Code97

Edtv (1999)

2006-12-17T03:20:00.001-07:00

Reality Show Ideas

I don’t watch reality shows. I mean I have occasionally seen one or two of them. Maybe a snippet here or there when my roommates are watching one or a girl I’m seeing has it on. But I don’t really like them and find most of the ones I’ve seen to be geared towards allowing you to come home after a hard days work and watch other people suffer.

Choosing to spend my free time watching others be put through all manner of humiliation just seems so sadistic to me. I’d rather watch Bruce Willis blow up some bad guys or Tina Fey do … well, I’d watch Tina Fey do just about anything really.

My point is that Reality Television (which isn’t all that real when you think about how often the contestants are steered to fill roles that the producers need filled by the hacks in the editing room) isn’t any good.

But maybe there would be some reality shows you could talk me into watching.

- Live From Hedonism III: Just install hidden cameras in a bunch of hotel rooms, bars, beach cabanas, and pools. And once a week edit together the best bits. Put it on Cinemax or Showtime late at night and watch the ratings go through the roof.

- Save a Reality Star: Take people who have turned being on reality shows into a career and enroll them in a technical college. The “winner” is the one who graduates and gets a real fucking job.

- Alliance: Start with a group of fifty contestants and put them in a barren and unimaginable location (maybe a Strip Club that cares about their employees or a Green Party Campaign Headquarters in Alabama). The contestant that forms the fewest alliances wins the event. Because we all know that alliances never work and you always get stabbed in the back.

- General Electric Presents NBC’s “Product Placement Overload” brought to you by Budweiser - The King of Beers in association with The Gap: Six contestants are moved into a Keller Williams Home where they each are given their own personal product to push. The contestant that manages to get the most air time for their product without ever uttering the name of the product is crowned the winner. The early favorite for winner this season is the nice young girl selected to shill for Victoria’s Secret. Although many in the industry see a real push during sweeps for the shy young girl who received Dove’s All Moisturizing Body Wash as her product.

- Stuck in a Room with Carrot Top: Twelve people in a room with Carrot Top. The last one standing wins ear plugs and an eye mask to help make it stop. The beauty of this concept is each week you can change the “star” to whoever’s available. Clay Aiken, Rosie O’Donnell, the “Can You Hear Me Now” Guy … it can go on forever.

- Blatant Racism: Five minorities and one white guy travel across country in a bus to see who can be the worst stereotype for their race. The winner is awarded a brand new car. Unless it’s the Asian guy, because we all know he’ll just end up wrecking it.

- Whore!: Ten young women live together in Miami Beach and spend their nights out on the prowl for men. The winner is the lady who gets the most confirmed “scores” all the while they talk behind each others backs about how slutty the other girls are.

- Stud!: Same idea as the one above with the only difference that the genders have been reversed. Well that and viewers don’t seem to mind the fact that the guys sleep around more than the women and they’re more likely to help each other “score” with women. Oh, and the ratings aren’t as good.

- America’s Least Talented: Whoever can show up and display the very least amount of talent and still somehow find an audience with mainstream America is the winner. Celebrity Hosts this year are - Paris Hilton, Kevin Federline, Artie Lang, and Jewel (but mainly the part of her that writes poetry).

- Let’s Hunt Down & Kill Billy Ray Cyrus: God bless you Bill Hicks. It’s still a brilliant idea who’s time has come. And next season we’ll work on Ryan Seacrest.

My Best Friend Is a Vampire (1988)

2006-12-13T07:35:00.000-07:00

To My Friends

How does that old saying go again? A friend will help you move. But a real friend will help you get rid of the body.

It’s been said recently that I am doing my fair share of dating. (Though I have two points on this: One, I haven’t been dating all that much in the last month or two. And B, with all the dating I didn’t do the first twenty eight years of my life you could say I was just trying to catch up.)

And it was brought to my attention yesterday that all this dating might be affecting some of the relationships I have with my friends. In that I have found myself (in the last few months) prioritizing going out on dates over hanging out with my friends. Leaving some of them to wonder where the heck I’ve gone.

(The answer, by the way, is probably a coffee shop or the downtown Whole Foods. Both great places to have a first date in case you were wondering.)

And it’s possible that doing this has made some of my friends feel like I am somehow putting “Ho’s before Bros” as my homies would put it. And we all know this is normally considered a mortal sin among friends. You never side with your girl over your friends. Word.

Except that sometimes you do. And in my case the reason to do so is actually … well … the reason is my friends.

You see when I first moved to Austin a little over six years ago I was married. I had no friends in town and spent all of my time with my ex. And as time went by I began (as one does) finding people to hang out with. Most of these people were a bit younger than me and were single. I would have my “guys night” with my friends and we would all hang out from time to time. But for the most part I would see them once or twice a week as they went out on their own dates.

As a matter of fact I think I seem to recall a time when a certain red headed roomie of mine disappeared for months without calling me. I guess it must have been right after her divorce was over and she was single in Austin for the first time … that is if I recall correctly (and I know I do).

But then there was a shift in the balance. You see as I started going through a divorce of my own (I can’t believe it’s already been over four years ago) most of my friends started to pair up. Oh it happened slowly at first, but by the time I turned twenty eight almost all of my friends had paired up with someone they could boink on a regular basis (have I ever mentioned my long standing love of the word boink? It‘s gotta be my all time favorite euphemism for sex. Just try saying it. Boink. Such a great word. I should use it more often.).

Bob got married to Stephanie in the woods (see my blog: Complications). Shawn got married in a crap hole city (see the city: Corpus Christi). My brother married Elaine and then started churning out grandkids for my mom. Jen and Wes bought a house together (and eventually allowed me to be their adopted misfit tucked away in my tiny room). John and Becky … well they were always married … but you’re starting to see my point.

It wasn’t long before I found myself the Gleek in a room full of Wonder Twins. A Crocket without a Tubbs. The Lone Ranger with no Tonto in sight. You know what I’m talking about. I had become the perpetual fifth wheel.

And all those years I had been busy being married all my friends had been doing the dating thing. And when I found myself going through a divorce (and to fat to land any rebound dates) they were already honing in on the partners they would eventually end up with.

So now here I am - the one and only single guy amongst a crowd of couples. Just now going through the whole dating adventure while all my friends are already living their happily ever after.

And maybe that’s my fault for getting married too young to someone I wasn’t friends with. If I hadn’t been so stupid as to marry the first girl I ever fell in love with I wouldn’t have to be playing catch up to everyone else in my circle of friends.

But those were the cards that life dealt me. And so now it’s time for me to hang myself in the old meat market. It’s my time to go out and meet new people so that maybe one day I can meet that right new person to spend the rest of my life with. So that one day my best friend and I can go out together with my friends and hers.

And these friends of mine just might have to deal with seeing a little less of me for a while so I can take some chances and live the single life for a time. Or they could always bite the bullet and go out with me downtown every once in a while. Joining me in the singles scene instead of always asking me to join them in couples land.

But to these friends that I love more than anything. To these friends who have always been there for me. I promise I’ll be back soon. And if I play my cards right. If I manage to not fuck it up. Then my old friends will get to meet my awesome new friend. She’ll be the smart, pretty, and funny girl standing next to me. And I can bet you’ll be wondering why she’s slumming with a dork like me.

Oh and in case you forgot - my true and real friends - if it happens to come up, you’ve got my number if that body starts to stink up the trunk. I’ll bring the Hefty bags. You bring the hacksaw.

Strange Days (1995)

2006-12-12T07:53:00.000-07:00

New Year’s Eve Jitters

The biggest date night of the year is fast approaching. We all know that Valentine’s Day is just a puppet of the Hallmark Corporation. We know when the importance of having a holiday date really matters. And before I get into it I should clear up a thing or two.

I know dating is supposed to be a fun process and I should stop worrying so much about meeting “the one” and just try to enjoy myself. And I think I have gotten to the point where I’m enjoying going out on dates and meeting new people.

And I can honestly say that a big perk of just dating is that I’m not investing all of myself into a single person before it’s the right time to do so. One of my biggest relationship problems in the past has been how fast I get wrapped up in someone. How quickly the relationship moves. And I know that moving too fast can do real damage to any chance of a relationship working out in the end. It’s nice for a change that having a girl tell me it’s not going to work out doesn’t feel it’s the end of the world.

Although when you date as much as I have recently, those conversations can begin to stack up and that can be a bit daunting. I don’t care how casual things are. It doesn’t matter how secure you are or how much confidence you have in yourself. You have yourself three of those talks in a week or so and it’ll put a cloud over your week.

But I digress.

It’s not just me that worries about the monster holiday date night … right?

There have to be some of you out there who are terrified of being alone on the upcoming New Years Eve? I know that I am. I just don’t know if I can bear the thought of watching the clock turn over into a new year and being all by myself again. It’s been five years since I had someone to kiss on New Year’s Eve. I think that I’ve suffered enough. Don’t you?

I mean I know it’s just another year. In the end it doesn’t have any relevance on what the next fifty two weeks will be like. I know December 31st is really an arbitrary date and that I shouldn’t let it bother me.

But isn’t smooching as the clock strikes twelve the very definition of a hopeful romance? A hope that things will be as good as they are in that moment for the rest of the year. That this kiss could be just the start and the thrill of that kiss might only be the beginning of things to come.

There’s a sort of depressing symbolic meaning when you’re alone on New Year’s Eve. No one’s saying it out loud. At least they aren’t to your face. But everyone sees you alone and gives a silent little prayer that we’re all familiar with.

