Dear Woman from the Other Night,

When you said that I sound “delightful” and I replied that “it’s just the booze that makes you think so,” I wasn’t trying to be rude, or imply that you were loaded. It’s just that I have never been good at taking compliments and my natural inclination is to deflect them. If anyone knows Theresa from Dupont, please pass along my apologies.

Sincerely,

The Man Who Blew It with the Really Cute Girl (not the first time that’s happened)

**

Dear Bus Driver Who Saw the Guy Running to Catch your Bus but Kept Driving,

I could have dismissed your unmitigated meanness as inattention… but I saw the woman at the bus stop point to the trailing guy and ask you to wait. You, are in fact, underscoring the largely false stereotype about DC writ large and Metro in specific. That you did so on New Year’s Eve when people ought to be filled with good will for all makes your dickishness even more egregious.

However, I do wish to thank you, because it gave me an opportunity to show kindness to a stranger. Even though I was running late, and had very little room in the car because of all the kitchen equipment, I stopped to offer the gentleman you left behind a ride. I stopped, moved things around to make room in the front seat, and offered a ride to a complete stranger. I stopped and was willing to delay my day to take that man wherever he needed to go. I stopped because you were an arse, and by stopping I found a way to demonstrate generosity of spirit. So thank you for you for your asshattery; it tested the veracity of my convictions… and unlike, you, I did not appear wanting.

Sincerely,

A Man Who Tracked Down Your Bus Number and Reported this Incident to WMATA

**

Dear Guest at my NYE Dinner,

Your marriage is not my business… but in case you were wondering why I looked so familiar, no, it was not from the picture on my website… but it very well may be that you remember looking at my profile on the that online dating site. I remember looking at yours, and I don’t recall it saying anything about you being married (open or otherwise.) As Rick Perry might say, oops.

Sincerely,

A Man Who Has no Problem with Polyamory but isn’t too Fond of Cheating Spouses

**

Dear Guy Next to me at the Bar the Other Night,

I know that there are lots of things about me that beg the food question… like the miniature copper sauté pan that hangs from my bag. I am humbled by the fact that I have a job/life that I love and understand when people want to talk food with me. However, asking me fifty questions that all began with “So what’s your favorite ____” is not really a conversation. That you did so while I was using what little energy I had to will my Steelers to victory while also trying to get the feckless Bengals to help out by beating the hated Ravens did not help matters.

Sincerely,

The Guy Who Finally Found a Food Conversaaation He Didn’t Want to Have

I have been trying to write this post for a while. Since November 5^th actually as that was the day that one of my heroes was knocked of his perch and the resulting scandal landed too close to me.

I have viewed the seedy world of college football as an avid fan, a recruit and a player. I always placed Joe Paterno in the too short column of good guys. We now know that there is an irremovable tarnish on his once sterling reputation. Any adult who knowingly abdicates our collective and inherent moral obligation to protect children deserves a reserved corner in hell.

While it is easy to conjure ex post facto outrage, the three big reasons that prevent child sexual abuse from being the light our hair on fire issue that it should be are: the abusers almost always have friendly faces, the abused almost never have faces, and the abused often allow silence to be the second abuser.

He wasn’t a beloved football coach with a child-focused charity, he was a priest with a youth group in his charge. It wasn’t in a field house shower, it was the church rectory. It followed the same too worn path: find vulnerable child, groom with attention, then affection, make incremental moves across a line until a confused child forgets where it is. Just writing these words ties knots in my stomach.

I do not write this post seeking your sympathies. I write because I am no longer willing to let my silence continue to victimize me. I write because I am willing to stand with survivors everywhere. I write to be another face for the faceless. I write because more than 25 years, and a life well lived later, this still makes cry in a fucking coffee-shop as I type. I write this post because I feared I might never be able to write anything else if I didn’t write this.

Dear Time (re: Passage of),

I would really appreciate it of you would stop playing parlor tricks with my memories.

Sincerely,

The Guy who wants to stop thinking about The Girl

****

Dear Short Haired Girl / Once & Future Long Haired Girl,

You are still the prettiest girl in the room.

