Tagged: women
Huge Numbers For Four
“And when your daddy was young H-, he used to laugh so much at dinner that we had to send him to his room,” the grandma said as she leaned into the table signaling that this was privileged information.
“Uh-huh,” answered H-, happy to be counted as trustworthy.
“That’s right. We would have plans after dinner and need him to hurry, but he just wouldn’t stop laughing. So we sent him to his room.”
The little girl giggled and shyly glanced up at her dad seated to her right. She seemed poised to interject her thoughts.
Her grandma saw this too and in hopes of hearing some unpredictable commentary explained further, “It happened over and over again. He would just laugh and laugh, so we sent him to his room again and again.”
“Like a hundred fifteen nineteen times!?” H- guessed excitedly, her voice’s pitch rising to a nearly inaudible level.
The laughter that filled the room might have been mistaken for making fun of the guess if it wasn’t for the accompanying knowing nods between all adults and the purity in H-‘s eyes as she absorbed the limelight. Yes, she was her father’s daughter.
Vulnerable and Mature, A Counterpoint Review of Michael Jackson’s “Dirty Diana”
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I get it. People generally wouldn’t say MJ was a mature man. But then again, no one really knew him, did they? Just like no one knows Sam Smith. So, taking their respective singles as simply stand alone art, I see no reason that the man who built Neverland for real shouldn’t get a fair shake.
Have you ever read the lyrics to the number one single “Dirty Diana”? I feel like I have memories of watching the video from childhood, though I can’t place from when or where. I know I certainly didn’t know what the song was about until about a decade ago. Then I was shocked. Who knew he ever sang about such things?
Contrary to Smith, MJ’s masterpiece lacks introspection or self-reflection. It starts slow, builds, and then reaches a climax all the while admitting a terrific weakness of character. For my money, it is perfect art for the precise reason Tolstoy was leery of music’s power. Tolstoy once wrote, “Music transports me immediately into the condition of soul in which he who wrote the music found himself at that time.”* (Since reading that, I haven’t been able to get that concept out of my head. Good art makes the listener/viewer feel the way the creator felt. Nice. Simple.)
And just like Smith, there is something in MJ’s voice that sounds personal. These are two clearly torn artists. But unlike young Smith, not-quite-as-young Jackson didn’t feign insecurity or doubt about his station in life. He knew the score. And that was in 1988, which was a few years before Smith was born. Point being, when will we ever learn? Jackson didn’t want to do it, but did. Smith did it and now questions his decision. Me? I’m with MJ on this. At twenty-two, Smith is too old to waffle. Ignorance is not bliss. You knew what would happen. Grow up. Everyone has to.
I guess I’m just bothered because I liked the song. And I wasn’t alone in liking it. But then I saw that it wasn’t what I thought. And I don’t like being taken. Argh!
*Tolstoy, Leo. Master and Man ; The Kreutzer Sonata ; Dramas. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1904. Print.
Correction to Friday’s Post
A mellow friend of mine informed me that Sam Smith is gay. The interwebs confirm this is true. So, in my last post about his song, I’ve gone back and edited three words. In the third paragraph, the word “girl” is now “guy” and “her” is now “him”, and then in the fourth paragraph “her” is now “him.”
Please accept my apologies for this error.
Vulnerable or Immature? A Review of Sam Smith’s Hit Single “Stay With Me”
We all know the feeling we get when we find out a singer isn’t black. It’s really quite humorous that we think we can tell people’s skin tone by the sound of their voice. And Sam Smith is the newest artist to shock the masses and sell a few more records along the way. I bet most of you didn’t know that I’m black. Just kidding.
Smith’s new single “Stay With Me” has been hogging air time for at least the last month. It’s catchy. It’s all heart. Men I’ve never heard sing have sung it. And that’s because it’s edgy. A simple three verse song, “Stay With Me” is a request for a groupie to not leave in the morning. I imagine most male listeners claim to identify with the feeling because they think women find Smith’s vulnerability appealing, and yet these guys still get to maintain their man-card because they could only identify with the song because they’ve had one-night stands themselves. If I’m right, everyone is mixed up. Here’s an attempt at order.
