Just sleeping on the couch with my cat curled up on me. Lying there together purring and snoring together. A perfect mess.
Month: June 2024
What I said and she heard.
My girlfriend and I went out to play golf and I learned something. She doesn’t understand me.
“Aim a little more left.” I suggested.
She listened and aimed left. Good hit, not great but she’s learning, down the left side of the fairway and a little short. I’m pleased. She’s pissed. “I aimed left like you said!”
Instead of reacting to how she said it, I asked, “What did you hear me say? I meant aim to the left of the flag, because of the way the green sloped.”
The back and forth revealed we speak two different languages. I say one thing she hears something completely different. It made me rethink every conversation we have ever had. I’m fairly taciturn and blunt, assuming everyone understands me and appreciates me not wasting words with lengthy explanations. It sounds condescending, mansplaining.
I can’t think and speak the way other people do. It’s unrealistic to expect others to adapt to their way of thinking and speaking. I don’t care if someone misinterprets what I say because they have adopted a new or radical understanding of a word. That’s your problem. Feel free to be insulted. If you don’t want to understand, I feel no obligation to console you or change to accommodate you.
But I’m trying to be a better boyfriend and I do care if she understands me. I started asking questions and building a new vocabulary. There was a lot of back and forth with me trying to expand on what my words meant and trying to understand what words she would understand. The whole communication loop on repeat.
Her golf game didn’t get any better, but our communication did.
Scotch Whiskey
Old, smokey, just a touch of sweet from a sherry cask and tint of red, caramel and fire sliding down the back of my throat. Let’s put on British airs and insist on Speyside. Only barbarians insist on ice or watering down the flavor. Of course, a class of spring water, to cleanse the pallet between sips. Sipping is the only way to savor the bouquet exploding across your tongue. If you must, just a few drops of water to cut the alcohol. If you can, skip the 12-year-old., even the sherry cask is a little rough but tolerable if starved for choices. This isn’t shooting Taquila and trying to hide the flavor with salt and lime or margaritas with the girls. This is Scotch.
My personal vise is The Macallan. I’ve been drinking it for thirty years, well before it became popular. It was my first experience with whiskey that left me breathless rather that gasping for breath. For years Cutty Sark and Chevas Regal passed for a decent drink. Then in London, at an Irish Pub no less, a bottle caught my eye. The words said. The lingering taste on my lips. There is no going back.
This advice not intended for children or people serious about saving money and paying their bills. Drinking good whiskey can become habit forming and involve equally expensive cigars and expensive collections of both. Following my advice, in general is a very bad idea. If you find yourself saying phrases like, “Hey, guys! Watch this!” or “I bet I can do that.” seek help immediately.
Nice and dangerous?
I’m not sure if it should be something like “Do not disturb” or “Approach with caution”. Both were appropriate for a long time. Add, only open in times of war, dangerous content, not appropriate for children, contains content and images that may be disturbing. For a long time, I just radiated violence like a warning tag. DON’T POKE THE BEAR! I was a little hurt and sometimes shocked by how people reacted to me.
I’m a nice guy. Really, in spite of everything I say about myself, I love little kids and old people and never seem to have a hard time approaching them. I’d pull up to the playground and flag down a water ice truck and treat everyone and just drive away. I’d get complaints because I blocked and intersection and helped an old lady with her groceries cross the street. I tried not to hurt people and do good where I could.
I guess my tag line needs to be both, nice and dangerous. I will give you the shirt off of my back if you need it, just don’t try to take it.
Tough one
If you count who occupies the same space as me, it is a toss-up between my significant other and my sister. I don’t speak to my sister that much, but when I do, we have great conversations. My Sig-other, we spend a lot of time together doing things more than having deep conversations. Home repair, golf, motorcycle rides, and cooking are all regular stuff but we don’t interact very much. Sleeping doesn’t count either.
If I’m honest, I have more conversation over three to five hours of golf with strangers than people I live with. Most of it isn’t very personal, just talk and the occasional joke. Really, if you can’t laugh about golf, you shouldn’t play.
