Where I Went to High School: SoMD*

When I was in high school mine was one of three in the county; it's one of four now. It had been built five years before my freshman year, and by the time I got there it was already overflowing with 200 more students than it was built to hold, and it had sank into the swamp about a quarter inch. Welcome to Calvert County.

The personalities of our three schools were predetermined: the northernmost school was built in the 70s with the ideology that windows are distracting and detrimental to the learning process, so the inside was dark and lit only by flourescent lights; the middling school (our rival) was the first high school of the county and built in the late 19th century, so there was constant construction and peeling paint; and the southernmost school (my alma mater) was built in the 90s with the new-age ideology that windows and open spaces are actually good for the learning environment. So my high school was, in a word, gorgeous; it was compared to a shopping mall by visiting students. It was also an extreme waste of space and money, so there were unusable seats in the auditorium and half-funded lab tables in the science wing.

I had the usual awkward high school experience I think, with high periods of silliness and notoriety (I got fired from the morning announcements and it is sometimes still brought up in conversation when catching up with old high school acquaintances), peppered with the occasional dramatic breakup or un-friending (before facebook!). My friends and I didn't drink or do drugs, a prevalent pastime in small-town America, so my high school memories are of parking lot dance parties after one of the thirteen-billion afterschool activities I was enmeshed in, bayside (or riverside, I can never remember which side of Solomons Island is which) picnics, a lot of loitering, and a LOT of driving around aimlessly.

I don't think my experience as an awkward, dramatic, self-centered, oddball teenager is in any way uncommon, but I often find that Hollywood seems to think so, and that irks me. Teenagers played by twenty-somethings often come off as smooth and experienced, but I am almost positive no teenager is without awkwardness, regardless of experience.

Obviously not every high schooler had "fairyland," an extensive playground in someone's backyard next door to the school, a popular class-skipping or sports team-running break hangout; or "the ghetto," the group of class trailers in the front parking lot put in place after the school ran out of room for trailers out back; or a school-wide inside joke about our crazy one-term Principal, who announced at the end of a long-winded speech on his first day that, "You don't mess with Libby, 'cause LIBBY DON'T PLAY," but everyone was sure awkward as hell, and that's kind of nice.

Comforting, even, knowing that some of my weirdest, most awkward moments ever can be retold and laughed [with] in the knowledge that everyone's got a story, like the time I asked a boy out by ambushing him and yelling that I was going to the movies (by myself) and did he want to go. Or the time my girlfriends and I skipped school to go shopping and I announced (loudly) in an upscale shoe store, "WHAT, DO THEY ONLY HAVE ONE OF EACH KIND??" Or the time my running buddies and I bowled each other over in a mad scramble to leap into the bushes and hide before the lacrosse team saw us all red-faced and sweaty. And the list goes on.

Oh, and to any former teachers who may come across the blogosphere and read this, I totally learned stuff, too. Like from my football coach/calculus teacher who punched holes in walls when he got excited about math, and my history teachers who made us climb under our desks and threw "shrapnel" at us to teach us about WWI and stole me from another class to put me on trial at a Red Scare hearing (and turned on the news on 9/11 because they knew how important it was, despite or to spite the administration's mandate to keep tvs turned off.) And the theatre teacher who made me realize what I wanted to do with my life, and the English teacher who still invites us over for tea every year. There's a whole other post in what some of my high school teachers did for me as a person, so I'll leave it at that.

My high school experience was a fitting metaphor for teenagehood, with awesomeness interspersed with absurdity and pain, and an overwhelming sense of relief that it's all over. Calvert County high school: God Bless Y'all Real Good.


*SoMD is what the natives affectionately call Southern Maryland, sometimes going a step further to call themselves SMIBs, or Southern Maryland InBreds. Clearly no one else is allowed to call us that but us.

Thinking in Three Dimensions

Unless you haven't been to the movie theater this holiday season, you've noticed the recent surge of three-dimensional filmmaking. If you're anything like I am, you were slightly confused or befuddled. In fact, you've probably even mocked the concept or voiced your disgruntled opinions over the addition of cliché, 3-D gags to films that wouldn't need them otherwise. Regardless, I went to see Avatar - James Cameron's $500 billion, Dances with Wolves meets FernGully love child. Despite the option for otherwise, I decided to see it in 3-D, as my date and I figured, "might as well watch a film the way it was intended to be watched, right?"

As it turns out, good choice. Avatar was not only fun to watch (not to mention it contained the most absolutely gorgeous CGI I have seen outside of the Final Fantasy series), but it presented a multi-laden metaphor for industrialization, race relations, imperialism, and environmental responsibility. Of course, it's received a figurative grab-bag of reactions - leading one Chicago Tribune columnist to name it "this season's ideological Rorshach blot." Some critics have praised Avatar for its enriching, immersive experience, while others are put off by its "flat dialogue," predictability, and pantheistic preaching. One io9 blog-writer goes so far as to liken Avatar to a slew of caucasian fantasy pieces, "where a white guy manages to get himself accepted into a closed society of people of color and eventually becomes its most awesome member." Myself? While not "$500 billion good," Avatar was an enjoyable, eye-buffet that managed to give its audience something to think about, as well as function as a tech-sample for future, effect-heavy films. And, yes - viewing it in 3-D was an experience that I fear those who didn't have lost. For some of us, the illusion of depth really does make you feel like you're right there on the main characters' shoulders - passively watching as the Na'vi fight tooth and nail against their would-be human oppressors.

Part of what makes it work is that 3-D gimmickery has pretty much fallen to the wayside - meaning "put on your glasses now" sequences complete with a tomato flying from the screen "towards" the audience are no longer present. No more blue and red saran-wrap (although, some form of eyewear is still necessary). Instead, the shots are simply enhanced - taking choice scenes from the film and imposing an in-focus picture over an out-of-focus background. When you put on your glasses, the background shifts into focus, causing the superimposed picture to "pop" away from the background and create a three-dimensional illusion of depth. The fact that certain scenes may be selected for three dimensions, while others left alone, means that 3-D can now be adequately used to influence storytelling and allow a director greater control over the audience's reactions. While the value may not be apparent to everyone (I muse over one audience member's reaction as I left the auditorium, "Yeah, I don't know. It was, like, the same thing as seeing it normal") the consistent presence of 3-D film now presents the question: "How does the 3-D experience effect memory recall?"

Does 3-D imagery imprint more on what we remember?

A certain 2004 study (linked above) suggests yes. In a world where 3-D movies may be widely installed to prevent internet piracy, another selling point may be that playing with your spatial memory actually keeps your brain occupied enough to pay more attention and recall more of what you've seen later. The implications are obvious - studio executives and artists alike are looking to improve movies any way they can. If 3-D enhances your memory of a film, you'll remember more about it, talk about it more, probably like it more, and it'll stay in the social consciousness longer. In a world where everyone is constantly looking to the "next big thing" the longevity of the public interest in a film is certainly an concern your average, big-budget director maintains.

Of course, one could apply this knowledge to other items - like learning aids for children, the disabled, and even juries. In a world where everything is literally at one's fingertips and the average human attention span gets beat out by your garden-variety goldfish, an efficient learning aid has invaluable social benefits. If people only remember 10% of what they hear, but 20% of what they see, and 50% of both, 3-D could be just another nudge towards that 100% recall mark. Which, of course implies that soon we're approaching memory download capabilities for human beings and The Matrix is quickly becoming a reality. But, don't worry, I think we're closer to defeating the uncanny valley first - meaning that the our own robot slaves will overpower their masters and bomb us into extinction before that happens.

Thank God.

30 Tiny Truths - 2

2. CAG347

Ari Levin's Lexus is the only license plate number I've ever memorized aside from my own.

I didn't have a car throughout high school - I actually didn't get my license until I was out in New Mexico, 18 and technically a freshman in college. But before then, I was the consistent passenger amongst my friends and Ari's car was my favorite ride. There were other good and memorable cars running the road in those days - Ami first had The Van, a giant steel tank that may or may not have been sold to be a cab in an african country after it was no longer in use here. Then The Rocket, a Volvo station wagon that began the long running tradition of Ami and I getting into a car saying 'let's bounce, homes.' And Jacob still has the Grand Marquis, Spoont. sticker attached and filled to the brim with stuff, a living remnant of those days.

But no other car was like CAG347.

The gold Lexus named Alexis with her leather seats, she was a home away from home for years.
Ari and I would take that car every weekend for the Friday Night Drive, a weekly tradition where we would visit our friends who couldn't leave the house for Shabbat - starting off with dinner at one, then the next, until we ended up at Cunningham's for a late night movie, me passing out in the passenger seat on the way home. We must have done this nearly every week for a year or more.