First, as a friend of mine’s dad once told him, “Be grateful for the sex you’re getting. It’s more than you deserve.” Second, while the brutal honesty the song portends is no small feat, I can’t help but wonder if it’s a valuable confession. It only works if it’s in response to the idea that guys who have one-night stands are supposed to kick the ol’ belt-notch to the curb at first light. Right? Smith is basically winning his version of a rap battle Eminem-style. Some real-large-type arse-hole picked on Sam for calling the guy back the next day. Instead of defending his action (which would be weak) he goes one further and admits that he never wanted him to leave in the first place (which is a fatal blow in these contests it seems). Good for him. But we can’t let uncommon vulnerability distract us from the truth. His actions which trigger the song demonstrate that he is not a man. He is a boy. And boys shouldn’t be listened to.
Men–real men–do not have one night stands. They don’t. How do I know? The same reason you know. Because it’s the way it is. Smith wonders why he’s so emotional the morning after, and then advises himself to gain self-control. Another good friend of mine would tell Smith he’s emotional because “the inner man isn’t one with the outer man.” You want to stop crying over him, Sam? Too late buddy. You’re crying because you just caused the two of you pain. And pain hurts. The good thing is that the pain wasn’t lethal. You can learn from it. We can learn from it. But learning is defined as a change in behavior caused by experience. A change. And no fellas that doesn’t mean that you learned if you don’t get weepy next time.
In the end, the world could use a whole lot more and a whole lot less Sam Smiths.
The Morning That She Didn’t Put Up A Fight
They had finished bathing the baby. She was asleep in the pack-n-play. The dog’s constant pacing made the temporary apartment feel smaller than it was. Not that it mattered now. The seller had accepted their latest offer on the house, so only a month remained until they closed and would be reunited with their own stuff.
“I care about you,” she began to answer. He couldn’t remember what question he had asked. “But I don’t like you,” she concluded.
She wore the same resigned look he had grown tired of seeing for the past two years. Ever since the stripper.
“I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do with this information,” he said. “Why would I want to live with someone who doesn’t like me? I’m glad you care about me, but to me that’s not as noble as you just made it sound. I’m taking the dog to pee. Is the trash full?”
Without their separate beds he let her have the covers and slept in his sleeping bag. Sleeping bags added a level of fun to any night so he didn’t mind. He was all out of fight himself as well, especially over something as trivial as sheets.
The closing was uneventful. He tried to stay positive about the new job that didn’t pay as much as they hoped. She tried to not stress about shift work on the weekends. With each passing day his walk to the bar seemed shorter; her options, fewer.
She went out with a co-worker after he returned from happy hour with a friend. Waking by himself at two-thirty he figured she was on her way. At three his worry hardened into a decision. He was never going to feel knots like those in his stomach again. Never. Four am will forever sound to him like a door handle, the bathroom fan, and the plop of vomit into toilet water.
After the baby went to sleep the next night they were finally alone. He raged. She sat as he lectured. With each non-response he raised his volume.
The following morning she behaved as if the fight was over. For her, the cycle was complete. For him, the marriage was. Some cycles should never be repeated.
She followed him out of the house for a few steps after he said divorce. He answered the phone thirty minutes later. She told him her parents had two attorneys ready to schedule a consultation.
He now lies to himself that the hurt has decreased since that morning–the morning that she didn’t even put up a fight.
The Fastest Roughneck
His name is Becky. I mean Becki.
“See how fast I did that, Peter?” was one of the first things he ever said to me. Then settling down to a serious mood, he continued, “You gotta be fast out here, Peter.”
I could see in his eyes that he cared. That he took extra time to teach me (he’d probably say being fast creates extra time) made me care. Effort is contagious.
“People are always watching out here, Peter. Anytime something needs to be done you gotta do it as fast as you can. I’m twenty-one and going to be a driller soon. It’s ’cause I’m so fast.” Then he would smile and say, “I just love saying your name, Peter.”
Becki should’ve been named a word that means “potential” or maybe “talent.” He was raw potential. His memory was uncanny; his attitude, without burden. He loved his mom and his daughter. And he could swing a sledge hammer as fast as any man. He was not a large man, which meant you had to look close to see that he was all heart.
One of this lightening bolt’s favorite jokes was: “After I’m done I always tell her, ‘I don’t know what the problem is. I mean we started at the same time’.” Like I said, he was fast.
A member of a generation struggling to find their purpose in life, Becki knows he was born for the oil fields. I don’t think Becki’s vocabulary bank accepted struggle currency. Carrying on the binary communication tradition began by previous roughnecks, Becki only recognized the concepts “done” and “one more second.”