“Better you than me.”

And besides … we all know … kissing is fun.

I guess I should really start looking for someone pretty quick before they’re all snatched up by lesser men.

Any volunteers? You know how to reach me … ;)

Win a Date with Tad Hamilton! (2004)

2006-12-11T07:50:00.000-07:00

Dating

Remember the old joke about the father who wants to teach his son how to swim? He takes his kid out to the local pool one sunny day. He takes this young and innocent little kid and chucks his ass right out into the deep end of the swimming pool. The father’s confident that his son will learn to swim … or die trying.

Not really so funny. I guess when you think about it it’s not really even a joke at all. But it is a story we’ve almost all heard at one time or another growing up. I guess the lesson (other than some people shouldn‘t have kids) being shown here is that sometimes the best way to figure something out is to just get thrown into the deep end and figure out how to survive along the way.

You know … and hope you don’t die in the process.

Well six months ago I found myself thrown into the deep end of the dating pool. It’s a bit of a story but I would like to tell you a little bit about how I think I learned (at the very least) to keep my head above water.

I guess the only real place to start is at my last failed relationship. No. Wait … for proper context maybe a bit more history is necessary.

Some of you probably know that I used to be married. I met my ex-wife when I was just sixteen years old. I was this dumb kid who stayed out to late going to clubs with my older friends. She was a friend of a friend that I had a crush on for probably no other reason than she was the only pretty girl in the group I hung out with. But when you’re sixteen proximity can be a real turn on.

So eventually the two of us became both young, in love, and (obviously) a little bit stupid. I proposed after we had been dating a for less than a month. We got married after a year and a half engagement and stayed married until I was the ripe old age of twenty five years. I could talk about my ex wife and all the things that went wrong in our marriage for a quite long time. And maybe one day it might be worth doing. But in the end the only thing that mattered, and the truth, was simply this. Neither of us were perfect (though if pressed even she would admit her less so than me) and in the end we didn’t really like each other all that much. The biggest hazard of getting married before you even know who you are is that you can’t know who you’ll want to spend the rest of your life with I guess.

So then I found myself twenty five years old and single for the first time since high school. In the interest in keeping the first part of this short I will tell you that being both fat and having low self confidence is a sure way to make sure you remain single. And I managed to be those two things for the next three years or so of my life. I won’t say that this was time wasted though. It was the first time I ever really existed without putting the feelings of others in front of my own on a daily basis. I was able to really figure out who I was and what I wanted from life. I wasn’t happy about being single, but for a time I was content to be alone. And that was a nice feeling. Not being afraid of existing by myself for myself.

But then one morning almost four years later I woke up and really listened to something I had said to lots of people about my failed marriage.

“You know, I really loved being married.“ I would tell my friends. “It just so happened that I didn‘t really like who I was married too.”

I realized that while this had been my go to joke about my life’s biggest failure it wasn’t just some automated response to those who would ask the question. It was the truth. I really did like just about every part of being married. I loved the feeling of being part of a team. Her and I against the world. I loved knowing when I woke up in the morning that the person next to me really cared about me. And knowing that I would always do everything I could to take care of the woman next to me. And being in love, and being loved, and planning a future together. This was all stuff that I wanted back in my life. Things that I decided I didn’t want to continue to not have in my life. It was time to do something about it. Time to stop hiding in the security of contentment and try to go out and be happy again.

Over those single years all of my friends would constantly ask me the same question over and over. “Why are you still single? You’re smart, funny, witty, a good person, yada, yada, yada …”

Well we all knew the real answer. It’s just that the people that cared about me were to kind to ever say it aloud. I was fat. I was so big that any woman I was interested in dating had undoubtedly no interest in dating me. I couldn’t blame them because I knew I was just as vain as the next guy. I didn’t want to settle for anything less than everything I wanted in a woman. And a big part of what I wanted was a woman that I was attracted too. It’s a nice sentiment to claim that looks aren’t important when looking for your soul mate. But the truth is that it’s pretty hard to fall in love with someone who doesn’t “do it” for you physically. And the truth is that I like women who are pretty. And pretty girls don’t normally date fat guys (unless they star in a CBS sitcom). So I knew that as long as I stayed overweight I was destined to remain alone.

So I made the decision to do something about it. And I’m here to tell you that gastric bypass surgery combined with lots of exercise and a lot of hard work can really work wonders. Some of you may have read about this part of my life already. For those of you haven’t; I had the weight loss surgery and lost over one hundred and eighty pounds. And I will be the first to tell you that it’s amazing what losing all that weight will do to boost your self confidence.

In only four months after my initial surgery (and right after an emergency surgery due to complications) I started seeing someone. She had been my best friend for months and almost right away I was sure that I was done looking for the woman I’d spend the rest of my life with. I had convinced myself through sheer force of will that I had found her. But that conviction may have had a lot to do with my ability to have blinders on when it comes to how she felt about me. Without going into too much detail I can tell you it didn’t work out. I was devastated. I guess the truth is that I just figured once I had lost all of the excess weight that the rest of my happily ever after would be simple. That it would all fall into place easily. When we all know in reality relationships don’t work out the way you want them too on a daily basis. And it was the fallout from this relationship that sent me into the strangest world I would ever encounter.

The world of dating.

Suddenly I was single, skinny, and able to attract (or maybe I should say trick) women into going out with me. After twenty nine years I was single and eligible for the first time in my life.

So there I was. Heartbroken after going through the worst break up in my life. Knowing that I needed to give my head and my heart time to heal itself from what I had just been through. And what do I do the very day after the break up? Well my friends, I do the very last thing you should do in this situation, I go out on a date.

My first few dates were a nightmare. Honest to good I can hardly remember some of the things that I said. On each of these dates in the weeks after the break up I couldn’t help talking about the fact that I had just been in a relationship that had ended badly. Though I’m sure this was something I never needed to bother saying. You could see it in my face and in the slump of my shoulders. You could hear it in my defeated voice and in the things I chose to talk about. In the first few weeks I went on a few first dates. Not one of them really went anywhere. In reality I knew almost right away that I wasn’t really dating. I was going out so that I wouldn’t be at home by myself. So that I wouldn’t spend my nights thinking about the girl who broke my heart. So I would be anywhere but alone with my own thoughts.

Of course it was also pretty apparent that dating at this point wasn’t really helping how I felt. What I soon figured out was every bad date (and even the few good ones) just reminded me of what I had just so recently lost. It probably would have been funny had it not been so sad.

I am still friends with a couple of those initial girls I went out with. One of them had dinner with me a month or so back and we talked a little about that first date. She told me that it was obvious I wasn’t ready to be dating. She said that while it was clear I was a nice guy, it was also clear that I had a lot of issues that I needed to work out before I was really ready to be out with a woman.

She was right. But in my experience woman are rarely wrong..

So a month or two go by and the dating continues. And I learned some things about myself and about women in general that I had never known before. The biggest thing being that I don’t really like dating. Now it’s not the dates themselves that are the problem. Like all things there was some good and some bad.

You have to remember that for almost thirty years my only experience with romance and women had been wrapped up in relationships. I never experienced the world of casual dating. I never had to worry about all the things that matter on a first date. I had been on maybe three first dates in my life. I was totally lost.

I’m now convinced that first dates should come with a resume. As a matter of fact I like to ask the women I date if they have a myspace page before we go out. This can be used as an window into the person you’re meeting so that you at least have some idea what to expect when you go out. Why is a resume needed? Well let’s be honest. T\We all know the first date might as well be a job interview.

We dress up for the occasion. Putting careful thought into what we wear, how we smell, even the location of the first date is important in setting the tone. Every word we utter has been checked and cross checked with our guy friends, our female friends, and our own internal systems more times than we‘d ever admit.

We have already thought about what stories to tell. We’ve mapped out the cute story that endears us to you. Maybe something about the puppy we rescued or the kitty we pulled from a tree. We’ve planned out a tale that makes us out to be a bit of a bad boy (but one a woman just knows she can tame). Practiced the wordplay that shows you all of our best qualities all the while downplaying our faults. We’re sure to tell you what good listeners we are and how much we love our mothers. Hell I never answer my cell phone on a date … unless it’s my mother. Because I know as soon as I hang up the phone I can tell you how I always answer the phone when my mother calls. And even though this may be the truth, I’ve only brought it up because I know it might just melt your heart. We know how to skirt the sex issue without ignoring it altogether. A little playful banter to let you know we’re gentlemen but we’d still like to press you up against a nice wall at the end of the evening. We want to make sure we make a good first impression.

I can feel men everywhere cringing as they read this. I’m bound to get lynched for giving away so many trade secrets.

But guy’s are aware that a woman knows if there will be a second date within the first five minutes of the first date. Probably sooner in most cases. We’ve prepared for the first date more than we did for any test in school. More than we have for any job interview. The first date is the big show. We know if we make all the right moves, say all the right things, there’s a fighting chance the night will end with something better than a passing grade or a high paying job … boobies.

Hell, it’s all we can do to not bring references.

And then of course there’s the expense. Now I admit here that I am a bit old fashioned. I am a firm believer that there is no way a woman should ever pay for at least the first three dates. Call me a stick in the mud or out of touch, but I was raised that it was the man who footed the bill for a date. And in return we received the pleasure of that woman’s company. And in with very few exceptions it’s seemed like a fair trade to me.

