Month: April 2009

I’m surprised that my post about going to the doctor’s with Lindsey is now officially my most popular post ever, getting a record six comments from six different people (plus one reply to each of them from myself). Apparently falling in love is a great topic for conversation!

I started this blog at a low point in my personal life. My first two posts were about a woman I had dated for a short but significant time, and re-reading those posts now, I can see that I was trying to capture both the good and the bad, the ups and the downs of our relationship.

One of the many themes here has been, for me, the search for a connection. I’ve looked in some unlikely places… wait, I can’t say that, when I know that the “unlikely place” I’m referring to is strip clubs. Strip clubs may not be mainstream and it’s common knowledge that one should not fall in love with a stripper… but many people (men and women both) have figured that they were special enough to beat those odds.

Little do they realize that the best dancers have become “the best” by learning how to make you fall in love with them, even a little bit. I learned a long time ago what the rules are in the clubs, and I learned it the hard way, long before I started this blog. So hopefully my posts reflect that sense of knowing I need to keep my distance, but enjoying the moment and the fantasy. So while I’ve looked for a connection at the tip rails and during the couch dances… I’ve known enough to keep it all mostly in the club.

But that’s not the only place one can make a connection. I’ve found it on MAX trains and buses, in coffee shops and diners and pizza places and music stores, just out doing the day-to-day chores that make up our lives. I’ve looked and found it online.

But except for brief flashes, usually, the connection is momentary. It doesn’t last.

It rarely lasts. I reach out, I take a chance, I talk to strangers, I put a little piece of myself on the line. I get in return, a conversation, a date, maybe two dates. And a story, which has, always come to an end after all-to-short a time.

…or I should say, it rarely lasts. All but one time. This one time. This one time, now, that I’m going through. Lindsey and I have met, and we feel we share a connection, that we are continuing to explore but which surprises both of us with its depth.

And considering the theme of my blog, and how often I have reached out for that sense of connection, feeling it now, with Lindsey… I have considered that this particular arc of my life may be over. I think: is it time to close this blog and move on? Was my “Needles” post the denouement of the story that opened with a broken connection with my previous girlfriend?

Don’t worry, I haven’t run out of topics to write about. And I’m not ending this. But in a very tangible way, I feel as if I have finished a chapter in my life and am moving into a new one.

The connection has been made, and now I get to find out what comes next.

Last night I spent with my girlfriend, and later this morning, at work, I’ve got an all-day training, and it’s not even a training in something fun, it’s a training called “Getting the work done as individuals and teams” (how fun does that sound? Not very! Am I right?) so I don’t have a new post for y’all this morning.

I’ll try to find something funny from this all-day training to share later. Or, y’know, something. Be patient.

Thanks for reading me. While I’m stuck in this all-day training, why don’t you talk amongst yourselves?

I’ll give you a topic: Obama’s first 100 days. What do you think? Good? Bad? A mix of good and bad? Don’t care?

My take in 50 words or less: I wish he’d move faster on getting us out of Iraq, I like his picks for Secretary of Labor and Health, and the Attorney General and other Justice appointees, he’s giving all our money away to Big Finance and I wish he’d stop, and he’s just as bad as Bush on “national security” (surveillance and torture and executive power) issues but I think we can push him via direct activism and through Congress, particularly the House which is the more progressive body. I’m certainly not going to stop pushing on those issues.

…or pick a topic of your own. Just play nice. I’ll respond when I get back; if for some reason I get a ton of comments here, I’ll probably just have one long reply.

If you can see this, nevermind the rest of the post.

If you can’t see this, then what I’d like you to know is that my main web server, Eggers appears to be down (so that link I just took the time to put in this post? It won’t work), and that I’m working on it as best as I can, and that I have temporarily switched over to my backup web server, and soon everything will be groovy once again.

But of course, if you can’t see this, then I won’t be able to let you know all that. So you might be worried. Don’t be worried, though, because I’m doing what I can to fix things.

I’ll let you know when it’s working again. Which will be, of course, after the point when it will matter. So I understand your confusion.