Or the 2am trips to Bistro Francais in Georgetown, when we once literally kidnapped Andrew Stiles from his doorstep and took him there for perfect French cuisine, him screaming the whole way there. Being followed by a police car on Christmas Eve one year, across three counties, through residential neighborhoods and a col de sac, just looking for a place to eat. Getting lost in Poolesville just to see where River Road went.

That car was my escape during endless fights with my parents - blasting The Offspring or the Chili Peppers with Miles and Ari as we sped from diner to diner - Silver, Broadway, Star - or nowhere in particular.

Ari was the driver of our group, going out of his way to pick up or take every one of us somewhere, another extension of his very selfless spirit. He never asked for gas money, never felt put upon, just drove around and did his friends a good turn. When his first senior jersey idea ('I have a room') was turned down, his actual jersey proudly displayed 'The Chauffer.'

I always said once I got a car I would pay it back and give as many rides as I could.
And so I do.
I love driving, and it's rare to find me in the passenger seat. But for Ari, for old times, I'll make an exception.

Ari lives in LA now, and the Lexus just recently died. He has a new car, one I won't have nearly the same relationship with, seeing it only once or twice a year.
But High School is best remembered in that car - late at night, windows open, singing with abandon.

Surrender Dorothy

Ding, dong, the Washington Area Sniper is dead.

I remember being fifteen, fresh and staggering from 9/11, ducking and weaving at the gas station, missing school, searching the roads for (suspicious?) white vans. There was no white van; only a blue Chevy Caprice and a lot of residual terror. I still do the duck and weave at gas stations sometimes when I'm alone. When I'm not alone sometimes I still comfort myself with, "If I get shot, maybe one of these people will see which direction it came from." Maybe that person will be caught eventually, too.

John Allen Muhammed was killed today, by lethal injection. He died without expressing remorse, and I can't help but feel little to no remorse for him. Because he died knowing he was going to die. He wasn't cleaning out his car, or mowing his lawn, or sitting in his taxi, or walking toward his seventh grade homeroom.* He was laying on a cot with a room full of witnesses, possessing the ability and the power to meet death head on, if he so chose.

I was listening to the BBC today when they were talking about it; that's how I found out. A country an ocean away told their perspective, and it got me. The BBC asked its reporter who had lived here for several years, lived here through the three week reign of terror that felt so much longer, and they asked for his version of the story. He said even here, even in this culture of violence, people were shocked at the cold, absolute randomness with which the sniper chose his victims. John Allen Muhammad nearly shut down one of the most, if not the most powerful city in the world for three weeks. Then the reporter said, when they asked if this was out of the ordinary in light of the recent events at Fort Hood, that "spree killing of this kind of nature seems to be... an acknowledged way of expressing anger in this country." He didn't want it to be so, but he wouldn't be shocked if something similar happened again, and soon. And as much as I want with everything in me to disagree, I can't. Because here it is again. And again. And again. And John Allen Muhammed is dead, but do we feel any safer for it?

Surrender Dorothy is still, if you look hard enough, spray painted on a bridge crossing 495 near the Mormon Temple. Meant as a prank on the Oz-looking building, I can't help but wonder if it doesn't reflect how we feel as a city: disoriented and afraid, and so very, very unsure as to which way to go from here.

*The boy in middle school didn't die, but I can't imagine he left this ordeal unemotionally scarred. I didn't leave this ordeal unemotionally scarred, and I was a high schooler in a totally different county, who never even got shot at.

Where I Live: Augsburg, Bavaria Germany

When Where I Live was announced as part of the upcoming Gentleman's schedule, I was conflicted. Certainly I do LIVE someplace, as in, physically occupy a geographic location, but the spirit of the concept seemed to be asking for more. This is not just a rundown of where you go when you get off from work. No, we are meant to capture the essence, the soul of a region through the lens of our experience. My conflict was that I have no place I am "from," no point of origin or hometown. It was a habit of my family to move every few years, one I have picked up and continued on my own. My journies have taken me across the country several times, with stories to share about each new destination.

Hence I have decided that I will break my experiences down into a series - one post for each major period in my life. These would be, in rough chronological order; Germany, Arizona, North Carolina, Ohio, New York, and finally, Maryland.

So I'll begin at the beginning. The place I was born - Augsburg, Bavaria, Germany.



The time is April 28th, 1983. College student Marci Eve Willner and husband Vladimir James Pratt are expecting their second child. Marci is finishing up course work via - funnily enough - the University of Maryland. Vladimir is serving a tour of duty overseas for the U.S. Army. They met when Marci was in the army herself, just as Vladimir was separating from his first wife, a high school sweetheart. Their son, Vladimir James Pratt II, is 3 years and 9 months old.

The pregnancy has not been an easy one. Marci almost miscarried once and was consigned to bedrest for several days. 10 days after her due date, she goes into labor. The birth is not easy. At first the baby simply refuses to be born. Ultimately, the doctor decides to use a suction tube in order to literally vacuum it free. This is not without complications. Her baby is delivered with the umbilical cord wrapped around its neck, and is a frightening shade of blue. Things don't look good, but after a touch-and-go moment, he begins to cry. At 8lbs, 6 ounces, David Andrew Pratt is welcomed by his parents. The name was the subject of some debate, but Marci ultimately won out - she had already given in to Vladimir James Pratt II, she wasn't about to let another one go without a fight.

Thus for the first ten weeks of my life, I lived in Germany. My memories of this time are understandably dim, but for some reason whenever it's brought up I think of the color blue. With no firm recollections of Bavaria, instead I've prepared a short lesson on the area and its history.

The city of Augsburg was founded in 15 B.C. as a garrison for Roman soldiers. Situated as it is between several key European cities, it soon became a bustling hub of trade and commerce. It would survive being sacked by both Huns and Charlemagne to become a vibrant college town rich in history and culture. It is the only city in Germany with its own holiday - the Peace of Augsburg. This commemorates the day when, for the first time anywhere, a treaty of coexistence was signed between Catholics and Lutherans.

Augsburg is also home to a famous marionette theater, the world's first artificial whitewater course, the 900-year-old Perlachturm bell tower, and the Fuggerei - the world's oldest social housing complex still standing today. It was also the home of playwright Bertolt Brecht, inventor Rudolf Diesel, and Leopold Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus's father.

Bavaria itself is the largest state in Germany, accounting for 20% of the country. The indigenous population does not seem to have migrated here, but rather been formed by a combination of groups held over following a Roman withdrawal from the area. It has changed as Europe changed, from Rome to Charlemagne to Napoleon. Bavaria managed to remain a monarchy even after being defeated by Prussia in 1866.

Contained in Bavaria are the cities of Munich and Nuremberg, both famous in their own right. Munich was heavily bombarded during World War II, but has since risen to prosperity once more. In 1972, it played host to the Summer Olympics.

Well-known natives of Bavaria? Look no further than Joseph Ratzinger - or as we know him now, Pope Benedict XVI.

That is what I know about Augsburg, Bavaria Germany. I do hope to visit there one day, out of a sense that cannot even be called nostalgia. More simply a desire to see the place where I drew my first breath. Absorb perhaps some of what I first saw when I entered this world.

At 10 weeks old, I departed from Germany for America. This would see me land in Fort Huachuca, Arizona, for what would not be the last time.

But more on that tomorrow.

You Are My Daughter (Part 2)

Part 1

In High School 'Livejournal,' the awkward socially inept pre-pubescent cousin of blogging, was a huge part of my social circle. Not in the sense that we all became friends through the internet, we were a very close knit group of friends in real life, thank you - everyone just seemed to have one, and the concept became a part of our vocabulary. This was back when the internet felt just a little less public (which is an absolutely ludicrous premise in restrospect) and there was some degree of comfort that you had a pretty good idea of exactly who your audience was based on your 'friend's list.' Obviously, that turned out never to be the case. I often feel the need to write, but can't write without an audience, which has in the past led me to putting a few things out into cyberspace that maybe I ought to have thought better of first, or at least changed a few names. Livejournal certainly began that trend.

In my senior year of High School I transferred from JDS to Wootton and became friends with an entirely new group of people, including a girl named Marian. I met her for the first time outside on the front steps in the midst of a crowd just before a pep rally. She stood out, despite standing a foot or so below everyone else. She was tiny, vibrant, and exuding energy like a pixie, wood nymph, or sprite. I may well be romanticizing a memory, but she had a certain light in her eyes, a hopeful gleam that stood out in spite of a number of personal issues she dealt with. We became really close, and she was a good friend, and her boyfriend at the time went on to become and stay one of my best friends to this day.

At a certain point we started to lose touch, and I've been thinking about her quite a bit lately since I decided to write this story, but I haven't spoken with her in several years now and I'm not even sure how I'd get in touch with her if I wanted. She got more heavily into drugs, issues started to weigh on her more and more and that very pure youthful exuberance she had first got lost behind a cloudy haze and then seemed to slowly drain out of her until her face was a hollow looking husk of what it had once been. The last time I saw her she looked so old. I think she's out on a farm somewhere in the Mid West, if I remember correctly, and I hope she's happy. I very suddenly miss her and a lot of other people from that brief period of my life.