But having said that I will admit that if you find yourself dating a few times a week your probably eyeing the top ramen at the grocery store at the end of the week. I know to most of the men of the planet this is nothing new. But I was shocked at how fast the money went when dating. I don’t drink. And I can still remember the feeling of shock the first night I went to a trendy downtown bar for a few drinks and got the bill at the end of the night. If I ever open my own business I plan on opening a bar. Those guys must make a killing.

But too be honest the first date jitters and even the expense of a date aren’t really that big of an issue. I’ve learned how to avoid all the first date clichés (try being honest fellas … it’ll do wonders for your chances at a second date) and figured out how to deal with the high cost of dating (date less you big doofus).

So what’s the biggest issue I have with dating? Here‘s a little more candor. It‘s without a doubt … me.

I am still dealing with a lack of confidence when going out with women. I am better than I was in the past. As a matter of fact I would say that I am starting to come into my own, but it’s something I still have to focus on when I am going out.

And of course there’s the issue of what I’m looking for. Of me being too picky.

I remember a few months ago my two roommates and I were sitting around the living room after a big birthday party for one of them and we were talking about a girl I had been talking to that night. The conversation drifted to my dating and my roommate Jenifer said, “Your problem is that when you date you’re looking for a wife. You’re not just looking to date.”

This was the weirdest thing I had ever heard anyone say. Well of course I’m looking for someone I want to get married to. What other point is there to dating? She went on to tell me that some people date just to date. To go out and have fun and enjoy themselves. Not to find someone to settle down with.

Shenanigans. I call shenanigans on that bullshit statement.

And I know what you’re going to say. You’ll claim that there are people (mainly guys) who aren’t looking to settle down. People who just want to date and have fun without looking for someone to commit to.

And I am telling you that that guy or gal would change their tune in half a second the moment they fell in love. Oh I’ll admit that the chance of them falling for someone is slim. But once it takes hold they will jump head first into a relationship. Because you can rationalize all you want, love doesn’t care.

You can tell yourself you aren’t looking to get serious all day long. But as soon as that person crosses your path that makes your heart beat just a little bit faster … well you’ll find your tune changing pretty quick.

So yes. I don’t want to date just for fun. I am looking for the woman of my dreams. I do want everything. And therein lies my downfall.

I am picky. Having been divorced. Having come close to finding someone I thought was perfect. Those things made me realize that if I can’t find the woman that is everything I want in the world than I’d rather be alone. I will not settle. And for that reason I have distanced myself from many woman who were great, but not exactly what I was looking for.

So what do I want? Well I’ve talked about that before. And I could talk about it again until I’m blue in the face. But instead I will say this, I don’t know exactly what it is I’m looking for. But I am damn sure I’ll know it when I see it.

So what about the good parts of dating? I don’t want to make it sound like it’s all bad. In fact I should make it clear that there are a few things I really like about the dating world.

I have gained more self confidence in the time I have spent dating than in years beforehand. Going out and finding both success and failure in dating has given me a strength of character. I no longer live my life with a fear of rejection. And this has really bleed into all facets of my life.

I have made new friends. It hasn’t worked out with every girl I’ve dated. But what’s nice is that I have met a few women that I’ve remained friends with after we figured out that we didn’t work as a couple. I like having female friends. I even had one girl I dated a couple of times introduce me to another girl I went out with. So the benefits are all over the place.

And of course there’s something to be said of the excitement of meeting new people. Of sitting across a table from someone and not knowing what the next day will bring for the both of you. It’s an adventure unlike any other.

So I will continue to date. I will keep putting myself out there every day. I will try to have fun. I will live my life as best as I can.

And one day, if I’m real lucky, I’ll meet that girl that’ll make me want to give up my new found bachelor ways.

I can’t wait … but I guess I’ll muddle through somehow until then …

;)

Dream a Little Dream (1989)

2006-12-07T07:55:00.000-07:00

I’m Gonna’ Have To Move On

Yesterday I got the closure I desperately needed. For the last six months I have been living my life with one foot firmly planted in the past. I kept trying to hold onto something I guess I never really had. And I’ve realized it’s time to move forward.

But I guess before I move on I need to air out my past.

Last June I was dumped on the day after my birthday. It was without a doubt the worst break up I have ever been through. I was crushed in ways I can never explain. I honestly felt like I couldn’t go on living. Like the air had been sucked from my lungs.

Now all of that may make her sound like an “evil” ex-girlfriend. But that wouldn’t be fair to her because in the end we both know she wasn‘t the bad guy. I’ve never allowed anyone to cast her as the villain of our relationship. Simply because there were no bad guys here. I was deeply in love with her and she simply didn’t feel the same way about me. It didn’t work out the way either of us wanted and there was plenty of blame to go around for what happened between us.

And honestly. Well if I speak honestly, there will always be a part of me that will miss her and regret the life we never got the chance to share.

And for the last six months I’ve known that she was reading my blog from time to time. I’ve known that she occasionally checked in on me to see what was going on in my life. (Just as I have done at her myspace page) And because I suppose I was hedging my bets there was a part of my life I didn’t talk about on this blog or on my myspace page.

I know, it’s hard to imagine there was something I didn’t want to talk about, huh.

Well like I said. It’s time to move on. Set both feet forward and live my life for the future instead of a past that will never be again. Why now? What made me ready to get on with my life?

Not too long ago I met someone. A pretty amazing young girl that I quickly realized I had genuine feelings for. It wasn’t love, but I could (for the first time since my break up) imagine a future where I was happy with someone other than my ex. She made me think it was possible to have a relationship with someone that could be in love with me as well. Something that had seemed impossible to me for so long. I won’t say that it didn’t come as a sort of shock. And I will say that it took a little bit for me to figure out what those feelings meant.

I have no idea if this girl and I will end up together. But I guess that wasn’t really what mattered so much in this case. She allowed me to envision a future with someone who would actually feel as strongly for me as I did for them. A person that I could imagine sharing their life with me.

It was something I often never thought I would feel again. And even though it didn’t work out I know I’ll always be grateful to the girl that made me feel again.

And then yesterday I met with my ex. I had some of her things and she had a few of mine. We met to swap out our stuff and see if we could somehow manage to be friends.

And for myself I will admit I wanted to know if there was any chance we might be able to repair the past. I had been living there for so long I had some crazy dream that there was a chance of reconciliation.

Well things didn’t go as badly as I thought they might. At first we danced a bit around the hurt and heartache. But in the end we said the things that we had to say. And the things I couldn’t bear to say I told her in what may have been our final embrace. I would always care for her. I would always be there for her if she needed me. She would always have a special place in my heart. I felt for a moment like I would never be able to let her go. But then as suddenly as that I knew I could no longer hope for something that we both knew was never coming. And as sad as it made me I knew in my heart it was time to let her go.

I wish nothing but the best for her. I hope she finds happiness. I hope one day she gets whatever it was I couldn’t give her. But it’s time for me to start looking for some happiness of my own.

Some times in life we don’t get the things we think we need. We don’t get the things we pray for at night in the darkness. When we think the world has come to an end and we’re all alone (and our cats).

And maybe that’s for the best. I know I won’t ever see my future if I am wallowing in the misery of my past. So now it’s time for me to dream of something new. Something that doesn’t bring me so much heartache. Something that doesn’t need to be repaired and polished.

A dream of a love shared. A dream of a future together with someone that makes me dizzy. A future we can plan out in the darkness of the night … together.

That’s my new dream. Now I’m moving one foot in the future. I’m looking forward to finding someone to one day share my life with.

And until then? Well I have a date later this week. And maybe another a few days after that. So I guess we’ll just have to see where the day takes us and try to enjoy what happens along the way …

Love Actually (2003)

2006-12-03T08:07:00.000-07:00

I can’t live my life settling for anything less that what I need any longer.

I’ve spent to many hard nights thinking about the one that got away. And not enough time going out and finding the one that makes my heart feel like I think it might just pop out of my chest.

I can’t spend my days hoping for feelings that aren’t there from someone who‘s never going to give them to me. Because I know our lives are too short. Those lonely nights are far too long. And I know my heart’s been too empty all this time for anything less to suffice.

So this time I’m going to take my time. I’ll make sure that the hurt is through before I say those three little words. Those all powerful words that have healed and hurt and filled us all with so much of what makes life full.

I know I’m going to have to be more selective this time. Not give my feelings so quickly this time. I know I’m yet again rediscovering what it means to be in love. I know I need to explore what love even means to me this time.

So what is it that I want from love? We all want it, but what does that mean? What’s it that love gives us that makes us drunk with passion? What is it about love that feeds our souls? What is it we need from the love of another to survive?

Well I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about what my heart needs over the last six months. I’ve really wondered what it means to be loved unconditionally. To be loved in a way that means more than those final scenes in your favorite love story. The happily ever after shouldn’t be a fairytale. What does it mean to have a love that lasts the hardships of a real relationship.

And I know a little more now than I did yesterday. And I’ll know more one tomorrow when love comes back into my life again. One day ... someday.

I know I want someone who thinks about me as often as I think about them. I know I need someone who knows how to live without me, but wouldn’t ever want to have to try it.

I need a love that understands that sometimes I just can’t help but try and fix it.

I need someone who likes me just the way I am. A love that thinks my imperfections are as endearing as the ones that make me feel closer to them. Someone who doesn’t ask me to change who I am because that’s who they fell in love with. A love that compels me everyday to try and be a better person for her and for myself.

