On the Road Again

Sorry for the light blogging lately. May is usually a travel month for me it seems. I've spent the last two weekends in the South, and I'm remembering more than ever what I love about the part of the country I call home.

Last night, my oldest daughter and I sat in the heavy cool Southern air at the Time Warner Pavilion in Raleigh and listened to James Taylor take us back. The last time we sat together at a JT concert would have been around 1996 at Wolftrap. It was her and her sister's first concert. She was all of about seven, and her sister all of four, but they loved James as much as we did, and there could be no leaving them with a sitter. In 2003, we heard him in Charlotte, but they sat in the seats with their aunt and uncle while we sat in the lawn with the folks who were more interested in partying than listening. Never again, that.

So last November, I took the younger sister to see JT in Colorado. The older of the two finished her first year of college weeks ago, but hung out here in NC waiting so that we could see JT. This morning, we leave to drive back to Colorado for the summer.

Last night, though, was magical. As I said, last time we sat together for JT in concert, she could still sit comfortably on my shoulders. When she was still crawling, I would carry her around the room, dancing gently, and singing with JT, mostly Never Die Young and That's Why I'm Here. Last night, as she occasionally rested her head on my shoulder, we were both traveling back to that gentle time, that time when a family was just beginning. It was, in every respect, a magical night.

Change

Change is constant. And far too much avoidable human misery stems from an unhealthy reluctance to acknowledge that fact and work toward shaping ourselves to the world as we find it each day rather than struggling to keep it within the boundaries we set for it. If there is any supremacy in 'native' cultures, I believe it rests in the extension of that necessity in each day's physical life to a spiritual dimension as well. We tend too much to revere the static. The same misbegotten motivation that allows us to think we can arrest the shifting shape of North Carolina's Outer Banks drives us to stunt our own growth and sometimes even that of those we love. Every season has its beauty, including those of our soul.

The Impotence of Proofreading

Hat tip to Buck for this one, an English professor's dream. Funniest thing I've seen since the paper I graded whose first sentence read, "The subject of my S.A. is . . . " Enjoy.

The horse, the cart, the good man

If you had asked me, I'd have told you that getting together with an old friend was always a good excuse to break out the good Scotch and good cigars--Laphroaig in his glass, Johnny Walker Black in mine, and a Fuente Hemingway Short Story for each of us.

What I realize now, after two and a half hours on my porch in the setting sun, is that, really, the Scotch or Bourbon or cigars are really just an excuse to spend time in the company of a good friend and a good man.

Adventures in (not) Shoplifting

I have much to do today. I took a day of leave from the office to get it done. But I have to tell this story.

About an hour ago, I decided to make a quick run to the store for lunch. I figured I'd grab some sushi from the deli and knock out a little grocery shopping. This is not a leisurely exercise mind you. I have a list. I'm on a mission. Typical guy shopping. Get in. Get out. Get it done.

Checking the pantry beforehand to finalize my list I see a bottle of wine I've been meaning to return and exchange. Nothing expensive. I used to buy wine by the case when I had someone to enjoy it with every afternoon. Now it's more haphazard. And typically, a bottle will go bad before I finish it, suction corks and inert gassing notwithstanding. A few weeks ago, I picked up a couple bottles of shamefully inexpensive wine on the recommendation of the shop owner. He'd been dead right on the better bottles I'd purchased over time, so when he said this little $4 cab was worth a try, I figured what the heck. A cup of coffee costs more at Starbucks.

But when I went to pull a bottle back out of the rack at home, my hand came up all wet from the wine leaking around the foil. Figuring that bottle had a better than average chance of being corked, I set it up in the pantry to prevent it leaking onto the carpet if I left it in the rack, and I made a mental note to exchange it.

Fast forward a couple weeks to an hour or so ago. The wine shop is next door to the grocery store. I'm not going to mention any names here because I like these people, or I did. Still like the husband. Probably keep shopping there just out of sympathy for him. Keep reading, you'll understand why.

