I Could Have Been a Competitor

I love games, but I’ve never been a competitor; I’m more of a choke artist, but it doesn’t keep me from dreaming. My impersonation of anything athletic looks like something straight out of one of those “America’s Most Embarrassing...” or “America’s Klutziest…” as I lose my balance, watch softballs, volleyballs, kickballs land at my feet or have to be grabbed by the ankles and suspended upside down to do that perfect handstand. (Well, back in the day. You’re not going to catch me chasing balls these days as I refuse to be blindsided by another volleyball upside the head, lie immobile on the ground in an attempt to do a backbend or be yanked upside down by the ankles (God help the strongman who tried)).

Back in the day, I was a bit delusional and felt I was a great armchair Jeopardy champion. I’d hurl out my questions faster than the contestants, “What is the air-speed velocity of an unladen swallow, Alex?” and I imagined him saying, “that is correct, Beth! Choose your next category.” “I’ll take Corny Monty Python Quotes for $800” and of course it would be the video daily double. I’d blush, bet it all and then double my winnings because that’s how those situations play out in my crazy little mind.

Armed with my untapped talent, I managed to talk three of my most gullible friends at my university into participating in College Bowl. We prepared by watching more Jeopardy and playing the Jeopardy board game. What else could you possibly need to know? I was the captain and my team was ready to rock through to the state finals… in my mind. I remember that day, sitting at a little table, buzzer in hand and staring down the graduate students… our competitors. Let’s just say on that day, I never hit the buzzer. Instead, I chose to drool, look glassy eyed as each question came out of the moderator’s mouth and feel the steady drain of my cockiness ebb away. On that day, the opposing team ended up with over 100 points while we managed a whopping 10. I don’t even remember the one question, but the answer was Pepsi. Tails between our legs, we slunk out of the room secretly hoping we’d never run into the opposing team again – maybe they wouldn’t recognize us, maybe it was time for that hair dye, how much could plastic surgery really cost and could we convince our parents of the medical necessity? “But MMOOOMMMM, they’ll mock us if they see our REAL faces?”

Now that I’m older and for arguments sake, let’s say “wiser”, I tend to not allow myself the luxury of thinking I’d be a great anything contestant on any show. Well, up until recently where I’ve found another cohort at work who has started fanning those competitive flames. The difference this time is we’re making a more realistic list - a list of contests that don’t rely on obscure trivial information or require us to sing or dance – a list that speaks to the common man.

Our list so far (and I’m really surprised some of these are real contests, but hey choke artists can’t be choosers):

Food eating – now this relies a lot on stamina and of course, it’s going to be hard to unseat the great Kobayashi (although recently his record on hamburgers was beaten). Still, I’m not a power eater.

Air guitar – now we’re talking, although I’d personally need private air guitar instructions having never held a real air guitar before – I mean, do I wear the air straps low? is this a bass air guitar? What if I’m better on rhythm air guitar? Do I need a pick? Is air banjo an option?

Rock, Paper, Scissors – I’m not kidding, this is a real competition and who hasn’t played this while waiting for the school bus? I think this may be the winner for me. I’ll study my opponent carefully. Does he always throw scissors? Is he more a paper guy trying to anticipate my rock? (All interested parties, please contact me for my local Rock, Paper, Scissors team.)

Pillow Fighting – now, this is almost up there with mud wrestling in my mind. Yes, I get why people would want to see this, but I can tell you after many a slumber party this quickly goes from girlish squealing and giggle-fits to poly-filled frenzies where you pin your opponent down and brain them a few times. You can really nail someone with a pillow if you’re short on sleep, your training bra is now frosty in the fridge and some how you now have whipped cream on your nose (never be the first to fall asleep at a slumber party).

With little encouragement, maybe I can redeem myself in one of those competitions. If not, I may be posting “Great tips for the perfect disguise”.

