Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc

God is Love.
Love is Blind.
Stevie Wonder is Blind.
Therefore:
Stevie Wonder is God.

For all you non-dead-language-speakers, post hoc ergo propter hoc is Latin for: after this, therefore because of this.  It sounds like it’s one of those old timey proverbs that seem to make sense, especially since it’s in Latin.  The problem is that it’s almost never true in real life.

Here’s an example:  My roommate and I are both actors.  Last spring, we auditioned together for a show.  Neither of us were cast in the show.  So since then, we’ve said, “we better not audition together because neither of us will get the job.”

This is the equation for a lot of superstitions.  I was wearing this tie when I interviewed for the job I got, so this is my lucky tie.  I ordered this sandwich before we won the big game, so I should eat that sandwich before every game.  I paid down all my debt before the New Year, and I ended up making a lot of money that year, so I just need to pay off all my debts and I’ll have a prosperous year.

I’m bringing it up because it’s popped up in my life a few times lately and I thought it might do me some good to let the universe know, via blog, that I can take the hint.

It makes you feel good.  It makes you feel like you’re working toward something.  You feel productive.  But it can distract you from the really important stuff too.  As long as my roommate and I don’t audition together, I have a shot at getting cast.  OR, I could go to my voice lessons, and work on my scripts and be prepared for the audition.  Asking my roommate what time he’s auditioning is easier.

My girlfriend has been marveling at her tan legs lately.  I like her tan legs too, don’t get me wrong, but it’s possible that I just like her legs, but I digress.  She’s convinced that exposure to the sun will give her wrinkles, so she’s particularly careful about letting the sun shine on her face and hands.  That’s the other side of post hoc ergo propter hoc:  If I know this came after that, and If I want to avoid that from happening, I should avoid this.

So you start noticing overweight people eating ice cream and you cross that off the list.  Some friends got married, then divorced a few years later?  Cross marriage off the list.  You tell some friends that you were up for a big promotion at work, and you don’t get it.  I guess talking to your friends is off the list, too.  Pretty soon, you’re not living your own life.  You’re afraid of everything.

I remember back to the week I had a chance to go to Tibet.  The memory that sticks with me is how our guide, a man whose name escapes me, would smile like a Cheshire cat.  It would beam throughout our tour bus.  He had wrinkles, but his wrinkles told a story of happiness and joyful times in the company of friends.  And if that’s what I have to look forward to as I get older, I say bring on the wrinkles.  I’d venture to guess that, for the most part, it’s not exclusively the sun or the lack of skin cream that gives us wrinkles, it’s just a natural part of getting older.  But wouldn’t you want the lines on your face to be caused by joy rather than worry?  In truth, I’d rather have the inevitable wrinkles on my face come from living life to it’s fullest, instead of from trying desperately to to stop dead in my tracks before crossing some line drawn by someone else.

As I’ve been tempted to get myself into better shape, I looked online at diet pills recently.  Not my finest moments, but definitely frought with post hoc ergo propter Hoc mentality.  “Jimbo used to be this big, but after taking these pills he dropped 10 pant sizes!”  It made me think back to my Alcohol Awareness class that they make all the servers take.  The only thing that can sober a person up is time.  You have to put in the time.

So I’m going to the gym.  I’m putting in the time and hoping that in a little while I’ll see the fruits of my labor.  It’s frustrating for now, but hopefully that’ll go away soon.  I stepped on the scale today and saw that I gained weight.  For now, I’m going to believe that since muscles weigh more than fat, I’m packing on the muscles and the fat will melt off eventually.  But who knows?

All I Want for Christmas is You

I am being followed.   NO!  Don’t turn around.  They’ll see you.  Just keep walking.

It’s like that movie, Eagle Eye.  I don’t know how it knows where I am going, or where I’ll be.  But there it is.

I get in the car.  It’s on the radio.  I change the station.  IT’S ON THAT STATION TOO!  I went in to Herbergers after taking a picture with Santa for my mom, and it even found me in there.

I give.  Do with me what you will, Mariah.  You and your high notes that make the neighborhood dogs bark.  DO YOUR WORST.