I want someone who makes me feel like there’s no one else in the world for me. When they aren’t around I can’t help but scan the crowd for her. And when they walk into a room everything else just fades from my sight.

I want my best night of the week to be the one I sprawled across the couch watching the Tivo and doing nothing … with you.

I want a love that knows I have doubts from time to times and knows just what to say to make me forget all about them.

I want a love that doesn’t care what kind of car I drive as long as I’m driving to them.

I need a love that wakes me up in a cold sweat when I have a nightmare that it’s gone, and puts me safely back to sleep when I see her lying next to me in our bed.

I want a love that knows I’m respecting her when I open every door for her for the rest of her life.

I want a love that knows why Tuesday is my favorite day of the week.

I want a love that sings with me in the car even if she doesn’t know all the words. A love that smiles at me even when I can’t see her watching.

And when she closes her eyes and thinks of her perfect wedding day she can only see me standing beside her.

I want a love that needs a “girls night out” but can’t wait to come home and tell me all about it.

I want a love that would rather have my two left feet on the dance floor with her than anyone else.

You know the kind of love that keeps you up wondering how your dumb ass got so lucky. That keeps you awake some nights with just the anticipation of seeing her again.

I want a love that makes me plug in my phone so I can keep talking to her late into the night when we can‘t be near each other.

I deserve a love like that. We all do. We should settle for nothing less than the greatest love affair in our lives. We should hold onto that person that makes us know that there aren’t words enough to explain what we’re feeling in our hearts when we’re in love.

I need a love that falls for me every day. The kind of love that makes me fall for her every time I see her face. The kind of love I want to grow old with. The kind of love I can’t wait to plan every tomorrow to come with.

I know it’s out there. For all of us.

The Jerk (1979)

2006-11-23T02:09:00.001-07:00

Random Thoughts Part One

Some people have said that “there’s no such thing as a free lunch” and I think it’s total malarkey. I eat for free all the time. You just have to know when it’s time to leave.

I find it so strange that something I do can have such different reactions from different people. How the exact same thing can turn someone’s stomach and cause another person to admire me. So maybe the answer is to be true to yourself and those who can’t take it should move on.

Of course being yourself is far too often a tricky thing to be. I’m inclined to change my mind from time to time and it may often seem like I’m never consistent. Except of course that I’m always consistent about how I feel at the time.

Daniel Craig was a better Bond in Casino Royale than any other actor has ever played the role in any other movie. And yes I’m including Sean Connery in that list. And I don’t care if you think it’s blasphemous to say so, it still doesn’t make it any less true.

Yes. I used the word malarkey. Yes, I may use it again. And no … I’m not from the nineteen fifties.

I like football but I don’t really LIKE football. I have never sat down to watch a game by myself. I’d rather go shopping or to a movie to be honest. And I don’t think that makes me any less macho or manly. Maybe it just means I don’t want to watch a bunch of dudes in skintight pants run around with a ball for three hours.

Cover songs can be a tricky thing. It’s odd how some bands can somehow manage to capture the heart of what makes a song great while other (often equally talented bands) can strip a song of it’s life and leave it dieing on the studio floor. Radiohead’s cover of “Wish You Were Here” is an example of a great cover tune. U2’s “Helter Skelter” is an example of a not so great cover tune.

Wouldn’t life sometimes be so much simpler if we didn’t know that feeling called love? Probably. But I doubt it’d be a life anyone thought much of.

Speaking of love. After talking to a pretty cool person tonight I was left thinking about how love can change. How it’s so fickle that sometimes the feeling can change with even the smallest of changes. And so often you can change everything in your life and it will still be exactly as it was when you return.

In the last year I’ve had something like nine or ten people tell me I look like Clark Kent. Including a little girl who turned bright red when she figured out I had overheard her. It’s weird. Does that mean I look like one of the actors who played the character? Does it just mean I have dark hair and glasses? Maybe I should start wearing a superman shirt under my dress shirts … you know, just in case.

When I die I want my service to be concluded with the song “Rainbow Connection” by Kermit the Frog. It just somehow seems appropriate.

The new Ikea store here in town is big. Not big like a mall. More like - big like Paris Hilton’s sense of entitlement or Britney Spear’s false sense of modesty. You know … incalculably big and bordering on the infinite.

It is said that nothing heals a wound like time. Well this may be true but I can tell you that time, however, does not heal all wounds.

The truth is that while I long for change in my life I find that trying to change anything big these days scares the hell out of me. I feel like I’m waiting for something, but I don’t know what.

I don’t love lamp. I hate that son of a bitch.

How is it that Tracy Morgan is so damn funny on 30 Rock, and somehow managed to be completely unfunny in his own show?

“All you need is love.” - John Lennon

“… and this Thermos.” - Steve Martin (in The Jerk)

Confidence (2003)

2006-11-16T08:37:00.000-07:00

It was always about confidence.

There are a lot of clichés that apply to my life in recent months, but the most appropriate one had to be the one about hindsight. You know the one I‘m talking about.

What I can see clearly now was how my lack of confidence had really kept me uninvolved in my own love life. How my (what bordered on) self loathing had kept me out of the game for years. It wasn’t my massive weight that kept me single all that time, though I’m sure it would have played a decent sized role if I had ever put forth any effort. It was my own awareness of and the insecurities about my weight that had done me in.

I remember once I had a boss who told me that, “Reality is ninety-eight percent perception. It‘s not what’s actually there … it‘s what you think is there.”

That’s probably the wisest thing a coworker has ever said to me. It didn’t matter weather or not my being overweight would have kept me single. Maybe it did. Or maybe it didn’t. But I always believed that it would … so I never even allowed myself the chance to find out. Never put myself out there because I was so sure I would be rejected.

By not putting myself out there and taking a chance I didn’t have to deal with the reality of why women weren’t interested in me. And more to the point - I wouldn’t have to deal with the reality of why I was so unhappy with myself. I could wallow around in my own false sense of contentment.

So instead I decided to play the part of being every girls “best friend.”

For all of these women I could be the comic relief. I would be the shoulder to cry on when their defective relationships with prettier (i.e.: thinner) boys weren‘t working out. I could bear the weight when these jerks didn’t come through in one way or another and I just happened to be available to pick up the pieces. I found myself always there for them when they needed me. Quick to joke that their problem was that, “they just hadn’t been dating me.” So sure that with my ability to cater to their every whim I would be sure to make them (and in turn myself) happy.

I hate to break it to you ladies, but weather you know it or not you’ve known a guy just like me at some point in your life. You know that super nice guy that always seemed to be around when you needed a friend. Let me clue you in on a little something. That guy really, really, really wanted to fuck you. I kid you not.

But in return for this friendship I would settle for a little harmless flirtation at work. And of course these women would manage to keep me just out of reach when it came to being anything more than friends. Always too busy to do anything for the few weeks they happened to be single. I was relegated to the status of “the best guy ever” and then they would go home to some jerk who was ten times worse than the guy before him.

But hey, he had a motorcycle. And … you know … he looked good in his truckers cap (or trendy chain wallet, skinny tie, polo shirt with a “popped” collar, low slung jeans, or wait … no … he was probably in a band. I swear to you they are almost always in a band.)

But I wasn’t bitter. Honest. I swear.

But the truth is that it wasn’t these women’s fault. It was nobody’s fault but my own. I allowed myself to be treated that way. My self esteem was so low that I figured it was better to be there for them. And I suppose that I always held out some misplaced hope that if I made myself always available for them that they might be able to see past my appearance to see the real me.

The flaw in my logic there being that the real me was in fact a doormat that allowed myself to be used by women on a daily basis. And I’ve learned in the most painful way there is that trying to do nothing but please someone is only going to inevitably drive them away. No matter how good your intentions are. What’s that cliché about killing them with kindness? You know I think I have a better understanding of why death is referenced there …

And of course we all know the old cliché about where nice guys finish.

Maybe I don’t need to be a nice guy. But I do know that I do need to be a good guy. A decent guy. I grew up a large part of my life exposed to guys who weren’t so decent all the time. I’ve seen firsthand the kind of emotional (and far too often) physical damage that these types of guys (not men) can inflict on women. I have stories that would make you ashamed to be a part of the same species as some of these “winners.”

But even with all that I still hold out hope that this cliché isn’t always so true. I know several (and by that I mean five or six) women who have somehow managed to avoid all of the garbage out there and settled down with truly decent men.

Maybe it’s just that women want to bone (all class aren’t I) the jerk … but they know he’s not who they’ll end up with. I have this crazy idea in my head that eventually these women figure out what’s important in a relationship. They come to realize that they don’t have to be treated like they (too often) allow themselves to be treated by so many of these losers.

But I digress.

I think another issue I had was that I saw things too often in black and white and not in the shades of gray that exist in real life.

I’ve spent a lot of time wrestling with being a nice guy. Worrying so much about being seen as an asshole that I would be too conservative. I had this thought that all women (by default) would assume that all men were (naturally) terrible people right off the bat. So I would overcompensate by being the nicest guy I could. Saying nothing offensive or being too opinionated so as not to be seen as anything other than the best guy ever. With this newfound twenty-twenty vision I know this almost certainly made me uninteresting and worse still … it probably made me pretty boring more times than not.

But the thing is that I like to think that I am a nice guy. I am coming to terms with the fact that I have to not allow myself to be such a doormat to the women I allow into my life. I am figuring out the fine line between being nice and being a sucker.

