by David M. Howell ©2007
(From the collection of short stories: “Not In Your Life”)
As I lounge at the deckled edge of 50, I’m hard pressed to imagine what makes me a good catch. Good looks? Replaced by the patina of time. Money? I’m an advertising creative, I dress one fashion statement above homeless. Fame? Well, not yet.
Having dated and divorced over the past 30 years, I have picked up on one underlying theme. Women want to get married and have kids. Like a dentist discovering a cavity, all the women I’ve dated seem to have a void that needs to be filled. If you qualify—and here in Chicago that means you exceed in at least one of the above three categories—you are pursued like Elmer after Bugs Bunny.
The first stumbling block for me is the need for marriage to have kids. Some how, in the deep dark abyss of our ancestral past there had to be a cave couple or two who choose to have children out of wedlock. Seemed to work then. The species proliferated to its current population and no primitive evangelical or nagging society besmirched the parents for not “tying the knot.”
So how is marriage a prerequisite to children? Do only married women ovulate? Is married sperm healthier and more active? Possibly. It would explain how dating conversations has quickly moved past what you do and how much you make to the new age conversation of what’s your sperm count.
I hadn’t really pondered any of these questions until I met Danielle.
The truth is we’d known each other for about 6 years but when first we’d met, she was married and that kept our relationship plutonic. We first worked together at the same ad agency. I left the agency and we drifted until a year ago when we met again.
This time Danielle was divorced and exiting an unsatisfying relationship. We had an instant connection and our friendship blossomed anew. As we enjoyed Chicago’s finer restaurants and wines we covered a variety of topics including marriage and kids. Though I was not opposed to either, I made it clear neither were demands for me. At the time she agreed. It was about the fun and enjoying a person who really “gets me.”
Well before long the “gets me” became a full-blown relationship. We even began looking for our own place. The idea of cohabitating was intriguing to me. Marriage was a piece of paper. A status. A destination. Living together was the real commitment—your stuff and my stuff co-mingling in the same closet. It is an experience not a planned event with invitations and packaged food from a third world airlift.
Oh if only it had worked out that way. Shortly after establishing the monogamous relationship the innuendos started.
“I think my parents would be happy for me if I got married again,” Danielle said over sushi.
“Wow…well, if it’s that important. I mean, I know I’ll miss you…”
Lets stop right there for a moment. I have no stats to back this up, but comedians must have the highest “shut-down” rate because you do NOT joke about your relationship. The pope can shit in the woods. The president can hold his own bronze medal from the Special Olympics, but never, ever crack a joke about your relationship. Ironically, the vast majority of women will specify that it is essential that their mate have a sense of humor. Just don’t make jokes.
This seemingly simple joke created 48 hours of turmoil and despair. I mean there were even tears. But here’s the real rub—I had made it clear all along that after two failed marriages, this institution is just not for me. It’s like Nicolas Cage being kicked off the varsity glee club and just being too stupid to get it.
What’s even more disappointing is Danielle has also been divorced twice. Third time’s a charm? Only for a couple of lawyers.
So now the guilt sets in. I care for this woman enough that I don’t want to put her through another divorce. And I respect myself enough not to turn into Marlon Brando. What I find most confusing is why is it my fault, my problem to fix? I said early on marriage is not something I’m striving for. Yet, I apparently don’t know myself and I need the help of therapy to tell me that yes, I’m passive about marriage. It’s like getting your hand caught in a bear trap. Once extricated, it takes months of tear-welling therapy to convince yourself to stick your hand back in the trap. Hey, if the fire is hot the first time, it will be hot the second time.
But with that bridge repaired we visited my family for my niece’s Christening. Now my family knows I believe god and Santa Claus are the same person.
They have to be. Both hiding somewhere like perverted voyeurs watching your every move. If you behave, you’re rewarded. But low to the person who misbehaves. A vengeful god and Santa will smite you with hell fire or at least leave you a lump of coal to start your own mini perdition.
Another thing, you never see them in the same place. Kind of like Superman and Clark Kent. I think Jesus is Santa’s true identity. By day a mild mannered deity with over developed insecurities. By night, a toy-tyrant whipping those poor elves like Chinese child laborers to crank out gifts for just the good kids. (We never hear about the underground elves that mine the coal. And I’m certain there have been a few mine disasters that the folks in the god front office aren’t talking about.)
Anyway, my family would never approach me with religious obligation—especially if it had anything to do with the child molesting catholics. Why parents give their children over to such deviates is beyond me. But my brother had decided that his first daughter needed to have her future determined for her at just two months old and arranged her baptism.
Danielle came along. She’d met my family before and they instantly liked her. So it was no surprise at the party afterwards that she was greeted warmly and with affection. After all, it’s my family’s belief that someone—anyone—is good for me. Grasping the concept of being alone is as foreign to them the dreaded Cyclops.
“How could anything have just one eye? It would have no depth perception.”
“Dad, it’s just a movie. Besides, the Hathaway man only had one eye.” I said one rainy Saturday when I was home from my big city career in advertising. My father watched TV like a toll both attendant. He knew something was going on in front of him, but his mind pulled at his consciousness like a hooked Rainbow Trout.
“That Hathaway man was a pansy. He could never catch an outfield fly ball or land a jumbo jet.”
“I think that’s why this particular Cyclops chose a career of hunting and eating people rather that try out for a professional sport.”
“Now what kind of thinking is that? You liberals are always defending the weak and handicapped. The damn Cyclops should have been forced to join a little league team or participated in Punt, Pass and Kick in school. You should have gone out for a sport…maybe then you’d have a career your mother and I could brag about.”
It was always like that. Which is why I kept my visits short and most girlfriends away.
Somewhere along the way my parents gave up on me and focused on my siblings. It was there mission to marry them off. Once they had succeeded, the focus was back on me, the only single child they had left.
Basically anyone I show up with is viewed as a lure to hook me back into the fold of humanity. So when my sister-in-law offered Danielle the baby it was a double-edged sword.
“Oh she looks so good on you,” my brother’s wife said.
“Oh, she so cute,” Danielle cooed bouncing the infant against her breast. “I could hold her forever.”
“How would you go to the bathroom,” I asked.
“It’s just an expression,” Danielle defended. “Boys just don’t get babies.”
“Of course not…if they did, they’d be girls.”
Lesson two, never, ever get between a woman and a cub…even if it’s someone else’s cub. My “attitude” ruined the rest of the day and spoiled the weekend. Anything less than accepting Danielle and her new accessory was viewed with the same contempt Caesar suddenly had for Marcus Brutus. I had stabbed her baby joy with an insensitive barb.
That’s when the real discussion started. It was now my problem that I didn’t want marriage and kids. Everybody wants to get married and have kids! Never mind that the success rate of marriage in America has dropped below 50 percent while the divorce rate has climbed to over 50 percent. Where is it written that my life’s dreams and goals have to be the same as everyone else?
Why are kids such a big deal? Sure they prevent the extinction of the species, but hell, given how we’ve trashed the planet, it might not be a bad thing. Then again, if we weren’t here some other species would rise up to take our place. I could only imagine a world with squirrels at the top of the food chain. No one would carry a wallet. They’d just bury stashes of currency everywhere and hope they can find it when necessary.
Dolphins might be a logical choice but they’d have to evolve to living on land. Trading flippers for arms and legs the world would be ruled by a squeaky fish hybrids. Eventually, when they get around to inventing Hollywood, they too would pass into extinction finding that snorting cocaine through a blowhole would result in debilitating spinal injuries.
But as for the current alpha species, I find that all…not some…ALL of my married with children buddies swear how having kids changed their lives. They are constantly filling my ears with tales of their kids’ successes. As if the necessities of life like learning to pee outside of your clothes is akin to open-heart surgery. Or uttering some cute phrase is equivalent to speaking before the United Nations on the need for birth control.
Okay, listen, I’m happy your little poop machine has surpassed your expectation for thrills and intrigue. But no, your kids are no different than any of the other kids I’ve met. One day, your prodigy will go off to school and discover a world of facsimiles.
What’s even more alarming is everyone—yes all of my buddies—will tell me how much they miss my lifestyle. They love their kids and wives, but man they wish they could just hangout. Read a book. Catch a movie that isn’t animated. And have sex with random women. Okay, that last part just doesn’t happen. The perception of ALL my married buddies is that I’m getting laid more often than a casino chip at Harrah’s. But they were single once, they should recall that the closure ratio for a single guy has the same success rate as a soccer game. You’re constantly running around. Constant confusion about the “zone.” Lots of ball handling but very little scoring.
What kills me is how everyone’s kid is the best kid ever. As if all of history and evolution has conspired to make this one kid the greatest. I’m sure Zerelda James was proud of her boys Frank and Jesse.
“Zerelda, how are the boys?”
“Oh, Gertie, you know boys. Them two. Jesse and Frank robbed themselves a train last Tuesdee. And, dan-gum it, they went and holded up a bank. Such go getters.”
“You must be plum proud o’ them, Zee.”
Listen, not every kid is going to be then next Knute Rocke or Albert Einstein.
I’m sure Caroline Maria Goring couldn’t have been more thrilled of her son Hermann, when he mentioned over dinner that he’d hit a personal best in killing millions of Jews.
No, your kids are just kids. Get over the fact that they can do no wrong. Everyone fucks up. Mistakes get made. Hell, according to a couple of my friends even their kids were a mistake.
Needless to say the ride back to Chicago after leaving my sister’s was a tense, silent passing. With rigid determination, I endured another 48-hours of pouting and innuendos. But by the following weekend we were back to our happy little sphere of a relationship. We continued to look at some pretty awesome Chicago real estate and discussed our future together. That’s when the Hydra lifted is cooing little heads and attacked. The subject of marriage and kids breached the calm shores. However, the landscape had changed to what if scenarios. Like, what if we did have kids, of which of our friends would make the better babysitter.
What I’m coming to realize is that through this process of dating my voice is getting fainter and fainter. The more I say, kids and marriage aren’t for me, the more often the topic turns to our marriage and kids.
“Would you ever consider getting married in a foreign country?”
“What…wait…”
“You know, like what if when we go to Scotland this fall, we decide to get married?”
“Why would we do that?”
“Just what if…”
“What if we went to Scotland?”
“No, silly goose. What if we got married WHILE we were in Scotland?”
How do you answer that? “No way” hasn’t been working. Like Katrina looming on the horizon I could see this category 5 conversation laying waste to the weekend. I needed a relationship FEMA. Wait, they fucked up New Orleans. Scratch that, I needed an evacuation plan.
“Hey, you know we don’t have to go to Scotland. We could go to Brazil. I hear it’s beautiful.”
“What if we got married there?”
“Well, ah…I don’t speak Portuguese …I might accidentally order us a flaming dessert.”
Working back to food was always my salvation. Danielle was a foodie and the mere thought of dessert sent her chef-like mind reeling at the possibilities.
The funny thing about a committed relationship is how insecure it becomes. I know this is completely opposite of what you’d think. Like tightening down hatches on a stormy sea secures a ship. Or installing an alarm system secures your house. But when dealing with a relationship, the more secure you make it, the more insecure it becomes. And it was this insecurity that eventually brought the relationship house down.
Danielle was meeting with some girlfriends a few blocks from my condo. We’d made plans that she’d come by afterwards and we’d walk to our neighboring offices together in the morning.
Promising an early evening I wasn’t surprised when she called around 9 pm to say she would be on her way soon.
“Yeah, just wrapping it up and Marla’s. I guess I could walk over…”
“You’re five blocks away. If you’re tired, take a cab.”
Now unless you’re from rural Indiana, Chicago is a pretty safe town—especially downtown. And I live in one of the most heavily trafficked areas. Sure we get crime, but hell there was a bomb scare in Buchanan, Michigan—population 400. There are more people living on my block that in Buchanan. Crime is everywhere.
But it wasn’t fear of the streets that gave Danielle pause. It was the need to show off her boyfriend.
“You could come pick me up?”
“What…”
“I could meet you out front of Marla’s building.”
“Danielle, you could walk here faster than I could get to the garage, get my car out. Negotiate the myriad of one-way streets to get you. Seriously, take a cab.”
There was a long pause. Danielle was a pro at long pauses. And I was getting good at recognizing their significance.
“Well, I just want to feel wanted.”
“Then rob a bank.”
“Can’t you just tell me you want me?”
It was my turn to pause. What the fuck? It’s not like we’d just met in a bar and were sizing each other up. We’d known each other for years and were dating serious since early spring. Now, as the summer drew to a close she was questioning if I “wanted” her?
“Look,” I said. “If you want to play games, date one of the Parker Brothers.”
The line went dead.
And here we have the final lesson in domestication. The need to feel a part of something will inevitably pull you apart. Try as you might to be one person, there are always two minds and two hearts. And they think differently and beat at different rhythms. Sure marriage vows talk about two people becoming one but you don’t. You’re still two people.
A relationship is a path through life…and one of many…it’s planks joined by the glue of communication. Relationships fail for no other reason than a weakness between joints. No matter how close you are to someone, sometimes you just don’t hear what they’re saying. Danielle and I spoke the same language. We just used different words.
Monday, February 18, 2008
Monday, January 29, 2007
Soul Mate Survivor
by David M. Howell ©1996
(From the collection of short stories: “Not In Your Life”)
Did you have a date last night? How’d it go? Was the bond strong enough that you felt an absence as you sat, comfortably dressed in your underwear browsing the Sunday paper with only a cup of coffee for companionship? Obviously I’m not talking about couples or the happily married exceptions to the current downward trends in marital bliss. I’m talking to those in the dating trenches.
How do you know when you’ve met the “right person?” What are the really important questions that establish a relationship?
Will she think I’m a nice guy? Will he make me laugh? Will she be disappointed I don’t make more money? Will my cat like him? Will she find my bald spot cute? Will we go out again?
These aren’t easily answered questions. In fact, I’m still not sure these are even the right questions. Following the tragic end of what I thought was the perfect marriage four years ago, I found myself not wanting to be the statistic I’d already become. Like the anxiety of surviving a devastating plane crash—I was ecstatic about being alive, but not sure I should be—divorce is a place that most singles can’t imagine or even know exists. It means diving back into the frigid waters you’ve struggled so hard to save yourself from.
Consequently, meeting someone has become an obsession weighing heaviest on my friends. Each has offered advice and counseling to aid my plight. It’s time to share this encouragement, this guidance, this blind-leading-the-blind therapy in the hopes that it’s not too late for you to save yourself from the travesties I’ve encountered.
The first bit of support came from friends who wanted to “fix me up” with another friend. Now I’ve known my friends for quite sometime. We have done just about everything together over the years. Yet, I’ve never met or even heard of these ‘other friends.’ It’s like they’ve kept an entire extra set of dishes hidden away. These ‘other friends’ are like cooking gadgets in a bachelor’s kitchen.
You find out how little your friends really know about you when you see who they want to fix you up with. With the only things in common being planet of origin and bipedal locomotion, my optimistic friends view this as enough for a perfect match.
“You’re gonna love her,” I’ve been told. “She’s just like you.”
I expect more honesty for a car salesman.
Okay, that could mean anything. If she has opposable thumbs, lungs and well trimmed facial hair that’s enough to spark a life-long game of “I don’t know, which movie do you want to rent?”
Now, being set up is uncomfortable for just about everyone involved. My friends feel responsible for helping me meet someone. They also feel responsible to their girlfriends for finding a really nice guy.
Well, I think I’m a nice guy. I brush at least twice a day. I’m courteous and polite most of the time. I also consider it evil to strike a woman even as part of CPR. And here’s where it gets interesting in all forms of introductions, friends will describe a woman to me by her outwardly appearances. She’s short, athletic and curvy (my fantasy and not based on any actual event). They will describe me, however, using internal qualities. “He’s a successful writer, funny and well, nice. He’s a nice guy.”
So when I finally meet the ‘other friend’ I discover she could be Linda Tripps’ double with a body assembled by the Mr. Potato Head factory. Now I’m no longer a nice guy. I should over look the toothless, NHL goalie smile that could be flossed with a garden hose and her Airstream figure. After all, it’s what’s inside the per-son that really matters. Come on let’s stop kidding ourselves, we’re all superficial. We pass judgment daily on people we don’t even know. But go on a date and suddenly you should look the other way. At least I had to if I wanted to keep any food down. I feel like I’ve just been duped with underbody rust-proofing.
This is by no means a one-way street. Turns out she didn’t think my jokes were funny. My aggressive conversation style was rude and since I was casually dressed, I must not be that successful. Oh, and she finds bald men repulsive. Bottom line, everybody’s disappointed.
Luckily, I have other friends who are quick to help. Like lawyers chasing an ambulance, they’re right there with sound council. Seems I’m going about this all-wrong. In this day and age the only way to find someone is to answer a personal ad.
A brilliant move. If I really want to meet the self-confident woman of my dreams all I have to do is seek out someone’s who’s advertising it. Why couldn’t I see the failure in this before I jumped?
Now before you slip this under your yet-to-be house broken Labrador, I too have heard all the success stories about people meeting their soul mate through personal ads. After all, I found a perfectly good window air conditioner last summer in the want ads, why should finding a mate be such a stretch.