But sometime after she and my friend broke up and before she and I fully lost touch we made out a few times. And online, she had been flirting with my friend Denny a bit. So one night me, Denny, and our friend Drew were hanging out at Tower (oh how we miss you Tower, go to spot of Rockville Pike for twenty-something layabouts) - I think Den had just come home from school on break and none of us had seen each other in awhile. Neither Den or I had seen Marian for a bit so we decided to go visit her. Drew wasn't particularly thrilled with the decision because he just wanted to have a night with three of us, but he went along. On the long drive into the depths of deep potomac, where fellow Gent Scotty Maxwell makes his home, I think he wondered exactly what he had gotten himself into.

Drew wasn't known for his comfort and dexterity in new social situations, so Denny and I looked at each other in unspoken agreement. We pretty much knew one of us was hooking up with Marian that night, and so the other one would look after Drew.

We got to her parents' house (we had just started college and she was still in High School) and walked down to the basement to see a group of kids sitting around a hookah and drinking beer. This may not seem particularly strange, but in high school my group of friends once played a basement show at a house when someone shouted that they had found a whole fridge full of beer. There was a pause and then we asked if they had any lemonade. We never hung around drinking or smoking and seeing a group of kids bumming around drinking beer while her parents were totally home and apparently cool with was just weird. I remember Drew sitting down, taking a puff full of Hookah, and exhaling the smoke while saying 'Dude, I'm so Straight Edge' and at the same time giving me a look plaintively begging for us to leave.

There was me, Denny, Drew, Marian, a few others, and the brother/sister due of Ahmed and Yas. Ahmed was two years younger than me, and his sister was two years younger than him which made her a High School freshman who looked 12 years old. For a bunch of newly minted college kids this was getting a little weird. Ahmed was a total pothead who also hooked up with a LOT of girls in very impersonal ways - most of whom he met through Yas. The most famous anecdote is that a friend of hers was sleeping over, snuck into Ahmed's room to hook up with him, and he ended up having anal sex without even kissing her. How that happens, I really have no idea.

The basement layout was a set of stairs that led down into an open room where all the beer and Hookah was in plain view. To the side was an alcove that couldn't be seen from the steps where Mario Kart 64 was on. Denny and Marion start playing when suddenly Marian very loudly announces - "Denny, we're gonna race now. And if you win, I'm going to give you head. And if I win, I'm going to give you head."

Den and I look at each other. It's now officially my night to watch Drew.

I can't remember who won the game (Den is telling me now via AIM that he did) but I do remember her dragging him across the room to a closet or somesuch while everyone around the Hookah table cat-called at how good she was at giving head. The door closed and Drew and I settled in for a long night of Mario Kart.

Soon after, Ahmed started to stumble around drunk and almost hit the door where Marion and Den were getting to it. Yas called out "Don't interupt them!"
And in a violent rage I had NEVER seem him have until this moment Ahmed screamed back "Why is it anytime she's getting some you try not to bother her, but you go out of your way to interupt me!"

and which point the seeming twelve year old screamed back in a sad, lost little whine "because they're always my FRIENDS!"

Drew involuntarilly responded by making a high pitched gurgle of disbelief that dogs in PG County could have heard.

It was then that Marian's mom came downstairs looking for her. She was seemingly nonplussed by the the beer and the smoke. But she kept asking for Marian. At first - silence. Awkward, awkward silence. Then Ahmed, in full view of her, put his head to the ground and said in a fake high pitch girl's voice "What is it mom?"
More silence.

Then she said "Where's Schlafstein?"

Now remember, Drew and I are playing Mario Kart in the alcove and can't be seen. I have NO idea what she wants from me, and her daughter is currently giving my good friend a blow job in a closet. Nothing good can come of this.
I slowly peek my head around the wall.

"Where's Marian? What's going on here?" She asked.

"I don't know." I lied.

"Come on, I know you're the responsible one. I read your Livejournal."

Before I had time to process that particularly horrifying revelation, Denny walked out of the door DIRECTLY behind her, followed by Marian who either had her shirt on backwards or was still putting it on.

Her mom took one look at her and said -
"You are my daughter."
She laughed, and went upstairs.

Denny looked at me, looked at Drew, and said "So, we're leaving."

Marian said "You can stay,"

"No, we're gonna go."

And so we left. Drew made us promise never to make him go anywhere like that again.

That was when I first realized that you never know just who might be reading these - from potential employers, to your ex-girlfriend, or your friend's mom.

But it's okay, because I'm the responsible one.

In Memoriam

Three years ago today, the world lost one of its great souls. Very few people know that though - Timothy J. Barranco was just too unassuming and modest to try to stand out in the crowd. It just happened naturally.

Tim was one of the counselors at Beachmont Christian Camp in Kingsville, MD. He and I worked side by side for four summers. Tim was, in a word, brilliant. He studied and prayed more deeply and compassionately than anyone I have ever met, or probably ever will meet. He was one of the great people of the world. He genuinely cared about each and every person he met, and was never too busy to give you a few minutes to talk or pray. And he knew so much! His words were always based in his own intense personal spirituality and his historical knowledge of Scripture.

But despite being quiet and humble, when Tim got up to preach, you listened. You couldn't help it. He had such a powerful presence. Children and adults alike were held in rapt attention when he started speaking. He reached and touched everyone he knew. Everyone loved Tim.

After finishing undergraduate work at Towson University, Tim had begun graduate studies at Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia. His behavior had started shifting, and he had hinted that as soon as the semester was over, he was going to inquire with a doctor about bi-polar disorder. He never quite made it that far.

On May 11, 2006, Tim finished his Ethics exam (and got an A). He went to the local Y to drop off the report cards for his swim class, and stayed there talking until about 5:45 p.m. And then he drove to the train tracks. By 6:01 p.m., Tim was dead, hit by a Septa, an assumed suicide. He left behind five heart-broken siblings and a devastated community.

Tim was and is someone I look up to. He espoused every quality that a Gentleman should. I aspire to make my life more like his. To care half as much as he did. To show even a smidgen of his compassion and integrity. He was the most Godly man I've ever known. He was a clever scholar and teacher, and a captivating preacher. But mostly, Tim was my friend. And he was a great friend. 

And I miss him.

R.I.P. Tim Barranco, 2/26/80 - 5/11/06

Less is More is Less

In our crazy world where people can already have nostalgia for the Strokes (I personally did on a crisp spring day in 2006 while walking through College Park) I'd like to jump out ahead on an inevitable trend which will happen at some point in the next few years. People will want less information, and they'll want better information.

With all the tweeting, blogging and texting, we have hit the lowest common denominator. For the younger generation, this is already a way of life, and they probably will keep on tweeting their farts, which is fine I'm all for freedom of expression not involving wasting teabags because you have to pay taxes. But for folks our age and older, who remember the Apple IIe, or the time even before that, there is going to come a day when the almost-literate playground taunts of Wonkette and the meaningless city minutia of DCist will seem pointless (and I say this as someone who enjoys both blogs). We're going to start pushing again for good newspapers and news magazines and books.

At least I hope this is how things will happen, becuase pretty soon even nostalgia won't save the newsprint.

Luck of the Irish

Bennigans has been closed awhile now, bankrupt and out of business. And while I won't shed a tear for the terrible service and lackluster, lukewarm food that made the College Park franchise notorious in my eyes (though it was the site of the time I accidentally hijacked the first date between someone else and the girl who would eventually go on to be my girlfriend without knowing I was doing so), I had some pretty good times at the Rockville Pike location back in high school and beyond. Getting a drink with some coworkers after my break-up, or more often ending up there with Ari and Miles on one of our drives, Bennigans was never THE place to be (that honor went to the Silver Diner) but it was certainly a place to be, and so we were.

And so, maybe deserves a requiem.

Bennigans, I only knew you oh so well. You were part of the Pike Franchise Restaurant Trifecta, one third of a team comprised also of TGI Fridays and Ruby Tuesdays. You offered me a corporate slant on Irish food and laid claim to the one sandwich I refused to ever try, and now never will. But many people ate your ham and turkey and cheese sandwich, deep fried until oily gold, and then doused in powdered sugar with a raspberry dipping sauce. And when those people die before me, I think I'll know why. No, B, you never gave me the best food, or best decor, but you gave me a few good nights.

And you gave me this.

Just before going to Maryland, I had a cup of coffee at Montgomery College, just a semester to get used to being back in civilization after the eight month ordeal regular readers know as New Mexico. I took my first theater class in about a year there, and became friendly with a girl named Audrey. She was from Arizona.

