goodess is all mine!

NE61

It’s a 61-key, Nord Electro 2. It does all the old cool organ and keyboard sounds: Wurlitzer, Fender Rhodes, Hammond, etc., in addition to standard piano sounds. And it doesn’t do a thousand crappy useless keyboard-programmer-wank sounds like so many companies make. It does a few classic sounds and does them exceptionally well. This is the best Christmas ever.

Stinkfoot the Brave

I took Zoe for a walk tonight, and Stinkfoot met us in the backyard and followed along the entire time. He always lagged several feet behind us, moving in uncertain spurts, but he stayed in the game despite the darkness and the occasional car. I can’t say I’ve ever taken a walk with a cat. I remember when he was afraid to go out the door.

Cats. They grow up so fast.

Don’t Be a Mr. Bungle

Fans of Pee Wee Herman will remember a video that played on his original stage show (later an HBO special) about lunchroom manners. “Mr. Bungle” (later an insane rock band led by genius/madman Mike Patton) was the central spectre in shaming children into behaving. Of course the good folks at The Internet Archive have tons of this sort of thing. It makes for multitudinous opportunities for MST3K-ification.

I enjoyed the keywords that classify the film: social engineering and puppet chaos.

Eudora Welty, Homely Woman

For some reason a thought passed through my mind about a passage I read some months ago about a Eudora Welty biographer who insinuated that the reason Welty became a writer was because she was unattractive. This caused something of a stir in some literary circles.

Obviously artistic talent has little to do with physical appearance, although Hollywood would have you believe otherwise. While I can say that in my experience the top 10 most talented people I have ever seen have been reasonably unattractive people, there are certainly exceptions. It’s really a non-issue, a purely coincidental affair [1]. What’s interesting to me is the disquieting truth that many unattractive people do tend to develop talents and generally become more interesting people because they can’t get by on looks. While I maintain that the reason I took up the guitar was to make weird noises, getting girls has certainly been more than one awkward-looking guitarist’s reason to start playing [2].

Writers, painters, musicians, actors…are we all doing what we do because we’re not good-looking and/or we sucked at football? It may well be true. If you’re an unattractive person, it behooves you to develop an interesting or pleasant or creative disposition so that people will be attracted to you. If I had been better at following through on my swing and had less acne, perhaps I would have been a baseball star and girls would have taken more notice of me, and I wouldn’t have had the free time or inclination to practice an instrument or write or read books, etc.

I think the critics of that Welty biographer feel threatened by the notion that homely people become creative people because they’re homely. I don’t entirely recoil at the idea. I wasn’t good at sports and I certainly didn’t get by on my looks, but I am what I’ve become and I like it. I don’t envy the beautiful people or the atheletes. Their world appears even more illusory and empty than the worlds the rest of us inhabit.

This reminds me of a line from an episode of Sports Night:

And in that moment, Dan was reminded once again why he wanted to write in the first place. It’s for the same reason anybody does anything: to impress women.

1.) The arguments of eugenics enthusiasts notwithstanding.

2.) I would like to remind the audience that, if anything, the guitar stole a social life from me in high school, and thus far has been responsible for bringing me only one girlfriend. And we only met because she was my bass player.

The Unhappy Life of “Used To”

I don’t know how this perverse little phrase was born. It has always struck a dissonant chord in my perception of language, although this is probably due to a personal grudge I have harbored since early childhood, when I thought it was a single word, “usta.” Life was so much simpler then. Eventually I learned that it was two words, “used” and “to,” which if you think about it, when put together, make absolutely no damn sense.

Stop and think about the different usages of the phrase “used to.” It is most often employed as a synonym for “previously” or “in the past” – “I used to love Bea Arthur,” or “crack whoring is not what it used to be.” Another, altogether different, definition is “accustomed to” – “Abe Vigoda is still alive, get used to it” or “I just need to get used to all these fistulas.”

But “use” is a word of utility; to use something or put something to good use – “I will use this coat hanger to perform an emergency tracheotomy” or “I should use a sterlizing agent to prevent infection.” To use something is perhaps to handle something, so to “get used” to something makes as much as sense as to “get handled.” Doesn’t that sound awful?

And did I mention that, for as much as I love the English language in all it multifarious permutations, it is truly deficient in that it only has one word for “love”? That’s what we get for leaving our linguistic development in the hands of Limeys and Jerrys.

To Claire Danes and Keira Knightley

Having seen Pride and Prejudice tonight and Shopgirl last night, my faith in Hollywood beauties has been restored by these two exceptionally skilled actresses, who also happen to be excruciatingly beautiful women. Each of them has more explosive, maddening sensuality in the backs of their necks than in the bosoms of a thousand Pamela Andersons. And they are completely perfect in their imperfections – Claire’s wide nose, Keira’s distinctively British teeth. I could write volumes of terrible poetry about both of them.