Perusing the Personals, this jumped out:
SWF charming and delightful bookworm seeks same. I have a love for books, movies and romantic walks along the lake. If you’re successful, nice and share a passion for the arts lets get together.
A match made in heaven. It was like reading my horoscope and discovering it’s my turn to win the PowerBall. Call I should. Call I must. Call I did.
I got Ellen’s voicemail.
“Hi, my name is Ellen,” she said matter-of-factly. I like a woman that knows herself. She’s obviously self-confident. “I want to thank you for calling. As I said in my ad, I am a bookworm. I hope you are too. In fact, tell me what your five favorite books are. I also like movies, especially foreign films. They’re so deep.”
Yeah, Young Einstein was packed with philosophic retrospective.
“Tell me what your favorite films are,” she continued. “Tell me about yourself. Don’t leave anything out; I’m a stickler for details. Looking forward to hearing from you…”
It’s dating 101 and I had my first assignment.
I rattled off five books I’d recently read. Movies were going to be a little tougher. I’m very mainstream, action kind of guy. For me, ‘foreign film’ means some World War II flick with John Wayne kicking butt in Europe or the Pacific. I knew this wouldn’t do so I quickly regrouped my thoughts and went for the standards. Godfather, Citizen Kane and Wizard of Oz. As for describing myself, well I was as honest as I could be. No visible scars or birth defects (though I failed to mention thinning hair). I look pretty average—with the emphasis on average not pretty.
Ellen called me back several days later and we arranged a meeting. Sunday brunch. It seemed safe. If the introduction went well, we would have the afternoon. If not, there was a Bulls game to fall back on.
It’s amazing how much sports are like a relationship. (Talking to the guys here.) Each team sizes up the other. There’s conflict, tension and suspense. A lot of hugging, butt patting and genital grabbing. Everybody’s trying to score and at the same time presenting a strong defense. Things usually get pretty physical and then it’s over and you wonder where the time went. You even talk about it the next day at work.
All right, without reading ahead you’ve probably already figured out that Ellen was about three evolutionary steps away from her primate kin. She didn’t drag her knuckles, but her head was actually lower than her shoulders. Yes, I’m aware this is cruel, but it’s part of life. Most of us rubberneck at traffic accidents to witness carnage. I answer personal ads.
Over coffee and a fruit plate that included lettuce and cottage cheese, two new additions to the fruit family, I struggled to make conversation. Where are you from? What do you do? Does drooling run in your family? Nothing seemed to penetrate her wall. She just didn’t talk. The more she sat mute the more animated I became.
Finally, half way into ‘brunch’ she looked up at me.
“Have you ever been in an asylum?” Ellen asked.
Taken aback, I didn’t quite know how to respond. I didn’t think I as that out of control.
“No,” was all I could think to say.
I watched as this answer, two letters, one small word worked its way into the core of her being.
“Hmmmm,” she finally responded. “Cause you look familiar.”
That was it. I looked at my watch, asked for the check and headed for the door and my next encounter.
A friend of mine, tired of dragging me around like Peter Brady on Greg’s big date, suggested I contact a dating service. This is where you pay money, good money to find someone stupid enough to pay just as much money to find you. The problem is dating services have an abundance of women looking for a husband because they can’t trust their girl friends to be honest with them.
“Oh, Cindy, I feel fat…”
“Marcy, you’re not fat. Look at you, I’d swear you’re a size four. I have sweater that would look like a tent on you.”
“I’m a size 16!”
“Have another Dove Bar, it’s Sunday, it doesn’t count.”
So after an exhausting interview, the service agrees to handle my case, which is handled something like this: we have too many women looking for husbands…you’re a man…we have a match.
What have I got to lose but time, money and dignity? I signed on for six introductions.
With all the anticipation of waiting for that first teenage kiss, I plunged into my first introduction. Now there’s a certain excitement surrounding dating services. You describe your perfect mate and they find her. Well, the adrenaline rush of meeting the Venus I envisioned elevated the anticipation to a degree just this side of euphoria. The coach put me in the game, and I was ready to play.
Now we didn’t actually speak before the “date.” The service made all the arrangements. This, I was told, to protect the woman. Or is it because a pre-date phone call would have revealed that we share the same desire to meet someone, anyone, but each other.
That’s not to say that the women I met through the service weren’t desirable. They were all very nice. But with each date the service moved further and further away from the “perfect mate” I’d described. I specifically requested someone 5’4” or under. My first date, a 5’9” accountant was a sweet woman who lived in the suburbs (I requested Chicago only). Quiet, introverted just this side of a coma. Not really my type at all.
The second date was 5’3” in girth. This was probably the worst thing the service could have done. Okay, before you cast me into dating purgatory, remember, the service ASKED me to be specific about my ideal mate. I prefer the fit, athletic woman. I know there are a lot of feminist taking my name in vain at the moment. Well, lighten up. I guarantee given the choice between David Duchovny and Steve Buscemi, you’d pick Duchovny. Same shoe, different closet.
Anyway, my third introduction was furthest from the request. Short, stout and extremely religious. I feared for my afterlife. If I hadn’t agreed to be saved she would have cast me as the antichrist and crucified me on the spot. As it was she anointed me with ice water and would have put a cross of ashes on my forehead if she hadn’t burned both thumbs on the table candle.
I forfeited my remaining dates. The service may have gotten it right eventually, but it was like waiting for the firing squad to re-load. Time to run.
So there I was alone having tested the dating waters via friends, newspaper matches and a service that claimed to know what I wanted better than I did. What did I have to show for it? Angry friends, disappointment, a huge VISA bill and the realization that there must be something wrong with me.
I felt dejected as I rode the bus north through Chicago’s Lincoln Park.
“Sorry,” a woman said as she shifted her Pottery Barn bag.
Our eyes met. She was young, attractive with stunning brown eyes. She was exactly the kind of person I wish to see myself with but never seem to meet…and there she was, sitting right next to me.
“No problem,” I said noticing the store bag. “Pottery Barn, great candles.”
“I love their candles.”
She was easy to talk to. Nothing was forced, we were both relaxed. Or as relaxed as you can be on a crowded bus.
Like the bus, our conversation stopped and started as people and topics got on and off.
“Ya know, I kinda don’t want this to end…would you like to get a cup of coffee?” I asked. You don’t realize how hard it is to ask a woman such a simple question. The rejection, especially on a crowded bus can be devastating.
“Sounds great.” She introduced herself, a nurse who works two blocks north of my office and lives two blocks north of my apartment.
As the bus bumped the curb of its next stop I realized the secret to meeting someone. Don’t go looking. Finding the right person was a lot like waiting for the bus, just be patient, one will come along.
(From the collection of short stories: “Not In Your Life”)
Did you have a date last night? How’d it go? Was the bond strong enough that you felt an absence as you sat, comfortably dressed in your underwear browsing the Sunday paper with only a cup of coffee for companionship? Obviously I’m not talking about couples or the happily married exceptions to the current downward trends in marital bliss. I’m talking to those in the dating trenches.
How do you know when you’ve met the “right person?” What are the really important questions that establish a relationship?
Will she think I’m a nice guy? Will he make me laugh? Will she be disappointed I don’t make more money? Will my cat like him? Will she find my bald spot cute? Will we go out again?
These aren’t easily answered questions. In fact, I’m still not sure these are even the right questions. Following the tragic end of what I thought was the perfect marriage four years ago, I found myself not wanting to be the statistic I’d already become. Like the anxiety of surviving a devastating plane crash—I was ecstatic about being alive, but not sure I should be—divorce is a place that most singles can’t imagine or even know exists. It means diving back into the frigid waters you’ve struggled so hard to save yourself from.
Consequently, meeting someone has become an obsession weighing heaviest on my friends. Each has offered advice and counseling to aid my plight. It’s time to share this encouragement, this guidance, this blind-leading-the-blind therapy in the hopes that it’s not too late for you to save yourself from the travesties I’ve encountered.
The first bit of support came from friends who wanted to “fix me up” with another friend. Now I’ve known my friends for quite sometime. We have done just about everything together over the years. Yet, I’ve never met or even heard of these ‘other friends.’ It’s like they’ve kept an entire extra set of dishes hidden away. These ‘other friends’ are like cooking gadgets in a bachelor’s kitchen.
You find out how little your friends really know about you when you see who they want to fix you up with. With the only things in common being planet of origin and bipedal locomotion, my optimistic friends view this as enough for a perfect match.
“You’re gonna love her,” I’ve been told. “She’s just like you.”
I expect more honesty for a car salesman.
Okay, that could mean anything. If she has opposable thumbs, lungs and well trimmed facial hair that’s enough to spark a life-long game of “I don’t know, which movie do you want to rent?”
Now, being set up is uncomfortable for just about everyone involved. My friends feel responsible for helping me meet someone. They also feel responsible to their girlfriends for finding a really nice guy.
Well, I think I’m a nice guy. I brush at least twice a day. I’m courteous and polite most of the time. I also consider it evil to strike a woman even as part of CPR. And here’s where it gets interesting in all forms of introductions, friends will describe a woman to me by her outwardly appearances. She’s short, athletic and curvy (my fantasy and not based on any actual event). They will describe me, however, using internal qualities. “He’s a successful writer, funny and well, nice. He’s a nice guy.”
So when I finally meet the ‘other friend’ I discover she could be Linda Tripps’ double with a body assembled by the Mr. Potato Head factory. Now I’m no longer a nice guy. I should over look the toothless, NHL goalie smile that could be flossed with a garden hose and her Airstream figure. After all, it’s what’s inside the per-son that really matters. Come on let’s stop kidding ourselves, we’re all superficial. We pass judgment daily on people we don’t even know. But go on a date and suddenly you should look the other way. At least I had to if I wanted to keep any food down. I feel like I’ve just been duped with underbody rust-proofing.
This is by no means a one-way street. Turns out she didn’t think my jokes were funny. My aggressive conversation style was rude and since I was casually dressed, I must not be that successful. Oh, and she finds bald men repulsive. Bottom line, everybody’s disappointed.
Luckily, I have other friends who are quick to help. Like lawyers chasing an ambulance, they’re right there with sound council. Seems I’m going about this all-wrong. In this day and age the only way to find someone is to answer a personal ad.
A brilliant move. If I really want to meet the self-confident woman of my dreams all I have to do is seek out someone’s who’s advertising it. Why couldn’t I see the failure in this before I jumped?
Now before you slip this under your yet-to-be house broken Labrador, I too have heard all the success stories about people meeting their soul mate through personal ads. After all, I found a perfectly good window air conditioner last summer in the want ads, why should finding a mate be such a stretch.
Perusing the Personals, this jumped out:
SWF charming and delightful bookworm seeks same. I have a love for books, movies and romantic walks along the lake. If you’re successful, nice and share a passion for the arts lets get together.
A match made in heaven. It was like reading my horoscope and discovering it’s my turn to win the PowerBall. Call I should. Call I must. Call I did.
I got Ellen’s voicemail.
“Hi, my name is Ellen,” she said matter-of-factly. I like a woman that knows herself. She’s obviously self-confident. “I want to thank you for calling. As I said in my ad, I am a bookworm. I hope you are too. In fact, tell me what your five favorite books are. I also like movies, especially foreign films. They’re so deep.”
Yeah, Young Einstein was packed with philosophic retrospective.
“Tell me what your favorite films are,” she continued. “Tell me about yourself. Don’t leave anything out; I’m a stickler for details. Looking forward to hearing from you…”
It’s dating 101 and I had my first assignment.
I rattled off five books I’d recently read. Movies were going to be a little tougher. I’m very mainstream, action kind of guy. For me, ‘foreign film’ means some World War II flick with John Wayne kicking butt in Europe or the Pacific. I knew this wouldn’t do so I quickly regrouped my thoughts and went for the standards. Godfather, Citizen Kane and Wizard of Oz. As for describing myself, well I was as honest as I could be. No visible scars or birth defects (though I failed to mention thinning hair). I look pretty average—with the emphasis on average not pretty.
Ellen called me back several days later and we arranged a meeting. Sunday brunch. It seemed safe. If the introduction went well, we would have the afternoon. If not, there was a Bulls game to fall back on.
It’s amazing how much sports are like a relationship. (Talking to the guys here.) Each team sizes up the other. There’s conflict, tension and suspense. A lot of hugging, butt patting and genital grabbing. Everybody’s trying to score and at the same time presenting a strong defense. Things usually get pretty physical and then it’s over and you wonder where the time went. You even talk about it the next day at work.
All right, without reading ahead you’ve probably already figured out that Ellen was about three evolutionary steps away from her primate kin. She didn’t drag her knuckles, but her head was actually lower than her shoulders. Yes, I’m aware this is cruel, but it’s part of life. Most of us rubberneck at traffic accidents to witness carnage. I answer personal ads.
Over coffee and a fruit plate that included lettuce and cottage cheese, two new additions to the fruit family, I struggled to make conversation. Where are you from? What do you do? Does drooling run in your family? Nothing seemed to penetrate her wall. She just didn’t talk. The more she sat mute the more animated I became.
Finally, half way into ‘brunch’ she looked up at me.
“Have you ever been in an asylum?” Ellen asked.
Taken aback, I didn’t quite know how to respond. I didn’t think I as that out of control.
“No,” was all I could think to say.
I watched as this answer, two letters, one small word worked its way into the core of her being.
“Hmmmm,” she finally responded. “Cause you look familiar.”
That was it. I looked at my watch, asked for the check and headed for the door and my next encounter.
A friend of mine, tired of dragging me around like Peter Brady on Greg’s big date, suggested I contact a dating service. This is where you pay money, good money to find someone stupid enough to pay just as much money to find you. The problem is dating services have an abundance of women looking for a husband because they can’t trust their girl friends to be honest with them.
“Oh, Cindy, I feel fat…”
“Marcy, you’re not fat. Look at you, I’d swear you’re a size four. I have sweater that would look like a tent on you.”
“I’m a size 16!”
“Have another Dove Bar, it’s Sunday, it doesn’t count.”
So after an exhausting interview, the service agrees to handle my case, which is handled something like this: we have too many women looking for husbands…you’re a man…we have a match.
What have I got to lose but time, money and dignity? I signed on for six introductions.
With all the anticipation of waiting for that first teenage kiss, I plunged into my first introduction. Now there’s a certain excitement surrounding dating services. You describe your perfect mate and they find her. Well, the adrenaline rush of meeting the Venus I envisioned elevated the anticipation to a degree just this side of euphoria. The coach put me in the game, and I was ready to play.
Now we didn’t actually speak before the “date.” The service made all the arrangements. This, I was told, to protect the woman. Or is it because a pre-date phone call would have revealed that we share the same desire to meet someone, anyone, but each other.
That’s not to say that the women I met through the service weren’t desirable. They were all very nice. But with each date the service moved further and further away from the “perfect mate” I’d described. I specifically requested someone 5’4” or under. My first date, a 5’9” accountant was a sweet woman who lived in the suburbs (I requested Chicago only). Quiet, introverted just this side of a coma. Not really my type at all.
The second date was 5’3” in girth. This was probably the worst thing the service could have done. Okay, before you cast me into dating purgatory, remember, the service ASKED me to be specific about my ideal mate. I prefer the fit, athletic woman. I know there are a lot of feminist taking my name in vain at the moment. Well, lighten up. I guarantee given the choice between David Duchovny and Steve Buscemi, you’d pick Duchovny. Same shoe, different closet.
Anyway, my third introduction was furthest from the request. Short, stout and extremely religious. I feared for my afterlife. If I hadn’t agreed to be saved she would have cast me as the antichrist and crucified me on the spot. As it was she anointed me with ice water and would have put a cross of ashes on my forehead if she hadn’t burned both thumbs on the table candle.
I forfeited my remaining dates. The service may have gotten it right eventually, but it was like waiting for the firing squad to re-load. Time to run.
So there I was alone having tested the dating waters via friends, newspaper matches and a service that claimed to know what I wanted better than I did. What did I have to show for it? Angry friends, disappointment, a huge VISA bill and the realization that there must be something wrong with me.
I felt dejected as I rode the bus north through Chicago’s Lincoln Park.
“Sorry,” a woman said as she shifted her Pottery Barn bag.
Our eyes met. She was young, attractive with stunning brown eyes. She was exactly the kind of person I wish to see myself with but never seem to meet…and there she was, sitting right next to me.
“No problem,” I said noticing the store bag. “Pottery Barn, great candles.”
“I love their candles.”
She was easy to talk to. Nothing was forced, we were both relaxed. Or as relaxed as you can be on a crowded bus.
Like the bus, our conversation stopped and started as people and topics got on and off.
“Ya know, I kinda don’t want this to end…would you like to get a cup of coffee?” I asked. You don’t realize how hard it is to ask a woman such a simple question. The rejection, especially on a crowded bus can be devastating.
“Sounds great.” She introduced herself, a nurse who works two blocks north of my office and lives two blocks north of my apartment.
As the bus bumped the curb of its next stop I realized the secret to meeting someone. Don’t go looking. Finding the right person was a lot like waiting for the bus, just be patient, one will come along.