I wonder if the voices in my head count. They always have such interesting ideas and comments. I’ve learned not to repeat them in public because that would be insane. Right? Not you. I was talking to them. Ok, I was writing to them, nitpicker. Yes. You’re crazy, not me. Now just shut up. I forgot what I was writing about.
Our First names.
Our first names came from our occupation or worth to the family and community. Hunter, Fisher, Forester, Farmer, Wheelwright, regardless of the language, it usually comes out to the same thing. I hope that if I were named the same way today, it would be Guardian or Teacher. I’ve tried to be both for so long.
I also wonder what names we would pass out to today’s generation. The temptation is to say Useless and Pampered would be the most common names. Though I expect that if they were to name themselves, it would be Teabag69, D3athF@rt or whatever tag they use on Fortnight. The pathetic specimens that I see walking the streets don’t rate much more. They won’t put in the effort to learn productive skills. They are afraid to sweat and complain because no one recognizes their brilliance.
There is another part of that generation, built on another fifty years of progress and learning. They have taken advantage of the tools that we struggled with to leap past us. Building on the knowledge of those who came before, just like us. We were lifted by visionaries, who were lifted by giants, who built upon the work of great thinkers. Our children, that we find lacking in so many skills we take for granted, are launching from heights we can’t imagine. They may have to go back to the old names, Atlas, Prometheus, Hippocrates, Athena.
I have tried to imagine the future my grandchildren will inherit. I fear that the barbarians will come through the gates and destroy what could be with sticks and rocks, not resisted by the lances of fire and destruction that we are capable of. Not from fear but from mercy and restraint. Where we learned that a bully is best served by a punch in the face, they use peer pressure and forbearance. It doesn’t work on bullies. Our world covers all of recorded history from, early civilization to the most advanced ages, with a mixture of leadership guiding it, equally as diverse. They need other names to join them Horatio on the bridge, Hercules, Paris and Achilles, Bellerophon or Odysseus. Warriors and guardians.
Civilization needs its barbarians. The uncivilized man, willing to risk life for others to live and take life in that cause. The scars on the men and women who stand between the innocent and violence bear are deep. They won’t fit into the new world. The new world won’t survive without them. I hope they are smart enough to figure out the answer.
It’s not necessary.
I get called a lot of things that aren’t my given name. Is it really necessary to pick something else and try to fit into it. I have a friend whose given name is Mylord, didn’t make him rich. A friend from the Army says he knows where he is by what people call him, variations on a theme as it were.
Me, I use my name to know if I’m talking to friends or enemies. Sometimes it gets confusing. People at work called me crazy a lot, I earned that one. I shouldn’t repeat what my exes call me. It’s not nice and this might be read by children. I was known as Heathen in a couple of groups. Most of my life I was addressed by my surname or Sergeant. The truth is that I’ve earned all of them, one way or another.
I guess the strangest was when my father called me sonofabitch or bastard. Did Mom know? Was he trying to tell me I wasn’t part of the family? Childhood was a little confusing.
I’ll just stick with what I was given and make the best of it.
The fear of fear, maybe.
It sounds arrogant, no surprise coming from me, I’m not afraid of anything that I can point to. There is even a lack of understanding of fear itself. Personally, I believe it comes from coming close to death to many times to care anymore. I know I can die. It will happen one day, probably proceeded by me saying something stupid like, “Hey, guys! Watch this!”
Lack of fear has earned me some strangely fitting nicknames, Crazy Bob, Stupid, Terminator (I don’t get that one) and some less flattering monikers. It has caused some friction where I did something that scared those around me for no reason I could understand. Disbelief in something that I can do or have done, until I prove it and scare someone else.
You see, I love the feeling of flying, falling, swimming deeper, exploring, driving fast, living on the edge or stepping off the edge, even. I’m not afraid, but I feel alive, thrilled by the experience. If you have never done it, find something that makes your heart race, embrace it, make it as safe as you can or take off all the protection and leap! Just once embrace what you were afraid of, don’t try to overcome it, accept it and everything it represents.
The New Word Wars 