In the end, a man like Becki hails from a long tradition of makers. Cormac McCarthy would say these men carry the fire. I say they are the ones who attract our attention, deserve our admiration, and win our affection. Becki just does it faster.
Pilots More Capable Than Almighty Roughnecks?
For the pilots. (And Greeny.)
Raccoons might be taking over the world. That is, unless roughnecks hear about the story.
To a roughneck nothing is impossible. So when I heard that the raccoons that Japan imported for fun have multiplied out-of-control and are about to destroy thousand-year old buildings and that there’s nothing that can be done about it, I pictured a roughneck. Clear as day I saw the same face I see on the rig every time I express doubt that something can be done. The face has eyes that are lit with excitement and a mouth whose left-half is pursed together while its right half is barely open in a smirk. And though a still image, I can see that the face is mid-nod and I know that the next words that come out of that face will be a confident, “We’ll get ‘er done.” And they do.
Since day one on the job I have been nothing but amazed at what roughnecks can accomplish. And you know me, I thought I had seen mountains move while serving in the Air Force. So that got me thinking. Who is more capable? Pilots or roughnecks?
It hardly seemed a fair comparison at first, what with pilots winning wars in hours and making ladies swoon by simply getting dressed in the morning and all; but the more I witnessed roughnecks at work, the more I thought back to a lot of pilots I knew that might not make the cut as a roughneck–I know most days I fall short.
Here’s the thing. I love that I get to say that I’ve done both–love it. But there’s something else. The other day I brought the paperback copy of this blog to the rig to prove to the fellas that it existed. Now, these men are not Luddites, so they’d read the posts about them. But one of them, you’ll read about him soon, was very excited to share the stories with a man who didn’t know about the blog. And so this young man started to read aloud in the change house (locker room). I had to hold back tears of joy. The pilots that are reading know why. Most of you know why. And that makes pilots more capable. But hey, even if I’m wrong and roughnecks actually are more capable, I still win. I love that type of competition.
Update: What I Look Like
A lazy and depressing morning without H- resulted in a 1/16th mile walk to the local gym. While navigating bushes along the narrow sidewalk, which is dangerously close to a busy street, I saw a woman in fitness gear approaching. “Hmm…maybe she’s cute,” I thought. As the distance between us closed and I proceeded to verify my hope, I heard a car slow beside me. I turned. In the car was a sixty-ish year old woman with her window rolled down, also in fitness gear.
“Do you know where G- park is?” she asked.
“Yep, it’s right before the light that’s a half-mile behind you on the left.”
A confused look slowly began to subside, but not completely. “Where?” she asked again.
“Just make a U-turn here, and right before that stop light back there, take a left. It has a purple playground.”
“Oh. Thanks,” she said, still not confident that she has the skills necessary to make the half-mile journey.
“Actually, wait,” I said, “that’s not G- park. That’s P- park. My mistake.”
Losing color in the same pattern as a water ripple extending from a dropped stone, a new terror spread across her face.
“No worries. G- Park is just across the street from P- park. It’s through the stop light and on the right. It has a lake with geese. Just as easy to get to, though I’m not sure where you’re going to park. I always walk there since I live so close.”
The woman was in a state of despair usually reserved for cataclysmic events like city-wide black-outs, tsunamis, or terrorist attacks. She then asked, “Will you just get in and take me there?”
I think this means I’d make a good confidence man.
What I Look Like
Tall. Dark. Handsome. Ken doll. Rico Suave. Fabio. No, I don’t have anything in common with any of those descriptors–especially not Fabio’s luscious locks.
When I write I want the word’s feeling to be the only thing that is measured. I don’t want to be stuck in the horrible situation where people only buy my books because they like the way my face looks. But some of you have been reading for a year now and I know the feeling of “I know it doesn’t matter, but I wouldn’t mind knowing what this person looks like.” So we’ll compromise.
Growing up around bodybuilding, the value of the mirror over the scale was ingrained in me. Rather than attempt to translate mirror-speak into English, however, I think it’ll prove more useful to share what others see. Have you ever noticed how some men just volunteer to the world what they see? Well, it happens to me frequently–especially on the rig. And as you’ll see, I think simply passing these descriptions on to you should give you what you want, while allowing me to retain a level of writing purity.
First up is, “Peter. You’re so innocent looking man.” That was my personal favorite until the more direct, “Peter, how’s it going tonight? Man, you just look like a virgin.” That guy even knew I had a child. Can you imagine how it feels to be complimented so highly, and yet not? Oh well, like I’ve always said, “Once a virgin, always a virgin.”