Tuesday, December 26, 2006
The Glamour of Advertising
by David M. Howell ©2004
(From the collection of short stories: “Not In Your Life”)
Whenever I complain about my job, my friends are quick to tell me they don’t want to hear it. They insist I have a glamorous job. I suppose from the outside, working for one of the world’s largest advertising agencies, handling one of the nation’s largest retail accounts would seem rather exciting. The travel. The celebrities. The whining of insecure co-workers. But it’s the production—shooting the actual commercials—that really makes my friends envious.
“Oh David, stop complaining. You have such a cool job,” they say as we catch up over beers.
“God, I’m a fucking librarian, for chriss-sake,” Steve says. He never really was very ambitious, but some how that was the groups fault. “The only travel I do is picking up the overdue books at the goddamn senior center. Jesus Christ, that place smells like disinfectant.”
Steve was hard to take in large doses. He complained about everything. His apartment, his job, his shoes…even his roommate, Beth.
As the mid-eighties crept to their inevitable conclusion, the closet was still the only refuge for gays. Though not unheard of to come out, it still was not the accepted or even expected practice it would become a decade later. We all knew Steve was gay. He occasionally dropped hints about his “other” friends. The people we never met but always seemed to be on hand when he went out.
It was the women in the group who’s highly tuned gay-dar picked up the intricacies of his behavior. Of course we all talked about it behind his back. But at that point in time, it was something you left alone. When he was ready to tell us. He would. For now, he was left to ridicule everything and everyone around him. There was little Steve was comfortable with. Including himself.
Calling his roommate, Beth always meant risking a Steve encounter. He could keep you on the phone for hours. Once Steve got on the phone his rants could explode in to a full scale siege on any given topic. He was also extreme hypochondriac. One evening while attempting to track down Beth for concert tickets I got Steve on the phone.
“Oh, hey…you’re in town. I figured you be out hob-knobbing with your LA friends,” Steve spit into the phone.
“Nope. I’m home this week. I was going to try to hookup with Beth…maybe hit the Green Mill…”
“Ah, I hate that place. Besides, I need my rest. I’m getting my hip replaced.”
“Holy shit, Steve. What…what happened?” I asked, shocked, he was only 32, most hips are warranted for life unless you abuse them for big sports money.
“Well, not right now. But eventually. My mom’s getting her’s done. I figured I may as well do it too. It’s only a matter of time. If I buy now, I can beat the cost of inflation and save a bundle. Geeze you’re always so fucking critical. Can’t someone just express a concern about saving money without being criticized for it?”
“Ahm, yeah. Hey, ask Beth to give me a call when she gets in. I’ve got to run…”
Admittedly, speeding so much time on the road had it’s perks. Like not having to deal with Steve on a consistent basis. But as quirking and insecure as some of my friends might be, nothing could compare to the demanding narcissism of the inflated spokesman.
For almost a decade I’d been writing radio and television commercials that featured a former guru in the home improvement industry as the presenter. Abrasive behavior was part and parcel for a minor celebrity aspiring to be treated like a major star. In advertising, egos often appear smaller on screen then they are in real life.
One such memorable event happened while we were shooting a spot for a new store opening in Columbus, Ohio. Life in Columbus could be compared to a pre-dawn Sunday in any other part of the country. Dimly lit and nothing to do. So it was that we spent a week and half traveling between the film location, Skyline Chili and the local go-cart track. Occasionally, we (my agency partner, producer and I) would be invited by our bored spokesman to show him off at some swank eatery. One evening, as we dined, a patron tentatively approached our table.
“Excuse me,” he said clearly not wishing to interrupt out dinner with his interruption. The man bent over like a humble servant to his do-it-yourself idol.
“Are you…” He left the sentence as unfinished as his meal. It was as if he was not good enough to even utter the name of his god.
“No! Why are you bothering me?” our minor celebrity said not looking at the man but instead seeking eye contact around the table for our approval of his joke.
The film director laughed uncomfortably as we all looked away from the victim turned sacrificial lamb.
Stunned, the man fidgeted in his foolishness. How could he have made such a blunder? Obviously the fault lay with his wife and friends who encouraged him to approach the god of his kind.
“Oh, just kidding…you’re right,” our spokesman announced introducing himself as if he were opening his show.
“Oh, yeah…” the man sputtered out like a wounded Spitfire about to go down in flames. “Could I have your autograph?”
Humbly, the man waited while his autograph was made out to ‘Chauncey.’ Standing awkwardly, the intruder broke the long uncomfortable silence by thanking his mentor for his contributions to the world.
I choose this profession for the simple reason that it was easy to remain anonymous. Mustering the energy to be famous was just beyond me. I could put words in people’s mouths in commercials viewed by millions of people and yet, no one knew it was me. There’s an eerie sensation sitting in a bar with friends during a Saturday afternoon football game and suddenly, one of my spots would come on. Like a fly on the wall, I observed people watching my work. Though admittedly, most got up to go to the bathroom.
It was that sense of confidence one gets from plumbing that would put me in peril just a few weeks later.
After Columbus I flew to LA for a couple of weeks of shooting on a new paint campaign my partner and I had just developed to revive our client’s struggling house brand of paints. Several month earlier the account team had approached us with a “rare opportunity.”
“This will be a real feather in your caps,” our Group Creative Director said after the meeting. “Turn around this paint business and you boys will be legendary.”
Legendary my ass. We’d already taken an annoying nail bender from the shores of mediocrity and installed him as the know-it-all, do-it-yourselfer of the ages. The campaign was an instant success elevating our retail client to memorable heights. And ensuring that my partner and I would be labeled as retail hacks who couldn’t bring life to a hand puppet.
You see advertising was about grabbing attention. The current trend was to be a offensive as possible. Getting your spot pulled from a network meant paramount stardom. Agencies reached out to these bad boys with money and perks. There were two guys the agency brought in for a new business pitch—I called them Tubs & Crocket because they looked like a couple of migrant workers. They had been fired from their last agency for casting models for beer commercials. Except these women were hired solely to perform “off-camera” for them. Their work was as offensive as their attitudes.
They were eventually fired for selling strategy secrets to a competitive agency. But their obnoxious work lived on.
If clients only knew what the big agencies did, they’d drop them immediately. But the smoke and mirrors kept most clients at bay and created endless bragging rights on the golf course.
“Yes, my agency, did that spot where the tattooed poodle dry humps an armadillo,” boast one client big-wig with giant sweat rings under the golf shirt that was two sizes too small stretching like an aerobic leotard straining to cover his Theodore Taft-like shape.
“I don’t believe I saw that spot, Leonard,” his golf partner would say as he pulled at his golf shirt with the “weasel” mascot embroidered on the breast.
“Yes, well the goddamn network pulled it. Those clowns said it was “too offensive” for a children’s cereal. Fuckers.”
“Fuckers,” repeated the toady. “Oh, nice lay, Leonard. I’m going to add a stroke to my card, that was so sweet.”
Fortunately, these were not the clients I dealt with. The home improvements’ team was the exception to the rule. They were actually concerned about increasing sales and market share. They understood advertising and how to effectively use it and could tell when the agency was handing them a polished turd.
I have to admit the campaign my partner and I developed was brilliant. It hinged on the fact that people liked to talk about their accomplishments. For the most part, anyone living beyond a trailer park takes pride in their homes and enjoys talking about it as well as showing it off. We captured real people expressing real emotions about decorating, specifically painting their homes. Turned these interviews into scripts, hired actors and hit the road shooting. The campaign was an instant success. While the client cheered the results, the spots never made to the agency reel. Too pedestrian, we were told. Not the kind of creative we want to foster…yeah, we were after the kind that wasn’t effective.
I suggested setting a house on fire and filming the emotional sobs of the owners as they watched all their worldly possessions go up in smoke. This received raised eyebrows from the agency’s creative powerhouses.
Anyway, there we were, in LA, shooting the next series of non-burning houses—fortunately the agency’s mental bi-cep called account management researched the burning home idea and discovered that focus groups unanimously disapproved of the idea. So we were told to move ahead with “Burning Down The House” until account management discovered they couldn’t hide the escalating insurance costs.
We were working at a comfortable ranch home in Pasadena. I was making moves on Sophia, the crafts service woman who’d remembered to pick up my favorite coffee creamer, when the shark steak from the night before reminded me that it was part of the catch and release program.
Now, as production goes, glamour may be spelled with a “LA” but the association ends there. We were working on a limited budget for a conservative retailer. There were no perks like a separate trailer for the creatives. We shared the same production trailer as the rest of the crew. This meant that the men and women—everyone, all 30 of us—used the same small mobile home bathroom that was nothing more than a phone booth with a shower.
So it was that if we secured ourselves an actual home to shoot in, and the owner didn’t specify otherwise, we used the bathroom like a teenager discovering the Chicken Ranch on ‘All You Can Do Tuesdays.”
Sophia, with her uncombed red hair tamed into tiny Halloween cornstalk bundles held together with a rainbow of rubber bands and scattered randomly about her head, chopped chives for my feta and Canadian bacon omelet while I picked out the easy opening pistachios. Struggling to make conversation, an important ingredient to me when I’m angling for a weekend companion, I made the mistake of mentioning I was going to checkout the facilities in the back of the house. She just nodded valuing this information as highly as she valued my conversation.
I set down the Styrofoam cup and headed for the back of the house. Since the crew was setting up in the front of the house for the opening sequence of painting shots, everyone was busy. I had the bathroom to myself. No line. No waiting.
Another thing about being out on production is it often leaves me ah, irregular. This has more to do with the lack of comfortable toilet facilities than the butter-rich meals that seem to haunt our after hours existence. The term ‘hold-it’ would be an understatement. So when the opportunity to use a clean, normal bathroom arises, well I would leap at it. And that’s just what I did.
Closing the white door, I was greeted by the relaxing hunter green walls and white porcelain. I immediately set about my business, one doesn’t tarry when the gods smile and this morning the yawning porcelain god smiled on me in the form of a clean, quiet commode.
Dignity, which has been lacking to this point, should be called in at this moment. As poetically as possible, let me just say that the deposit was average and rather firm considering the ingredients. The entire transaction was completed quickly and, having Sophia and a feta omelet waiting, I was anxious to get back to the set. So, I flushed the toilet and turned to the sink. But the toilet barely flushed, the water trickled in creating only surface ripples. And even though the toilet paper and original water disappeared, my solid offering at this holy altar remained twisting slowly as the water silently settled.
After letting the tank refill, I flushed again. The second attempt to hide the evidence proved to me that this was no Niagara Falls of water pressure. Like a limbless child, the turd mocked me by doing gentle laps around the bowl. This bad boy was not going down.
Again, I waited for the tank to fill and then gave the handle a violent thrust thinking that if I could be more forceful, I could send this antagonistic turd to its final resting place. Again, the brown devil shuttered at the threshold of the afterlife, but like a tired guest, just wouldn’t leave. This was getting serious.
I knew this room needed to be prepped for a bathroom decorating scene later in the day. And since I’d made the mistake of announcing my intent to Sophia, I couldn’t leave the evidence of my visit slowly turning clockwise in the bowl. I looked around the room. Damn, if I’d only brought the cup of pistachios I could scoop the turd out and dispose of it out the window. But no cup and the turd continued to mock me by floating slowly around the toilet like Benjamin Braddock on his air mattress in “The Graduate.”
“Ben, I just want to say one word to you—just one word.”
Camera cuts to an extreme close-up of the turd as it slowly turns in anticipation.
“Are you listening?”
Again, the turd lazily rides the current.
“Flush. Goddamn you, flush!”
Time was running out. I had to think of something fast. I looked at the window. If I could just get the turd to the window…I looked out to see production cables running to the backyard. Damn, I couldn’t just drop a turd out where the crew was working. Besides, how could I get it from the toilet to the window?
I looked back at the offensive feces floating there. I knew how the plumbing worked, if I could just get the turd past the opening, the “S” curve of the pipe would hold it out of sight. I flushed again. It did no good. There wasn’t enough water pressure to carry it away. It had become a desperate situation.
Well, there was only one thing to do. I reached into the cold water, grab the solid stool and, like drowning a rat, I pulled it under the water. The turd struggled like Randle McMurphy under the weight of Chief Bromden in “One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest.”
Oh no you don’t, I thought, you’re goin’ down. It was harder than I thought keeping the buoyant turd from leaping back into the bowl. But with persuasion, I got it past the opening and out of sight. I quickly washed my hands in the hottest water I could stand and looked back at the empty bowl. I thought about flushing again, but was afraid it might just bring the turd back. As long as it was out of sight, it was someone else’s problem. I washed again and left the bathroom.
Yes, I tell my friends, I have an exciting and glamorous job…very glamorous.
(From the collection of short stories: “Not In Your Life”)
Whenever I complain about my job, my friends are quick to tell me they don’t want to hear it. They insist I have a glamorous job. I suppose from the outside, working for one of the world’s largest advertising agencies, handling one of the nation’s largest retail accounts would seem rather exciting. The travel. The celebrities. The whining of insecure co-workers. But it’s the production—shooting the actual commercials—that really makes my friends envious.
“Oh David, stop complaining. You have such a cool job,” they say as we catch up over beers.
“God, I’m a fucking librarian, for chriss-sake,” Steve says. He never really was very ambitious, but some how that was the groups fault. “The only travel I do is picking up the overdue books at the goddamn senior center. Jesus Christ, that place smells like disinfectant.”
Steve was hard to take in large doses. He complained about everything. His apartment, his job, his shoes…even his roommate, Beth.
As the mid-eighties crept to their inevitable conclusion, the closet was still the only refuge for gays. Though not unheard of to come out, it still was not the accepted or even expected practice it would become a decade later. We all knew Steve was gay. He occasionally dropped hints about his “other” friends. The people we never met but always seemed to be on hand when he went out.
It was the women in the group who’s highly tuned gay-dar picked up the intricacies of his behavior. Of course we all talked about it behind his back. But at that point in time, it was something you left alone. When he was ready to tell us. He would. For now, he was left to ridicule everything and everyone around him. There was little Steve was comfortable with. Including himself.
Calling his roommate, Beth always meant risking a Steve encounter. He could keep you on the phone for hours. Once Steve got on the phone his rants could explode in to a full scale siege on any given topic. He was also extreme hypochondriac. One evening while attempting to track down Beth for concert tickets I got Steve on the phone.
“Oh, hey…you’re in town. I figured you be out hob-knobbing with your LA friends,” Steve spit into the phone.
“Nope. I’m home this week. I was going to try to hookup with Beth…maybe hit the Green Mill…”
“Ah, I hate that place. Besides, I need my rest. I’m getting my hip replaced.”
“Holy shit, Steve. What…what happened?” I asked, shocked, he was only 32, most hips are warranted for life unless you abuse them for big sports money.
“Well, not right now. But eventually. My mom’s getting her’s done. I figured I may as well do it too. It’s only a matter of time. If I buy now, I can beat the cost of inflation and save a bundle. Geeze you’re always so fucking critical. Can’t someone just express a concern about saving money without being criticized for it?”
“Ahm, yeah. Hey, ask Beth to give me a call when she gets in. I’ve got to run…”
Admittedly, speeding so much time on the road had it’s perks. Like not having to deal with Steve on a consistent basis. But as quirking and insecure as some of my friends might be, nothing could compare to the demanding narcissism of the inflated spokesman.
For almost a decade I’d been writing radio and television commercials that featured a former guru in the home improvement industry as the presenter. Abrasive behavior was part and parcel for a minor celebrity aspiring to be treated like a major star. In advertising, egos often appear smaller on screen then they are in real life.
One such memorable event happened while we were shooting a spot for a new store opening in Columbus, Ohio. Life in Columbus could be compared to a pre-dawn Sunday in any other part of the country. Dimly lit and nothing to do. So it was that we spent a week and half traveling between the film location, Skyline Chili and the local go-cart track. Occasionally, we (my agency partner, producer and I) would be invited by our bored spokesman to show him off at some swank eatery. One evening, as we dined, a patron tentatively approached our table.
“Excuse me,” he said clearly not wishing to interrupt out dinner with his interruption. The man bent over like a humble servant to his do-it-yourself idol.
“Are you…” He left the sentence as unfinished as his meal. It was as if he was not good enough to even utter the name of his god.
“No! Why are you bothering me?” our minor celebrity said not looking at the man but instead seeking eye contact around the table for our approval of his joke.
The film director laughed uncomfortably as we all looked away from the victim turned sacrificial lamb.
Stunned, the man fidgeted in his foolishness. How could he have made such a blunder? Obviously the fault lay with his wife and friends who encouraged him to approach the god of his kind.
“Oh, just kidding…you’re right,” our spokesman announced introducing himself as if he were opening his show.
“Oh, yeah…” the man sputtered out like a wounded Spitfire about to go down in flames. “Could I have your autograph?”
Humbly, the man waited while his autograph was made out to ‘Chauncey.’ Standing awkwardly, the intruder broke the long uncomfortable silence by thanking his mentor for his contributions to the world.
I choose this profession for the simple reason that it was easy to remain anonymous. Mustering the energy to be famous was just beyond me. I could put words in people’s mouths in commercials viewed by millions of people and yet, no one knew it was me. There’s an eerie sensation sitting in a bar with friends during a Saturday afternoon football game and suddenly, one of my spots would come on. Like a fly on the wall, I observed people watching my work. Though admittedly, most got up to go to the bathroom.