What’s a guy gotta do to get a little fecking Christmas cheer?

People talk about “the season” and how it’s supposed to be filled with cheer ‘n shit.  Well, try walking around.  Look at the faces of the people.

Stress.

I’m all for chestnuts and roaring fires and cheesy holiday sweaters.  But why do we let “the season” get to us like this?  Today, I was doing a little light Christmas shopping and I was in a pretty good mood.  As I was leaving a store, a girl was on her way in.  I held the door for her and smiled.  The look of “why is this guy smiling at me?” flashed across her face.  Maybe she was having a bad day.  Then as I walked down the street a set of three people passed me, I smiled, again nothing.

Well, I’m not gonna let you muhfuggas get me down.  I WILL BE JOYOUS.  I WILL BE MERRY.  And if you don’t like it, you can shove it so far up your ass that you won’t see it again until the spring thaw.

My niece got a gift from Santa at a community Christmas event and complained, “Worst gift from Santa, EVER.”  She’s eleven.  I wanted to take her gift and give it to another kid.  I wanted her to sit in a cold alley with nothing between her and the outside world except a piece of cardboard.  But I got lost in this thought:

If this is the season of giving, why is there so much emphasis on what we WANT for Christmas?

We make lists.  We drop hints.  We daydream and wonder about what we’re gonna get.  We sit around asking each other what we want for Christmas.  Then we turn around and tell the kids that it’s not about what you get, it’s about giving.  But is it?  How many people do you see HAPPILY shopping this time of year?  We do it because we feel like we have to… or for fear of being judged by those around us who are expecting gifts from us.  For all the time we spend dropping hints there are minutes, hours, days that we could spend focusing on giving to someone else, or at very least, putting that energy into having a better attitude about it.

As I’ve gotten older, what I want for Christmas has gotten less and less important.  When I think about it, I feel like I have too much, if anything.  Why collect more things that will just end up communing with the rest of the mess in my apartment?  Well, because everyone else is doing it.

Then it hits me.  For some people this holiday might be about being “fair” and making sure that I have a gift for anyone who gives me one so that I won’t be embarrassed.  Or maybe it’s a collective succumbing to peer pressure.  But here’s the payoff:  I want to see faces light up.  Like when my baby nieces and nephews pull the wrapper off their presents and get excited just looking at the box.  Like a kid experiencing something magical.  Like when you show up with flowers for your date.  Like in those diamond commercials.  Like when your girlfriend realizes that you have, indeed, been paying attention this whole time.  Or like when you pass a stranger on the street, your eyes meet and you both smile.

Let the straddling continue

I got my hands on the In The Heights Original Broadway Cast Soundtrack and haven’t stopped listening to it in my car.  Couple that with this being The Year of the Mexican, based on the roles I have played this year (previous years have been dubbed The Naked Year, and The Year of The Vietnam War), and I’m starting to get that confused feeling.

ALRIGHTY, first a little geography lesson.  The Philippines is closest to the Asian continent.  Filipinos are decended from the Malay race, which is pretty much the ethnic group that is considered indigenous to all of the Pacific Islands.  I remember being in an elevator at the Dayton’s in Downtown Minneapolis with my dad one day when someone decided to ask, “what are you?”  You know… that ol’ chestnut.

“What do you mean?”  Dad responded.

“Where are you from?”  The lady asked.

At this point I’d like to say that my dad, being smarter than most people, could have said something like, “Minneapolis.”  But I honestly don’t remember.

Anyhoo, the lightning flash of a conversation rested on the fact that this old lady started arguing with my dad as to whether Filipinos were “Yellow” or “Brown.”  White people can be so charming sometimes.  This is the first time I’d heard my dad refer to Filipinos as Brown.  What interested me at first was the fact that the colors yellow and brown are both colors I associated with the potty.  But hey, I was like 8 or something.

“Who else is brown?” I started to wonder.  Then it hit me like Homey D Clown’s sock: “Mexicans!  Mexicans are brown, and so are people from other South American countries!”  Again… 8 years old.