Anyway, I park right in front of the door of the wine shop. I take my bottle of wine and step inside. Not a soul in sight. "Hello." Wait. "Anybody home." Wait. Nothing. "I'll come back." I turn around and head right back out the door, open the driver's side door to the Jeep, lay the bottle on the driver's seat so I don't forget to go back in and try again, close the door and walk away to the grocery store. Mind you, I never stepped more than four paces inside the door of the wine shop. I was, presciently, a little worried about going deeper into the store without someone to witness that I was bringing the bottle in the door with me.

So, I press on to King Sooper, whiz through my grocery shopping, and am back at my Jeep in probably 15 minutes or so. Waiting for me are a man and a woman. As I'm putting my groceries in the passenger side, the woman begins to speak.

"Sir, we just want you to know that we've written down your license number and the police are on the way." Oddly enough, this isn't said in an exactly friendly tone.

I knew immediately what was going on. I think I must have foreseen it when I stepped in the door to start with and no one was there and I knew better than to go further.

"Well good," I said, really not unkindly or argumentatively. It helps to know that you're in the right. I wasn't really worried about how it was all going to turn out. I was mostly concerned about getting things straightened out and getting back here to get to work. (This blog entry is therapy--a winding down.) "When they get here, we can all look at your security tapes together. You do have a security camera don't you?"

"Yes. We know we're missing a bottle."

Without commenting on whatever problems they were having accurately tracking their inventory, I went back to the camera. "Have you looked at your tapes? If you'll look at your tape, you'll see that I came in the door with that bottle of wine to exchange it. It's leaking. I expect it's probably corked." As I say this, I'm walking around the Jeep, getting the wine out of the front seat, and walking into the store. "If you'd simply waited inside, you'd have seen me come back, get the bottle out again, and walk into the store."

Inside the store, the woman alternates between ignoring me in favor of the one other customer they have and continuing to cast accusations my way.

"Well what did you run away so fast for?"

?? "I didn't run away. I put the bottle on the front seat of my Jeep so I wouldn't leave without remembering to try again, and I walked to King Sooper to do my grocery shopping. I didn't run anywhere, and I wasn't even going to drive away without coming in the store again."

"We're missing a bottle," she repeated.

"I can't help that. I paid for this one weeks ago. I brought it back to exchange because it's leaking. Here," I said, taking a business card from my wallet, "I'll go you one better than a license tag, here's my business card. Look at your tapes!"

The husband meanwhile, who has driven in from home, has verified that the bottle is, in fact, leaking and possibly corked. To him, the truth of the situation is fairly obvious. Who's going to enter a store, make a circuit of the place and abscond with a $4 bottle of wine, drop it in their vehicle parked by the front door, then walk away, shop for a while and return. He says as much. Adding that it makes sense to him. If I were going to steal something, I'd certainly have chosen something worthwhile. But the woman, meanwhile, is having none of it. I've been tried and convicted in her book, and if I'm not guilty of stealing the wine, then, I'm by God guilty of making her think I did.

"Why didn't you just wait?" she asked.

"Because I have things to do, and it was no trouble to go on and do my grocery shopping and return since you were obviously busy in the back somewhere. I called out twice. For that matter, why didn't you, just wait? If you'd waited inside the store for about half a minute, you'd have seen me return, retrieve the bottle and come in to try again. Or better yet," and this was truly the snippiest thing I said during the entire conversation, "if you'd been up here doing your job, none of this would have happened."

"I was using the bathroom."

"I understand. People have needs. But if you came out in time to see me put the bottle in the Jeep, then why didn't you come out the door and shout at me then?"

"You're much taller than I am. I came in and called him."

I kid you not. I was dumbstruck. A thousand witty things come to mind now, and even non-witty, frank questions, like, "Do I look like I go around beating up shop owners?" (I'm wearing jeans, suede Timberline loafers, and a white golf shirt today.) Or, "I'm taller than him too you know." I stood there. Speechless.