It was that sense of confidence one gets from plumbing that would put me in peril just a few weeks later.
After Columbus I flew to LA for a couple of weeks of shooting on a new paint campaign my partner and I had just developed to revive our client’s struggling house brand of paints. Several month earlier the account team had approached us with a “rare opportunity.”
“This will be a real feather in your caps,” our Group Creative Director said after the meeting. “Turn around this paint business and you boys will be legendary.”
Legendary my ass. We’d already taken an annoying nail bender from the shores of mediocrity and installed him as the know-it-all, do-it-yourselfer of the ages. The campaign was an instant success elevating our retail client to memorable heights. And ensuring that my partner and I would be labeled as retail hacks who couldn’t bring life to a hand puppet.
You see advertising was about grabbing attention. The current trend was to be a offensive as possible. Getting your spot pulled from a network meant paramount stardom. Agencies reached out to these bad boys with money and perks. There were two guys the agency brought in for a new business pitch—I called them Tubs & Crocket because they looked like a couple of migrant workers. They had been fired from their last agency for casting models for beer commercials. Except these women were hired solely to perform “off-camera” for them. Their work was as offensive as their attitudes.
They were eventually fired for selling strategy secrets to a competitive agency. But their obnoxious work lived on.
If clients only knew what the big agencies did, they’d drop them immediately. But the smoke and mirrors kept most clients at bay and created endless bragging rights on the golf course.
“Yes, my agency, did that spot where the tattooed poodle dry humps an armadillo,” boast one client big-wig with giant sweat rings under the golf shirt that was two sizes too small stretching like an aerobic leotard straining to cover his Theodore Taft-like shape.
“I don’t believe I saw that spot, Leonard,” his golf partner would say as he pulled at his golf shirt with the “weasel” mascot embroidered on the breast.
“Yes, well the goddamn network pulled it. Those clowns said it was “too offensive” for a children’s cereal. Fuckers.”
“Fuckers,” repeated the toady. “Oh, nice lay, Leonard. I’m going to add a stroke to my card, that was so sweet.”
Fortunately, these were not the clients I dealt with. The home improvements’ team was the exception to the rule. They were actually concerned about increasing sales and market share. They understood advertising and how to effectively use it and could tell when the agency was handing them a polished turd.
I have to admit the campaign my partner and I developed was brilliant. It hinged on the fact that people liked to talk about their accomplishments. For the most part, anyone living beyond a trailer park takes pride in their homes and enjoys talking about it as well as showing it off. We captured real people expressing real emotions about decorating, specifically painting their homes. Turned these interviews into scripts, hired actors and hit the road shooting. The campaign was an instant success. While the client cheered the results, the spots never made to the agency reel. Too pedestrian, we were told. Not the kind of creative we want to foster…yeah, we were after the kind that wasn’t effective.
I suggested setting a house on fire and filming the emotional sobs of the owners as they watched all their worldly possessions go up in smoke. This received raised eyebrows from the agency’s creative powerhouses.
Anyway, there we were, in LA, shooting the next series of non-burning houses—fortunately the agency’s mental bi-cep called account management researched the burning home idea and discovered that focus groups unanimously disapproved of the idea. So we were told to move ahead with “Burning Down The House” until account management discovered they couldn’t hide the escalating insurance costs.
We were working at a comfortable ranch home in Pasadena. I was making moves on Sophia, the crafts service woman who’d remembered to pick up my favorite coffee creamer, when the shark steak from the night before reminded me that it was part of the catch and release program.
Now, as production goes, glamour may be spelled with a “LA” but the association ends there. We were working on a limited budget for a conservative retailer. There were no perks like a separate trailer for the creatives. We shared the same production trailer as the rest of the crew. This meant that the men and women—everyone, all 30 of us—used the same small mobile home bathroom that was nothing more than a phone booth with a shower.
So it was that if we secured ourselves an actual home to shoot in, and the owner didn’t specify otherwise, we used the bathroom like a teenager discovering the Chicken Ranch on ‘All You Can Do Tuesdays.”
Sophia, with her uncombed red hair tamed into tiny Halloween cornstalk bundles held together with a rainbow of rubber bands and scattered randomly about her head, chopped chives for my feta and Canadian bacon omelet while I picked out the easy opening pistachios. Struggling to make conversation, an important ingredient to me when I’m angling for a weekend companion, I made the mistake of mentioning I was going to checkout the facilities in the back of the house. She just nodded valuing this information as highly as she valued my conversation.
I set down the Styrofoam cup and headed for the back of the house. Since the crew was setting up in the front of the house for the opening sequence of painting shots, everyone was busy. I had the bathroom to myself. No line. No waiting.
Another thing about being out on production is it often leaves me ah, irregular. This has more to do with the lack of comfortable toilet facilities than the butter-rich meals that seem to haunt our after hours existence. The term ‘hold-it’ would be an understatement. So when the opportunity to use a clean, normal bathroom arises, well I would leap at it. And that’s just what I did.
Closing the white door, I was greeted by the relaxing hunter green walls and white porcelain. I immediately set about my business, one doesn’t tarry when the gods smile and this morning the yawning porcelain god smiled on me in the form of a clean, quiet commode.
Dignity, which has been lacking to this point, should be called in at this moment. As poetically as possible, let me just say that the deposit was average and rather firm considering the ingredients. The entire transaction was completed quickly and, having Sophia and a feta omelet waiting, I was anxious to get back to the set. So, I flushed the toilet and turned to the sink. But the toilet barely flushed, the water trickled in creating only surface ripples. And even though the toilet paper and original water disappeared, my solid offering at this holy altar remained twisting slowly as the water silently settled.
After letting the tank refill, I flushed again. The second attempt to hide the evidence proved to me that this was no Niagara Falls of water pressure. Like a limbless child, the turd mocked me by doing gentle laps around the bowl. This bad boy was not going down.
Again, I waited for the tank to fill and then gave the handle a violent thrust thinking that if I could be more forceful, I could send this antagonistic turd to its final resting place. Again, the brown devil shuttered at the threshold of the afterlife, but like a tired guest, just wouldn’t leave. This was getting serious.
I knew this room needed to be prepped for a bathroom decorating scene later in the day. And since I’d made the mistake of announcing my intent to Sophia, I couldn’t leave the evidence of my visit slowly turning clockwise in the bowl. I looked around the room. Damn, if I’d only brought the cup of pistachios I could scoop the turd out and dispose of it out the window. But no cup and the turd continued to mock me by floating slowly around the toilet like Benjamin Braddock on his air mattress in “The Graduate.”
“Ben, I just want to say one word to you—just one word.”
Camera cuts to an extreme close-up of the turd as it slowly turns in anticipation.
“Are you listening?”
Again, the turd lazily rides the current.
“Flush. Goddamn you, flush!”
Time was running out. I had to think of something fast. I looked at the window. If I could just get the turd to the window…I looked out to see production cables running to the backyard. Damn, I couldn’t just drop a turd out where the crew was working. Besides, how could I get it from the toilet to the window?
I looked back at the offensive feces floating there. I knew how the plumbing worked, if I could just get the turd past the opening, the “S” curve of the pipe would hold it out of sight. I flushed again. It did no good. There wasn’t enough water pressure to carry it away. It had become a desperate situation.
Well, there was only one thing to do. I reached into the cold water, grab the solid stool and, like drowning a rat, I pulled it under the water. The turd struggled like Randle McMurphy under the weight of Chief Bromden in “One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest.”
Oh no you don’t, I thought, you’re goin’ down. It was harder than I thought keeping the buoyant turd from leaping back into the bowl. But with persuasion, I got it past the opening and out of sight. I quickly washed my hands in the hottest water I could stand and looked back at the empty bowl. I thought about flushing again, but was afraid it might just bring the turd back. As long as it was out of sight, it was someone else’s problem. I washed again and left the bathroom.
Yes, I tell my friends, I have an exciting and glamorous job…very glamorous.
Easter Hymn
By David M. Howell
(From the collection of short stories: “Not In Your Life”) ©1999
(From the collection of short stories: “Not In Your Life”) ©1999
The rectangular yellow clock above the kitchen sink was in code. It was a code that I was soon to break, but for now I was at a loss to understand its subtle hand gestures. Despite the clock’s secrecy, I knew it was early, very early. The eastern sky beyond the three maple trees in the yard was only a paler shade of night.
The day had actually begun even earlier when my father walked into the bedroom my brother and I shared.
“Come on, get up,” he said hoarsely having only recently gotten up himself. “You have to go to church.”
The phrase, ‘you have to go to church,’ was delivered as a command as if church held some special meaning. Whatever the necessity of church, it was lost on me that morning. I thought to myself, even at that young age, what god in his right mind would be up this early just to hear the redundant prayers of seemingly needy people? People, vainly seeking the same answers to unanswerable questions. If god intended us to get up at dawn he would have made it come later in the day.
Before walking out of our sleep, my father pulled the string turning on the closet light. There was no avoiding it now, I had to get up.
The floor was cold and I quickly got my feet on the area rug in the middle of the room. My older brother, who aged me by two years, was already out of bed. He was much better at taking orders than me. Even in my pre-school years, I questioned authority. Of course my method of questioning—confused abstinence—usually brought a flat hand or belt to my behind. It’s amazing to me how that defiance shaped the core of who I would become.
I dressed in the clothes my mother wanted me to be seen in. A dark green pattern shirt with beige fleur-de-lis and a stitched-in-place brown vest. My brother wore a crisp pale blue shirt with a unicorn on the breast pocket. We wore the same clothes my parents had dressed us in a few days earlier for a group photo. With my new sister in the middle, we sat for the first spring picture I can remember. 38 years later that photograph would stand vigil on the mantle of my fireplace. The innocence captured in those eyes still look out with playful wonder. Oh, if I could, the things I would share with the boy that would become me.
The house was cold as I walked into the kitchen, my too-big-for-my-feet, hand-me-down black dress shoes that had been my brother’s last year, clicked across the linoleum floor. Casper, our black dog was indifferent to our early rising and curled before the heating grate absorbing what little warmth escaped.
I learned later Casper was a stray that wandered onto my parents farm. She adopted us and carved a niche in our lives. It would be three years before we got a new dog. Sam, a collie/shepherd mix, would be the dog my brothers and sisters would come to remember most. But that was a long way from this morning.
My mother wore an aqua blue apron over her Sunday best as she prepared breakfast. Her hair, short as was the style, was further tamed by bobby bins. The breakfast she labored over could not be enjoyed until after church. Fasting was the slow approach to denying yourself something you craved. In the corner, the coffee percolated sending its acidic Colombian scent into the room. I would remember the smell of percolating coffee for the rest of my life and always associate it with chilly childhood mornings when life was simple and fresh.
Outside, my father was warming the Pontiac. A tan 4-door sedan with the classic fins on the back. I looked out the picture window in the living room, there was frost on the grass. Frost made the grass crackle when walked on but touch a blade of grass and the frost instantly and mysteriously disappeared. The world I was discovering was filled with wonder.
My father ushered us to the car parked just beyond the white wooden gate. Built by caring hands in a day and age when craftsmanship was the key to success. It would be five years later when the last 4x4 white posts were pulled from the ground and a Sears chain-link fence put in their place. The cold steel of the chain-link better contained Sam, the collie/shepard, as she grew. But it never had the same feeling of space as the wooden fence posts and gate. I miss them to this day.
The car was warm almost warmer than the house when my brother and I climbed into the back seat. It wasn’t really a back seat, my father was a master builder preferring to create from his mind than settle for something that wasn’t quite right.
I remember failing miserably at taping the handlebars of my ten speed bike when I was in high school. My father sensed my frustration and spent an hour in the garage undoing the damage I’d done. He carefully retaped the handlebars flawlessly. I know I thanked him then, but I never expressed how impressed I was with his patience. He taught me a lesson that evening that I carry to this day. Patience in every situation. It has saved me many, many times.
For the car, he built a platform for the back seat of our old Pontiac. I couldn’t begin to explain how this half inch thick sheet of plywood worked or even fit into the car. I can only say that it provided a flat surface which, covered by a gray quilt, created an arena for my brother and me to play in.
This was the last freedom I would ever have in a car. Eventually we would get a white Pontiac station wagon and assigned seats. My father would add a hitch to pull the trailer my parents allowed themselves for our family camping adventures. White with a black strip down the middle and with an overhanging bunk, we traveled the country sheltered from the wilderness we explored. The trailer and station wagon were a dream that morning that would not materialize for another four years.
The gravel driveway crunched like dry cereal under the car as we backed away from our house. A house that seemed so huge at the time. Nine years from now it would be a memory substituted by a much bigger house my parents would build two miles down the road. But that morning, our house, with its huge picture window that gave the façade a grin, was my nest, my security. Twenty years from now, my sister, who curled in my mother’s arms that spring morning, would move into that old house with her husband. Together they changed its old design to better fit their needs. Change is good and what they did certainly improved that old house. But there’s a certain pang for your first shelter out of the womb and this was mine. If granted three wishes, nostalgia would momentarily suggest I go back and visit it before common sense asked for money, power and a universal remote.
We lived on the edge of an old river valley. From the driveway, guarded by two white gates built with the same care as the gate in front of our house, the road swept down as it curved north across the narrow Galien River. The road was lined with massive trees that, even naked in their winter sleep shadowed our path.
Several turns and a couple of miles put us on a brisk two lane road that headed north to the church we went to for special occasions. Like Easter.
Easter, I had long thought this unusual celebration of torture and death was created to offset the Jewish holiday of Passover. This was just a coincidence as I would learn some thirty-five years later while researching a book.
Eostre was the Scandinavian Goddess of dawn. Her name meaning east, the direction of the sunrise. This special festival occurred at the spring equinox to honor her arrival. According to pagan tradition a “Year King” was chosen from the clan. He was ritualistically sacrificed as a tribute to Eostre and the coming growing season. The sacrificed King was then buried in the fields where his body was said to magically come back to life again with the rising grains. Everyone then shared in this miracle by eating the bread made from the “Year King’s” body.
As we silently drove north I watched as Eostre rose on the horizon. Her glimmering gown of orange slowly filled the edges of my childhood. From her zenith she would cast shadows of doubts on accepted thoughts and superstitions. The world was bigger than I ever could have imagined that morning. So big, that even a goddess could only see half of it at a time. The AM radio station my father had tuned in played a classical piece. Wagner or Strauss filled the car as I watched the sunrise on my awaking childhood.
It was the single most memorable moment of my life. Riding that day to Easter Mass with my older brother and younger sister. Listening to the symphony and watching the beginning of a new day unfold.
My childhood would see many things. Two more brothers and two more sisters would arrive over the next decade. Their personalities and very beings woven across the tapestry of my childhood like the pattern of a warm, secure blanket. Today, they just seem to have always been there. Yet on this morning in 1961 the closest of them, my brother Steven, was still over a year away with my youngest sister nine years and nearly as many months from becoming the person I would know and cherish.
I could not imagine all that would become memories of my childhood and who would play roles in acts yet to be written. It was just a morning, earlier than most for me, with the symphony balancing the cacophony of my overwhelming curiosity. I had no idea how early that morning really was. But, oh those precious moments of childhood, they disappear as quickly as the frost on morning grass.
Saturday, November 25, 2006
Shut-Up
by David M. Howell ©2004
(From the collection of short stories: “Not In Your Life”)
My inner voice was upset. I thought I could say anything to myself, but it turns out, on the inside, I’m thin skinned. I’m not sure when my inner voice turned on me, but with all the contempt of a jilted lover, I lashed out at myself. Now, as I rode the El in silence, I was afraid to say anything to anyone fearing a reprisal from myself. Standing mute, I grasped the overhead rail to steady myself around the North Avenue curve. My eyes caught a glimpse of my thin arms.
“You need to workout,” I heard myself say. But I ignored me. I was always trying to get at myself. My ex-wife had constantly criticized me about everything including gaining a little weight. The inner voice was disappointed when we split up…it often agreed with her criticisms.
My inner voice and I argued constantly over the divorce. For every reason I had for moving on, I would counter with a shortcoming that furthered the tumult. This went on for several months after the divorce until in a crowded theater, the emotional volcano erupted.
“I’m through!” I shouted and stormed out.
Out in the lobby, I faced myself in a showdown.
“You can’t shut me off. I’m you! I’m your deepest, most inner self. You can’t ignore me…and you’re not gonna get rid of me like a bad marriage.” My inner voice planted its feet.
“Shut-up, shut-up?” I told myself not caring that people were beginning to stare. “I don’t need this now. Goddamn, you’re so insensitive.”
“Well suck it up, big boy. Just because you’re insecure doesn’t mean I don’t have a right to speak your mind,” the inner voice raised. “Fuck you. You could have done more to save the marriage. But no…now look at you, alone in a theater like a loser. And Madellyn would have liked this movie.”
“Stop it. I know I did everything I could… Madellyn left me…remember?” A mother pulled her young children away.
“Well, maybe if you’d listened to me for a change Madellyn would still be here. And we’d be enjoying this movie…” My inner voice crossed its arms and pouted.
About this time the theater manager came up to me and explained that I was disturbing the other moviegoers. Hell, I was disturbing myself.
I was trying to keep my voices down—even silence them—but it was always there, hiding just out of sight like a conscience.