But in the end, for me, it comes full circle to this idea of self confidence. I’ve had to almost admonish myself for thinking I am anything less than handsome. I have turned my looks into a joke that only I laugh at. And after a time I notice I’m the only one laughing. So slowly I might start to think that maybe I am an alright looking guy. And that false confidence has slowly turned to real confidence. And now I sit back from time to time and wonder to myself, “Am I desirable because I look better than I did before? Or is it that I don’t doubt myself like I used to?”

And to tell you the truth … I don’t think I really care what the answer is anymore.

The Anniversary Party (2001)

2006-11-14T08:17:00.000-07:00

November 15 - One Year Later

One year ago my life changed forever.

It’s hard to believe that there are people who know me now that couldn’t even imagine the person I used to be. I go through life these days a changed man. I sometimes find myself staring at my reflection wondering who I’m looking at. Am I still the fun loving “Hurley” I’ve been my whole life or am I closer to the “Sawyer” I now more closely resemble? And more importantly, if you don’t watch Lost … did that last analogy make any sense at all?

It’s only been twelve months since I closed my eyes knowing that there was a chance that I may never open them again. The risk of an operation outweighed (nice turn of phrase I know) by the fear of having a heart attack before I turn thirty five. The thought of being alone forever (because no one could see me for who I was - only for what I looked like) strengthened my resolve to go under the knife.

Fifty two weeks ago I had gastric bypass surgery. In those three hundred and sixty five days I have lost over 185 pounds and I can honestly say that it’s changed my life both for better and for worse.

I’m healthy. A month ago I had a full physical and I’m happy to report that every single result came back positively. Low cholesterol, good resting heart rate, all my blood work is normal, and I’m almost exactly where I should be weight wise. I can run, swim, bike, and do weight lifting with no real problems. Physically I am doing very well indeed.

The down side? Well let’s just say that spending the first twenty eight years of your life being almost ignored by women has done a number on my psyche. There’s no handbook for the kind of emotional changes I’ve been through. I go back and forth from day to day about how I feel about the attention I am now getting. I am now comfortable enough with my looks to acknowledge that I am a decent looking guy. I know I’ll never be a Brad Pitt … but I also know I’ll never have to worry about being mistaken for Brad Garrett. In the abstract - being considered a good looking guy is something I’ve always dreamed about. But the reality - she can be a much harsher mistress.

I’ve noticed that it’s both men and women that treat me differently. Sometimes it’s just a matter of being a little more polite on the elevator. Or the cashier being a little more chatty while waiting in line at the store. Passers by eye contact lingers a bit more and often times now there’s a smile to go along with it. Store clerks ask me if I need help more often. It’s these little day to day things that seem to have changed the most.

In the last few months I have done my best to live my life honestly. I strive every day to be truthful with myself and with those I interact with. This strange “life as an honest male” can be a more painful way to live your life. Whoever said “the truth hurts” knew what they were talking about.

But living my life without the little white lies to cloud things has made my life overall less complicated.

With that in mind - you might be wondering about the big changes I’ve gone through in the last year. Maybe you’re curious to know how I’m different than I was before I lost all the weight?

Well here’s a little uncomfortable truth:

I am more aware of my vanity. I find myself looking at my reflection more often than I used to when I was fat. Checking my hair. Seeing how my belt matches my shoes. Asking my roommate if this jacket or that one looks better with my shirt. Taking extra time to get ready before going out when there’s any chance I might need to look my best.

At first I think I’d justify looking a little longer in the mirror because of the dramatic changes that were occurring to my body from week to week. I think these days I just want to make sure I look my best. Almost like now that I do look better that it’s important for me to try to look better. I find myself shopping for clothes at department stores or the mall instead of my (formerly) normal Target or (more often) Big & Tall store. Not just for clothes but for clothes that will make me look better.

I’m not proud of the vanity I seem to have developed and I worry a lot that I have become the kind of guy I used to really hate. That jock’ey, Abercrombie & Fitch, frat guy type who thinks he’s gods gift to women. I hate that guy and it scares me that I look more like him than I used too.

There have been more pictures taken of me in the last year than in all of the years before I had my operation. The reason is simple. I’m not ashamed of the way I look anymore. A picture is no longer a painful reminder of how out of control my weight had gotten.

What’s the other big change? Well without a doubt it’s how women treat me now. Let’s see if I can just put this as bluntly as possible.

There were a total of four women who ever expressed any interest in me as more than a friend in the twenty eight years of my life before I had weight loss surgery. And that number includes my ex-wife. I don’t want to (and won’t) go into too much detail here … but in the last year that number has risen to a level I never thought possible.

I had a girlfriend within four months (and that would be around eighty pounds less Rod) of my operation. I was twenty nine years-old the first time a woman ever approached me at a bar and flirted with me.

This newfound attention from the opposite sex (and to be honest from gay males anytime I am near the warehouse district) has not been all I thought it would be. I walk a fine line. Knowing that I should be happy women are attracted to me and trying hard to not resent them for just now noticing me. I understand the reasons. I know that the way I looked before made me a different person. It’s just that only my physical appearance has changed. I still feel like the same guy who was ignored by women for years. I haven’t completely figured out how to make those two realities mesh quite yet.

So one year later and the life I have now would be unrecognizable to the person I used to be. I am healthier now than I was then. I don’t worry about not seeing my niece and nephew grow up anymore. I don’t fear falling over of a heart attack at thirty four anymore.

But am I a happier person now? Yes my life is different. But is it better?

Honest answer. Some days I know the answers to those questions. Some days I don’t think I’ll ever figure it out.

Today? Today I’m happy I can see my feet without using a mirror. I like that the waist on my jeans are ten sizes lower than they were a year ago. Today I am healthy and happy and looking forward to the rest of my life. And maybe (just for) today I might be alone but I’m not completely lonely.

Not completely …

What the #$*! Do We Know!? (2004)

2006-09-05T14:48:00.000-06:00

I don’t know why time seems to hate me. When I need it I never seem to have enough and when I don’t I end up with an abundance of it on my hands.

I know what hurts more than anything else in the world. I know the pain that never goes away.

I know that no matter how hard I try I will never have a matching amount of cheese to go with my crackers.

I know what true loss feels like.

I know exactly what I want.

I have no idea what I need.

I know I may be completely wrong about those last two things.

I don’t know why I am so lonely. I have friends and family that care about me. I have a life that might actually be starting to come together. I have pets that make me happy. I even have a social life that would put Paris Hilton to shame (and how sad for me that she’s the first person with a social life I could think of). But I still feel (more often that not) like I am alone is a sea of people. Not all the time of course, but this feeling seems so strange to me. I am out more now than I have ever been in my life. Having a good time with all my friends. Where as a year ago it would have been pulling teeth to get me out of the house on a weekday. These days I have to schedule time at the house to do the laundry and pay my bills. But I know that I feel more alone now than I ever have before.

I know that; "Life is full of misery, loneliness, and suffering — and it's all over much too soon." A man named Woody Allen told me so.

I know how many licks it takes to get to the center of a tootsie roll pop.

I don’t know who put the ram in the ram-a-lam-a-ding-dong.

I know that most of the people I know need to take themselves much less seriously. Life is too short to get hung up on the meaningless little crap.

I know this means me too.

I don’t know if I will ever love like that again.

I know I want to.

I don’t know if I am the same person I was before I lost all that weight. I worry every day that I might turn into the kind of guy that I have always loathed. That I will become that dunderheaded Neanderthal that has relied too much on his outer appearance and that I’ll forget what it was that people used to like about me in the first place. I hope I have kept the same personality and that I haven’t let my “looks” go to my head. But deep down I am afraid that I may not like whom I am turning into.

I don’t know if I am good looking or not. But I know strangers are a whole lot nicer to me than they used to be.

I know I’m the kind of jackass who would try to get away with wishing for more wishes.

I don’t know why people like Carrot Top, Reality Television, Teen Horror Movies, The Wayans Brothers, Fox News, Hot Tea, Jeff Foxworthy, Text Messaging, “Porn for Couples”, The Moral Majority, Wireless Hot Spots, The U.N., Getting Your Ride “Pimped”, Danny Gans, The Red States, The Blue States, Talk Show Hosts. Oh, and Hugh Jackman (hope the Scrubs fans get that last one).

I know more about women than most men I know.

I don’t know anything about women.

I don’t know what happens next. But for the first time in a long time I am thinking it might be something good.

The Great Escape (1963)

2006-08-19T11:06:00.000-06:00

Do we all want to escape our pasts? Maybe the more important question is even if we could … would we want too?

It’s my firm belief that everybody had a messed up childhood. Our chaotic upbringings are the very things that define us later in life. Shape us into the people we will become as adults. I’ll bet you that most people you know could point to at least one event in their past and proclaim that because of it “they were scarred for life.”

Most times though it’s not one pivotal and life altering event but a series of lifelong abuse or neglect or whatever that has shaped us into whom we have become. How we react to others. How we treat ourselves and the people in our lives. How we function in relationships. If we even like whom we have become. All of the image and esteem issues we are dealing with now stem from how we were raised then.

The point here is that if I wanted to (or I can only assume if you wanted to as well) I could tell you plenty of sad stories about how difficult my life was growing up. How messed up my home life was or horror stories about things I have had to do to protect my family or myself from harm. But really what’s the point. Odds are pretty high that we could exchange tales of sad sack lives all day long. But does that mean we should allow those events to predetermine what happens to our lives or how we feel about ourselves now?