A Meaningful Question

In college, everyone had “that” professor – the one person who did more than most to introduce them to a new world view, shape their ideas, get them excited and inspired about education. I was lucky in that I had three: Dr. Louis H. Mackey, who taught me a little about Ethics, Dr. Michael Adams who tried to teach me Advanced Expository Writing (blame him - he's the one who passed me) and Dr. Richard C. C. Kim who got me so excited about Political Science that I thought I should make it my major. Little did I know that what he taught me had more to do with philosophy than politics.

I took every class that Dr. Kim taught, sitting at his feet in my mind trying to absorb everything he said. I wasn’t Dr. Kim’s best student by far, but that didn’t stop me from eagerly anticipating each class in a vain attempt to will myself to be more like Dr. Kim. He was one of “those” professors - the one other students warned you not to take, but you knew better than to heed their warnings. With his offbeat teaching style and radical views, he was a far cry above the professors who merely wanted you to “read chapter 3 and answer the questions at the end of the section.” In fact, most of my core beliefs about politics and political philosophy come from this man and his out of print book “Kimbrations: Reflections of a Philistine”.

We students spent a lot of time in “Plato’s Cave” (a room filled with articles and books set aside by Dr. Kim to study politics and philosophy) looking for truths and looking for meaningful questions. To Dr. Kim, a meaningful question was not “how are you doing?” (He would argue that the person who asked had no actual interest in how you were actually doing, he just wanted to hear the word “fine” so he could shuffle down the hall and be done with the social obligation.) In fact, if you made the mistake and asked Dr. Kim how he was doing, he would tell you exactly how he was doing, which was always a bit startling because it was never “fine” or “well”. Dr. Kim’s example of a bad question would be, “what color is my underwear?” He would state (and I hope I’m doing this justice after 20 years) that because it was a very answerable question, it was not worthy of being asked. The kinds of questions he was looking for took some thought. Those were good questions; the kind that forced you to think.

What this all is leading to is my birthday and the present that I want from my friends/family. Since it's a 0 birthday, I'm allowed to do something a little different. I want to ask my friends and family a few questions that they answer and give to me as a birthday present, but I’m stumbling because I can’t think of truly "good" questions. I want something beyond those e-mail chains of “What is your favorite color?” “What is your favorite movie?” or “What color is your underwear?” – while they are arguably interesting (depending on whose asking) they don’t really tell me much about you. I want to know you.

So, I’m asking you as my readers. What is a good question to you? (Seth? Tony? Lori? Pam?) - something Dr. Kim or the metaphoric blind man, Johnny Alameda, that Dr. Kim invoked in many a class, would see as good.

Six Degrees

We all know that if we connect the right dots, we can eventually find ourselves connected to Kevin Bacon in less than six steps – our “six degrees of separation”. I can make that connection in four, so if you can’t find your own way to Kevin and you know me, you can now make it in five and have one to spare to include everyone Kevin might know or have met. It’s a nice analogy to prove that we’re all connected in some way; it’s just a matter of finding those connections – you just have to know the right questions to ask.

A long time ago, in a galaxy - no wait, that’s another story. Still, it was a long time ago, I was online talking to the people I always talked to online and preparing to fight the big battle. Someone in the group (the Vegas gang) mentioned that they knew a guy from Austin. (It sounded like, I knew a guy from Dallas once, do you know him?) I figured we’d talk about all things Austin, hit the highlights that everyone knows – the drag, the capitol, the LBJ library and maybe popular restaurants – maybe we both went to UT or either he walked around campus when I was at UT and we might have seen each other.

David, the guy from Austin, gets online and gets the conversation started. “So Beth, do you know…?” Here we go. Yes, I know a John. Was he about 5’10”? Brown hair? Brown eyes? Wears clothing? Breathes both in AND out? Must be the same guy. “Beth, do you know Rocco?” Ok, weird. I knew a Rocco and after much back and forth, I not only knew the right Rocco, but I’d met this guy David when I was 17. I had one of those moments where your heart races and you’re typing as fast as you can because your mind can’t wrap itself around the fact that of a million plus subscribers on this particular game, I found the one guy that I was connected to by chance. On that day, my world became a hair smaller.