The truth of the matter is that when I watch the Joy Luck Club, I don’t really think about my family… except for the whole Ma Jiang thing.  But just hearing the Latin music from In The Heights made me think of palm trees, the sounds of the surf, and Barrio Fiestas.

People chuckle when I tell them that I play Latino roles.  “I thought you were Filipino,” they say.  I never realized until recently that most people don’t know that the PI was a Spanish Colony.  In fact, Filipino American history is more closely tied to Latino American history than Asian American history in  a lot of ways.  We’re like the cousin that the other Hispanic Countries don’t talk about.

Filipino Americans, along with a lot of other immigrant communities, talk about having one foot on the US and another back “home.”  So yeah, there’s that… even though some of our closest relatives, culturally, are still half a world away, no matter how you look at it.  It’s like geographical Twister.

So give me some Spanish guitar and a beat I can shake my hips to.  Serve up the empanadas and the adobo.  Yeah, we’ll have rice too, maybe with some SPAM and eggs.  Mabuhay the Year of the Mexican!

In Other News: The heat has been turned on in my building

Well, kids, I made it back safe and sound to Minneapolis.  The drive out and back to Seattle would have otherwise made me want to scoop my eyes out with a melon baller if it weren’t for my very cool and very funny roommate.  We drove straight through, 24 hours without stopping… with pitstops it was about 28.

On the way out, we stopped at this place called Rockford Coffee in Bozeman, MT.  I stuck to my guns and ordered a green tea.  My roommate swore he saw Aaron Eckhart (Thank You for Smoking, The Dark Knight) sitting with his laptop at one of the tables and stared at him in a way that made even me uncomfortable.  As it turns out, well according to wikipedia at least, Aaron Eckhart owns a ranch in Montana.

We stopped at the Corn Palace in Mitchell, SD on the way back.  Gym covered with corn.  There’s a creepy Enchanted Doll Museum across the street.

On our way out of town we decided to grab a bite to eat.  There was a place called Chef Louie’s that looked, from the outside, much like a diner/greasy spoon type of joint.  There was a big blaze orange banner that read, “Welcome Hunters.”  Little did we know that our pajama pants and sweats might look a little bit out of place as this was one of the nicest places in town.  Chandeliers.  Things on the menu for “Market Price.”  Yup.  We’re classy.

The meat of the sandwich was the actual trip to Seattle.  I’ll spare you the gory details… Seattle is a great town.  Of the 3 days we were there, it only drizzled a bit overnight, but was otherwise partly cloudy.  Surrounded by lots of coffee–It was explained to me that the lack of exposure to the sun necessitates much of the city’s caffiene habit.  I’d believe it.  But I still kept to the code and drank Chai.

I visited Bruce Lee’s grave.  I didn’t take a picture, and here’s why:  I was a little bit appalled at the general disrespect with which people carried themselves while visiting his gravesite.  There is little pomp and circumstance associated with it; it’s just a regular plot in a regular cemetary.  Obviously, the headstones are nicer than most, but it’s surprisingly simple.  While looking for directions within the cemetery, we stumbled across a statistic that said that the grass around the headstone needs to be replaced every couple months because of all the foot traffic.  Apparently, hundreds of people come each day.

You’d think that people might carry themselves with a sense of reverence when you’re among people’s dead relatives, let alone someone who contributed to the world as much intellectually as well as artistically as Bruce Lee did.  But no, there were people sitting on his headstone, posing for goofy pictures, and generally laughing it up.  I have a great respect for Bruce Lee–a respect that goes beyond geeking out to the several T-shirts I own.  He was a philosopher and a model for self actualization.  So to see people who obviously viewed him with cultish one-dimensionality, and who thought that taking a picture strattling Bruce Lee’s headstone would be funny, was a bit much for me.  That said, it would definitely suck to have the gravesite next to Bruce and Brandon.

Otherwise, Seattle is definitely a place I could see myself living for a bit… Rain, coffee and all.  I met some really cool actors who tried their best to sell me on Seattle, not that they needed to.

I heard through the grapevine that after we left Minnesota, the weather turned warm it was in the 70s in Minneapolis.  Seattle was 50s-60s, so I can’t complain that much.  Only that we missed a few really nice fall days in Minneapolis.  Oh well.  At least the landlord turned our heat on.