Still don’t have a clear picture? Try this one. Picture a small rectangular metal room with two doors, one on either end, that normally seal walk-in freezers. There is a loud air conditioner blasting a nearly cool, steady current of air from one end to the other. The four men standing in the room make it seem like adding one more would be impossible, yet it frequently houses a dozen or so. Next, you notice a sudden story-killing change to their mood. Faces start scrunching as searching eyes pull heads along a comprehensive scan pattern. Breaths are taken in through the nose in patterns that echo a hitman’s double-tap. Finally one of the men asks another, “Did you shit your pants?”
Shaking his head no, the accused man looks to the third man whose eyes are already wide as he, in turn, shakes he head in denial. They can’t even imagine I would do such a thing, so I don’t even get asked. That’s right. I have the face of a man who doesn’t fart. Now you know.
On Breeding
Everyone knows that Mormons and Muslims make babies with world domination as their goal. But what about the rest of us? Why do we end up breeding?
If magazines with the word “journal” in their title are to be trusted, then there is at least one well-documented theory. We breed because we’re dumb. That came out wrong. The data doesn’t show that breeding is dumb, it shows that the less educated and lower paid we are, the more children we have. Want the same sentiment in a more positive tone? Try “children are the wealth of the poor.” Aww.
If we put stock in casual conversation, middle-class couples have children because they bought a dog a couple years earlier.
Back on the research front, we know that foreigners who are new to this country breed like bunnies, but that only lasts a few generations. By the third generation (statistics show) they only want one or two children. And those little guys probably won’t talk funny anymore anyhow. Yawn.
But these sweeping generalizations are only scratching the surface. I want specifics. I want to know how individuals make the choice. More than that, I want to know why this topic seems taboo to me? If I tell you that my parents told me that I was “unplanned”, it feels like they wouldn’t be happy that I’d shared that information because it makes them look “bad”. (For the record, I’m pretty sure that my older sister was the reason for the wedding, my younger brother was unplanned, and that I am a gift from God.)
It seems that in the past people had a lot of children because children meant workers, which meant wealth. Adam Smith (of 1776’s Wealth of Nations fame) wrote that a widow with a bunch of kids was very attractive to men back then. Seems like that couldn’t be further from the truth these days. And then in the past babies died a lot, too. So there’s that to take into account. Today, with not so many youngsters passing while on the trail, couples just don’t seem motivated to risk pregnancy’s dangers as much. Or some such reasoning.
And we can’t forget birth control’s far reaching consequences. How many people wouldn’t be alive today if latex was self-lubricating?
I’m curious how many of you have ever asked individuals why they had children? I have. Well, I’ve asked men. (Where are you ladies hiding again?) It’s shocking to me. Tied for the number one reasons are “it felt too good to pull out” and “We(/I) were drunk.”
Never experiencing it myself, sadly, according to locker room tales I’ve heard that some women have an ability to really make mixing the baby batter together seem desirable as the last of the sweat forms. And I know a few fellas who have described their primal finish to be the same as how a shark’s eyes roll back when they go for the kill. Where do these men and women learn this behavior? Maybe it’s genetic?
It feels weak to admit that I want more children. I think that’s because if I admit it, and then don’t have anymore, it will be known that I have an unfulfilled desire in my life.
Why did I do my part to create H-, you ask? Because it was what married couples do. It was time. You know, the dog thing.
Why do I want more children? Because when we were camping the other night and alone in the tent I awoke to the sound of her giggling while in a dream. I just pictured her brain creating fantasy images of her stuffed Twilight Sparkle tumbling through the air; no on a rainbow! Yeah, Twilight Sparkle would likely be around a rainbow or two. Maybe Pingu was there too. And then, later that night, as I started shuffling around to see a man about a tree, H- wakes up and says, “Daddy, if you’re ever scared-” pause “-if you ever need anything, I’ll be there for you.” Good to know. And I hope so H-.
Mel Gibson was in a movie about depression called, “The Beaver”, a few years back. One of the previews on the DVD was for a movie centered around immigration whose title I can’t remember. But in the trailer there was a scene where a teenage son asked his father why he ever had him. The father said, “To give life meaning.” I’m with that dad. What else gives life meaning? Work? My passion? Writing? Spreading the gospel? No, when all is said and done, life is about people. That’s why we keep creating them.
Captain’s Log 