Fast forward to this week. I had joined the HOA boards for our little community with the thought of becoming more active or at least meeting some of my neighbors. One of the guys around the corner posted a really nice note on my guestbook because he’d found website through the boards. I got it in my head to sort the member list on the boards by website to see who else was out there posting – what did my neighbors have to say. There were only a handful of websites, so I methodically poked each one hoping to find someone like me or maybe just learn something new for the week.

I came across one website I’d seen before, which was odd. I’m not much of a net surfer so people’s personal websites typically make an impression on me. I prodded that website a bit, seeing the same funky cool purses and clothing that I remembered to belong to a friend’s wife, Jennifer. In fact, I’d been sent the website link some time ago when a friend of theirs suggested I look at all the cool things Jennifer was into. I couldn’t get my head around it though, because in my mind these guys still lived in central Austin, so I spent a good 15 minutes trying to convince myself that I was wrong – that just because the website said “Jennifer” and the picture of her on her personal blog looked like Jennifer, this wasn’t Jennifer because I’m an island all alone in Pflugerville. No one I know lives here.

I finally sent Jennifer a note and sure enough, Jennifer, her husband Bradley and their two girls not only live in my neighborhood, they live two blocks away. They’ve been here the entire time.

Between the posting on my guestbook and discovering two very cool people that I know actually live here, this place has become a little more livable, a little more friendly and I can stop mourning the loss of Matt & April (the cool hipsters that moved from across the street).

It really is a small world.

Sam Update

Since I had such a beautiful rant about what Sam meant to me, I thought I’d post an update.

Sam has had a tough week. She’s been to the neurologist, had a CT scan, had spinal fluid drawn, and cultures done of her little ear. The diagnosis: Sam has one heck of an ear infection. Her ear canal is so inflamed it’s pressing against the nerves that control the left side of her face. But after a couple of days of being groggy, she’s back to bounding around, holding parades in the backyard, chasing down those phantom rabbits and just being a good natured little beagle. She’s now on a regimen of antibiotics for the next 4 weeks that should hopefully knock that infection down. Although, the doctor said she may never fully regain control of that side of her face.

Sam’s new favorite trick is the pfft. That’s the sound we make when I try to disguise her pill as a bit of hotdog or a lump of cheese and we pfft that little pill back onto the floor. Then we wag our entire body because it’s kind of funny to watch mom get so frustrated AND we got cheese! (Sam isn’t allowed people food, so this is a pretty big deal. Little does she know that the pfft means we go straight to the pilling. She’s cute, but not always bright.) These are the same pills our cat had, and let me just say that I’m glad I’m pilling Sam and not Hodi. Those pills are about as big as Hodi’s head, so she was never too pleased to be forced to eat one. Sam doesn’t like it either, but she’s got more mouth to work with and she’s less likely to hit me or bite me. Hooray for small favors!

I have to say, we were really worried about Sam and prepared for the CT scan to come back as “brain tumor” or discover she had an epileptic seizure and had injured her brain (epilepsy is very common in beagles, though very treatable). Of all the possibilities, we got the best news and were able to breathe a gigantic sigh of relief. We now know what’s wrong, and it’s being dealt with.

So I say again, Sam is worth it. She’s worth every cent. She’s worth every worried tear and every wag that takes over her entire body.

How Did You Two Meet?

“How do you two know each other?” This can be an awkward question especially if you’re a geek or you’re me, a geek that is occasionally ashamed of being a geek. I met most of my friends the traditional way, through school (I still have friends from second grade, one was the guy that was told “ok, you make sure Beth gets to the right class and to the right bus after school” on my first day here in Austin ), from college and from work. But there are still quite a few that were friends of friends that I mostly know because they sat across the table from me and were orc warriors, vampire truck drivers, robot agents and shapeshifted dragons. The best dice slingers in town. How do I know them? Well, it started in a tavern in my imagination. The rest came from online. I like to call them the Vegas Gang. There’s even one I knew in high school. We shared the same classes (for the most part), but our names rhymed which people would point out on occasion, one person referred to that as “cute” (yes, rhyming is adorable – if you like that, do I have a limerick for you) so I tried to not sit too close. I now know Seth better through the magic of the internet. So, if you ask me how I met them, this is how I truly know my current set of friends/acquaintances.