Now I have a theory about people who grow up in Arizona.

They're all crazy.

And no one from Arizona has yet proven me wrong. It's all stories about lake side keggers, cults, and avoiding gunfire in abandoned shopping malls. And Audrey's stories were no different. She went to the kinds of parties I still wonder what it would be like to attend - full of public grinding and ending in shower orgies. She had been in a car accident in Arizona and it was a pretty bad one, and so her parents brought her here to recover. By the time I met her she had, and was missing home pretty bad, waiting it out 'til she could afford to return. And in the meantime she had found a few people at MC that helped bring that Arizona feel here.

Believe me, I wasn't in her league.

So I was at Bennigans one night with my good friend Ari, sitting and eating as we would often do, when Audrey walks in. I hadn't seen her in a little while so we started to catch up a bit - I didn't want it to go too long cause Ari sort of just had to sit there. But then she started telling me a story about the last party she went to, going into a lot of detail about her getting naked in the shower with a lot of people and forget friend protocol, I was fully invested in the moment we were sharing under the neon kitsch.

Then she pulled out her camera, said 'Oh wait, I have pictures!' and proceeded to show me a bunch of pictures of her naked. Totally naked. Like 'hey, look, those are nipples' naked. I looked up at her, back down at the pictures while she talked, narrating the night to me. Yup, that was her. And that was her naked. 

And she was pretty hot.

Now Ari was in the most unfortunate situation because he totally wanted to see the pictures too (imagine the feeling of being left out, but multiplied by hot naked girls). But he had never met this girl and there's no real couth way to be like "Heeeey... can I get a turn?" So instead, he just sat there uncomfortably across from us as this girl showed me a bunch of naked pictures of herself in the middle of the restaurant, until she gave me a hug and had to go.

Ari stared at me with daggers.

So I'll miss you, Bennigans. 

You didn't give me much. But I have a lot of very attractive female friends and to this day none of them have since surprised me in a restaurant with naked pictures, though I often wish they would.

So until they do, maybe at Jaspers or Chef's Secret or even Cheesecake Factory, I raise a glass to you, spill a drop of Guinness, and maybe I'll fry a turkey sandwich in your honor when I get tired of this cruel world. 

You Are My Daughter - Pt. 1

At our last meeting, Oz brought up something a little bit intimidating, although not totally unexpected - that during a recent job interview at a law firm, midway through the conversation they brought up "oh, by the way, we read your blog."

Well that's worth thinking about.

They happened to like the blog (why wouldn't they?), and they ended up making fun of John for being a Whedonite (a devoted follower of all things Joss Whedon). And given that our blog is full of intelligent and witty people writing mini-essays on a variety of contemporary subjects with the specific intention of being 'gentlemanly,' I suppose there's not much for us to be worried about. We stand by our words, we stand by our quality, and we stand by each other. It does, however, go to show the stakes of putting your name to your words in public - we potentially have a lot to lose.

I started thinking about that a lot, as I think it's fair to say that in my 'slice of life' stories I've exposed a great deal more about myself and my personal life than most of the other gents. Not to say that's either good or bad, or to say they haven't at all, but if it hasn't been about a comic book then chances are my posts are some kind of story or analysis about a specific area of my life - from the ranch, to my family, relationships, fears - I'm putting an awful lot out there, and sometimes that's easy to forget.

And to forget the consequences.

It's actually why you'll almost never read anything from me about Theater, and especially the DC Scene. Though certainly my foremost love and passion (that's right, the funnybooks are in fact second), that's also my career. My colleagues, my friends, my working environment, and I don't feel comfortable analyzing much of that here, especially in case it might come back to bite me in the ass when I'm lining up a gig.

But analyzing and presenting myself? I seem to do that all the time. And I wonder exactly how I'm presenting myself. If you just read this blog, how do I seem to you? What impression do you get? What do I give off to a potential employer, or admissions dean, or future lover who can easily find this site by a simple google search? Do I look smart and sensitive and come across as a creative and witty genius with words as my most advanced arsenal? Or am I just shooting myself in the foot? How does the me in person compare to the me on your screen? Sometimes I actually feel much more like 'myself' here than when I'm awkwardly hovering about not knowing what to do. (I wasn't aware that I 'hover' until this week but on thinking about it, it's not untrue - another in the list of habits and characeristics to undo about myself).

There's certainly no way to hide at this point. We've all exposed ourselves by doing this, and someone like me and John even more than others (there are NO other Jason Schlafsteins or John Ozkirbases out there - so as opposed to weeding through the multitudes of results for a 'John Smith' or even apparently a David Pratt, we're pretty damn easy to find).

All of which reminded me of the first time I became aware that writing for the internet really is writing for the public. The first time someone read my stuff that probably, really never should have.

Because you always remember your first time.

To Be Continued...

Stuff I Love-Third Edition

BE HERE NOW-SOMETHING I LOVE



Most of my friends don't really like Oasis's third record that much. In fact, most people I talk to don't like Oasis' third record much. "The songs are too long," "they don't seem to be about anything," and "none of the sound like Wonderwall" are some of the more frequent complaints. But to me, this album is the pinnacle of Oasis's brilliance, the height of their musical mastery.

Take, for instance, my personal favorite song on the record, "I Hope, I Think, I Know."



I just love this song. It starts like a shot to the face, and it just doesn't quit. It's vintage Oasis-Liam being loud, obnoxious, and non-conformist, and Noel and the boys backing him up with a sound so full it's hard to even pick out individual instruments at times. It's just the classic Oasis record-it doesn't get any better than this.

Yes, the songs are long, but it just works. No matter how many times the beat vanishes and comes back on "D'ya Know What I Mean," it it hits just as hard every time. And so what if "Around the World" is ten minutes long, it's a killer song, and you get to hear Liam Gallagher say the word "sheeeyyyinnne" a bunch of times. I think that's a pretty strong argument right there.

I guess part of it is also the time period in my life that the record makes me think of, being a kid in the ninth grade and religiously following Oasis's every move. The record showed Oasis heading in a new direction, experimenting with their sound and, at the same time, moving it forward in a way they, in my opinion, have never been able to repeat. This record is why I'm still a fan.

Time Stands Still

In eighth grade we went on a Shabbaton at the Capital Camps grounds.

What I remember most is one night when we had an hour of free time. I was sitting on a hill, looking out at the stars, watching everyone running around, or talking, or cuddling - and suddenly I was very happy, for no real reason. Time stood still, if only for a few moments, and it felt like I could control just how long that hour lasted. Everything slowed down. I kept checking my watch, astonished at how much time I still had left. It felt like so much longer than one hour when time finally ran out.

Nothing happened - there was no momentous occasion, no story. I just remember this one hour when I sat out under the stars, watching people, realizing that I could think cleanly for the first time, because I had never realized how foggy my head had been before. This brief crystaline moment of peace - a sense of comfortable solitude around people without stress about what I had to do or how I fit. A moment of clarity.

Those moments are rare for me, and always fleeting. So I savor them - I never know when they'll come or what will cause them, but I know trying to seek it out never seems to work. I can tell I've entered into that state because I can think about it and the peace doesn't go away. It's like my eyes open up and my vision becomes clear and little knots of thought inside my head loosen and untie and I can beathe easy and I don't have to think. I am without thought.
I just exist a little bit.

It embarasses him, I think, but I'm a big fan of Dan Strauss. Not just as a man, which I am, but as a musician. I really like his work, to the extent that I would champion it whether i knew him or not. In high school he wrote a song called "Everything a Teenybopper Movie Should Be." And I love that song. Not just because it's coalesced in my head as a memory, the synthesis of everything that was great about high school and that time.

But because of the line -
'And I don't think I can make these brain cells go much faster anymore.'

I get that line. I get it in a way I can't describe. I sleep maybe three or four hours a night usually, often less, and usually because my brain is racing so fast I just can't make it stop (and my dreams are almost always direct continuations of my thoughts). I crave a sense of resolution and there often is no such thing in life, and I think my mental chemistry has a hard time dealing with that. So it goes and goes and goes and I worry about it burning out.

Good Morning

During Phase 3, me, RJ, Wolfy, Rocky, and Big John all decided to go get pierced at the same time. It may have been some kind of room-mate bonding trip, but mainly I wanted some kind of physical demarcation of all the changes I had undergone in the last few months (aside from the beard, long hair, and general buffness - oh how I miss thee, buffness). This is also the time I came incredibly close to getting a penis piercing.

RJ, Wolfy, and John were all gung ho on getting some metal shoved through their man rods, while Rock remained firmly on the side that that was a terrible idea. I don't even pretend like I was thinking clearly those days and really debated joining the rest of them - mainly because it was something I would never, ever, ever do. Then I wouldn't tell ANYONE at home for about three months until I'd bust it out randomly at a party to the utter shock of everyone.