Sincerely,

A Guy Who is Happy You’re Happy and Healthy

****

Dear Random Woman from Internet Dating Site I Have Used for an Embarrassingly Long Time,

When we were chatting the other night and you asked what I first notice about a woman, contrary to your implication, I was not being coy by telling you that “it’s complicated.” Had you asked me in person, or any format that lends itself to long form answers and given me a minute to consider the question, I might have answered something like this:

I notice eyelashes, and collar bones, intellect, and shoes. I notice the cut of her jib, and the yes, the size of her rack too (however enlightened and renaissance, I am still a boy.) I notice the book in her hand, the shape of her skirt, the sway in her walk, her choice of libation, and too many other things too. It is… well, complicated if for no other reason than the fact that what I notice is situational and personal.

Sadly, you opted for judgmental and shrill… or was that just the effect of the chat format? No matter, as I am pretty sure that I don’t need any more judgment or shrill in my life.

Sincerely,

The Guy You Ran-Off Before Even Meeting (is that some kinda record for ya)

****

Dear Manager at Random New Restaurant,

Do you actually owe money to the Mob, or is your wine list just priced like you do?

Sincerely,

A Guy Who Knows What You Paid and What You Charge

****

Dear Handful of People Who Still Read This Thing,

Thank You.

Sincerely,

A Guy Who Appreciates That You’re Still Here.

I usually reject generalizations as a hallmark of a lazy intellect. I usually dismiss the demonization of people as unproductive in reasonable discourse. However to all of the preachers and false prophets who are warning of the coming wrath of God because of the end of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, you are all a bunch of hateful intellectual bantamweights who traffic and profiteer in ignorance. All of you can go pound sand.

Just in case, I was wrong and you were right, I looked outside for locusts, or other signs of a falling sky. I found a sun struggling to peak from the cloudy and occasionally rainy skies… but it’s late summer in DC so that’s not unusual.  What freakish occurrences have marked the hours since the end of DADT?

• I overcooked my roasted red pepper risotto.
• I went to sleep without having a bourbon and cigar first.
• The Red Sox continue to fold like a house of cards in hurricane… (oh, wait, that’s not that unusual but let’s blame the Gays anyway.)
• Right to Life organizations decided to protest the extremely questionable execution of a man in Georgia… (oh, wait, that didn’t happen but wouldn’t that be a sign of the Apocalypse… or intellectual & moral consistency?)

Hours after a conversation with friends that featured a bit more candor than planned, I had a Carrie Bradshaw moment. I found myself sitting on my patio with a cigar, a bourbon, and this computer to contemplate the following:

How do you know if you made exceptions because you felt something exceptional, or if the exceptions were made for dubious reasons? Does it even matter after the relationship is over and all that’s left is the getting over it?

I didn’t answer any of those questions. I just took another hit of bourbon, watched blue gray smoke curl into the sky, and thought about how small the world must really be for me to have a Carrie Bradshaw moment.

~~~~~

New Rule: Baseball players who wear old-school stirrups instead of long pants are automatically 3.62 times cooler than their slack legged counterparts.

Addendum to the New Rule: The aforementioned does not now and never shall be applicable to Alex Rodrieguez.

~~~~~

The incomparable Aaron Sorkin has twice written that the only reason a man gets really good at anything is to impress a woman*. Ignoring the heterosculsivity** of the concept, truer words may never have been penned.

~~~~~

All of the excitement about Restaurant Week reminds me of people getting all a flutter about New Year’s Eve – the anticipation and hype almost never matches the reality. That so few restaurants get this promotion right is an annual disappointment to me.

~~~~~

* References made in both West Wing and Sports Night, there happens to be a great website that tracks the overlap between the two shows.

* Heterosculsivity and its related adjective Heterosculsive have already been sent to Urban Dictionary

If I ever get around to writing the movie script/novel that I am convinced lives in some recessed corner of my head, the following text message conversation will make an appearance:

Her: it’s too late for you to come over.

Him: um, ok?

Her: At this hour, a lady should not be receiving company lest the concierge at her building think her less than lady like.