I have come to realize that without those events in my life as a kid I wouldn’t be the man I am today. I wouldn’t have the wisdom of a hard-knock life (or be able to reference the musical Annie while writing about a painful childhood) that I have now. I wouldn’t have made the decisions that I did as I became a man and met the people I’ve met in my life.

Sinatra sings about regrets and how he’s had a few. I don’t know that I could agree with a sentiment like that. I mean I know that I sometimes wish that things had worked out for the better. I know that there have been times that I wished I had never met someone or chosen a certain path in life.

But I really feel that when I look back now I know that those choices have all enriched my life. Even the things that have left me heartbroken (only twice in my life) and seemingly worse off than I was the day before have meant something for me. I have learned and grown from all of the missteps in my life. I think that most of the time the wrong choice teaches you more than the right one ever could.

To be heartbroken means that you were once in love. There is no low on this or any earth that can match the high of being in love. There is no pain that could dream of matching the joy in feeling like you have met your one and only. I once said (and still firmly believe) that when it comes to love the risk is truly worth the reward.

Life has taught me that we roll the dice every day with each decision we make. I only hope that one day I am willing to take the gamble again.

Enough (2002)

2006-08-12T14:56:00.000-06:00

DISCLAIMER: I know there are a lot of generalizations in what follows. I am aware there are exceptions to the rule in all situations. But a lot of what follows is pretty damn accurate if you ask me.

I have something to tell you that's going to sound pretty damn strange coming from a male. One of those revelations about that speaks to my upbringing and I never really thought I would have to talk about. This is something that I foolishly assumed that everyone felt the same way about.

I respect women.

Now I know there are other guys out there who will say that they also respect women. And I am positive that there are plenty of men who not only say this but mean it as well. But I find that I genuinely like and respect women more (and more easily) than I do most guys. The anomaly being that whether I like a woman or not I always respect them for the things they have to go through and deal with that a guy will never really understand.

You see I've come to realize that I was raised to think a little differently about the opposite sex than most men I know. I was raised most of my life by a single mom. As a young and single woman of the eighties who was living in mostly big cities my mother dated more than her fair share of real losers.

By loser I'm not talking about guys who didn't do the dishes or open the door for her. I mean guys that were emotionally and sometimes physically abusive. Guys (and I do mean guys & not men) who would use drugs and get dangerous. Guys who made her feel bad about herself to make themselves feel better about their sad lives. And one time even a guy who put her into a hospital. I would need both hands to count the number of guys I have kicked out of my mom's house or had to call the police on to get rid of them. I lived for years as a child in an environment where I was exposed to the worst things a male could be.

I have no doubt that this has affected my relationships with women in some negative ways. I know that I tend to be too much of a caretaker with the women I love. Both overprotective and often catering too much about what I think will make them happy and not what they actually need from me.

That upbringing coupled with my experience as a young married man has had a pretty profound effect on how I view women and the relationships we guys have with them.

You have to know that I was married at the age of nineteen. Looking back I can say now with the wisdom of time that getting married that young may not have been my best move. But when you are young and in love you tend to wear very large blinders.

As a young man with a wife I would go out with my group of guy friends who were all, of course, very single. These guys were probably like most young guys (or most any age guys for that matter) in that they mostly thought with their lower regions. This was a wake up call for me. Hell, I had proposed to my (then) wife before we had ever had sex. To me finding that one person to spend the rest of your life with was all about love and how they made you feel and making (what I then thought was) a real emotional connection with that person. With my somewhat naive point of view I was for years exposed to all of the games almost all guys played while dating.

All of the lies a guy would tell a girl he was interested in. All of the games, little white lies, and flat out deceptions guys would use to impress a woman. All of these things were done with the selfish goal of "scoring" (in most cases) and then moving on to the next conquest. I could never understand the point of it all. If the woman you were chasing only saw this facade you presented them how could a relationship ever succeed?

Throughout the following years I worked in office jobs full of women who would tell me horror stories of bad first (and second and third) dates. These dates where a guy was obviously using a combination of parlor tricks he had honed with the sole purpose of getting into a girl's pants.

Or worse still were the women who had settled on one of these guys. Investing in a relationship that they knew was not working and were miserable in. Making excuses on a daily basis for the moron they were sleeping with and saying things like, "but I love him and I know he can change."

Even though the guy had cheated, manipulated, lied, or sometimes all of these things and more I would hear women make excuses for this "Man of their dreams".

Would you like to know another dirty little secret ladies? You're wrong ... but at least it's not your fault. As much as women like to think they know the men they are with you allow yourselves to be just a little deluded. You think he can change. You think all he needs is a chance (and just maybe a little nudge from you) to become something better than what he is now. You think these things because itÃ?s generally true of yourselves.

If you take a look at a woman in her twenties and then again in her thirties you will more often than not see two completely different people. Women are not only capable of major change over the course of their lives; they're almost preordained to go through at least one drastic change at some point. They are (in my opinion) designed to grow and evolve emotionally more than any guy ever will.

I think a lot of women assume that this is also the case for men. But that's not the case. For instance I know that I may have become a little more mature from my late teens to my late twenties. My politics or opinions may have shifted subtly over the last decade or so. But if I were to be honest (and I am trying every day to be just that) I would have to admit that I am basically the same guy I was when I was seventeen years old. And so are almost all of the men you have ever known. If Beavis & Butthead made us laugh at fifteen I can guarantee you we'll still find it funny at fifty five.

But I seriously digress.

I grew up knowing how hard women had it. I would see them putting up with less for most of their lives without seeing other possibilities. I would watch at the sidelines as the women I knew settled for a guy who treated them badly or took them for granted, worked for less money doing the same job, struggled with living up to a physical ideal determined by everyone but themselves, and often times even being taken advantage of simply for being female.

There's no denying that most women have it tougher than the men in this world. To me it seemed pretty obvious that women should be respected more than the average guy. Hell we'd have died off eons ago if men had to go through child birth ...

But I was having a conversation about this very subject with some women the other day and all I got were wide-eyed stares. Shocked looks from smart and intelligent women who couldn't believe that a male was saying these (what I thought were) pretty obvious conclusions.

Turns out a lot of women just assume that a guy doesn't respect her right off the bat. That they have to somehow earn it from a guy they are friends with or dating.

I don't think I know a single guy who would be caught dead even talking to a woman who he didn't think respected him. What would be the point? But maybe it's that some women are so used to being disrespected by others (men and women) that they let it slide because that's what always happens. It's the normal way of life for them?

But it shouldn't be. No one (man or woman) should ever put up with less than they deserve. Never let it slide when it matters. Never settle for receiving less than you give in life and I promise you your world will change overnight.

Ernest Goes to Camp (1987)

2006-08-08T14:13:00.000-06:00

I have never really been into camping. Hell I've probably slept in a tent less than three or four times in my entire life. I don't like mosquitoes, rocks poking you through a sleeping bag, or even the sound of a tent rustling in the wind. And let's not even address the hygiene problems. I am a man who likes his showers.

So when the invitation to Bob & Stephanie's wedding came in the mail it took some adjusting. Why you ask? Well because only Bob & Stephanie would choose to hold their nuptials at Big Bend National Park.

Big Bend is unique (it's website cheerily informed me) because it's the largest protected area of Chihuahuan Desert topography and ecology in the United States. Translation: A huge pile of dirt with a few mountains thrown about for looks. Apparently it's also one of the most remote and least-visited national parks in the lower 48 United States. Their website does not inspire confidence.

Sounds like the perfect place to start looking for Jimmy Hoffa. Or, you know, get married.

Well never let it be said that I am not a true friend. If my crazy eco-friends want to get married with the bears and mountain lions high atop Mt. Middleofnowhere than you can count me in.

I arranged for a rental car and made some phone calls to see about carpooling with friends for the nine hour drive that lay ahead of us. I was able to get friends Dan & Rachael to join me and away we went on the day before the big day. The car loaded with tents, food, and sleeping bags galore. We left early in the morning so there would be plenty of time to get there, set up camp, and spend the night with old friends and the local wildlife before the big day. Visions of roasting hotdogs around a campfire filled my head as we headed out west.

We arrived early (by our estimation) and had a pretty pleasant drive. By pleasant I mean of course fast. I will not confirm the breakneck speeds I got the rental car up to. Let's just say that I was more likely to go to jail than get a ticket if I happened to get pulled over. I set up my tent in record time with the help of Dan and then eagerly mocked those who were attempting to set up their own. I was not even deterred in my sarcasm by the fact that Dan had to show me how to assemble my tent only minutes before. That had been a whole ten minutes ago and was now long forgotten.

We sat for dinner and I had a few chips. The night seemed off to a great start. Mountain lions be damned.

This is of course where our story takes a turn. This is when the pain begins.

Sharp pain suddenly hit me while watching people eat dinner and seemed to take residence in my abdomen. Not stomach pain (as I was pretty familiar with that at this point post-surgery) but a pain lower than there that seemed happy to hang around for a while.

I should tell you at this point that this was not the first time I had felt pain like this. You see I had been to the ER only a weekend before with the exact same problem. There were blood tests and cat scans and x-rays (oh my) and after I had been told by the ER doctor that I was dehydrated. After pumping me full of three bags of IV fluid I was sent home feeling fine. Sitting at the park bench that night with my friends I was pretty sure that it was happening again.