I walked into the summer night’s air and was immediately engulfed by the traffic, crowds and commotion of Chicago’s Michigan Avenue. Despite the cacophony, all I could hear was my inner voice berating me.
“Oh you’ll never date again…no one could ever like you…lose some weight…god you look hideous in that color.” It just never seemed to end. I walked home, dejected.
That was over a month ago and even though I had accepted my vocal inner voice, I was finding it exceedingly hard to live with. Now, on the train heading to Janie’s party and all I could do was remind myself that I have scrawny arms.
The night was cool for a July in Chicago, perfect for Janie’s Bastille Day Party. Ironically, she wasn’t French, it just seemed that decapitation was a good excuse for a party, at least to her way of thinking. Janie was a sales rep for one of the many vendors the ad agency I worked for used. But she always seemed to bring her work relationships to a personal level and we became almost instant friends. Even my inner voice liked her, though seemed a bit cooled by her boyfriend, Bogart. He was as unpredictable as Crispin Glover—his every movement was a convulsion of flaying arms and legs.
With all this self-doubt flaring up lately, I was reluctant to go out, but I sold myself on the need to have a decent conversation with some one, anyone other than myself. Besides, Janie had promised there’d be tons of babes at her party. Given her intimate knowledge of the Chicago advertising scene, I was confident there would be plenty of “attractive” people in attendance.
I reached the gray door of Janie’s three flat and buzzed 2S.
“Bonjour, welcome to Janie’s…” a static voice said. It wasn’t Janie, but she sounded cute. Already this evening was getting better.
“Hi, it’s David,” I said.
“Hello,” the inner voice chimed in.
“Great come on up.” The unlock buzzer jolted the doorknob.
I loved these old Chicago walkups. The stairs were worn and creaked, they usually had a musty smell to them and the hallway carpet was bristly like a wall-to-wall Brillo pad. The door at the top of the stairs had an old brass ‘2S’ that was nearly completely covered by layers of gray paint. The door was also ajar and I grabbed the wobbly, baseball size knob and pushed. I could hear the Kid Rock’s “I Wanna Be A Cowboy” from the street, but now, inside, it was as if I’d stepped into the concert. I was met at the door by a stunning woman every inch as tall as me with perfect complexion and very long, jet black hair that seemed to dance all on its own. She could have been, should have been a model. Every curve was geometrically perfect. Her deep, dark blue eyes grabbed me and held me like a mother to a babe. She extended the most perfect long, thin arm offering me her hand. I wanted more.
“I’m Xavier,” her perfect voice sang. It was the voice from the entry buzzer without the static or distance. It was everything I could do to keep myself from saying Hollander?
“Xavier Mordarician…I know, it’s Turkish…everybody asks.”
“Hi…I’m David…” I said taking her hand.
“…Janie’s friend.” my inner voice seemed to always need the last word.
“Yes, Janie told me about you…you’re a creative director at Ogilvy & Mather?”
“Yes...”
“…that’s right.” Again with the last word.
“Well, Janie asked me to baby sit you in case you got here before she got back,” Xavier said as she took my elbow and lead me into the room. “She and Bogart went to get some thing for the dip.”
This kind of thing just doesn’t happen to me. If this were a sock hop, I’d usually end up near the shoe pile trying to match the dancers with their foot wear—with relative accuracy. There was definitely chemistry here. It was as if she could read my thoughts…before my inner voice said them. There was a rhythm to our conversation, even the pauses seem comfortable and planned.
“And what do you do, Xavier?” I asked thrilled by her nearness.
“How do you know Janie?” My inner voice butted in. I wanted it out of the conversation.
“I work with her, I’m Lizard Scales new office manager.”
Lizard Scales was a music house that produced sound tracks for TV and radio commercials. I’d worked with them on several campaigns and liked their composer, Rick. Janie also made doing business with them fun.
“Janie tells me you’re single,” Xavier said handing me a salsa dipped chip.
“Yeah, I’m divorced…”
“…eight months ago…I can’t even remember her name,” the inner voice jokingly finished.
She laughed at my inner voice’s joke. I was losing her already and it wasn’t even to some other guy, it was to another voice.
I saw those blues eyes pierce me. If I could only shut me up. This was one encounter I did not want to blow. I began struggling to say things that were simple and not open-ended.
“Oh, I love this song,” she said. Someone had just put Golden Earring’s “Radar Love” on. “Wanna dance.”
“Uh…”
“…absolutely.”
Now wait a minute, you can’t dance to “Radar Love” but I give my inner voice a lot of credit, it…I jumped at the offer and here I was shakin’ and groovin’ on an old uneven hardwood floor with Xavier. It was then that I began to really notice her short black dress, one piece cut low to reveal abundant cleavage. She was as agile as a tightrope walker in her high-healed, open toed shoes. It was as if Xavier had attended some charm school where she mastered the graceful flow of impractical women’s footwear.
“You dance great!”
“Love your dress,” I heard my inner voice say.
“You’re very smooth, I’ll bet you could do a cart wheel…right here in the living room.” There was a mischievous sparkle in her eye.
“Oh, no…I…”
“…Certainly can.” Shut-up! My inner voice was going to embarrass me for sure.
I stopped dancing.
“No, I mean, I can, but doctors advise against it,” I said as damage control. “Too, dangerous. A lot of head injuries you know…people getting half way and then—BOOM—they hit their head and are out cold. For weeks…like a coma.”
I waited for me to say more. I think I actually caught my inner voice off guard.
“You know, Janie was right about you. You’re not like other guys…there’s something inside you.”
I smiled uncomfortably, she got that right.
Janie and Bogart returned with a plastic Dominick’s bag. It was characteristic Janie who, at the threshold lifted her shred-tee for a nano-second glimpse of her perfect breasts. She picked me out of the crowd as she pulled her shirt back down.
“David, darlink,” she said with a faux Natasha voice as she leaped the three giant steps from the door to hug me. The plastic grocery bag flew around my neck and something solid hit me hard on the right shoulder blade. That was gonna leave a mark.
“I see you’ve already met Xavier…isn’t she special?”
“You were right, Janie, he’s cute and funny.”
I was never much for compliments, no matter how sincere they always came off insincere.
“Good to see you, Janie.”
“Thanks for inviting me,” my inner voiced still needed to be heard.
Janie turned to Bogart, but he was already in the kitchen rolling a huge joint and holding a long-neck Bud.
“Boggie,” Janie yelled. “You promised me…where’s my beer?”
“Right here,” he said gesturing with the elbow of the hindered hand so as not to disturb the delicate rolling process.
“I’m so glad you came,” Janie said turning back to me. “Let me put this sour cream down and we’ll get drunk. Oh, did you meet Diane? In the bedroom? She’s doing temporary tattoos tonight.”
With that Janie was gone. Xavier pulled the strap of her dress down revealing the top of her right breast and a spiral sun tattoo that looked like a crop circle.
“If you got one on left side,” she said placing her hand over my left chest. “We’d match up when we…dance.” Her eyes just kept twinkling.
“Show me the way.”
“Now you’re talkin’,” my inner voice said to me.
Diane was just starting on a halo around a young woman’s navel when we walked in. She was an older artist with the bright red straps of her bra hanging out of her cut down black tee-shirt that must have had over 500 safety pins adorning it in neat premeditated rows. Her red dyed hair matched the straps except for gray strands ran through it like irregularly placed ribbons that seemed like artistically planned chaos. Diane couldn’t move her thin arms without sending up an alarm due to the near wrist to elbow beads and bracelets. Looking up to greet us as we creaked our way into the bedroom I noticed several eyebrow piercing, a nose ring and one entire ear festooned with hoops, dangling bobs and a monkey clinging to a vine that swung from her lobe. The woman had more metal than most Detroit cars today. A lone pin on her shirt red: SAVE THE ENVIRONMENT.
It struck me as I watched her that artists seem to pierced everything, dye their hair unnatural colors and dress like distressed highway billboards, yet insisted that the rest of us accept nature as it is and leave it alone.
Xavier took a seat at the end of the bed and I joined her. Together we watched as the temporary tattoo made its debut on a young flat tummy.
“What do you want to get?” Xavier asked excitedly as she picked up three-ring binder of selections.
“I don’t know…”
“…what do you think?” I heard me say jumping on my indecision.
“I think you should get a Celtic cross. It would be the perfect complement to my Druid Sun.”
“I don’t know…I’m really not religious…”
“If you like the cross, then that’s what it will be,” echoed from inside me cutting off my hesitation.
I stopped myself. “Wait, I said, I’m not sure…I don’t know what I want.”
“Okay, that’s fine we can look at others,” Xavier said not wanting to get in the middle of an argument.
“She likes the cross,” my inner voice tried to explain. “I think it’s cool…I think she’s cool…I say get the cross.”
“Shut-up, I just want to think about it is all,” I tried to reason with myself.
“I didn’t say anything,” Xavier said.
The artist just smiled. She was following my inner dialogue.
“No, Xavier…I’m sorry, I was thinking out loud,” I said softly trying to mend this awkward dialogue.
“Thinking out loud? Listen, it’s all this excuse making that’s gonna blow it for you with this babe.” My inner voice thrusted to my parry.
Now I was getting upset. There was no reason to bring Xavier into my inner conflict. Just then, Janie walked in.
“Hey Diane, gonna give David, here, a big skull and cross bones?” she said jokingly sitting down to make a sandwich of me.
Diane looked up from her one of the few works of art that would leave her. “I think a Ying and Yang would be perfect.”
Xavier sat, her palms out behind her on the old colorful quilt that Janie said was her grandmother’s, but really came from a rummage sale. Janie took the black binder from me.
“Ying and Yang are in the back,” Diane said not taking her eyes from the supple navel that was her canvas.
“You don’t strike me as a Ying kinda guy,” Janie said. I looked back at Xavier.
“What did you get?” I let my inner voice ask.
She pulled down her shoulder strap again revealing the tattoo as well as the edge of her areola.
I felt myself quiver. I heard my inner voice say: “Whoa.”
Janie was quick to notice. “You’re showing us your nipple, Xav.”
“Oh,” she said looking down but not attempting to cover up. She then pulled her strap back to her shoulder and looked mischievously at me.
“I didn’t see anything, really.”
“The hell we didn’t…”
That is it. I could see where this was going and it had to stop.
“I’m done with you,” I told myself. “That’s it…shut-up or I’m leaving.”
“Me shut-up…I’m out here flirting while you keep staring at her tits. Come on man, she digs you and you’re acting like a pubescent teen.” My inner voice was taking a stand.
Diane stopped. Janie looked up from the binder. Xavier’s eyes lost their sparkle.
“You are out of line. You can think what you want but you don’t have to say it…” I was staring out into space, but my focus was inward.
“What, you know what you want…just listen to yourself. But no, you have to keep putting yourself off. Making small talk instead of taking chances. Geeze, you’re never gonna get laid if you keep this up.”
I wasn’t sure what I meant, but I knew that if I kept talking to myself all I could hope for from this evening was a straight jacket. I wanted to get to know Xavier but I didn’t want to come on too strong. As if I was reading my own mind, my inner dialogue picked up again.
“You don’t want to come on too strong? Right now you’re not even in the right area code for the mildly feeble. Shit, you’re so boring I don’t even wanna talk to you.”
“Then shut-up!” I shouted.
The woman with the belly tattoo in progress excused herself. Diane looked at me stunned. Janie shook her head. I couldn’t bring myself to look at Xavier.
“Man, did you smoke some of Boggie’s weed? You’re totally out of control, dude,” Janie said shifting slightly to look into my eyes.
I broke down.
“I’m not smokin’ anything. I’ve been having this argument with my inner voice for months now. Nothing ever seems to be working out for me.”
“I think I need a beer,” Xavier said and got up and headed out of the bedroom.
“I could use one, too,” Diane said and followed Xavier from the room.
“Work kind of stressing you out?” Janie put her hand on my shoulder.
“I guess…that must be it.”
“No that’s not it…I’m a nervous whimp.”
Finally, I sat silently looking around the low-budget decorating. I mean she actually uses a lava lamp as a source of light. That and Italian Christmas light stapled to the crown molding. It was then that I realized the queen-size mattress and box spring sat directly on the floor.
“I really thought you and Xavier would get along. She just moved her from New York…she’s been absolutely great at the studio.” Janie was really trying, but I was afraid to say anything.
Finally, “I…I think she’s…”
“Oh come on,” the inner me blurted out. “You dig her. But if you’re gonna be such a wimp nothing’s gonna happen.”
“Okay, David, who are you talking to…me or…or you? This is too weird.” Janie got up to go.
“Wait, Janie…I’m sorry I don’t know what’s going on. Lately I’ve been having these conversations with myself. I used to think they were silent, you know, internal. But I guess they’re not…”
“Oh, she’s gonna think I’m nuts now.”
“See, see that wasn’t me…but it came from me…but that’s what I was thinking. You know, the stuff you’re not meant to say.”
Janie just looked at me. My inner voice continued:
“Who says you can’t say it? Maybe we’d all be better off if we just said what was on our mind instead of hiding inside our heads.”
“No,” Janie said. “You have to keep some things to yourself. That’s the editing process. If you don’t edit, you just spout crap…like you’re doing.”
“Oh great now she thinks I spout crap.” I put my hand over my mouth. I watched Janie as she walked to the door but before she could open it, the door swung open.
“I’ve got a lot of customers out here waiting for tattoos,” Diane said holding a can of beer. “Is your group therapy about over?”
Janie looked back at me. Diane stared in at me. Xavier was nowhere to be seen.
“Maybe I should go…” I waited for myself to chime in. Nothing came.
Diane pushed her way in and stood beside Janie. Interesting how both women were strongly artistic, yet Diane went out of her way to show it, while Janie relied on her virtual acceptance of just about everything—including her lifestyle which sometimes brought another woman to share her bed with Bogart. How was it that she could be intimate with more than one person at a time, but a person could not be more than one person at a time?
“I’m going to check on Boggie…I hope you don’t leave but you’ve got to straighten out your head.” Janie left the bedroom. Diane walked over to me and sat back down on her little artist stool. Our knees almost touched.
She pulled a Celtic cross from her file and gestured for me to open my bowling shirt. Her bony fingers felt like delicate tools as she applied the henna tattoo to my left chest.
“I know what’s going on,” She said. “I do.”
Something didn’t click just then.
“Your emotional distress looked for comfort and turned inward. Now, you’re blaming yourself for the distress.” She smiled at me. I couldn’t help imagining that Diane would be crashing here tonight fulfilling the Bogart, Janie triangle. But for some reason I didn’t say it. “You’ve let your inner voice out of its box and it wants to live as your real voice.”
“How do you know?”
“Yeah, what makes you the expert?” I shock my head at my own forwardness.
“Because I used to have two voices,” she said. Then added with a wink, “And sometimes I still do.”
“What did you do…” I said almost in unison with my inner voice.
The door opened and a young couple poked their heads in.
“Tattoo time?” he said as she giggled.
“You’re next, come on in,” Diane said before looking back at me with her deep black eyes. Yes, I mean black, she wore these black contact lenses on purpose. She refocused on finishing up my temporary cross.
“Ignore it…it’s like an inner child, it will eventually go out and play by itself. But be attentive to it, inner voices have a way of uncovering your soul.”
“Is that what you did?” I asked standing up to make room for the couple that eagerly wanted to adorn themselves.
“No…my inner voice is my critic. Like her or not, she knows good art.” Diane smiled. She’d finish the Celtic cross and looked me in the eye approving her work.
“I want a butterfly…what are you gonna get?” the young blonde asked.
“A heart with Debbie in it…” They cooed and knocked heads.
I slid ten dollars into her fedora tip basket. She reached out to my hand.
“It’s all part of life,” she said. “Listen to yourself…we all have critics…we just can’t let them live our lives. But sometimes they give us direction.”
I grabbed my second loose doorknob of the night and left Diane to her art. The living room had filled considerably both with people and dissonance. Someone had turned on a disco ball that was reflecting another set of Italian lights around the room like snowflakes. Xavier held a plastic cup of beer and a wedge of cheese. Three clean cut Porche-types fluttered around her like moths to a porch lamp. She causally looked away catching my eye.
She wants to be rescued, I told myself without uttering a word. I swallowed hard and tasted confidence. I looked at the perfect haircuts atop empty voices and realized that it wasn’t about looks, it was about self-assurance. It was the inner me that made me real. I walked up to Xavier. She watched me, the boys ignored me.
“Need a beer?” I asked seeing her filled glass.
“Yeah…yeah I do,” Xavier said with a smile. “Excuse me boys, I need to get fresh.”
She took my arm and we walked into the kitchen that was still filled with the sweet scent of Bogart’s joint.
“Thanks, they were so boring. You feeling better?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I just had to get some things straight in my head.”
She handed me a beer fresh from the pump. “Good, then we can start having some fun…I need someone who’s got a life inside ‘em.”
I pulled open my bar-issued, black bowling shirt from Southport Lanes to reveal the Celtic cross over my left breast. “What about on the outside?”
Xavier’s eyes flashed as a mischievous smile slowly curved across her face.
We danced, karaoked and laughed like the entire world was a comedy. It was early Sunday before the party thinned out. Xavier and I said goodbye to Janie, Bogart and Diane.