“Hello, My name is Art. I’m a family value.”

While I was enjoying a particularly delicious steak fajita burrito at the Chipotle down the street, I was inspired by the people cruising around Uptown in their spare time.

So without further ado, here’s my idea for a modern art installation to be presented throughout the Uptown/Mpls Lakes area:

Hang bags of douche from all the streetlights, stoplights, and other various signs up and down Hennepin Avenue.  The bags could have the name of a nearby suburb written on them, or absurdly large sunglasses (the kind you can find at any eyewear shop these days) attached to them, or striped button-down shirts draped over them.

Art is all around you.

One down, 9,999 lakes to go

My new place is a few blocks from Lake of the Isles, just south of Downtown Minneapolis. I figure it was about time for me to take advantage of living by the lake in the summertime and go for a jog. You know, clear my head.

I decided to go without my headphones on. You never know when some yuppie trust fund baby from the area might be lurking behind a bush, after all. And I figured, it’s my first trip around the lake, might as well take it all in. There are some beautiful looking houses around the lake, and I began to wonder whether the people who lived in those houses ever played in their lush, green, well-kept front yards. Set up a volleyball net and have a 2 on 2 tournament… have a family touch football game… or a good ol’ fashioned water fight with balloons and squirtguns. I’d venture to guess that they hadn’t.

Seriously, what’s the point of having a big yard and not playing in it? Cuz if you’re not gonna use it, you might as well give it to someone who will. But I suppose that there’s a point in the hoarding of money and belongings where you stop keeping things for yourself and start keeping things to show other people how you roll. The neighbors, and members of the lower classes, stroll by your house by the lake and think to themselves, “Wow, they must be really rich to have such a big beautiful house with huge yard that they never use.”

Most native peoples around the world are known for living in harmony with nature and therefore being much less wasteful than modern folk. There’s the idea of “using every part of the buffalo” that is derived from Native Americans, who found a use for nearly every part of the animal they hunted. Everything had a purpose. You received with graciousness what you had been given and found a way to utilize as much as you could. So what does it mean when a culture values gratuitous wastefulness over harmonious simplicity?  Since when did what we have trump what we do?

Every once in a while, I’m glad that I have just enough and not too much more.  It’s a “be careful what you wish for… you might get it” kinda situation.  So for now, I’m just gonna learn to be content with who I am and where I am without longing for a different life.

That’s how I roll.

Here’s to you, Ornery Old Lady!

TGID is working on a show and her cast was invited to sing at the Saint’s game on Sunday.  Sold out game, decent weather, long lines at the concession stands, big sweaty white people.  You know, that old chestnut.  Me, being the supportive boyf- I am, took full advantage of the free ticket she scored for me and, camera in hand, was ready to be the man behind the woman.

Places like this always make me a bit uncomfortable.  A few of the times I had gotten jumped by “the older kids” and called racist slurs were at school sporting events, so you can imagine that I’d have a slight aversion to stadiums. It’s a bit of a struggle to put myself in a situation where a lot of rural white people gather, being a darker-than-a-brown-paper-bag city boy I am.  I feel like a fish out of water.

Our seats, according to our tickets, were out in Right Field and were occupied by the time I got there.  So we ventured along for someone else’s seats we could slide into.  This took us to the 3rd base line.  We found a spot and set up camp.  After a few minutes, the couple in front of us decided to light up.

“OK… it’s outside.”  I thought.

I’m not used to cigarette smoke anymore.  Smoke free bars and restaurants in New York, California and Minnesota have been a welcome idea for my lungs and nose-hairs.  So, despite it being outside, I was a tad annoyed.  If we had been assigned those seats, we’d be there to enjoy the game just like everyone else and should be allowed to do so without having to put up with other peoples’ exhalations.  Maybe they should have a separate room so smokers can all get together and, you know, network or something.  After all, I don’t spray piss all over the bleachers when I have to go… I excuse myself to the room they have set aside for just such an occasion.  And no one has ever gotten cancer from my piss.  At least, I don’t think so.