Him: soooo… meet you at the garage entrance?

Her: See you in ten minutes.

From very early in my childhood, older members from the fraternal side of my family have told me how much I look like my father. As I got older, I was told the resemblance grew stronger. I never quite saw it, but they were referring to me looking like my old man when he was whatever age I happened to be at the time. The first time it made any sense to me was shortly after I split with my ex-wife.

I had just shaved my head for the first time – ending a marriage leads most people to some radical changes – and my hair resembled the extremely close cut style my father favored in the 1960s. Whilst unpacking a box at my new loft, I came across a picture of my father from that era and I had to look at it twice to make sure that it wasn’t me. I finally got it.

My dad is a good looking man and it was comforting to finally see what others saw and to know what I was going to look like as I got older.

All these years of hearing it and me finally seeing it for the last decade or so didn’t prepare me for this week. It didn’t prepare me for the first time my mother called me by his name. It didn’t prepare me for the next evolution of our relationship as this wasn’t a slip of the tongue.

Some days are are chicken, some days feathers. I’m tired of eating feathers these days.

As a man who finds serenity in food, I almost always enjoy “making groceries” as those from certain parts of the south might say. On Friday, I spent some time at a local market getting provisions for a very busy food weekend. While jawjacking with my fishmonger, an attractive 30something with an unmistakable Boston accent came to the counter.

Since we were just talking about food geek stuff, I offered to let her order ahead of me. Just before turning attention to the woman in the I-Must-Be-An-Attorney pant-suit, the fishmonger said to me “Oh, I didn’t forget about your head-on shrimp, Refugee; I’ll have em’ for you next week.”

The Suspected Attorney (who had the most perfect and perfectly appointed lips) ordered a couple pounds of crab legs before pausing for a moment to ask me “why would you want head-on shrimp, isn’t that just more work?”

“Yes, it’s most certainly more work” I began. “But two things – one, I like slow food and the process of making it, so when I’m making shrimp bisque I like to make the shrimp stock myself instead of getting it from the shelf; and nothing makes shrimp stock like the heads.”

“And two” she volleyed back.

“Well, two was going to be me making a lame joke about how you would really need to taste my food to understand… but I thought better of it.”

“You thought better of the lame joke as invitation or thought better of the invitation itself” she said with a smile that elicited a butterfly feeling I haven’t known for quite some time.

“Let’s go with the former” I said with an admittedly sheepish chuckle.

We talked some more about food, some of my menu for the weekend, and her plans too. It had all of the hallmarks of one of those surely apocryphal stories about two city dwellers meeting in a grocery store. Even the fishmonger winked at me as we walked away our carts headed in the same direction.

Whether it was me actively trying not to jinx things, be too assertive, or my flirting skills were just a bit rusty, I suggested that we meet in the check-out line to continue the conversation.

After doing a couple of unnecessary laps around the frozen food aisle, I found The Suspected Attorney in the bakery section and we went towards the cashiers. I wasn’t certain that coffee or drinks would be in the immediate offing (I did get some ice from the fishmonger just in case) but I was fairly confident that we would exchange at least one mechanism for communication.

We stood several people back in the slightly longer than usual lines and after a couple of minutes of random chatter, I asked “I know that you have some perishables in your bag so a quick drink right now might be a risky offer, but one I extend nonetheless… and if you can’t or won’t accept now, I do hope you’ll take a raincheck.”

“I can’t do drinks right now” The Suspected Attorney said in sail-deflating tone. “I’ve got people coming over to my place, but… maybe you can give me a call this weekend and we can set something up” she said while handing me her business card.

Sails restored to full extension.

I gave her my card too while we changed the subject back to our respective plans for the weekend.

Apropos of nothing in particular, The (Now Confirmed) Attorney let out a sigh of frustration at the slowness of our line and said “Ugghh, you know don’t take this the wrong way – I’m glad I met you – but I should have known better than to shop on the 1^st of the month.”

“Yeah, I imagine that the holiday weekend is making this place more crowded.”