Then I realized I was seriously considering PIERCING MY PENIS in preparation for a twenty second joke over three months away that involved flashing a lot of people. So I wisely decided to go with an eyebrow piercing instead, which I still miss (along with my glorious flowing locks).

Wolfy, John, and RJ all did go the whole way, though.
Now when you get a piercing down there, you're told to have absolutely no sex for about three months - and then for a long time, a condom is a must.

So of course three days later RJ had unprotected sex with a sixteen year old girl he could barely stand.
It sounded a lot like this -

*girlish moan*
Agh!
*moan*
Agh!
*moan*
Agh!

Agony. It sounded like rhythmic agony.

The next morning I was woken up at about 7 in the morning to the question "Hey, Schlaffer, does this look infected?"
Unthinking, I turned around. There greeting me was a fully infected pierced penis not six inches from my face.
I screamed like the smallest girl you could possibly imagine.
My eyes still burn.

Big John held out a few more days, but then he too fell to the incredible temptation of infection via intercourse. Wolfy followed the directions perfectly, but ended up getting rid of his cause having a metal ring in his urethra ended up being a lot less cool than he expected (I remain unclear as to exactly what he expected). So I think I made the right choice.

Pulling down my pants at that party still would've been a hell of a moment, though.

Just Another Tuesday Night

Before the Ranch became a program, it had been both an orphanage and a genuine hippie commune. The actual campus was several acres of land and had tons of stuff on it - both newly built by the students and remnants from the past. There was a long dirt road down the side of a mountain that led you to the office area, made of stucco and adobe. Up the hill was the Phase 1 House - a large wooden cabin where your stay was initiated. Behind the house was the firepit, the greenhouse, and the garden - all surrounded by woods. There were two paths down to the barn - one took you past the Phase 2 cabins and what would eventually become a sort of rec room after I was gone. The other went past the new pig barn and the outdoor bathroom. There were abandoned buildings with an abandoned firetruck, a low ropes course and a high ropes course with a zipline (that I never went on), a weight room, and tons of open fields, trees, and space.

Two staff members lived full time on the Ranch. Vince actually had a house on the far end of the property where he and his whole family lived - his wife, two daughters, his niece Lupe, and his dog Mick. Vince grew up on the Ranch back when it was an orphanage that was actually owned and run by his family. At some point they lost the land after his father's murder, but he was back living on the property as the Ranch's official jack-of-all-trades. He always hoped one day he'd have the opportunity to buy the land back and while I doubt that will ever happen, I hope it does. The guys would think about trying to hit on Lupe, who was our age, but Mick was a good deterrent - a vicious rottweiler who loved Vince and his family, and was chained up every night in front of Vince's house. Walking alone at night one of the biggest fears was whether Mick was on the loose.

Keith lived in a cabin across the 'creek' from Phase 2. he was a large, large man with a thick white beard and a heavy lisp that made a really odd combination. He was a former Hell's Angel, misogynistic and unpleasant with a decent heart and few social skills. Sometime after I left he almost married one of the native girls but it fell through, which is too bad, but not altogether unsurprising. His way with women was never something to look up to.

So while Vince and Keith were both on the Ranch at night, and only a phone call away, they weren't on duty 24/7. But Phase 1 needed to monitored around the clock with a strict ten pm lights out curfew and a group of guys who made fucking up into an art form. A security company was contracted to watch Phase 1, and different guards would come in for this particular graveyard shift.

So no offense intended to my friends who work in security, but I've noticed after both this and working at the J that guard companies are almost always something of a mixed bag. You get a few really good, quality, responsible people who usually get transferred or promoted to better jobs and assignments very soon, or you're stuck with the dregs. It almost seems better to hire one person you can really trust privately to do the job, rather than deal with some of the useless rabble that can make up the guard service night roster.

One of the guards was named TJ, and he quickly became known as the 'nice' guard. It started with him just letting the guys out to get ice cream late at night, or looking the other way during board game nights. Occasionally he would let people stay up and watch a movie. Then he started dealing pot to some of the kids.

But it all really came to a head the night his 17 year old coked up wife showed up at about 2am with their baby.

She came to get in a fight. I'm not sure about what, but if you're 17, on smack, already a mother, and married to the dead end security guard selling pot to kids in rehab you probably don't need any extra reasons to fly off the handle. Holding the baby, lips white, she starts screaming at this guy about what a shitty husband he is, shitty father. She probably wasn't wrong. But all the commotion brings out the Phase 1 kids to see what the hell is going on, and my guess is they start to rag on her.

So she turns her attention to them. She starts screaming that they're all fuck ups with no future (pot? kettle - line one. turns out you may be black) and that their parents don't love them or they never would have sent them here. All the while the guys are cracking up and TJ is trying to calm her down. She starts throwing pool balls at them as hard as she can (and they hurt).

Then she starts to hit them with her baby.

No, seriously, I swear to god I wish I was kidding - she tried to hit them with her baby.

So Ranch Kids have seen a lot of screwed up shit but this is too much for them and they grab the baby to try and get it out of harm's way. It's bad when the drug addicts are saying, 'no this has gone too far.'
TJ says "stop, stop, you're going to hurt the baby."
And she turns to him and says "What do you care, it's not even yours."

That's when he either decked her, or pushed her off the hood of a car, I can never remember.

Obviously TJ was fired, and soon they'd get rid of the whole security team in favor of one private employee. I seriously hope that child was taken out of that situation and given some kind of chance at a healthy normal life, but I'll never know for sure. As for the Ranch - if anyone else but me was really phased by this, it didn't show, because the longest lasting effect of the night was that for a few weeks the guys would use her as an excuse for any beer bottles the staff found near Phase 1. It was open season for a little while.

Because the most fucked up part of it was that this was just another Tuesday night at San Cristobal.

The Engine Driver

I year or two ago I was rummaging through the things left in my old room when I found my sixth grade journal.

Sixth grade was a lot like the rest of my elementary school experience. I was pretty much an outcast, with a group of friends that treated me terribly and a substantial number of socially inhibiting habits that I'm embarassed about to this day. There's only one person I'm still friends with from before my epic summer before ninth grade shift - where I took a summer, sat down, and made a literal list of every negative aspect of myself that I could find and tried to systematically rid them from my system, improving and reinventing myself into someone likable. I got rid of a social circle that did nothing but drag me down and became friends with a group of incredible people that I still consider some of my closest family. I went from being the unabashed loser so one of the most social people I know, a lynchpin of several circles.

But if you ever wonder why despite all that, I'm still constantly trying to prove myself to each and every one of you it's because i'm terrified that you'll see or remember the terribly lonely little boy who had a teacher put tape over his mouth in the third grade because he chewed his shirt, and had his desk moved from facing Rebecca Fox because it disgusted her so.

So it's impressive that I've stayed such good friends with Elan, who I met in sixth grade, sitting next to each other in Ms. Fechter's english class. I had a HUGE crush on her, and thinking about it now she's probably the genesis of my steadfast attraction to girls with red hair. In that class Elan, Jessie Fox, and I would sit next to each other - and on the days she decided to eat with the girls, and he ate with the other guys, I would have lunch with Ms. Fechter.

And every day we would write a journal entry, and kind of amusingly since I'm writing all this in a blog, I hated writing journal entries. We either had to write about the topic of the day, or have a fictional story. I don't know what I wanted to write about, but it wasn't either of those. So I found a way around it - I wrote a fictional journal of a different kid, every day from his perspective. Technically it was a fiction story, but serialised in the form of a diary. It was my first time writing character.

I read the journal again when I found it, and this is what I wrote about - a kid with two friends, his best friend and the girl he has a huge crush on. Over the course of the story his friend gets into trouble with drugs, and "Harry" helps his friend with his addiction while the girl he likes falls for his friend. In the end he steps out of the way, bittersweetly happy that they can be together, but sad she doesn't like him instead, helping to engineer them living happy ever after.

I wrote that in 6th grade. How screwed up is that?

Cause I've spent years of my life living some variation of that story over and over. I wrote the story of my life years before I lived it. And reading it, years later, after high school - after tina, after laura, after the ranch, all of that - it hit me hard.
In acting class last year our teacher said "everyone thinks they're the star of their own story." Before I could think about it I said "what if you think you're the supporting character?"
Someone whispered that was the most depressing thing they'd ever heard. But it turns out I'd been thinking that for years. Maybe I see something honorable in sacrifice. Or maybe I've never felt like I deserve it.

So I believe in the power of writing - it's power to change the lives of the people who read it, and it's power to guide the life of the person writing.

There's a line in Woody Allen's Annie Hall - a film Elan reccomended to me of course, where Woody writes his play within a film with a happy ending, the ending he wanted. He says - "What do you want? It was my first play. You know how you're always trying to get things to come out perfect in art, because it's real difficult in life?"
Amen.