TGID leaned over and expressed her discomfort with the Second Hand invading our space.  Being a non-smoker, as well as a singer who was performing in an hour or so, I could understand where she was coming from.  I immediately scoped out the bleachers for another place to post up.

“We could move over there,”  I said, pointing a few bleachers up.

“I wasn’t counting on getting cancer today,” TGID whispered.

“If you don’t like the smoke, you should’ve sat in the non-smoking section.” The Ornery Old Lady in front of us growled.

“I thought the whole stadium was non-smoking.” My baby stands her ground like a gunslinger.

“LOOK ON THE INTERNET,” OOL spat back, “you can get tickets in a non-smoking section.”

“Well, these tickets were given to us.” TGID replied, with an air of insincere politeness.  That was enough to shut the OOL up for the time being.

I, on the other hand, was lost in an imaginary world where I’ve already grabbed the OOL and shaken her, slapped her across the face a few times, kicked her in the back of the head, and bodyslammed her right into her skinny old creepy man-friend.

I’d say TGID handled it with poise.
CHAPTER TWO:  OOL on Disability, or, “We’re just trying to fill the stadium.”

A few moments pass, and an usher with a St. Paul Saints polo shirt comes up the entrance, followed by a Soccer mom and 3 young kids.

“You can just sit over there,” the usher says, pointing to the 5 or 6 open seats next to OOL and her meth-addict looking hubby.

“WHY DO THEY GET FREE SEATS?” OOL barked.

“They have tickets, ma’am.” The usher politely replied.

“Well, then they can sit where they’re supposed to.”

“They have general admission seats, ma’am, and there isn’t enough room for them.  We’re just trying to fill the Stadium.  We are sold out.”

“I PAID $12 FOR THESE SEATS, AND THEY JUST GET TO SIT HERE FOR FREE?”

Yes, she was yelling.  The usher, with zen-like patience, dealt with her.  The soccer mom, with an arm full of food for her kids (I spotted some nachos and maybe a few hot dogs among all the drama), politely told the usher that they’d find another place to sit, but was visibly upset by this woman’s lacking compassion.  The usher and OOL continued to have it out.  She wanted to know if she’d get a discount or her money back on her ticket.  She was a season ticket holder and spent a lot of money on several $12 tickets.  She wouldn’t have the $5 riff-raff spoiling America’s favorite past time for her.  After all, she was on disability and $12 is “a lot” of money.  This went on for quite a while.

My heart went out to the woman who was just looking for a place where her kids could sit and have fun watching a baseball game.  I’ve taken my 3 nieces (who are much older than these kids were) out for field trips and they’re a handful.  She obviously didn’t need this.

The usher, who at this point could have convinced me he was the Buddha himself, politely yet firmly told the woman that she could go down to fan services and talk to them about getting a refund on her tickets.  He had said the phrase “we’re just trying to fill the stadium” about 13 times by now.  I was considering a muay thai knee to the back of her dandruff sprinkled head.

So… Here’s to you, Ornery Old Lady.  May what goes around truly come around.

Wanna hang out at my place?

I found an apartment. That’s right, bitches! It’s right by Lake of the Isles, on 22nd and Girard if you know uptown. Since I sold most of my furniture last summer, I’ll be practicing the art of simple living. My sister is donating her old TV to the cause, and my new roomie says he has a futon for the living room. The stuff I kept has been mostly kitchen stuff, and I’m excited to bust out the wok get cooking again.

So come hang out! Spend the night on the futon! or the floor! We have hardwood floors, but bring an airmattress and popcorn and we’ll make forts and stuff.

The Year in Review, Chapter 2: San Dizzle

A good friend of mine was getting married in New York, so I flew back out for that. Got all tuxed up and everything. Danced a lot with his 2 year old niece, his mom, and his aunt. I’m pretty close with his family so they took good care of me especially since I was newly single at a wedding.

I moved back in with my parents for a couple months as I prepped to drive out to San Deezy. I started dating again, probably too soon for my own good, but who knows that when you’re in it? I got stood up for the first time in my life, which sucked, but it was the slap in the face that I needed to realize that I had become every woman’s bitch. It was like I was so grateful that a girl actually looked in my general direction. “Thank you for allowing me to be seen with you…” Yup. I was officially desperate.