I feel comfortable boldly stating this on my blog, because either you don’t know me (but you’re learning about me online) or you fit into one of the above categories and you’re accepting. But in real life (IRL if you prefer) when asked, I will fall back to what I feel is a more comfortable explanation “I met this person through friends” or “at a dinner party”. For a geek of my caliber, “dinner party” is code for “roleplaying session that began at noon, ended at 2am and heavy amounts of soda, chips and pizza were consumed (unless my friend Jeff was there, and he did the cooking throughout the day_ before we unraveled the devious plot, slayed the dragon, or arrived safely in the port of the space station after a harrowing encounter with some unknown force”. People don’t quite know what to do when you say either “online” or “playing GURPS” (which is “like” D&D in that it’s a roleplaying system).

In my opinion, people are more comfortable with meeting someone “through friends” than hearing a long winded description of how “Lee was this awesome necromancer who…” Somehow, the term “roleplaying” (which I actually haven’t done in years, but it’s how I would have to honestly explain meeting some of my friends) thanks in part to the 1980’s movie by Tom Hanks, is the equivalent of saying “I eat babies” or “I’m a social misfit who worships Satan”. I’m here to assure you that the friends I met back in the day over a roleplaying table, while some may be categorized as a bit socially awkward, have yet to eat one baby or small toddler and don’t engage in anything cult like, to my knowledge. They even all hold down respectable jobs and can form whole sentences without too many physical twitches or ticks. Still, the average person won’t buy that.

So, if you meet me on the street with a friend and you ask “how did you two meet”, I’ll still say “through friends”. You can envision a gardening or book club, while I can imagine an enchanted forest or haunted library.

Beware the Banshee

I don’t believe in ghosts or leprechauns or fairy mounds. I’m a left-brained “everything under the sun can be explained if we have the proper tools and knowledge”. Ghosts can range from poor plumbing, old flooring, exposure to high EMF fields, and an overactive imagination. Their only use is to scare campers and movie-goers. My rational is what gets me through the day and it happens to apply to aliens, too. Can you say “weather balloon”?

Many, many years ago my hyper logical left side of my brain and I were driving back from Dallas with my cousin who was asleep in the passenger seat next to me. A low wailing sound began to claw its way into my consciousness.
Left brain: What is that?
Right: BANSHEE!
Left: DEAR GOD!
(the left side of my brain fled to hide behind some simple algebraic formulas to keep it occupied while rocking in place and nursing its binky)

Yes, the cry of the banshee. If you have any drop of Irish blood, you know her cry and you understand deep in the core of your soul what she heralds… death. In that moment, I understood absolutely that someone in my family was in jeopardy and here I was stuck somewhere between Dallas and Austin worrying. I panicked.

I woke up Kim to see if she could also hear her cry. After a few moments Kim could hear her, too. If Kim could hear her, that could only mean it was Mom’s side of the family. As her insistent wail continued, Kim pointed out a mist forming in front of the car – a mist that grew denser and spread along the hood threatening to block my view. What if the banshee was signaling that it was time for one of us to let go of this mortal coil? Take Kim! She’s the cute one! She’s got a great laugh! You’ll like her!

Kim: I think it’s coming from under your hood.
Me: ???

Stupid radiator.