I've started writing a new story - it's not perfect, and there's still a lot of selflessness and sacrifice because they ARE honorable, and it won't ever be easy, but this time the guy gets the girl.

Cause fuck y'all, I'm a star.

Why I Don't Play Risk

In elementary school I went to a travel camp at the JCC (I swear it feels like my entire life has been somehow or another been tied to that place and it needs to end) where we would go on a different trip every day. There was a group of five of us that became pretty close and had our own sort of 'travel camp clique' which I have to assume in retrospect was about as lame as it sounds. But we had a lot of fun together, so one night we decided to have a sleepover - the five guys. A precursor to a bevy of 'man nights' i'm sure we'd all go on to have later.

I can't even remember a few of their names, and memories of other old camp friends long since gone by the wayside are sort of flitting through as I try, but I do remember that night very well because it began the end of any relationship I would ever have with Risk: A Game of World Domination.

For some reason there was a weird obsession with eating pickles that night, and I remrember being really disgusted with the amount of fart jokes made over the course of the evening (so really, my sensibilities haven't changed a bit since I was 15), but it all fell apart when we decided to play Risk. Now I'm no Risk expert, but I know there are supposed to be two sets of die - one are red, one are your regular old white dice. I think you have three dice to attack and two to defend, and one color is more associated with attacking and the other not.

Well, whatever you're supposed to have, we had the opposite. Instead of having three white and two red or whatever, we had the other way around.
Who cares, right? Use the right number with the right action and play the game, who cares about the color?

Joel did.
Oh boy, did Joel care.

Joel was a smaller kid who up until that point I really liked. We got along great.
But he FLIPPED OUT over the dice. He demanded that we could ONLY play with three red dice, because you HAD to have three red dice. When we said we'd really rather just play the game, dice color be damned, he started crying. Literally. And screaming. He said we were breaking all the rules, and he wouldn't play, and that we were all mean, and called his mom to come pick him up at 1 am over the damn dice.

Even then I knew that was utterly lame.

That was the end of the clique, and travel camp kinda sucked that last week.
Risk and I took a little break, but I was back soon enough.

Until New Mexico.

When I first got to the Ranch, I was put in the 4 man room, appropriately named cause it had two sets of bunk beds for four guys. It was certainly the least personal, least private, and generally most unpleasant room in the house to be in. But - you always had company, and some nights we decided to be real rebels and stay up after curfew to play board games. I am a trouble maker, let me tell you.
(also, there is really nothing more emasculating than being 17 with an enforced 'lights out' bedtime - until three twenty something girls come in one night to read you a 'bedtime poem')

So at one point the room was made up of me, RJ, Mikey, and Birdman.

Birdman was there by court order awaiting either trial or sentencing for a drive-by shooting. He was this ultimate Eminem wannabe with a bleached blonde fader haircut, an ever present sidecocked bright red baseball cap, and he used to shave slits into the side of both eyebrows to look like an absolute moron. He tried epicly hard to BE hard, and I guess he did end up there by court order, but this guy was all talk - trying to talk about how he 'killed niggaz' and how 'I ain't gotta lie, I quit school cause of recess.' What I do know is that being at the ranch was a test and if he did well it would reflect on his sentence, so he had a real shot to try and avoid jail and totally failed time after time by being a cocky little bastard who broke every rule and got caught every time. I know he did eventually end up in jail, on top of his whole time spent on the Ranch, so what a real waste.

RJ was a recovering meth addict and dealer, and he was the real thing. RJ's dad was a drug lord in Arizona who actually threatened to disown RJ after he decided to go to rehab. The only reason RJ went in the first place was because he got his then girlfriend pregnant and decided he couldn't raise a child as a meth-addict. He checked into a Wilderness Program and while he was there found out his girlfriend had miscarried. Realizing that if he went home he'd end up exactly where he was before, he checked himself into the ranch instead. About a week into my being on the ranch he had his first meth relapse when the Phase 2 kids brought some on the Ranch. One of my first memories of being there is watching him come down, crying and sweating in his bed, literally sobbing and telling me he was so sorry, apologising to me personally, someone he'd barely known for a week just because he knew I was straight edge, and because I was there.

Last but not least was Mikey. It was never confirmed, but a bunch of us still think to this day that Mikey was a highly functioning autistic. He was older than the rest of us by a few years, and would wear tight old jeans and ragged flannel everywhere. He rarely bathed or washed, and the staff had to coerce Mikey to shower after one particularly long period of sustained filth. He refused to do chores and would famously stare down dishes as though the were some old enemy he could command to wash themselves through sheer mental energy. His emotions were almost always muted and he avoided eye contact. He had been in Phase 1 an incredibly long time by the time I got there, and I think it's because they had no idea how to handle someone with an actual mental disability. He never should have been there in the first place. I can say that about a few people.

Mikey also had an impressive addiction to computers and computer games. He would routinely sneak out at night and break into the computer lab, staying up all night. One night it was snowing pretty hard, and he left tracks out on the ground. They found him in the lab on four computers simultaneously - playing different games on three, and watching porn on the 4th - earning him the name "The Midnight Prowler."

Mikey was a genius when it came to games of skill, strategy, and numbers and ALWAYS won. Without fail. It was a source of personal pride for him, and I'm not sure he had a lot else to hold on to, so he could get REALLY arrogant - and it got on some nerves.
So one night the four of us are playing Risk and RJ and Birdman decide their sick of Mikey's smug superiority and start cheating with abandon, denying it every step of the way. I'm happy not to be laying in my bed staring at the ceiling at 10:30 so I don't care, but Mikey is getting pissed. Especially when they start to win.

They're laughing and having a ball, while Mikey starts to shut down. Finally, they take him out entirely - they're laughing, and ragging on him. Mikey still has the dice in his hand. He's staring at the board, like he does with the dishes - just staring this blank, distant, terrifying stare that he has, saying nothing. Then, without any warning, he throws the dice as hard as he can at the board, knocking everyhthing over and starts screaming as he takes the board apart. I've never seen Mikey express more than disdain, frustration, or bemusement before but he has gone off, calling them liars, and cheaters, and convicts and worse.

Well that done pisses RJ off so the next thing I know he's in Mikey's face ready to fight, threatening to kill him, begging Mikey to hit him. Mikey is still screaming, Birdman and I get in the middle - I take Mikey, he takes RJ. The GIGANTIC bald security guy shows up to calm everyone down, Mikey is back to staring blankly at a wall while RJ yells "Fucker" over and over again, coming up with about 32 different words for retard.

Suffice it to say, after hours board game nights were a thing of the past.

I didn't mind. I'm never playing Risk again.

Turn Off the Lights

I think of the women I've cared for in my life, and I imagine a room full of switches. Each one is labeled with the name of one of those women, and each one stands in a row on a plain black wall. The switches are all off. The room is dark. From my high school girlfriend to last summer's fling, the lights are out. I've thought of this room often, occasionally venturing inside just to make sure that the feelings are all dead. I go down the line, looking at each switch to make sure they're at rest, no energy left being devoted to keeping them running.

And of course, there's one there, a different story for a different time, that remains on. A girl I loved and lost. A girl who laughed like no one else I've ever met, had thoughts that were constantly intriguing, a girl who taught me more about research with ten minutes and a book chosen at random than I'd learned in 3 previous years of college. Yes, I love that girl, and the terrible way our relationship ended will always pain me. The truth of the matter is that she's better off now, without me, and I wouldn't take her out of what she has got going for her even if I could. I just want my friend back, that's all. I miss my friend.

So as I sigh, passing that one by yet again, I satisfy myself that all the switches are as they should be. I turn to leave, and pause. I give myself one last look before I go.

Encompassing all the other switches, indeed, filling nearly the entire wall, is the one with her name on it. The love of my life. The girl I've spent the last decade dedicated to.

She's the face I see when a song about love comes on the radio. She's the voice I hear when I think comforting thoughts. The thought of kissing her, touching her, laying asleep with her in my arms, brings back memories that take away any troubles. Everything she says fascinates me. Every move she makes enraptures me. The mention of her name brings all these feelings back, every time I hear it.

For ten years, I chased her. Through endless obstacles I pursued her. With unfaltering resolve I swore I would make my feelings known, no matter how many setbacks I faced, no matter how my fears engripped me. Through ten year we saw each other sporadically, each meeting leaving me more and more confused as to what she felt for me, but always that much more certain what I felt for her.

Then one cold night in September, after visiting her to catch up with each others lives, we stopped as we said good night. There, under a solitary streetlight, on an empty road, far removed from anyone but each other, we kissed our first kiss.

It remains the most perfect moment of my life. It will be quite awhile before anything tops it.