Outside, the pre-dawn air was cool and fresh without cigarette smoke. Xavier and I walked to the corner to grab a cab back to my place. As we passed a small patch of grass I did a cartwheel falling on my ass at the end. Her laughter, and shear delight of her eyes it will live with me forever. As will the tiny voice inside me that said, “nice job.”
(From the collection of short stories: “Not In Your Life”)
My inner voice was upset. I thought I could say anything to myself, but it turns out, on the inside, I’m thin skinned. I’m not sure when my inner voice turned on me, but with all the contempt of a jilted lover, I lashed out at myself. Now, as I rode the El in silence, I was afraid to say anything to anyone fearing a reprisal from myself. Standing mute, I grasped the overhead rail to steady myself around the North Avenue curve. My eyes caught a glimpse of my thin arms.
“You need to workout,” I heard myself say. But I ignored me. I was always trying to get at myself. My ex-wife had constantly criticized me about everything including gaining a little weight. The inner voice was disappointed when we split up…it often agreed with her criticisms.
My inner voice and I argued constantly over the divorce. For every reason I had for moving on, I would counter with a shortcoming that furthered the tumult. This went on for several months after the divorce until in a crowded theater, the emotional volcano erupted.
“I’m through!” I shouted and stormed out.
Out in the lobby, I faced myself in a showdown.
“You can’t shut me off. I’m you! I’m your deepest, most inner self. You can’t ignore me…and you’re not gonna get rid of me like a bad marriage.” My inner voice planted its feet.
“Shut-up, shut-up?” I told myself not caring that people were beginning to stare. “I don’t need this now. Goddamn, you’re so insensitive.”
“Well suck it up, big boy. Just because you’re insecure doesn’t mean I don’t have a right to speak your mind,” the inner voice raised. “Fuck you. You could have done more to save the marriage. But no…now look at you, alone in a theater like a loser. And Madellyn would have liked this movie.”
“Stop it. I know I did everything I could… Madellyn left me…remember?” A mother pulled her young children away.
“Well, maybe if you’d listened to me for a change Madellyn would still be here. And we’d be enjoying this movie…” My inner voice crossed its arms and pouted.
About this time the theater manager came up to me and explained that I was disturbing the other moviegoers. Hell, I was disturbing myself.
I was trying to keep my voices down—even silence them—but it was always there, hiding just out of sight like a conscience.
I walked into the summer night’s air and was immediately engulfed by the traffic, crowds and commotion of Chicago’s Michigan Avenue. Despite the cacophony, all I could hear was my inner voice berating me.
“Oh you’ll never date again…no one could ever like you…lose some weight…god you look hideous in that color.” It just never seemed to end. I walked home, dejected.
That was over a month ago and even though I had accepted my vocal inner voice, I was finding it exceedingly hard to live with. Now, on the train heading to Janie’s party and all I could do was remind myself that I have scrawny arms.
The night was cool for a July in Chicago, perfect for Janie’s Bastille Day Party. Ironically, she wasn’t French, it just seemed that decapitation was a good excuse for a party, at least to her way of thinking. Janie was a sales rep for one of the many vendors the ad agency I worked for used. But she always seemed to bring her work relationships to a personal level and we became almost instant friends. Even my inner voice liked her, though seemed a bit cooled by her boyfriend, Bogart. He was as unpredictable as Crispin Glover—his every movement was a convulsion of flaying arms and legs.
With all this self-doubt flaring up lately, I was reluctant to go out, but I sold myself on the need to have a decent conversation with some one, anyone other than myself. Besides, Janie had promised there’d be tons of babes at her party. Given her intimate knowledge of the Chicago advertising scene, I was confident there would be plenty of “attractive” people in attendance.
I reached the gray door of Janie’s three flat and buzzed 2S.
“Bonjour, welcome to Janie’s…” a static voice said. It wasn’t Janie, but she sounded cute. Already this evening was getting better.
“Hi, it’s David,” I said.
“Hello,” the inner voice chimed in.
“Great come on up.” The unlock buzzer jolted the doorknob.
I loved these old Chicago walkups. The stairs were worn and creaked, they usually had a musty smell to them and the hallway carpet was bristly like a wall-to-wall Brillo pad. The door at the top of the stairs had an old brass ‘2S’ that was nearly completely covered by layers of gray paint. The door was also ajar and I grabbed the wobbly, baseball size knob and pushed. I could hear the Kid Rock’s “I Wanna Be A Cowboy” from the street, but now, inside, it was as if I’d stepped into the concert. I was met at the door by a stunning woman every inch as tall as me with perfect complexion and very long, jet black hair that seemed to dance all on its own. She could have been, should have been a model. Every curve was geometrically perfect. Her deep, dark blue eyes grabbed me and held me like a mother to a babe. She extended the most perfect long, thin arm offering me her hand. I wanted more.
“I’m Xavier,” her perfect voice sang. It was the voice from the entry buzzer without the static or distance. It was everything I could do to keep myself from saying Hollander?
“Xavier Mordarician…I know, it’s Turkish…everybody asks.”
“Hi…I’m David…” I said taking her hand.
“…Janie’s friend.” my inner voice seemed to always need the last word.
“Yes, Janie told me about you…you’re a creative director at Ogilvy & Mather?”
“Yes...”
“…that’s right.” Again with the last word.
“Well, Janie asked me to baby sit you in case you got here before she got back,” Xavier said as she took my elbow and lead me into the room. “She and Bogart went to get some thing for the dip.”
This kind of thing just doesn’t happen to me. If this were a sock hop, I’d usually end up near the shoe pile trying to match the dancers with their foot wear—with relative accuracy. There was definitely chemistry here. It was as if she could read my thoughts…before my inner voice said them. There was a rhythm to our conversation, even the pauses seem comfortable and planned.
“And what do you do, Xavier?” I asked thrilled by her nearness.
“How do you know Janie?” My inner voice butted in. I wanted it out of the conversation.
“I work with her, I’m Lizard Scales new office manager.”
Lizard Scales was a music house that produced sound tracks for TV and radio commercials. I’d worked with them on several campaigns and liked their composer, Rick. Janie also made doing business with them fun.
“Janie tells me you’re single,” Xavier said handing me a salsa dipped chip.
“Yeah, I’m divorced…”
“…eight months ago…I can’t even remember her name,” the inner voice jokingly finished.
She laughed at my inner voice’s joke. I was losing her already and it wasn’t even to some other guy, it was to another voice.
I saw those blues eyes pierce me. If I could only shut me up. This was one encounter I did not want to blow. I began struggling to say things that were simple and not open-ended.
“Oh, I love this song,” she said. Someone had just put Golden Earring’s “Radar Love” on. “Wanna dance.”
“Uh…”
“…absolutely.”
Now wait a minute, you can’t dance to “Radar Love” but I give my inner voice a lot of credit, it…I jumped at the offer and here I was shakin’ and groovin’ on an old uneven hardwood floor with Xavier. It was then that I began to really notice her short black dress, one piece cut low to reveal abundant cleavage. She was as agile as a tightrope walker in her high-healed, open toed shoes. It was as if Xavier had attended some charm school where she mastered the graceful flow of impractical women’s footwear.
“You dance great!”
“Love your dress,” I heard my inner voice say.
“You’re very smooth, I’ll bet you could do a cart wheel…right here in the living room.” There was a mischievous sparkle in her eye.
“Oh, no…I…”
“…Certainly can.” Shut-up! My inner voice was going to embarrass me for sure.
I stopped dancing.
“No, I mean, I can, but doctors advise against it,” I said as damage control. “Too, dangerous. A lot of head injuries you know…people getting half way and then—BOOM—they hit their head and are out cold. For weeks…like a coma.”
I waited for me to say more. I think I actually caught my inner voice off guard.
“You know, Janie was right about you. You’re not like other guys…there’s something inside you.”
I smiled uncomfortably, she got that right.
Janie and Bogart returned with a plastic Dominick’s bag. It was characteristic Janie who, at the threshold lifted her shred-tee for a nano-second glimpse of her perfect breasts. She picked me out of the crowd as she pulled her shirt back down.
“David, darlink,” she said with a faux Natasha voice as she leaped the three giant steps from the door to hug me. The plastic grocery bag flew around my neck and something solid hit me hard on the right shoulder blade. That was gonna leave a mark.
“I see you’ve already met Xavier…isn’t she special?”
“You were right, Janie, he’s cute and funny.”
I was never much for compliments, no matter how sincere they always came off insincere.
“Good to see you, Janie.”
“Thanks for inviting me,” my inner voiced still needed to be heard.
Janie turned to Bogart, but he was already in the kitchen rolling a huge joint and holding a long-neck Bud.
“Boggie,” Janie yelled. “You promised me…where’s my beer?”
“Right here,” he said gesturing with the elbow of the hindered hand so as not to disturb the delicate rolling process.
“I’m so glad you came,” Janie said turning back to me. “Let me put this sour cream down and we’ll get drunk. Oh, did you meet Diane? In the bedroom? She’s doing temporary tattoos tonight.”
With that Janie was gone. Xavier pulled the strap of her dress down revealing the top of her right breast and a spiral sun tattoo that looked like a crop circle.
“If you got one on left side,” she said placing her hand over my left chest. “We’d match up when we…dance.” Her eyes just kept twinkling.
“Show me the way.”
“Now you’re talkin’,” my inner voice said to me.
Diane was just starting on a halo around a young woman’s navel when we walked in. She was an older artist with the bright red straps of her bra hanging out of her cut down black tee-shirt that must have had over 500 safety pins adorning it in neat premeditated rows. Her red dyed hair matched the straps except for gray strands ran through it like irregularly placed ribbons that seemed like artistically planned chaos. Diane couldn’t move her thin arms without sending up an alarm due to the near wrist to elbow beads and bracelets. Looking up to greet us as we creaked our way into the bedroom I noticed several eyebrow piercing, a nose ring and one entire ear festooned with hoops, dangling bobs and a monkey clinging to a vine that swung from her lobe. The woman had more metal than most Detroit cars today. A lone pin on her shirt red: SAVE THE ENVIRONMENT.
It struck me as I watched her that artists seem to pierced everything, dye their hair unnatural colors and dress like distressed highway billboards, yet insisted that the rest of us accept nature as it is and leave it alone.
Xavier took a seat at the end of the bed and I joined her. Together we watched as the temporary tattoo made its debut on a young flat tummy.
“What do you want to get?” Xavier asked excitedly as she picked up three-ring binder of selections.
“I don’t know…”
“…what do you think?” I heard me say jumping on my indecision.
“I think you should get a Celtic cross. It would be the perfect complement to my Druid Sun.”
“I don’t know…I’m really not religious…”
“If you like the cross, then that’s what it will be,” echoed from inside me cutting off my hesitation.
I stopped myself. “Wait, I said, I’m not sure…I don’t know what I want.”
“Okay, that’s fine we can look at others,” Xavier said not wanting to get in the middle of an argument.
“She likes the cross,” my inner voice tried to explain. “I think it’s cool…I think she’s cool…I say get the cross.”
“Shut-up, I just want to think about it is all,” I tried to reason with myself.
“I didn’t say anything,” Xavier said.
The artist just smiled. She was following my inner dialogue.
“No, Xavier…I’m sorry, I was thinking out loud,” I said softly trying to mend this awkward dialogue.
“Thinking out loud? Listen, it’s all this excuse making that’s gonna blow it for you with this babe.” My inner voice thrusted to my parry.
Now I was getting upset. There was no reason to bring Xavier into my inner conflict. Just then, Janie walked in.
“Hey Diane, gonna give David, here, a big skull and cross bones?” she said jokingly sitting down to make a sandwich of me.
Diane looked up from her one of the few works of art that would leave her. “I think a Ying and Yang would be perfect.”
Xavier sat, her palms out behind her on the old colorful quilt that Janie said was her grandmother’s, but really came from a rummage sale. Janie took the black binder from me.
“Ying and Yang are in the back,” Diane said not taking her eyes from the supple navel that was her canvas.
“You don’t strike me as a Ying kinda guy,” Janie said. I looked back at Xavier.
“What did you get?” I let my inner voice ask.
She pulled down her shoulder strap again revealing the tattoo as well as the edge of her areola.
I felt myself quiver. I heard my inner voice say: “Whoa.”
Janie was quick to notice. “You’re showing us your nipple, Xav.”
“Oh,” she said looking down but not attempting to cover up. She then pulled her strap back to her shoulder and looked mischievously at me.
“I didn’t see anything, really.”
“The hell we didn’t…”
That is it. I could see where this was going and it had to stop.
“I’m done with you,” I told myself. “That’s it…shut-up or I’m leaving.”
“Me shut-up…I’m out here flirting while you keep staring at her tits. Come on man, she digs you and you’re acting like a pubescent teen.” My inner voice was taking a stand.
Diane stopped. Janie looked up from the binder. Xavier’s eyes lost their sparkle.
“You are out of line. You can think what you want but you don’t have to say it…” I was staring out into space, but my focus was inward.
“What, you know what you want…just listen to yourself. But no, you have to keep putting yourself off. Making small talk instead of taking chances. Geeze, you’re never gonna get laid if you keep this up.”
I wasn’t sure what I meant, but I knew that if I kept talking to myself all I could hope for from this evening was a straight jacket. I wanted to get to know Xavier but I didn’t want to come on too strong. As if I was reading my own mind, my inner dialogue picked up again.
“You don’t want to come on too strong? Right now you’re not even in the right area code for the mildly feeble. Shit, you’re so boring I don’t even wanna talk to you.”
“Then shut-up!” I shouted.
The woman with the belly tattoo in progress excused herself. Diane looked at me stunned. Janie shook her head. I couldn’t bring myself to look at Xavier.
“Man, did you smoke some of Boggie’s weed? You’re totally out of control, dude,” Janie said shifting slightly to look into my eyes.
I broke down.
“I’m not smokin’ anything. I’ve been having this argument with my inner voice for months now. Nothing ever seems to be working out for me.”
“I think I need a beer,” Xavier said and got up and headed out of the bedroom.
“I could use one, too,” Diane said and followed Xavier from the room.
“Work kind of stressing you out?” Janie put her hand on my shoulder.
“I guess…that must be it.”
“No that’s not it…I’m a nervous whimp.”
Finally, I sat silently looking around the low-budget decorating. I mean she actually uses a lava lamp as a source of light. That and Italian Christmas light stapled to the crown molding. It was then that I realized the queen-size mattress and box spring sat directly on the floor.
“I really thought you and Xavier would get along. She just moved her from New York…she’s been absolutely great at the studio.” Janie was really trying, but I was afraid to say anything.
Finally, “I…I think she’s…”
“Oh come on,” the inner me blurted out. “You dig her. But if you’re gonna be such a wimp nothing’s gonna happen.”
“Okay, David, who are you talking to…me or…or you? This is too weird.” Janie got up to go.
“Wait, Janie…I’m sorry I don’t know what’s going on. Lately I’ve been having these conversations with myself. I used to think they were silent, you know, internal. But I guess they’re not…”
“Oh, she’s gonna think I’m nuts now.”
“See, see that wasn’t me…but it came from me…but that’s what I was thinking. You know, the stuff you’re not meant to say.”
Janie just looked at me. My inner voice continued:
“Who says you can’t say it? Maybe we’d all be better off if we just said what was on our mind instead of hiding inside our heads.”
“No,” Janie said. “You have to keep some things to yourself. That’s the editing process. If you don’t edit, you just spout crap…like you’re doing.”
“Oh great now she thinks I spout crap.” I put my hand over my mouth. I watched Janie as she walked to the door but before she could open it, the door swung open.
“I’ve got a lot of customers out here waiting for tattoos,” Diane said holding a can of beer. “Is your group therapy about over?”
Janie looked back at me. Diane stared in at me. Xavier was nowhere to be seen.
“Maybe I should go…” I waited for myself to chime in. Nothing came.
Diane pushed her way in and stood beside Janie. Interesting how both women were strongly artistic, yet Diane went out of her way to show it, while Janie relied on her virtual acceptance of just about everything—including her lifestyle which sometimes brought another woman to share her bed with Bogart. How was it that she could be intimate with more than one person at a time, but a person could not be more than one person at a time?
“I’m going to check on Boggie…I hope you don’t leave but you’ve got to straighten out your head.” Janie left the bedroom. Diane walked over to me and sat back down on her little artist stool. Our knees almost touched.
She pulled a Celtic cross from her file and gestured for me to open my bowling shirt. Her bony fingers felt like delicate tools as she applied the henna tattoo to my left chest.
“I know what’s going on,” She said. “I do.”
Something didn’t click just then.
“Your emotional distress looked for comfort and turned inward. Now, you’re blaming yourself for the distress.” She smiled at me. I couldn’t help imagining that Diane would be crashing here tonight fulfilling the Bogart, Janie triangle. But for some reason I didn’t say it. “You’ve let your inner voice out of its box and it wants to live as your real voice.”
“How do you know?”
“Yeah, what makes you the expert?” I shock my head at my own forwardness.
“Because I used to have two voices,” she said. Then added with a wink, “And sometimes I still do.”
“What did you do…” I said almost in unison with my inner voice.
The door opened and a young couple poked their heads in.