But how could this be? I know I was drinking a ton of water. At that point already I had consumed 50 ounces and it wasn't even the end of the day.

So I sat quietly in pain for thirty minutes drinking a bottle of water and hoping it would subside. This plan seemed not to be working and the pain was actually getting worse. So I went and looking for one of the park rangers. Turns out that park rangers are also licensed EMTs. Ranger Dave took my vitals sitting on the steps of a ranger station at nine o'clock at night and I was told that I had a choice. I could stick it out and see if I started feeling better or be taken to the nearest hospital. It just so happened to be that the nearest hospital was 110 miles away in sleepy little Alpine, TX.

Boy, both those options sound fantastic.

I decided to stick it out and crashed in a lodge room with a friend. I slept maybe two hours the whole night. I drank water and writhed around in the dark all night trying to find any position that would hurt just a little less.

At four in the morning I decided to wait for daylight before calling back Ranger Dave to see if I could get some IV fluid at the park. I was somehow still convinced that my body was just dehydrated and the fluid would fix the problem. So here comes Ranger Dave again with his bag of tricks. After checking my vitals again he tells me that he's not comfortable attaching me to IV bags because he doesn't think that I am dehydrated. My options now limited I decide get myself dressed and drive the 110 miles to the nearest hospital.

I will only say one thing about that trip. You would be surprised the speeds you will go when you don't care about getting a pulled over by a cop. I mean you would really be quite surprised.

When I arrived at the hospital in Alpine I was introduced to one of modern medicine's most ingenious creations. This wonder of science is called The Pain Scale and it works like this. According to this chart you have pain ranging on a scale that goes all the way from one to ten. In this case (as in most) ten on the scale is the most pain imaginable and one the least. I know this sounds a bit complicated. But don't worry, the giant brain that came up with this wondrous chart knows how difficult his invention can be. You see; to help clarify this tricky scale every hospital known to man has a diagram with smiley faces to match the corresponding number on the chart. I told you the guy who came up with this was brilliant.

It's like they want you to look at this chart and figure out (while in your haze of pain) what your face would look like if it were in stick figure form. In all honesty I am convinced that it's some sort of additional sociological test they put you through since you're already there.

I picked number 4 on this magical pain chart when I got to the hospital. Not to high to make them think I was some sort of wussy and not so low that I really shouldn't even be there. I mean really, who goes to the ER when they are feeling a 1 on the pain scale?

"Yeah doc, I think this splinter is pretty serious. Pain chart? Oh I don't knowmaybe a one."

So the first thing we did were some x-rays and some blood work.

A not so little sidebar about the world of drawing blood:

I am now positive that the people who draw your blood at hospitals are always the last person you yourself would choose to do that particular job. And I'm including the janitorial staff as well as the gift shop girls here.

They are always new techs whose mission is to probe every inch of your arm for any sign of a veinand then go everywhere but that location to try and draw your blood. I swear to you that if it weren't for the fact that it's my arm they're doing needlework on that I'd seriously feel bad for them.

They always come across like a pothead trying to play a complicated Jimmie Page riff on guitar, "Wait, wait, oh sorry. Hold on, ... wait I got it ... nope, damn ... wait a sec ... there it ... ah, nope ... hang on a sec ... wait."

And on and on until you are confident you can connect the dots to form an accurate picture of The Battle of Gettysburg on your arm. It's only at that point that they look up at you and speak with a small and ashamed voice, "I'm gonna have to get someone else to come and give this a try."

Then of course a very sweet old lady comes in (who has probably been a nurse longer than Junior Senator Rick Santorum has been unpopular in San Francisco Bathhouses) and not only gets it on the first shot, but manages to do it with almost no pain at all.

My question is this: why on earth is this woman not hired full time to draw blood and paid in stacks of tax free hundreds every day to preserve the sanity of the patient?

But I digress.

So what were the results of the x-rays and blood work? You guessed it ... normal. The ER doctor said he thought that I might have an inflamed lower intestine and that it would be causing the pain. He slips me some pain medication and recommends they keep me overnight to see if things got worse or better. That officially meant that I would be missing my good friend's wedding. Kind of bummed about it, but at least I am no longer in such painand that night I do get to catch the last weeks Soprano's rerun. Ok, so I may be looking a little too hard for a silver lining here.

I call a friend at Big Bend camping with the wedding party and arrange to pick up my travel mates in a town outside the park so we can get headed home the next morning.

I am discharged at 7am with just a little tenderness in my abdomen and drive myself the 2 hours or so it takes to get to Fort Stockton. I find a gas station in town and wait for my friends to arrive at the meeting point. I'm still not feeling all that great, the little pain chart smiley face looks mainly confused at a solid two.

Dan & Rachael get dropped off and tell me the wedding went off without a hitch. I ask Dan if he can drive, a sure sign that I am not feeling well, and we make our way out of town to confront the 7 remaining hours it will take to get back home to Austin.

About forty minutes into our journey I am hit by a wave of nausea and I know what comes next, "Dan ... pull over now."

I jump out of the car before we come to a complete stop and heave up bile. What the hell? Normally if I throw-up it's because something I've eaten has been rejected by my stomach. The moment I get it out of my body I always feel better. But not this time. This time the same series of events happens about 4 or 5 more times before we finally stop at a state rest area. I get out, get sick, and the pain continues in my abdomenand slowly starts getting worse.

After the rest stop I am in the back seat of the car. My hope is that I will be able to lie down and pass out. But try as I might no position is comfortable and still 40 miles south of Fredericksburg (another 2 and a half hours away from Austin) I am writhing in pain. The smiley face pain chart face is laughing at me now and two perfectly twisted little devil horns have popped out from the top of his head to form an eleven.

While in the back of the car I am consumed with these thoughts. One, I have never been in this much pain in my life. Through broken knee, ankle, toe, crushed and jammed fingers, and even after my last surgery ... it has never hurt this badly. Two, I am dying to ask where we are (or more to the point when we will be home) but am terrified that the answer is not something I want to know. And finally I am laughing at myself. At some point between hurling bile into a plastic bag and the constantly moving from one painful position to another, all the while keeping as silent as I am able I realized how ridiculous I must have seemed to my friends in the car. Like a drunken mime on ecstasy or an enraged monkey with his mouth taped shut. I can only imagine how uncomfortable the trip must have been for them.

The second we get into Fredericksburg it hits me how far we still are from Austin. I am no longer able to keep quiet and start cursing under my breath and letting out unintelligible sounds of pain. I tell them to get me to an ER. We stop at a firehouse for directions and within minutes Dan pulls up to the entrance of the ER and I am moving as fast as I can for the door.

Now let me preface this with two pieces of information. I like most hospital staff. I am very rarely treated badly at a hospital and grew up in and around them most of my life. I understand how they work and try my best to work within those parameters. And I also know that the moment I stepped into that ER I stopped all pretense of trying to be cool about the pain. I was officially the world's poster boy for bad patient.

My mantra was a simple one - "pain medication; you must give me pain medication."

The nurse begins with, "What would you rate your Pa-"

"10!" I say without letting her finish. "I am a 10. Didn't you just hear my mantra?"

This goes on for what seems like days as she gets my vitals and I rehash my medical history. I can only speak in short hyperventilating bursts of information, "Camping - gastric bypass - abdominal pain - dehydrated - drank lots - need pain medication - you whore!"

All right. That last one was just in my head. But I think she knew what I meant. I could not sit, lie, or stand still. I was seriously hoping that the pain would knock me out or I would hyperventilate myself into unconsciousness.

At one point (after being put behind a curtain in the main ER) the nurse comes over to me and tells me that I need to, "calm down and be quiet." I have never had the desire to slap a woman, but I would have loved to shake the shit out her at that moment.

The doc finally orders a cat scan and, of course, blood work.

The next two hours are a blur. No pain medication, a battery of tests, and Dan sitting silently in the corner waiting to see what's going on while I try not to fall out of my little bed. Cut to two hours of pain later when he the doctor comes back in and drops the bomb.

It turns out that a stricture has grown from the scar tissue from my previous surgery and is pressing against my intestine. That's right ladies and gents. A full four months post operation I had my first real complication. I was unable to move anything past that point in my intestine and that was what was causing the abdominal pain. A huge risk was that the intestine could rupture and cause me to go septic.

How was this to be fixed? Surgery.

They would have to go in and remove the scar tissue to unblock the intestine and hope that the blood supply had not been cut off.

My big question, "Can I have some pain medication now please?

It was weird feeling as all of a sudden the nurses were treating me like I had a real problem and was not just some nut whining about a tummy ache.

So I sent Dan & Rachael home and they took me by ambulance to St. David's Hospital in Austin. I can't tell you when I left. I can't even tell you how long it took to get there.

What I can tell you about that ambulance ride in my little stretcher is that they are very bumpy. I can tell you that the driver of the ambulance had the same name as me and I would snap back to consciousness every time the female EMT would say his name.

I can also tell you that there may not be a heater in the back of an ambulance. For what felt like 15 minutes I had a debate in my head about asking for a blanket or asking for the heater to be turned up. I was freezing and couldn't decide which I wanted to ask for. After, again, what seemed like fifteen minutes I opened my mouth to ask for a blanket, in my mind the more likely thing to get and was cut off by the EMT hollering out in his red neck drawl, "We're hear buddy, let's get you inside."

Those must have been some really good pain meds my friends.