Then that December, we saw each other again, and no mention was made of it. I was dejected beyond measure. I made a resolution. The next time we saw each other, I would tell her everything. I would not let another wonderful evening spent together pass with acknowledgment that we both had a great time and would do it again some other evening. I would not turn away from her, wondering what might have been, even one more time.

In February, I was again visiting, and took her out to dinner and a party. We then went back to her place and shared some laughs before she announced it was time for her to go to bed. There we stood, at her doorway, telling each other we had a great time and would have to do it again some other evening.

The prospect of more time spent in emotional anguish hit me. The promise to myself, the memory of our kiss, the bottomless ocean of her deep, green eyes.

I told her this; "You're going to have to either slap me or kiss me again, but I need a more decisive ending to this evening."

We went back inside. We talked. I told her everything.

She decided to kiss me again.

I learned more about her in the months that followed than I had in the decade preceding. She's learning German. She knows how to perform Tarot card readings. She entered training to become a yoga instructor. She enjoys hiking. She sings opera in the shower. She can sleep for 15 hours and still be tired. She has every episode of Fairy Tale Theatre on tape. She becomes depressed at the thought of being alone. She owns a boat. She has terrible handwriting.

I learned that she loves her two little sisters tremendously. She loves yoga. She loves the study of religion. She loves to sing. She loves to travel. She loves trying new restaurants. She's full of love for so much and so many things that I finally realized why I fell more and more in love with her every time I was near her. She radiates love. She is love.

She just doesn't love me.

I stare hard at that perpetually on switch, wondering what would happen if it turned off. It seems that over the last ten years every other light has only been on because it was powered by her. I only knew what love and affection were because of what I felt for her, and the other women I became involved with only got the run off; the small portion that was left after everything had been dedicated to her. I don't know if that's true or not. All I know is that nothing has ever felt as powerful as my love for this woman. When I have a thought I want to share, or see something funny somewhere, or if I'm even just sitting in bed watching television, she's the one I envision next to me, sharing the moment. I have no doubt that she is the woman for me.

I also no longer have any doubt that I'm just not the man for her.

So I have to ask myself, where am I left now? Do I keep installing more lights underneath this enormous master switch? Do I continue to use relationships to kill time between moments when I think we might be together? Because I can no longer lie to myself about it - that's what I'm doing. I'm using my feelings for her as a defense mechanism. A buffer between myself and any real feelings. As long as I still love her, it means I can't give myself completely to somebody else. It means no other woman is ever going to get into my life to the extent she has, no one will ever have the power over me that she does. It means I can't get hurt. It means I'm safe.

I hang my head. I smile as I remember our time together. Even the way she broke up with me was tender and caring. If nothing else, if I can take one thing away, it's that after ten years of searching and being told by others I would only be disappointed at what I found, I can still smile. No, I can say, she really was everything I thought she would be. She was strong and smart and beautiful, passionate and curious, possessed of limitless talent, and loving, and deep, and real. My Angel of Fire. I can look everybody else in the eye and say I was absolutely right, and they were absolutely wrong.

I can still listen to the two CDs I made for her. I can look back at pictures. I can close my eyes and remember her leaning in to touch her lips to mine. I can still have my memories. The feelings, though, it's time to move on from.

I look at that switch again, dwarfing the others. It seems impossible that any force could move it.

But I know I will. Every one of them, no matter who they represent or what length of time or how they came to be off in the first place, is still a switch. They turn on, they turn off.

It's time to close the door. Time to leave the room. Time to go find something that doesn't turn off.

The room is empty now. Turn off the lights.

Best. Present. Ever.

Hello globe.

It's Christmas Eve and I'm really excited to give out the presents I made with my girlfriend, Jackie. We made chocolate covered pretzels out of chocolate chips and pretzel rods. I don't know if it's maturity or a sense of the "true meaning of Christmas," but I really don't care about getting presents this year. I'll gladly accept anything given to me of course, but as far as I'm concerned, once I give out my gifts, the transaction is complete, I'm happy, and anything else is an added bonus.

But in realizing this evolution from receiver to giver, I can't help but think back and dwell on the best gift I ever got as a kid. It wasn't so much the present as much as it was the way it was given that impacted me.

Real quick, for those of you who don't know me well, I've had an affinity for video games since I was 5 years old.

It was Christmas morning back in third grade or around about, and I was in Chicago spending the holidays with Grammy and Grampy and my uncle Aaron. I remember it being really cold inside because they didn't have central heating, but once the presents rolled out all of my senses were transfixed on the goods.

At one point I had opened all of the presents that were out. I remember being grateful, but disappointed that I didn't get a Super Nintendo, which had just been released. I wasn't acting like a spoiled brat or anything, I was respectful and genuinely happy about what I got, but the SNES was at the top of my list.

So Uncle Aaron comes out from his room with a present for me, saying he left it in his room.

I open it and I'm instantly deflated. Super Mario Kart. For the SNES. Not only did I not get the one thing I wanted the most, but, I can't even use it! I don't need a gun rack, I don't even own a gun!

So I look up to say something like "awww, but I can't play this," and Grammy is looking back at me with raised eyebrows.

"Why not?"

"Because I don't have a Super Nintendo."

Out of nowhere Grampy has a huge box in his hands and he's walking towards me and Grammy yells, "well you do now!"

Everyone is screaming.

Everyone screams real loud.

I think I cried a little.

I've gotten video game systems for Christmas before and it's awesome. But it was the surprise that made this the best present I ever got as a boy. I couldn't articulate it at the time, but it's the idea that these people care about me enough to spring this awesome present on me out from nowhere, that they thought about doing this just for me, and that they were thinking about me when I wasn't around, that makes it all so magical.

So my question to the globe is: what is the best present you've given or received, and how was it given?

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays everyone!

Last Christmas

It's weird to know exactly where you were one year ago from this exact moment. At some point tonight I realized what night it was, what tomorrow is, and exactly where I was one year ago today. In this room, who I was talking to, what I was thinking about and how I felt - an entire year ago, a unit and measurement of time that is making less and less sense to me at the moment because on the one hand it feels so long and on the other so incredibly short.

It was a year ago tonight, she came over. I had been really depressed that day, I don't remember why. She had seen her ex-boyfriend for the first time in a year or so. Things were rocky, but she had told him she was happy. We slept in the same bed.

The next day I had plans to go over for Christmas Eve. I bought a card with penguins on it that I probably still have somewhere, to go with a white gold and diamond dragonfly necklace (that I don't). I saw Robyn Milekowski with her husband at the Giant, and called Jacob. I got to her house, was handed a gift, asked what was wrong, had the gift taken back out of my hands, and was told to leave.
I went home, the biggest wreck I'd been in my entire life.

On Christmas I sat in the booth at the JCC facing the wall while I played Wallace and Grommit to little kids.

It suddenly occured to me that was one year ago. Today, tomorrow, and the next.
I'm in the same room.
And on Christmas I'll be in the booth playing movies for little kids.
For all the massive changes, the places stay the same.

It's a weird feeling to remember exactly where you were, what you said, what you did, what you felt - to the detail but detached, a year ago in a moment in time.

Every Little Red Haired Girl

The following two posts are comments that were recently left on "A Further Response to the Red Haired Girl." Since the post was over a week ago and is no longer on the main page I'm posting these both here, because I think it's important that as many people have the opportunity to read them as possible. This Discussion began with the two part post "The Sad Strange Tale of the Girl with Red Hair" Part 1 and Part 2. It led to the following two responses - here and here. These are both continuations of that discussion.

The first is from my friend John Ozkirbas, a victim's advocate and former member of SAFER at UMD.

"There's a lot in your response that needs addressing. But, I suppose the most constructive response is to tell a story of my own. I don't normally tell survivors' stories for them and I've certainly never posted one to a public forum like a blog before. However, this particular survivor speaks openly in the public about her personal experiences, and so, I think it'll be okay. The is a domestic violence story of a woman who did everything right. I'm going to call it "451 degrees."

(Disclaimer: The name of the parties have been changed to "Tom" and "Sally" out of respect. I should admit, I'm fuzzy on the details, but I remember the main crux of it. I, also, encourage any survivor, or friend and family thereof, to seek out their local Victim Advocacy or Domestic Violence and Rape Crisis/Resource centers)

"451 Degrees"

Sally was a strong, independent African-American woman living in Baltimore. Like most people, she lived paycheck to paycheck. She sold cellphones for Verizon and was able to support her two children doing so. Her history with men was sordid; her prom date raped her back during high school because she "owed it to him and was being a bitch". Trusting men became a little problematic for her after that. She dated a little, but it wasn't until she met her future husband when she started to feel safe again.