“Tattoo time?” he said as she giggled.
“You’re next, come on in,” Diane said before looking back at me with her deep black eyes. Yes, I mean black, she wore these black contact lenses on purpose. She refocused on finishing up my temporary cross.
“Ignore it…it’s like an inner child, it will eventually go out and play by itself. But be attentive to it, inner voices have a way of uncovering your soul.”
“Is that what you did?” I asked standing up to make room for the couple that eagerly wanted to adorn themselves.
“No…my inner voice is my critic. Like her or not, she knows good art.” Diane smiled. She’d finish the Celtic cross and looked me in the eye approving her work.
“I want a butterfly…what are you gonna get?” the young blonde asked.
“A heart with Debbie in it…” They cooed and knocked heads.
I slid ten dollars into her fedora tip basket. She reached out to my hand.
“It’s all part of life,” she said. “Listen to yourself…we all have critics…we just can’t let them live our lives. But sometimes they give us direction.”
I grabbed my second loose doorknob of the night and left Diane to her art. The living room had filled considerably both with people and dissonance. Someone had turned on a disco ball that was reflecting another set of Italian lights around the room like snowflakes. Xavier held a plastic cup of beer and a wedge of cheese. Three clean cut Porche-types fluttered around her like moths to a porch lamp. She causally looked away catching my eye.
She wants to be rescued, I told myself without uttering a word. I swallowed hard and tasted confidence. I looked at the perfect haircuts atop empty voices and realized that it wasn’t about looks, it was about self-assurance. It was the inner me that made me real. I walked up to Xavier. She watched me, the boys ignored me.
“Need a beer?” I asked seeing her filled glass.
“Yeah…yeah I do,” Xavier said with a smile. “Excuse me boys, I need to get fresh.”
She took my arm and we walked into the kitchen that was still filled with the sweet scent of Bogart’s joint.
“Thanks, they were so boring. You feeling better?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I just had to get some things straight in my head.”
She handed me a beer fresh from the pump. “Good, then we can start having some fun…I need someone who’s got a life inside ‘em.”
I pulled open my bar-issued, black bowling shirt from Southport Lanes to reveal the Celtic cross over my left breast. “What about on the outside?”
Xavier’s eyes flashed as a mischievous smile slowly curved across her face.
We danced, karaoked and laughed like the entire world was a comedy. It was early Sunday before the party thinned out. Xavier and I said goodbye to Janie, Bogart and Diane.
Outside, the pre-dawn air was cool and fresh without cigarette smoke. Xavier and I walked to the corner to grab a cab back to my place. As we passed a small patch of grass I did a cartwheel falling on my ass at the end. Her laughter, and shear delight of her eyes it will live with me forever. As will the tiny voice inside me that said, “nice job.”
Matchme.com
by David M. Howell ©2003
(From the collection of short stories: “Not In Your Life”)
What’s going on out there? Many of my friends, now entering the single scene for the second or third time, have repeatedly asked me this question. Having written on dating after divorce (see “Soul Mate Survivor” 1999) I thought it was time to revisit the subject to see how the Internet has changed things. It was eye opening.
When I first started exploring the dating scene after divorce seven years ago, the Internet was too new and many of the dating sites were raw and unrefined. Today, dating services seem antiquated, personals come across as desperate and the only people my friends can introduce me to are their baby sitters. Online dating seems to be the answer.
So who’s on line? What are they looking for? And how easy is it really to meet your future SO?
I was about to find out. Now, for privacy reasons, I’ve changed all of the names, including the service I joined. What’s unchanged are the profiles, my inquiries and the responses they generated.
For a mere 26 bucks, I joined Matchme.com with all the anticipation of a schoolboy expecting to be picked first for a dodge ball team. This was going to be great, women who have outlined their wants and needs matched up to my wants and needs. I registered as: citykidchicago. Now, I know I’m going to get a lot of hits because of this article. Probably some death threats as well. But dating is risky in this day and age. And writing about it even riskier.
Here’s the study. I approached this like a party scene. If a woman—or in this case here profile—caught my eye, I responded. Like the party scenario, I tried to introduce myself in the least, non-threatening way. Innocent, just testing the waters, kind of messages. I sent out 30 introductions. I only heard back from 5 women. That means that at the Matchme.com party, 25 women rudely turned their backs and walked away without saying a word. Ouch, now that made me feel rejected. That is until I started actually getting responses. For sake of space and time, I will focus only on those who responded. First, here’s me:
MATCHME: citykidchicago
Laughing Matters
Second City grad, dabbled in standup, I've made a career out of comedy and writing. Quirky, funny I'm always looking for the subtle differences in things. There's comedy everywhere and I choose to see the humor in life. I'm comfortable with long walks, biking and camping. Basically, outdoor activities are my preference, but I can and do dress up for charity events and romantic evenings out. I love Celtic music and can often be found at the Irish Oak taking in a weekend band. I'm looking for someone who lives for the now and isn't afraid of life. I'm sensitive, caring and enjoy a good conversation as much as I do just quite contemplation. Life's entertaining, let's go have some fun.
Here’s who I’m looking for:
Who are you?
You love life and laughing. You are capable of seeing the lighter side of things and don't take yourself too seriously. Spontaneity is a way of life. You have a common sense about you. Saturday mornings can mean anything from a drive to the country to quite coffee in a cafe. From biking along the lakefront to just curling up and talking. You're well read but not necessarily contemporary fiction, you love history and non-fiction. A good conversation fascinates you. You do your own thing and at the same time appreciate the company of your SO. You're not afraid of intimacy while at the same time respect yourself and your partner. You appreciate honesty and expect the same in return.
Yeah, pedestrian, but my intent was to be broad and at the same time honest about what I enjoy and appreciate. Now there’s also a questionnaire that covers a variety of points too numerous to mention. Salary, political and religious views, kids/no kids, height, body style. The kind of standard stuff that you can either see or take in within a short conversation at a party. There’s also a picture. Yep, I put one up. Not necessarily the most flattering, but not that bad either. It was a wintertime pool party at Corner Pocket (on Halsted—great bar, fun people). I was sporting a beard at the time (now gone) and am dressed casually. I could have used a shot of me in a tux accepting a creative award for writing taken two months later, but that seemed pretentious.
I decided to let Matchme.com’s “connect” service pick the most likely matches. I got 12 pages of ten matches each—pretty impressive for a 10-mile radius of my ZIP code. The service also gave me a percentage of match, the highest being 100% and dropping off to around 82%. Since I was putting a picture out there I decided to only answer those who had the courage to do the same.
What follows then are the top people I selected as a good match. I have not altered their profiles. Misspellings, run-on sentences and grammar are all left as I found them.
My first page of 10 revealed one very cute smile.
MATCHME: singular614:
Make me laugh
I love to laugh until my belly aches. I'm appropiate almost all of the time, but once in a while the sillyrebellious side can sneak out and do the unexpected. So, don't be surprised, just go with it and it'll be a lot of fun. I'm a mix between the East and the West, motion and rest, impulsive and reflective. I'm sincere and true to myself and try to do the right thing and be a good person. So, if you like the versatility and the range and not afraid to be a bit outside of the box, we should talk.
Who are you?
I know that my soulmate and Prince Charming is out there, he's just a little "directionally challenged" and hasn't found me yet. He is in touch with his feelings and not afraid to communicate them. He wellcomes changes but his integrity does not falter. He communicates with an intend to understand rather than dissect and analyze. Etc..
I decided “singular614” would be my first response. She certainly sounded like fun and from her picture, she was really cute. Yeah, this is a woman I want to meet.
REPLY: singular614
Your smile caught me. When I read your profile and realized you were all about the comedy, well I couldn’t resist. I’ve re-directed myself and am setting a course for a dialogue with you. I look forward to hearing from you.
David
All that was left was to hit the send key. My cursor hovered. I questioned myself. What are you doing? Is this really the way to meet women? There was only one way to find out. With a gentle push of my index finger I introduced myself to singular614. I anxiously waited for a reply. That was in May, at this writing in mid-July, I have yet to receive a response from singular614. Maybe her bellyache turned into something more severe.
But I wasn’t going to sit around and wait, I moved on to a delightful head of curls.
MATCHME: brbcdr
Independence Dame
Been a little cranky for a few years since that house fell on my sister. But, I am finally getting over it. I have been told by various men that I am very independent. And that I work and travel a lot. I live and work in the city, and am always up to something. I love my job and in my free time I love to cook, garden, spend time with friends, yoga and running and of course, the ultimate, shopping. I am not looking for a man to lean on, but, rather, someone who adds another dimension to my already happy life.
Who are you?
It's pretty important to me that you are not an ex-convict or on a current crime spree. Employed is generally a good thing too. Very important that you do not take yourself too seriously. I am seeking a male that is energetic, not needy, likes to spend time together but also independent. Someone who has his own life and interests, but would not mind adding something to them. Most importantly, I would like to meet someone who truly sees, appreciates and enjoys the funny and ironic sides of life.
She was a 100% match. I could do no better. brbcdr felt right. She was going to be the one.
REPLY: brbcdr
I have to admit you sound funny and energetic as well as independent. My only concern, how do you qualify “employed?” I’m a freelance writer…I only know I’m employed when the residual checks arrive. Other than that, no real criminal record to speak of, although I was considering a career in politics at one time…I’d love to hear from you…especially if I can buy your vote.
David
Not sidesplitting comedy, but it was charming. I was demonstrating a sense of humor. Little did I know I was opening the back door to some demonic charm school.
Two days later:
REPLY: citykidchicago
I went to your profile and the only thing funny I found was your picture. Why did you see us as a match anyway? Never mind, I jusst a soon not here from you again.
Ouch, I think I’ve just been rejected by a Manson Family member. Dignity prevented me from sending a follow up response, though I was itching to tell her that I saw us as a match because I was in dire need of some bitch to hen peck me for the rest of my life. I’d say the house fell on the wrong sister.
So much for the 100% matches. Maybe if I let my standards slip a notch to 99% I’d meet a normal woman who could appreciate a quick smile and witty repartee.
MATCHME: pstheresmore
More about the laughs
I love to laugh and have a very positive attitude about life. I am divorced with no children and work downtown. I love everything about the city - the restaurants, the culture (museums, galleries, opera etc), sporting events (I am a big baseball fan), outdoor dining, summer festivals and the lakefront. I enjoy good food and wine, trying new restaurants and new types of food. I try to stay healthy and work out 3/4 times per week, but I don't let it consume my life. I have a great sense of humor, can take it as well as I give it out. People say I am pretty easy to get along with and am usually smiling or laughing. Life is too short not to enjoy to the fullest - and I try to incorporate that philosophy into my life.
Who are you?
Someone who makes me laugh and knows how to treat a woman. Someone who makes the effort to take care of himself physically, yet can still have a good time. Someone who is comfortable dressing up to go to dinner, yet can throw on a pair of jeans to go to a ballgame. This person should also have a good sense of humor, like to have a good time and share my positive attitude about life.
She mentioned laughing or humor five times. Could this be the woman of my dreams? Judging by her picture, she’s very attractive and she seems like someone I could just hang with indefinitely.
REPLY: pstheresmore
It sounds like there’s a lot more! I really enjoyed reading your profile. I think if nothing else, we could begin a humorous email dialogue and see what evolves. I look forward to hearing from you as much as I look forward to hearing your laughter.
David
I didn’t have to wait long. But it wasn’t laughter I heard. Late in the afternoon I got this response.
REPLY: citykidchicago
Are you some kind of psycho? I read your profile and you didn’t mention a thing about baseball. How you could imagine that we could ever be a match is beyond me. Although, you did miss my laughter…when I looked at your picture.
Pandora lives! I’m starting to really develop a complex here. I’m now beginning to appreciate the rudeness of the majority of women who didn’t respond because they saved me from the agony of total, in your face rejection. It’s almost like I’ve selected abused women whose only goal is to inflict cruelty on all of mankind. The poor dumb bastard who ends up with one of these women has few choices beyond suicide. I mean, I’m really depressed about this. I’d rather join a holy order of celibate monks than respond to one more Internet Medusa.
I call my friend Cathy for a little pep talk.
“You’re not ugly, will you stop,” she says while preparing power point presentation for one of her marketing clients. “I have your picture in my office, from that time we took the boat cruise? Remember, the architectural thing-am-a-giggy?”
“That was fun…”
“Yeah, and you looked hot. David, listen these women are all psychos. Why else are they looking for their perfect Adonis online? Because they’ve pissed off all the men they’ve met in person.”
“Yeah, but they can’t all be bad…can they?”
“Listen, you want a woman to talk nicely to you, you want some one to appreciate who you are, to laugh at all your jokes?”
“Ideally…”
“Then call an escort service. You’ll spend less money ‘cause you won’t be blowing it on women who just want to see how much they can dig you for. And the sex will be better.”
“How do you know…”
“Would you hire an beautician to rewire your house? No, you want things done right you go to a specialist. Online dating is for shut-ins.”
Cathy always had a way of putting things succinctly. But I had the idea for this article and so pressed on.
This time I randomly selected someone by their picture. Superficial, yeah, but I learned from studying psychology that the universal rule isn’t “do unto others as you would have done on to you” but rather, “do on to others as you have had done on to you.” It was my turn to pick someone based solely on looks. And at the very top of the third page was a very attractive candidate.
Matchme: CiceroSiren
Open To Possibilities
I am open-minded, warm, friendly and compassionate. I'm a great listener and a loyal friend-always there for the important people in my life. I like witty conversation and challenging my mind and have a great sense of humor. I enjoy biking along the lakefront, going to movies (especially independent films), listening to live music, yoga and working out. I also enjoy eating at ethnic restaurants and I love to travel (last year I went to Hudson Bay and Equador and also spent a week skiing in Van Couver). My goal is to visit every county in the world at least once. I also like relaxing at home with a good book or a movie from Blockbuster. I grew up in Chicago and Los Angeles and also spent a semester living abroad in London during law school. If the opportunity presented itself I would love to live abroad again. I enjoy my work but I am willing to make room in my life for a relationship.
Who are you?
Someone who is adventurous, high-spirited, energetic and has a great sense of humor. He is also athletic, open-minded, intelligent and able to communicate his thoughts and feelings. He enjoys his work and his hobbies and has a positive attitude toward life. Someone who genuinely cares about other people and who is willing to make a relationship a priority in his life.
Though I didn’t believe she would ever actually visit every “county” in the world, she sounded interesting. Okay, she didn’t sound all that interesting but she at least didn’t sound like they type of woman who would be rude. She’s open minded…she was a goddamn lawyer. They’re never rude. She would at least respond politely.
REPLY: CiceroSiren
I have to admit, what caught my eye was your perfect smile. Going further to read your profile, I was intrigued by a woman of adventure. Well, this could be a fun escapade. I would like to get to know you better. I look forward to hearing from you.
David
I had decided that by ending every email with my name I was at least attempting to establish trust. By giving a prospect my name, I was revealing a little bit more about myself. Turns out, this had nothing to do about trust.
A reply arrived three days later.
REPLY: citykidchicago
Are you some down and out actor? Second City? Standup comedy? A writer? Your picture looks like your waiting tables somewhere. I deal with deadbeats everyday as a lawyer, I haven’t got time to date one. And your bald…where do you get off emailing me?
This from a lawyer? Hey, CiceroSiren, listen, take that huge paycheck you’re earning and run out and buy a dictionary! And while you’re at it, your grammar could use a bit of polishing. Something tells me you’re going to be spending a lot of time in divorce court pleading your own case. Look, I may be bald, but I’m not malicious. I’ll bet you run up to cripples and make fun of their wheelchairs.
One more chance…I decided to find one more person. Like Sodom and Gomorrah, I was determined to find one decent woman. She was out there I scrolled down the page.
I discovered Emily about half way down. She was only a 98% match but, well I’m a sucker for her name and I loved her photograph.
emily773
Are you up for the challenge?
I know who I am, what I want, and who I am looking for but that doesn't make expressing it any easier in this...hmmmm... uninspired online form. Friends describe me as sharp as a tack, quick on my feet, a charmer with an attitude...but, I get away with it because of my great smile and heart of gold. Actually, I consider myself grounded and passionate. I love the outdoors - hiking, camping, biking and spending time at the lakefront. I am a sort of twisted romantic...give me “When Harry Met Sally,” a glass of Merlot and a box of Raisenetts and I am in heaven. But leave it to Monty Python to bring out my devilish and slightly quirky sense of humor.
How she describes her ideal match.
Two important attributes of any date of mine must be intelligence and a sense of humor. We have varied interests but similar ideals. I am a true blue liberal and appreciate others with a penchant for a progressive and flexible worlview. If you think I am the wittiest person you've ever met, we'll get along just fine. Back on the subject of ideals...I enjoy meeting people who are kind, compassionate toward others, somewhat silly, passionate and persuasive, but not rigid in their opinions. I am looking for a partner in crime...a challenge...a spark.
I rolled the dice again. With fingers crossed, I typed my introduction.
REPLY: emily773
You want a sense of humor, you want intelligence? I think I can handle that…but are you up for the challenge?