“Sure, the holiday weekend, but you know what happens on the first of the month right?” she asked in tone that indicated I really should have known the answer.

“Sorry, I don’t quite follow… well, lots of people get paid on the first so that could be contributing to it.”

“Not just that” she stated with more animation than I had previously seen, “The government gives out welfare today, welfare and food stamps, and unemployment too! I try to avoid shopping around now, but I always seem to forget and then get stuck in line behind Latifah, the Welfare Queen.”

I suspect that The (Now Confirmed) Attorney read my expression and wanted to clarify her statement – I didn’t give her the opportunity.

“I’m thinking we should probably stop talking now” I stated in as flat and unaffected tone as possible.

“Listen I give to charities, and do community service projects with my sorority, but I just think…”

“You just think that people who need help are a drain on the public coffers. Seriously, we should just stop talking” I said as she began to move her groceries to the belt… and I tried to say it as harmlessly as possible.

The conversation ended there and my disappointment and annoyance were milder than I would have expected. And then I got to the exit.

The (Now Confirmed) Attorney was waiting for me just outside the doors.

“What the Fuck, Refugee? I’m not some crazy-stalker-broad but I thought that we had some kind of connection and I’d love to know why you are willing to trash that – before we even find out if we really like each other – because of some political bullshit.” [ed. note: I really wish there was a Boston Accent font]

“(Now Confirmed) Attorney, I understand the desire to know things… and since we have clearly taken a flame-thrower to our bridge, I am comfortable telling you: it’s not enough to be nice to me, when you’re mean to the weakest of our people… well I don’t reference the bible very often, but to paraphrase ‘whatever you do to the least of my people you do unto me.’ Being nice to your friends doesn’t make one a good person when you’re mean to people for whom there’s no consequence to being mean. And blaming the poor and unemployed for being broke and jobless is just mean… and not for nothing, that Welfare Queen Latifah line was what shifted things from disagreements to be discussed to I don’t need people like you in my life.”

Would you rather…

Run into your Ex while s/he looks fabulous and you look more raggedy than the Redskins offensive line?

See an Ex that you’re not even close to being over get all kinds of shmoopy-shmoopy with the new partner?

Run into (and be situationally forced to have conversation with) the Ex’s friend, you know the one that never liked you, never thought you were good enough?

Would you rather…

Open your last bottle of a very rare (and now virtually unobtainable) wine and have it be corked?

Look for your last bottle of a very rare (and now virtually unobtainable) wine only to see that it is missing or you somehow miscounted it?

Get your very last bottle of a very rare (and now virtually unobtainable) wine to your patio, and have a stray black cat run across your feet leading to a cartoonish but ultimately failed effort to save the precious nectar from crashing to the ground?

Would you rather…

Ruin a favorite pair of shoes (cognac colored monk straps) through a rather unfortunate and completely avoidable wine spill?

Find a favorite fountain pen… in the breast pocket of a favorite sports coat… and a popped capped leaked enough ink for it to soak through the jacket?

 Yeah, it’s been that kinda week.

The third part of the occasional and almost entirely navel-gazing I Know, I Wish series – (part I, part II for reference.)

I know that the space between giving space and giving up is narrow but deep; I wish that it wasn’t also filled with water I must tread while wearing emotional lead boots.

I know that the disease steals more of you with every passing minute; I wish that I wasn’t so selfish in my reaction to the pain.

I know that our friendship is over; I wish I cared more about it ending than getting the last word.

I know that fidelity has never been high on your list of relationship priorities; I wish that you would stop making me complicit in the process.

I know that spending too much time on my high horse is a character flaw; I wish I didn’t like the view from there so much.

I know that it would be the height of irresponsibility and selfishness, but I wish that the fantasy of running away from this life didn’t hold quite so much appeal.

I know that intellectual and emotional reactions must be measured for appropriate response to stimuli; I wish that past prejudices didn’t have a thumb on the scale.

I know that choosing my battles is a sign of maturity; I wish that I didn’t use that as an excuse so often.

I know that grief, loss, and recovery all have stages; I wish that acknowledging them would make them go faster.