So this is when I met Dr. Faulkenberry who is a surgeon with the Southwest Bariatric Surgeons in Austin, TX. Dr. Faulkenberry was on call that night and was there to greet me at almost the moment I was wheeled into the hospital. He clarified what was wrong with me and told me he would be operating. I can't stress enough how high on pain medication I was. I don't think I have ever been more agreeable and nonchalant about such a serious issue.

"You may have to slice me wide open instead of operating laproscopicly? There's a chance I could lose pieces of my intestine? And like all surgeries there is the risk of death? That all sounds great doc ... have yourself a ball."

But there was a moment of seriousness right before I went under. It was as they were wheeling me into the operating room.

This was the second time in less than six months that I was to have been operated on. The last time I had spent an entire night writing out a last will and typing out my goodbyes to all the people in my life.

I had been given months to prepare for that first surgery. This was different. I had not had any cell phone coverage in days to call and tell anyone and the few people who knew what was going on with me had no idea who they could have called for me. There was no time given to call family and let them know. No time to call the little red-headed girl I loved to tell her that I had fallen for her long ago. No time to make sure someone would care for my pets. Just no time to do anything but realize all of this as I'm crawling from the stretcher to the operating table at 2am on an early Monday morning.

I closed my eyes and thought about what I would miss more than anything else in the world if these were my last moments in this life

Something I don't think I'll share thank-you very much.

I swear to you it's probably an Oscar winning movie (or at least a Lifetime Movie of the Week moment) if that's where it all ended, but damn it if I didn't ruin it all by waking up.

And in my drug hazed post-surgery first moments who did I call? With no cell phone in sight I dialed the only local number I had managed to store in my head.

"Hey bro, I'm in the hospital and just had surgery. I won't be in to work today. Call mom and tell her I'm fine."

I then passed out until much, much later.

The operation was a success. No complications. Dr. Faulkenberry was a genius and kept the whole thing laproscopic. There were just three more tiny scars to show for my bad weekend.

I called everyone I could. My mother was mad I didn't call her. My father told me he always knew I was full of shit. I called Bob & Stephanie to be "officially the last person they know to congratulate them on their wedding." I reached friends and family who had been both frantic and unaware. But it was all down hill from there.

I was released from the hospital on Thursday. I stayed an extra day to be treated for a bacteria infection and to make sure my temperature was normal before I went home.

I am alive and well, and I am past my first (and hopefully only) complication.

So what did I learn that week? What life lessons did my ordeal of pain and suffering teach me? How am I a wiser man now than I was before? Well I now know that if you're on IV fluids for six days straight you can lose fifteen pounds. I learned that it's possible to travel one hundred and ten miles in less than an hour and a half by car. I learned that no matter what drugs you are on, how little your cell phone works, or how life threatening the issue, you always call your mother before going to a hospital. And I learned that love, indeed, works in mysterious ways.

Oh, and if you're friends invite you to go camping for the first time in two decades ... listen to your gut and say no. Trust me on this.

Why, Charlie Brown, Why? (1990)

2006-08-08T11:47:00.000-06:00

It’s been over eight months since I had my gastric bypass surgery. I am (obviously) very open about the whole thing and when people find out about it they are always curious. And I can state without any hesitation that the number one question I get is, “Why.” People always want to know why I chose to have an operation. It’s a question that tells me more about a person than I sometimes want to know. Because that’s not the real question. There is another question just under the surface of that innocent sounding query. What they really want to know is “Why couldn’t you lose the weight without surgery.”

And I will admit that it’s a very valid question. I had been dieting on and off for years with no real results. I could never get motivated to get into a gym on a regular basis. I was unmotivated because I was content. I was comfortable and not thinking about the future. I never thought about what my life would become if I continued living the way I was.

You see, my doctor was very clear with me before I had my operation. She told me that the surgery is only a tool. That unless I used it in conjunction with other tools (diet & exercise) I would eventually gain the weight back. Hell, there was even a chance that I could mess around and not even really loose any weight. She told me that she had seen it happen many times. The thing about this operation is that like most things in life, there are ways to cheat it. There are loopholes that will allow you to continue doing the things that got you so big in the first place.

The point is that it wasn’t a magic wand that would make all the weight fly off with no effort. It would be hard and it would take commitment and willpower. I can tell you that those were two things that I had never had when it came to weight loss attempts.

So why choose to have a surgery that could fail? And what made it different this time around from all the previous times?

First off, weight loss surgery may only be a tool, but it’s one dozy of a tool for sure. The first month after the operation my stomach was so messed up that I didn’t even want to think about food. I lived on water and Jell-O and didn’t even like the Jell-O. And even when you get to the point where you can eat food the quantities are extremely small. I was told that my stomach would be about the size of a ping pong ball post surgery. I thought that might be an exaggeration right up until the first time I ate solid food and after two bites felt like I had swallowed a twenty five pound turkey.

But as to the willpower and commitment needed for something like this it was pretty simple really. I was pushing thirty years old and huge. I knew that diabetes, heart attacks, and any other number of awful things were just around the bend if I didn’t change my life. I wanted to get married. I wanted to have kids and be able to see them grow up. I wanted to live for as long as I could. I can tell you that death is one hell of a motivator.

But we’re alone here you and I. Let’s be really honest for a moment. Let’s talk about what made me go from thinking about it to wanting to do it.

I remember I worked with this girl. She was my age. She was pretty. We got along great. We had so much in common. One night out at a bar she told me, “You know Rod … if you lost some weight I can see that you are a very handsome guy.”

Then a few nights later she went out and slept with some other guy. She slept with some random good looking guy who she barely knew.

And it hit me. I knew I was a nice guy. I knew I was funny and smart and able to have fun with almost anyone. And I knew that all the girls I knew would always think of me as that great, funny, cuddly, friend who they would never be interested in as more than friends. I would never get the girl of my dreams because she would never go out with me as fat as I was.

Suddenly I was not content. I was not happy to be as big as I was. I deserved better from the opposite sex than what I was getting. I deserved happiness. And I was instantly willing to take the risk of surgery so that I could make the girl of my dreams see me for the man of her dreams.

Why? To get the girl.

Big (1988)

2006-04-13T15:40:00.000-06:00

For just a moment let's be blunt.

For just a moment let's cut through all the PC verbage and get right to the heart of the matter.

From about the time I started junior high school I have been fat. Not plump or husky or any other unflattering terms (I mean who really thinks being called husky is better than being called fat) that people use. Nope. I have been morbidly obese for going on 15 years.

How does this happen? How in the world does a kid who was pretty good at baseball and soccer get fat? A kid who loved to play outside and run around with all the other kids after school. How does this happen you ask?

The truth is pretty shocking in it's simplicity. It wasn't a hormonal thing. My bones are not bigger than an average man's bones. I didn't have a glandular problem. What I did was eat bad food. That combined with the fact that the older I got the more lazy I became helped turn me into someone I hated and didn't want to be. Slowly sports after school turned into video games on the edge of my bed. Playing outside with my bike and my friends became hanging out at the food court at the mall with a coke and handful of quarters for Street Fighter 2.

And the downward spiral was that the bigger I got the worse I felt. And the worse I felt the more I would retreat into my safty zone of bad food and being lazy.

You may be asking yourself a question like, "Well damn man - just how big did you get?"

It's a valid question. The only real answer I can give is that I honestly don't know. Fat people will do just about anything they can not to get on a scale. The scale is honest about our body image. Nothing is worse than feeling bad about your weight and then having a machine tell you it's worse than you thought. So I honestly don't know how much I weighed in high school. I can tell you that my waist was as big as 36 inches and I can tell you I didn't date much. That's what I remember.

So years go by and a sedintary lifestyle sets in. You (and by "you" I mean me) become complacent and to comfortable to make a change. You diet all the time but never as much as you could. And the thought of working out at a gym becomes more and more exhausting.

At my peak I weighed in at just under 380lbs. Even at a height of 6'4" that much weight is bound to take it's toll. But I hovered at the 350lbs mark for years and never seemed to be able to loose the excess weight. In fact, it was at a point where I really started to feel comfortable at that place in my life. Not only unable to change, but almost unwilling to do anything different.

So what made me make the decision to do something as drastic as Gastric Bypass Surgery?

One word answer? Women.

But more on that later.

First Blood (1982)

2006-04-13T08:40:00.000-06:00

Having a conversation with an old friend can be a strange experiance. You pick up right where you left off. It can almost be like you never lost contact. But you have lost time. There are gaps in the knowledge you have about each other, because while time may have passed in reality, it hasn't passed in your friendship.

I was talking to an old friend last weekend when one one of these gaps caused an odd little revelation.

I had written a short narritive about some medical stuff that had happened to me (more on that later) and my friend had read it that week. We chatted about it and he asked if I still wrote on a regular basis.

It was like I had forgotten that I had ever written anything. I can remember a day when I was on the computer hacking away at twenty different things (though never finishing any of them) every day. These days I found myself exhausted if my e-mails were more than two paragraphs.

But the question remained.

I didn't write, but I sure as hell should. The last year of my life has been the most transitional year of my life. Stranger than the year I was apprehended by Dutch Military Police. Weirder than the year I got married by Captian James T. Kirk of the USS Enterprise. This year has been a big one for me and I should be writing about all the changes I have been through.

So we'll start at the beginning and work our way up to speed.

Next time I'll fill you all in on what made me decide to change my life forever and go under the knife.