You’re also looking for kind and compassionate toward others? Let’s see, just this morning I rerouted the floods in Texas, planted a forest of trees devastated in the Colorado fires and still had time to attend a wine tasting on the off-chance I have an opportunity to impress a date with my vino skills. As far as “are you the wittiest person I’ve ever met?” Well, let’s meet and find out.
David
All right, this has got to get better. I can’t strike out all the time. My friends love me…they don’t think I’m a hideous freak. Oh sure, I catch them laughing behind my back but that’s usually because I’ve sat in something.
Several days later, I got an email from matchme.com. I had a response from emily773. I just felt this was right. I said all the right things. I just had a good feeling about her. Besides, I just love the name. Sure that’s no excuse for a lasting relationship, but come on, how could anyone named Emily be cruel?
REPLY: citykidchicago
You think you’re funny? People died in Texas and Colorado. That’s not funny. Yuck. It’s insensitive idiots like you that ruin the internet for everyone else. And shave, you look like a wooly mamoth.
Two things Emily, start watching Leno, Letterman or the Daily Show, and borrow CiceroSiren’s goddamn dictionary.
That’s it. I stopped checking the available women that matchme.com said I was a match with. 12 pages of ten women each and I barely got to page three. I’m curious, is this just Chicago arrogance or has this distemper infected the entire country? I’m tempted to try other ZIP codes but I’m not sure if I can handle rejection from Ohio or Nebraska. I closed out the account and figured I was better off meeting women the old fashion way…I grabbed a copy of the Chicago Reader and turned to the escort ads.
(From the collection of short stories: “Not In Your Life”)
What’s going on out there? Many of my friends, now entering the single scene for the second or third time, have repeatedly asked me this question. Having written on dating after divorce (see “Soul Mate Survivor” 1999) I thought it was time to revisit the subject to see how the Internet has changed things. It was eye opening.
When I first started exploring the dating scene after divorce seven years ago, the Internet was too new and many of the dating sites were raw and unrefined. Today, dating services seem antiquated, personals come across as desperate and the only people my friends can introduce me to are their baby sitters. Online dating seems to be the answer.
So who’s on line? What are they looking for? And how easy is it really to meet your future SO?
I was about to find out. Now, for privacy reasons, I’ve changed all of the names, including the service I joined. What’s unchanged are the profiles, my inquiries and the responses they generated.
For a mere 26 bucks, I joined Matchme.com with all the anticipation of a schoolboy expecting to be picked first for a dodge ball team. This was going to be great, women who have outlined their wants and needs matched up to my wants and needs. I registered as: citykidchicago. Now, I know I’m going to get a lot of hits because of this article. Probably some death threats as well. But dating is risky in this day and age. And writing about it even riskier.
Here’s the study. I approached this like a party scene. If a woman—or in this case here profile—caught my eye, I responded. Like the party scenario, I tried to introduce myself in the least, non-threatening way. Innocent, just testing the waters, kind of messages. I sent out 30 introductions. I only heard back from 5 women. That means that at the Matchme.com party, 25 women rudely turned their backs and walked away without saying a word. Ouch, now that made me feel rejected. That is until I started actually getting responses. For sake of space and time, I will focus only on those who responded. First, here’s me:
MATCHME: citykidchicago
Laughing Matters
Second City grad, dabbled in standup, I've made a career out of comedy and writing. Quirky, funny I'm always looking for the subtle differences in things. There's comedy everywhere and I choose to see the humor in life. I'm comfortable with long walks, biking and camping. Basically, outdoor activities are my preference, but I can and do dress up for charity events and romantic evenings out. I love Celtic music and can often be found at the Irish Oak taking in a weekend band. I'm looking for someone who lives for the now and isn't afraid of life. I'm sensitive, caring and enjoy a good conversation as much as I do just quite contemplation. Life's entertaining, let's go have some fun.
Here’s who I’m looking for:
Who are you?
You love life and laughing. You are capable of seeing the lighter side of things and don't take yourself too seriously. Spontaneity is a way of life. You have a common sense about you. Saturday mornings can mean anything from a drive to the country to quite coffee in a cafe. From biking along the lakefront to just curling up and talking. You're well read but not necessarily contemporary fiction, you love history and non-fiction. A good conversation fascinates you. You do your own thing and at the same time appreciate the company of your SO. You're not afraid of intimacy while at the same time respect yourself and your partner. You appreciate honesty and expect the same in return.
Yeah, pedestrian, but my intent was to be broad and at the same time honest about what I enjoy and appreciate. Now there’s also a questionnaire that covers a variety of points too numerous to mention. Salary, political and religious views, kids/no kids, height, body style. The kind of standard stuff that you can either see or take in within a short conversation at a party. There’s also a picture. Yep, I put one up. Not necessarily the most flattering, but not that bad either. It was a wintertime pool party at Corner Pocket (on Halsted—great bar, fun people). I was sporting a beard at the time (now gone) and am dressed casually. I could have used a shot of me in a tux accepting a creative award for writing taken two months later, but that seemed pretentious.
I decided to let Matchme.com’s “connect” service pick the most likely matches. I got 12 pages of ten matches each—pretty impressive for a 10-mile radius of my ZIP code. The service also gave me a percentage of match, the highest being 100% and dropping off to around 82%. Since I was putting a picture out there I decided to only answer those who had the courage to do the same.
What follows then are the top people I selected as a good match. I have not altered their profiles. Misspellings, run-on sentences and grammar are all left as I found them.
My first page of 10 revealed one very cute smile.
MATCHME: singular614:
Make me laugh
I love to laugh until my belly aches. I'm appropiate almost all of the time, but once in a while the sillyrebellious side can sneak out and do the unexpected. So, don't be surprised, just go with it and it'll be a lot of fun. I'm a mix between the East and the West, motion and rest, impulsive and reflective. I'm sincere and true to myself and try to do the right thing and be a good person. So, if you like the versatility and the range and not afraid to be a bit outside of the box, we should talk.
Who are you?
I know that my soulmate and Prince Charming is out there, he's just a little "directionally challenged" and hasn't found me yet. He is in touch with his feelings and not afraid to communicate them. He wellcomes changes but his integrity does not falter. He communicates with an intend to understand rather than dissect and analyze. Etc..
I decided “singular614” would be my first response. She certainly sounded like fun and from her picture, she was really cute. Yeah, this is a woman I want to meet.
REPLY: singular614
Your smile caught me. When I read your profile and realized you were all about the comedy, well I couldn’t resist. I’ve re-directed myself and am setting a course for a dialogue with you. I look forward to hearing from you.
David
All that was left was to hit the send key. My cursor hovered. I questioned myself. What are you doing? Is this really the way to meet women? There was only one way to find out. With a gentle push of my index finger I introduced myself to singular614. I anxiously waited for a reply. That was in May, at this writing in mid-July, I have yet to receive a response from singular614. Maybe her bellyache turned into something more severe.
But I wasn’t going to sit around and wait, I moved on to a delightful head of curls.
MATCHME: brbcdr
Independence Dame
Been a little cranky for a few years since that house fell on my sister. But, I am finally getting over it. I have been told by various men that I am very independent. And that I work and travel a lot. I live and work in the city, and am always up to something. I love my job and in my free time I love to cook, garden, spend time with friends, yoga and running and of course, the ultimate, shopping. I am not looking for a man to lean on, but, rather, someone who adds another dimension to my already happy life.
Who are you?
It's pretty important to me that you are not an ex-convict or on a current crime spree. Employed is generally a good thing too. Very important that you do not take yourself too seriously. I am seeking a male that is energetic, not needy, likes to spend time together but also independent. Someone who has his own life and interests, but would not mind adding something to them. Most importantly, I would like to meet someone who truly sees, appreciates and enjoys the funny and ironic sides of life.
She was a 100% match. I could do no better. brbcdr felt right. She was going to be the one.
REPLY: brbcdr
I have to admit you sound funny and energetic as well as independent. My only concern, how do you qualify “employed?” I’m a freelance writer…I only know I’m employed when the residual checks arrive. Other than that, no real criminal record to speak of, although I was considering a career in politics at one time…I’d love to hear from you…especially if I can buy your vote.
David
Not sidesplitting comedy, but it was charming. I was demonstrating a sense of humor. Little did I know I was opening the back door to some demonic charm school.
Two days later:
REPLY: citykidchicago
I went to your profile and the only thing funny I found was your picture. Why did you see us as a match anyway? Never mind, I jusst a soon not here from you again.
Ouch, I think I’ve just been rejected by a Manson Family member. Dignity prevented me from sending a follow up response, though I was itching to tell her that I saw us as a match because I was in dire need of some bitch to hen peck me for the rest of my life. I’d say the house fell on the wrong sister.
So much for the 100% matches. Maybe if I let my standards slip a notch to 99% I’d meet a normal woman who could appreciate a quick smile and witty repartee.
MATCHME: pstheresmore
More about the laughs
I love to laugh and have a very positive attitude about life. I am divorced with no children and work downtown. I love everything about the city - the restaurants, the culture (museums, galleries, opera etc), sporting events (I am a big baseball fan), outdoor dining, summer festivals and the lakefront. I enjoy good food and wine, trying new restaurants and new types of food. I try to stay healthy and work out 3/4 times per week, but I don't let it consume my life. I have a great sense of humor, can take it as well as I give it out. People say I am pretty easy to get along with and am usually smiling or laughing. Life is too short not to enjoy to the fullest - and I try to incorporate that philosophy into my life.
Who are you?
Someone who makes me laugh and knows how to treat a woman. Someone who makes the effort to take care of himself physically, yet can still have a good time. Someone who is comfortable dressing up to go to dinner, yet can throw on a pair of jeans to go to a ballgame. This person should also have a good sense of humor, like to have a good time and share my positive attitude about life.
She mentioned laughing or humor five times. Could this be the woman of my dreams? Judging by her picture, she’s very attractive and she seems like someone I could just hang with indefinitely.
REPLY: pstheresmore
It sounds like there’s a lot more! I really enjoyed reading your profile. I think if nothing else, we could begin a humorous email dialogue and see what evolves. I look forward to hearing from you as much as I look forward to hearing your laughter.
David
I didn’t have to wait long. But it wasn’t laughter I heard. Late in the afternoon I got this response.
REPLY: citykidchicago
Are you some kind of psycho? I read your profile and you didn’t mention a thing about baseball. How you could imagine that we could ever be a match is beyond me. Although, you did miss my laughter…when I looked at your picture.
Pandora lives! I’m starting to really develop a complex here. I’m now beginning to appreciate the rudeness of the majority of women who didn’t respond because they saved me from the agony of total, in your face rejection. It’s almost like I’ve selected abused women whose only goal is to inflict cruelty on all of mankind. The poor dumb bastard who ends up with one of these women has few choices beyond suicide. I mean, I’m really depressed about this. I’d rather join a holy order of celibate monks than respond to one more Internet Medusa.
I call my friend Cathy for a little pep talk.
“You’re not ugly, will you stop,” she says while preparing power point presentation for one of her marketing clients. “I have your picture in my office, from that time we took the boat cruise? Remember, the architectural thing-am-a-giggy?”
“That was fun…”
“Yeah, and you looked hot. David, listen these women are all psychos. Why else are they looking for their perfect Adonis online? Because they’ve pissed off all the men they’ve met in person.”
“Yeah, but they can’t all be bad…can they?”
“Listen, you want a woman to talk nicely to you, you want some one to appreciate who you are, to laugh at all your jokes?”
“Ideally…”
“Then call an escort service. You’ll spend less money ‘cause you won’t be blowing it on women who just want to see how much they can dig you for. And the sex will be better.”
“How do you know…”
“Would you hire an beautician to rewire your house? No, you want things done right you go to a specialist. Online dating is for shut-ins.”
Cathy always had a way of putting things succinctly. But I had the idea for this article and so pressed on.
This time I randomly selected someone by their picture. Superficial, yeah, but I learned from studying psychology that the universal rule isn’t “do unto others as you would have done on to you” but rather, “do on to others as you have had done on to you.” It was my turn to pick someone based solely on looks. And at the very top of the third page was a very attractive candidate.
Matchme: CiceroSiren
Open To Possibilities
I am open-minded, warm, friendly and compassionate. I'm a great listener and a loyal friend-always there for the important people in my life. I like witty conversation and challenging my mind and have a great sense of humor. I enjoy biking along the lakefront, going to movies (especially independent films), listening to live music, yoga and working out. I also enjoy eating at ethnic restaurants and I love to travel (last year I went to Hudson Bay and Equador and also spent a week skiing in Van Couver). My goal is to visit every county in the world at least once. I also like relaxing at home with a good book or a movie from Blockbuster. I grew up in Chicago and Los Angeles and also spent a semester living abroad in London during law school. If the opportunity presented itself I would love to live abroad again. I enjoy my work but I am willing to make room in my life for a relationship.
Who are you?
Someone who is adventurous, high-spirited, energetic and has a great sense of humor. He is also athletic, open-minded, intelligent and able to communicate his thoughts and feelings. He enjoys his work and his hobbies and has a positive attitude toward life. Someone who genuinely cares about other people and who is willing to make a relationship a priority in his life.
Though I didn’t believe she would ever actually visit every “county” in the world, she sounded interesting. Okay, she didn’t sound all that interesting but she at least didn’t sound like they type of woman who would be rude. She’s open minded…she was a goddamn lawyer. They’re never rude. She would at least respond politely.
REPLY: CiceroSiren
I have to admit, what caught my eye was your perfect smile. Going further to read your profile, I was intrigued by a woman of adventure. Well, this could be a fun escapade. I would like to get to know you better. I look forward to hearing from you.
David
I had decided that by ending every email with my name I was at least attempting to establish trust. By giving a prospect my name, I was revealing a little bit more about myself. Turns out, this had nothing to do about trust.
A reply arrived three days later.
REPLY: citykidchicago
Are you some down and out actor? Second City? Standup comedy? A writer? Your picture looks like your waiting tables somewhere. I deal with deadbeats everyday as a lawyer, I haven’t got time to date one. And your bald…where do you get off emailing me?
This from a lawyer? Hey, CiceroSiren, listen, take that huge paycheck you’re earning and run out and buy a dictionary! And while you’re at it, your grammar could use a bit of polishing. Something tells me you’re going to be spending a lot of time in divorce court pleading your own case. Look, I may be bald, but I’m not malicious. I’ll bet you run up to cripples and make fun of their wheelchairs.
One more chance…I decided to find one more person. Like Sodom and Gomorrah, I was determined to find one decent woman. She was out there I scrolled down the page.
I discovered Emily about half way down. She was only a 98% match but, well I’m a sucker for her name and I loved her photograph.
emily773
Are you up for the challenge?
I know who I am, what I want, and who I am looking for but that doesn't make expressing it any easier in this...hmmmm... uninspired online form. Friends describe me as sharp as a tack, quick on my feet, a charmer with an attitude...but, I get away with it because of my great smile and heart of gold. Actually, I consider myself grounded and passionate. I love the outdoors - hiking, camping, biking and spending time at the lakefront. I am a sort of twisted romantic...give me “When Harry Met Sally,” a glass of Merlot and a box of Raisenetts and I am in heaven. But leave it to Monty Python to bring out my devilish and slightly quirky sense of humor.
How she describes her ideal match.
Two important attributes of any date of mine must be intelligence and a sense of humor. We have varied interests but similar ideals. I am a true blue liberal and appreciate others with a penchant for a progressive and flexible worlview. If you think I am the wittiest person you've ever met, we'll get along just fine. Back on the subject of ideals...I enjoy meeting people who are kind, compassionate toward others, somewhat silly, passionate and persuasive, but not rigid in their opinions. I am looking for a partner in crime...a challenge...a spark.
I rolled the dice again. With fingers crossed, I typed my introduction.
REPLY: emily773
You want a sense of humor, you want intelligence? I think I can handle that…but are you up for the challenge?
You’re also looking for kind and compassionate toward others? Let’s see, just this morning I rerouted the floods in Texas, planted a forest of trees devastated in the Colorado fires and still had time to attend a wine tasting on the off-chance I have an opportunity to impress a date with my vino skills. As far as “are you the wittiest person I’ve ever met?” Well, let’s meet and find out.
David
All right, this has got to get better. I can’t strike out all the time. My friends love me…they don’t think I’m a hideous freak. Oh sure, I catch them laughing behind my back but that’s usually because I’ve sat in something.
Several days later, I got an email from matchme.com. I had a response from emily773. I just felt this was right. I said all the right things. I just had a good feeling about her. Besides, I just love the name. Sure that’s no excuse for a lasting relationship, but come on, how could anyone named Emily be cruel?
REPLY: citykidchicago
You think you’re funny? People died in Texas and Colorado. That’s not funny. Yuck. It’s insensitive idiots like you that ruin the internet for everyone else. And shave, you look like a wooly mamoth.
Two things Emily, start watching Leno, Letterman or the Daily Show, and borrow CiceroSiren’s goddamn dictionary.
That’s it. I stopped checking the available women that matchme.com said I was a match with. 12 pages of ten women each and I barely got to page three. I’m curious, is this just Chicago arrogance or has this distemper infected the entire country? I’m tempted to try other ZIP codes but I’m not sure if I can handle rejection from Ohio or Nebraska. I closed out the account and figured I was better off meeting women the old fashion way…I grabbed a copy of the Chicago Reader and turned to the escort ads.
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