So, I’m just here to tell you… I don’t believe in ghosts or leprechauns or fairy mounds or banshees… no sirree. Fearing the closet is natural. Clowns might pop out from under the bed at any moment. And who really knows what dolls are up to when you’re not looking? The best way to stuff down these irrational, easily explained fears late at night when strange noises come out of no where? Lots of lights! Because we all know that creepy things fear the light… if they existed… which they don’t… but a bundle of lit sage brush will drive out evil… so I’ve heard…

RANT: What My Dog is Worth

We own a lot of frivolous things – from the PlayStation that now only acts as the DVD player to our computers, computer subscriptions, DVD collection, etc. etc. ad nauseum. In fact, there are few things we have in our house that we actually “need”. Off the top of my head, I’m thinking all we really “need” is the bed (since I’m terrible about sleeping on the hard floor), the refrigerator and the stove – maybe a book or two to pass the time, but in the world of “need” you can eliminate a lot of stuff if you had to. But I choose to have the things I do around me, because I enjoy them and I don’t go over to your house and criticize your “needs” – we all accept them – home entertainment systems, pool tables, art – all potentially expensive – all arguably unnecessary.

So, let me get to my rant. My dog. She’s not a couch, a big screen TV, or china. She’s our dog and she’s our dog who is having a hard time right now. What makes me absolutely crazy is the person who says “wow, a neurologist… is she worth spending the money on?” Let me make this 100% clear. She’s worth it to me. She’s worth more than all of my possessions. My couch doesn’t care if I come home. It doesn’t care if I tell it it’s a good couch or a pretty couch. My couch doesn’t want treats when its performed well nor does it look up at me with a concerned pillowed face when I’m upset; that’s Sam.

My unfunny little rant today – if you don’t want me to critique the crap you buy to prop yourself up, don’t ask me if my dog is worth it ever again, because she’s worth more than every damn thing I own if she can smile again, if she can blink again, if she can perk up her ear one more time.

Save the Date (Unofficial Version)

It’s creeping up on my birthday again and it’s a big one – one of those that end in a big fat 0.
This birthday is going to be celebrated in two parts – the first part will be devoid of the big “to-do” – no one has to skate (unless they want to!) or bowl and there won’t be a “bag of mystery” to select prizes from. NOPE! (I promise we’ll get back to that next year.) In fact, this first part will actually be held on a Saturday instead of the traditional Tuesday.

This year we’re looking at hanging out in a steak house for a couple of hours. Yes, since it’s a 0 birthday, I get to have barely cooked cow with a side of cow and cow sprinkles. If you’re sensitive about cow eating, I’m sorry, but cows are yummy and with the right sauce I’d dare say they’re heaven. Mmm cow, how I love thee. You can have a roll.

I’m announcing this now because you need to cancel plans with your own families over the holidays; you can see them next year. Better still, fly/drive/run on Sunday because this is going to be on December 22nd.

Now in case you can’t make it. That’s ok. As you all know, I don’t hold a grudge. No sirree… I’m a completely understanding individual. I mean, it’s not like it’s a BIRTHDAY THAT ENDS IN A 0 – HOORAY I MADE IT THIS FAR kind of thing. Still, I’ll give you option 2 – my REAL celebration. Dragoncon 2008, which happens over Labor Day. I’m giving you 11 months notice to save money, save up vacation leave and to get your tickets now for only $50 (if purchased by November 15.)

Who doesn’t want to see my hoot and holler over the cast of Battlestar Galactica, Heroes, Star Trek, Firefly, Ghost Hunters, MythBusters and … err Happy Days, because nothing says SciFi like Joanie, Ralph Malph and Pottsy. My goal: picture WITH Adam Baldwin and I will try to not make an ass of myself by telling him I wanted him to be My Bodyguard since 7th grade. (In fact, I need to start saying that as my mantra so I don't embarrass any of you that actually can go.)

So, there it is – SAVE THE DATES! Real Save the Dates coming soon!

PS. If you read the blog (and I know your face), I want you to be there so no guff giving if the e-mail ball gets dropped; I’m an airhead. Just ask me for the location and be ready for COWWWWWW (or pork or salmon… if you must insult me on my birthday).