The drive out to San Diego was a good one. A week before, my friend Bonnie from work decided that she would drive out with me and fly back. We saw some sights on the way and eventually had to stop in Las Vegas while the California wildfires burned throughout San Diego county.

I went as Kato for Halloween. I didn’t think anybody would know who I am, and people probably wouldn’t if I were back in Mpls. I just remember walking down the street in Downtown San Diego with people shouting, “Hey Bruce Lee!” “Kato!” “Dude, Green Hornet!” The warm Calfornia weather during Halloween allowed the women to go all out in their attempts to be a Naughty [Nurse, Schoolgirl, Cat] for what I have come to realize is one of the most exciting and most deceiving holidays of the year.

This is where things started looking up for me. Rehearsals for Cowboy Versus Samurai started up and it turns out that I had a new set of friends. A fresh start. The role was a challenge for me only because I’m usually typecast as the Jeremy Piven to the John Cusack. This one was a bit more complex and although I tried to work on it before rehearsals, I didn’t know what to expect. The process was a creative one, which is always good but rarely achieved.

Honestly, I was a little surprised at the fact that people liked my performance as much as they did. I had a hard time trusting that I was “in it,” mainly because I rarely play comedic characters and all the stage comics I admire have this ability to connect to the audience in a way that was always a mystery to me. But people liked it, I got a few laughs without letting it go to my head… ok, I let it go there a little bit.

My new San Diego friendships helped me feel less like damaged goods and that really helped a lot. In my experience, there’s usually one person in the cast that just rubs me the wrong way, and with this one there really wasn’t. I got really close with this cast and we hung out all the time. And we realized that we had mutual friends: Don Julio and Patron.

In a moment of weakness, I went to my X’s Myspace page and discovered a new guy in her Top 8. Bjorn. This, from the girl who used to make fun of me because I had dated white girls before. I guess if you’re from New Jersey it’s easy to date without ever dating someone white, so to her it seemed like I had a preference for white girls. She was not so good with the numbers…statistics…demographics. But now she’s fallen victim to them, it seemed. One email to a friend and I found out that Bjorn was her new boyfriend. And by “new” I mean the guy that she started dating before she broke things off with Mike. Mike is the guy that she claimed she was not dating while we were together. Are you following me? So I did the math. She cheated on me with Mike (which explained all those nights when she would come home at 4am), then she cheated on Mike with Bjorn. End result: Can I get another long island with an extra shot of tequila?

On the day that CVS closed, I got a call from someone at La Jolla Playhouse. Someone had seen the show and they wanted me to come in for an audition. This was Sunday, the audition was on Monday, and I was supposed to drive back to Mpls on Tuesday. I decided to audition anyway, since it’s always good to be seen even if they don’t cast me.

The audition was for an educational tour called Salsalandia. I was to audition for the part of Pato, an 8 year old Mexican boy [no joke]. I went in, did my thing, then went to Balboa Park and hung out with my friend Jesika, who had flown in to drive back with me. About 3 hours had passed since my audition and I got a call from the theater asking me if I wanted the job. That’s a new record, folks: 3 hours. So we scrapped our plans to drive back, I left my car in San Diego, and we hopped the last flight out before Christmas.

Some of my friends back in Mpls were excited to see me again and I, in my fragile yet increasingly confident state, mistook that for them realizing how much they were in love with me while I was away. Needless to say it made for some awkward conversations as I was home for the holidays.

A couple of drunken nights sprinkled within a few shifts at the BGSC and I had a handful of more stories to want to forget about by the time I left for Cali again.

I returned to San Diego with the usual fanfare from my Aunt and Uncle, whose house I was staying in. We’d reached a point where we had a pretty steady routine, so it wasn’t bad. Rehearsals for Salsalandia were underway, and I found myself doing a lot of yoga in the mornings and drinking in the evenings.