Tom was a great guy. He was charming, handsome, romantic even. He liked sports, thoroughly enjoyed Sprite (tended to carry one around with him), and seemed to be a godsend. Things were great. Sally felt safe, secure, even blessed. But, after the wedding, things started to go downhill. Tom would tell her things, subtle threats when she didn't do what he wanted or do things exactly how he wanted them. Phrases that, if anyone else had heard them, they would think nothing of it. But, Sally knew what he meant and it scared her. His behavior escalated, as it does in such cases, from subtle threats to direct, verbal assault. Fearing for herself and her children Sally called the police. Of course, they couldn't arrest him yet. They wouldn't even leave the station. Their words, "There was nothing they could do at this point". This would happen often; He'd provide a little threat with a little subtext and it would slowly evolve into something horrible and she'd call the police, and they would do nothing. She tried to separate and went to court for a protective order. The judge, believing that his behavior didn't justify the effort to obtain one (of which, as I understand, is an outstandingly simple process in comparison to other proceedings) declined. And then one day, he hit her.

He smacked her right across the face, left a huge welt. Luckily for her, she was able to get to a phone and call the police pretty quickly after. My state has a police requirement to arrest on DV cases, as well, you see. And that's what they did. Of course, bail was low and Tom had a few friends on the force. He was out soon there after. Back. He called frequently just to threaten her. Sally kept a log, documented everything. But, his threats were still too subtle. She tried to keep up a social life, but she'd go out and there he'd be. Just to say hi, see the kids, "catch up". And whisper another threat that meant something to them, but to no one else. It was something along the lines of "We'll see what my boys have to say about this". She knew that when Tom said "Boys" he meant "his crew" and when he said "have to say" he knew he meant they'd do something she didn't like. To Sally or her kids.

Sally filed charges, the model citizen that she is, and attempted to take Tom to court. Their case was weak, despite documentation and his arrest - Tom still had a substantial amount of support to keep him out. Sally filed for another protective order, the judge still turned her down. The case was coming up soon, and it seemed that the Prosecutor had covered substantial ground and the case was going to be a success. Tom called with more threats again, telling her to drop the charges. She told him no. Tom's last words to her were "Last Chance" and he hung up. The next day was a work day, so Sally went in to sell cellphones to support her kids. Tom came in at about midday, assumably to talk. She was busy at work behind the register and didn't see him until he was very close. He was carrying a Sprite bottle, as he often did, open as if he was just drinking it. Without saying a word he walked over, dumped the clearish, artificially flavored lemon-lime beverage that is Sprite all over her. Except, it didn't smell like Sprite. Didn't smell like Sprite at all. In fact, it kind of smelled like lighter fluid. And, very quickly, he took out a lighter, lit her on fire, and walked out. No one stopped him, everyone was stuck in shock because, in a matter of seconds, a tall, well dressed, seemingly nice looking man just set a friend and co-worker on fire. Sally suffered 3rd degree burns over 70% of her body. But, she survived. Her kids were traumatized, probably for the rest of their childhood, from seeing their mother that way. She may never date or experience sex again.

Tom was convicted and found guilty. Of course, he was a model inmate. He might be out again this year on parole. He's been incarcerated a total of 5. Sally is still doing what she can to keep him in prison, but nothing is guaranteed. Sally fears distinctly of what Tom will do if he's released and understands that there's a substantial chance that he will.

Sally's story isn't an anomaly. Issues of DV, Rape, and the like are issues of control, predominantly of which survivors and victims have a fairly minimal amount. Because, that's kind of the point of it. I could go on, but this post is long enough already and I fear I may have already lost many of you. I'll close with a final comment:

Rape and Domestic Violence is a complex issue where survivors of such do what they can with what they have. Stories may have similar facts, but each story is inherently different and unique. Over half of women will be in an abusive relationship and abuse isn't always physical. Nationally, 1 in 4 women will either fend off a rape or be raped at sometime in their lifetime. Between 1 in 5 and 1 in 10 men will too. 86% of the time it will be in a safe place where they feel comfortable (ex: at home) and 84% of the time the offender will be a friend, family member, or someone trusted (at Univ. of MD, it was about 98%). Be respectful when you discuss this subject in public with your friends; you never know when a survivor is standing just within hearing distance or whether or not one of your friends may have gone through a similar situation and simply hasn't told you about it. I encourage any and all survivors and friends and family there of, or if you simply have questions, to contact your local Victim Advocacy or Crisis centers for support.

I hope this post was constructive and I look forward to posting more in the future."

The second is by a poster named Jinx, and this is her personal story -

"This is going to be a bit hard to type. I don't know how I can get it all out without thinking about how for years of my life I was a punching bag for the piece of crap that I married when I was too young to make a decision of that magnitude. I am not saying that no women are capable of making a decision like that at 17, but most are not, I was one of those that was not ready.

There were many reasons that I got into that relationship. Most are typical of abuse victims. I had been hurt by those that were supposed to protect me, abandoned by my father, *insert a bunch of whining and teenage angst here* I made a rash decision and paid for it, I did not see a way out.

Let me say that there were no signs of abuse until our wedding night. That night he had friends over playing games. I made constant errors (in his eyes) that night. I didn't know company was coming, I cooked for him and me, nothing for the guys he had over....and then when I was cleaning up the trash bag ripped. I giggled and made some comment to him about how I told him we shouldn't have bought the cheap brand, supposed to be a joke, but he took it as me attacking him....then I was hit for the first time.

I cried, I felt like a part of me had died. I knew at that moment that I had to get out, was thinking about how our marriage should be able to be annulled. Then he apologized and swore it would never happen again. Yes, following the typical reaction of the abused, I believed him, it was just stress that made him do it. Heh.

I lived with the abuse for quite some time. One day I tried to hint around to my grandmother and get some support, but her reply to me was "You have to do all you can to keep your man happy."

We had a child, he quit working. I could mention tales that would make your head spin. Raped only a week after giving birth, given a broken nose when I tried to breastfeed my child for the first time out of the hospital (was a preemie & I had worked on my supply by pumping).

I went to the hospital countless times. He was always right there, playing the part of the concerned husband. I asked once when he left the room for them to call the police, but no one ever showed up, we left the ER about an hour after me asking.

Help is not as readily available as some might think. Some states and counties turn a blind eye to it. Mine certainly did. They weren't helping me. I went to see about a restraining order....I was told that I would need to have proof, they couldn't just mark him down as an abuser without any proof. There was no help. I spoke to many people. I'm from a little podunk town in the middle of the bible belt. Maybe this is what made me remain a victim all those years, but there are more places like that in this world than you may know about.

He went out to a strip club one night with his friends. Like I said earlier, he wasn't working. He saw this as a new way for me to support our family and talked me into starting to work at the club. I am shy, I was terrified by this, but I did see it as a bit of an escape....and it did work. He couldn't hit me as much. My whole body was out there for the world to see and I have a very pale complexion, bruise so easy.

The abuse then turned into pinching and hair pulling. It was always emotional. "You're so f***ing ugly I don't know why people pay to see you naked." "You had to have screwed someone to make this much money in one night, it's not like you have much to shake for tips."

I made some great friends at the club. Those girls gave me the strength to finally stand up to him when he raised his hand to me. One day we got some sweets from Dairy Queen. Walking in the house I dropped his. His face turned red and I just knew I was going to get hit and I fought back. He didn't have a chance to hit me, I grabbed his throat and slammed him against the fridge and told him he would never touch me again, in any way. I'm a bit ashamed at how violent I was, but only a little. I headbutted him and broke his nose, I hurt his manly parts so much that by what I was told in court he urinated blood for a week.

The police were called. I was the one that was arrested for domestic abuse. I do not care if that is still on my record. The night I spent in jail was the first good night's sleep that I had in years, I was bailed out by my stripper friends and I felt like I could finally walk with my head held high. Charges were dropped after 2 days in court, he was a bit embarrassed about having the whole town hear about how his wife got the better of him.

Now I spend most of my free time as an advocate of women's rights. I speak monthly at women center's, trying to get them the help the deserve. Help is not always out there, for many women in many places. It does seem like they are stuck. I know that many women try and try for help. Yes, it is true that nobody can render a victim any assistance of any kind until they decide that they won't be victims anymore, but just deciding that you don't want to be a victim is not enough. You do still need help. Many women are not offered that kind of help, even when they search for it. Even when they KNOW that their life depends on it.

Many people just say "Just leave, pack up, run away." Do you know how hard that is? To leave everyone and everything you know? Many people find the bruises easier to live with than leaving behind everything and everyone that they know.

Five years ago...after being away from this for five years I found out that he was in prison for beating his sister half to death. I spoke on her behalf about my life with him. I got a formal apology from the Police Department about how my situation was handled and was asked to work with them. I travel to my hometown frequently to help make sure that other women don't slip through the cracks like I did. Many women asking for help are ignored or neglected daily. It's sad.

Signed, a little red headed girl~"