1. If you were a tree, how hard would you photosynthesize?
2. There are two trains leaving Chicago; one is traveling at an average speed of 65 MPH, the other is traveling at an average speed of 45 MPH.
   1. On one of these trains is a young child who is taking his first trip out of the city, going to a rural farm to spend the summer with his cousins. He will adopt a small puppy, and beg to bring it back with him to the city, but his parents will refuse. He will eventually forgive them, but he will remember that puppy for the rest of his days. Name the puppy.
   2. On the other, is a beautiful woman in a red dress, her long brunette hair falling gently over her face and covering one eye. She adjusts the hem of her dress to demurely cover her knees, then glances pensively out the window at the passing scenery. A short man in a dark double-breasted suit will watch her from behind a newspaper for the entire trip. What is the headline on the newspaper? Bonus question: How does the man know the woman?

3. Considering the lyrics: “She packed my bags last night pre-flight. Zero hour nine a.m. And i’m gonna be high as a kite by then. I miss the earth so much i miss my wife. It’s lonely out in space. On such a timeless flight.” – What did he have for lunch that day?
4. Finally, for extra credit: In 25 words or less, practice war no more.

How’s this for living in the future:

At home, using the built-in camera on my portable dual-core computer¹ to scan and look up every CD I own from an online database of product information.

Oh, I downloaded the program I’m using² to scan the CDs and purchased it without ever having to touch any physical product.

Once I figured out that the program could help me list and sell those CDs to any buyer around the world³, I sent a thank-you to its creator, and got a nearly-instantaneous response, despite us not knowing anything about each other prior to that, using a free communications service⁴ and a free program⁵ that makes use of the communication services’ public Application Programming Interface (API).

While scanning CDs, I’m picking songs to listen to via my cell phone⁶. I can see every song in the library, with artist and album information, and album cover art. I can queue up songs for later, or have the songs played immediately. I can search the library for artist, album or song title, which is handy because there’s almost 5000 songs in there. The songs are played from another computer the size of a stack of 5-6 CD jewel cases⁷, which is plugged in to my stereo and displays artist, song, album information, along with a graphic display of the album cover and some nifty visual effects⁸, on my TV. And I don’t even have to have line of sight to the computer or the stereo to do this; it makes use of my wireless network, so I can do it from the other room.

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¹ A MacBook Pro 15″ dual-core with iSight (and many more features).
² Delicious Library 2, a wonderfully-designed program that seems to exemplify the Apple approach to doing one thing, beautifully.
³ Amazon Marketplace.
⁴ Obviously, I’m talking about Twitter, the public short message site.
⁵ The still-in-beta Nambu.
⁶ Duh, if you haven’t been paying attention, I’m talking about my iPhone.
⁷ An Intel-chipped Apple Mac mini.
⁸ Another Apple product – iTunes.

“This is my boyfriend, Brian,” Lindsey said, introducing me to the blonde nurse whose name I have forgotten¹ and Phyllis, the older nurse who has been caring for Lindsey since she was first diagnosed with multiple sclerosis three years ago.

Lindsey was at the clinic for an infusion of Tysabri, a monthly treatment that helps prevent recurrence of symptoms of MS sufferers. I was there to help entertain her and as moral support.

And, also, I was there because I care about her. But I believe today was the first time she has referred to me as her boyfriend.

It’s a new relationship. She and I are still noticing many “firsts”. I very much like it.

As the blonde nurse helped Lindsey get settled in to her reclining chair, got her some pillows and a blanket, I stood out of the way. The infusion would take about an hour or so, and then she had to wait an hour or so after to ensure that she did not have a reaction to the drug. Today was her 13th infusion. I mugged for her and smiled and blew kisses at her.

I thought about the last time I was in this hospital, last summer, when my sister was having a gall bladder attack and had to have emergency surgery to remove it. It was serious, and her life had been in danger, and our immediate family had rallied around her while she recovered. She had been here for almost a week, and eventually recovered, but that episode had reminded me that hospitals are places that will always be associated with loss, both potential and realized.

Lindsey’s monthly infusion helps her deal with her disease. But it is not a cure. I am aware of that, today, in this room, more than ever. I feel Lindsey’s bravery and strength and I hope that I am that strong, too, because now that I have met her, I would very much like to get to know her even better. Ours is the kind of relationship I haven’t had in a long time; one that makes it easier for me to think of future things.