Rock bottom hit when I decided to meet up with a girl I met over Myspace. She was set out to get me drunk, which at that point wasn’t exactly a lofty goal. Strange girl+My Low Self Esteem+Alcohol=Bad Night. As I bowed to the porcelain god the next morning before rehearsal, I remember saying out loud:

“WHAT THE HELL IS THE MATTER WITH YOU? WHAT ARE YOU DOING?”

The funny thing about rock bottom is that there’s nowhere to go but up. Maybe this wasn’t exactly as bad as it could have gotten, but it was the worst day of my year and the universe was underlining its point. More yoga…

This cast was drastically different from the CVS cast. Mainly because it was very diverse. It was the kind of group that at first glance might have seemed like we didn’t have very much in common, but we did. Nonetheless, we didn’t get along as well as my last cast and I missed that. Especially during the 4am wake-ups and 6am meeting times. We toured to schools, loaded in our set and props, did the show, tore down, loaded the truck, and were outty. Most of the time before noon.

Lent and Super Tuesday hit during the same week and for some reason it made me feel like there was something special about that week. I remember making lenten resolutions back in grade school so I figured this was as good a time as any to get some discipline back in my life. I gave up fast food, soda, coffee, sex, and alcohol. Cold turkey. The best way to break yourself of bad habits is to stop doing them. So I stopped.

Grammy, the ever-nosey, up in my bidness big sis, encouraged me to write more, so I started writing on Facebook, which eventually led to starting this blog. Some of my Facebook writing caught the eye of a certain young lady and we started exchanging emails, which led to instant messages, and eventually phone calls. I remember telling myself that she’s probably just being nice and not to get my hopes up. But I haven’t talked on the phone like that since I was in high school. It’s a really great way to get to know someone without the whole physical part being there cuz that can really get in the way.

One night on the phone I blurted out a suggestion that she fly out from Mpls and drive back with me after my show had closed. It was one of those moments where you actually see the words leaving your mouth and rush to stuff them back in. But it was too late. “Shit. Now she’s gonna know that I like her.” I thought. I tried to play it off like a joke, but it sounded an awful lot like an invitation to come to San Diego. She told me that it sounded fun, but she was rehearsing a show, had things to do at work, and couldn’t miss the classes she taught.

I figured that was a pretty definitive NO, but didn’t want to take it personally because I was starting to sense that she might like me too. Then I got this voicemail:

…They canceled rehearsal for that Sunday before and the Wednesday that you wanted to be home, so maybe something can work out, I got really excited I was like, “What? what? rehearsal’s canceled again? ok!” So um anyway, that means I could come on Sunday, right? I can’t remember, was there something about why I couldn’t come earlier? I don’t know let’s talk again about it cuz…um, that would be awesome and then tomorrow I can talk to the people at work and see if they can cover me or not, so… but if I could come that Sunday and then maybe I could fly in somewhere that’s a little bit closer and then you can drive… I don’t know we’ll figure it out, just gimme a call, Bye!

And so began the rollercoaster ride called “She’s excited to see me/It’s too good to be true.” I came up with myriad reasons why she wouldn’t really like me, I convinced myself that without the physical side we were deeply entrenched in the friend zone. I was still thinking that she was gonna cancel last minute, all the way up to the point when I was holding my phone in one hand, my credit card in the other and trying to book her flight online.

Me: Are you sure?

Her: Yeah. Let’s do it.

Me: Ok, I’m gonna click Submit…

Her: Ok, go ahead.

Me: Last chance to back out.

Her: Ok…

Me: Ok what? You wanna back out?

Her: No. Ok, go.

Me: Are you positive?

Her: Yes.

Me: Ok, I’m clicking it.

Her: Go ahead.

Me: Ok, here I go…

[click]

Me: Ok, you’re officially booked. But if you change your mind…

Her: I’m not gonna do that

Me: But if something comes up…

Her: I just need to find someone to cover for me at work.

Me: Well, if you don’t I’ll understand.

Her: It won’t be that hard. Don’t worry.

Me: but if you don’t…
This is the point where I started to annoy myself and began to marvel at her patience. So she was gonna fly out in a few weeks to drive back with me. She must like me, right?