The nurse whose name I have forgotten prepped Lindsey’s arm for the needle. Lindsey has learned that her right arm is better able to take the needle; trying to get a vein in the left arm hurts and is rarely successful. She’s learned that the hard way. So today she is clear and direct about which arm is to be used. The nurse cleans the arm, locates the vein she will use, and pulls out the sterile needle and tube and blue connector to which, later, the tube that leads to the clear baggie of Tysabri will be screwed into. The IV. Intravenous.

Lindsey turns her face away, and closes her eyes.

I think of all the times I have given blood, and how I can’t watch as it enters my own arm. The quick sting and the sudden warmth, and how the warmth of the blood flowing out of my body and through the clear plastic tube laying along the skin of my forearm feels so strange.

I watch Lindsey’s face, eyes closed, and I have to turn away. “I can’t watch,” I say, trying to put a joking tone into my voice.

“Neither can I,” Lindsey says. “You know they do this every month, right?”

“I know. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to watch.” I reply.

“He’s got that empathy thing goin’ on,” the nurse whose name I have forgotten says, and Lindsey opens her eyes and looks at me. I smile. I like that. And it’s true.

I love her.

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¹ Lindsey informed me, after reading a draft of this post, that her name was Julianne

Having not heard from Ken yet that morning, I decided to give him a call.

He picked up immediately but I heard gravel in his voice.

“Did I wake you up?” I asked.

“Did you not see my email?” he asked in return.

My inbox had been empty all morning. I brought Outlook to the front, and, sure enough, there was an email from Ken saying he was calling in sick.

The timestamp on the email was 7:22 AM.

According to my system clock, it was currently 7:21 AM.

I resisted the urge to say, “You mean the email you’re going to send in a minute?” and just apologized for waking him and got off the phone to let him rest.

I haven’t watched any TV this week. Of course, it’s only Wednesday. And I haven’t blogged, either. I am so behind on the internets; I feel out of touch.

Are pictures of cats with captions in little-kid-speak still funny?

Are Hollywood starlets still showing off their panties and boobies while climbing in and out of cars?

Are people still downloading all the free illegal music that’s out there? Are there still middlemen who have managed to insert themselves between the artists and the fans still complaining and using the legal system to extort both ends of the creative chain, too?

Are people still arguing about politics? Religion? Star Trek vs. Star Wars? Good, good. Good to hear.

Are people still booking their own flights to far away destinations like Hawaii, London, Bakersfield?

Are the poor saps who have legitimately figured out how to enlarge penises and boobies still completely unable to get their message out via HTML-based poorly-formatted email? Man, those guys have it rough. They’re right up there with the folk who want us all to love (their) God or country or armed forces and have only the email system and every email address in their contact list to do it with.

In fact, I’m so out of it, I can’t even think up any more internet memes right now. I think I’ll go tweet that.

I’m back from my mini-vacation. Just sayin’.

I’ll be back to posting at least once a day Monday through Friday, with optional posts on the weekends, I promise, at least until I stop doing that.

Even though my surfing levels were greatly depreciated over my vacation, I did still notice some bits of this and that on the internets. Here’s a few to help kick-start this sunny, warm, spring Portland morning¹.

• I’ve had, in draft form, a five-part series on “what constitutes evidence of God?” for months now. I may dust it off and finish writing it someday, but in the meantime, Deacon Duncan is starting a series on the similar topic of examining the positive evidence against God. Should be fascinating.
• Via Kottke comes an article from The New Scientist that examines 13 scientific anomalies, which are fascinating. Please note, though, that none of the 13 things on this list are evidence of the supernatural – mainly because, when we find out what’s going on in each case, we will be using rational thinking, logic, and the scientific process to find out, and almost certainly each answer will be natural, not supernatural.
• I’m continuing to use twitter (as “lunarobverse”, and, at least for the past day, Nambu, while still in beta, is performing really well and not being crash-y and giving me the ability to collect my follows into smaller groups. Kinda awesome.
• I love Penelope Trunk and the fact that she says stuff that people think but rarely say in person, like how she thinks of dating as a way to improve her online brand and how that’s not different from what some women have done throughout history.
• Political activists The Yes Men are saving the world again.
• President Obama addresses the grave dangers of Wild Things, and Where They Are:

  [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xuAaj8DotqU&hl=en&fs=1]

¹ Your morning may vary.