"Will you please look at the tapes? Are the police coming or not?" I'm hoping they are. I want to be there when she looks at the tapes and sees that I never got far enough in the door to take anything.

"No. I didn't call them. I didn't want to ruin anyone's day."

"Well this has clearly ruined yours."

"I'm fine."

"You don't seem fine. And the boss had to come in."

"For your information, this is my husband, not my boss."

"Clearly," on the inside. "Sorry," out loud, looking at her, but really meaning it for him.

At this point, the husband is apologizing as much as he dares. You can almost see the mental calculations going on. Piss off a customer vs piss off the wife. I'd have kissed the customer goodbye too. And I wasn't even pissed off. Anger germinates in fear, and I never really had anything to be afraid of here. Loss of time, maybe, waiting for the police to review the security tapes, but the truth of what was going on was too intuitively obvious to the husband to require that.

"I'm really sorry," he said at one point. "Before we put up the cameras, we were losing a lot of inventory."

"I understand," I said. "Believe me. I grew up in a grocery store in North Carolina. I completely understand." I was trying, really trying, to find some common ground here.

The rest of the conversation gets somewhat fuzzy. I can't remember exactly what it was she was saying that kept making it clear she just wanted me to leave and she didn't care if I ever came back. I kept trying to find some middle ground where we could all be friends again, but apparently, if shoplifting is a misdemeanor, not shoplifting but looking like you might have--even though you tried studiously to avoid that appearance--is an unforgivable felony.

Still, I'd rather be the guy wrongly accused than the guy who wouldn't hold the cross while she nailed me up. Even after all was said and done, it was clear she was still convinced she'd caught me red-handed trying to make off with a bottle of wine worth considerably less than a gallon of gas. Worst of all, now the husband was my accomplice. All her left over anger had to go somewhere. I should pick up a good Scotch later today (from somewhere else) and drop it off for him in a gift bag. I think he's gonna need it.

Constantine's Sword

An interesting article in today's Gazette opens with a single line, "Here we go again."

Well, yes and no. In so much as a new film, Constantine's Sword, can't help but put the USAF Academy and Colorado Springs in the national spotlight, yes, there is an inescapable sense of déjà vu. But in the sense of, "we've handled this and all is well so why won't people leave us alone now," I can only offer my favorite line in all of Hemingway as an answer: "Isn't it pretty to think so."

A separate article in the Gazette, makes much of the Academy's Superintendent's decision on Wednesday not to allow the showing of clips from the film at a "seminar" presentation by Mikey Weinstein, Ambassador Joe Wilson, and scholar Reza Aslan. The superintendent's decision becomes more understandable though when one considers that he had not seen the clips in question, and there can be little doubt that his inbox was inundated with e-mail following a press release by the Catholic League which announced, erroneously, that viewing the clips was mandatory for cadets and staff alike.

Yesterday, we issued a news release regarding the anti-Catholic movie ‘Constantine’s Sword,’ clips of which are being shown today at the Air Force Academy to some faculty and students; attendance is mandatory. Two new developments have convinced us that nothing less than a full-blown investigation of events on this campus will resolve this problem. That is why I am writing to the Board of Visitors of the USAFA to launch a probe of what is occurring; copies of this letter are being sent to their superiors on the House and Senate Armed Services Committees. (Source)

Maybe Catholic League president Bill Donahue is a nice guy, but he's clearly a careless guy when it comes to the facts, and easily excitable, and the kind of person who keeps already strained staffs busy answering congressional questions about things that never really happened. The panel presentation at which the clips had been scheduled to air was never mandatory for anyone that I'm aware of. There is a tendency on the part of many to forget that while the military academies are military, they are also colleges, institutions of higher learning where the exchange of ideas is at least one of the primary objectives.

People who are going to wage electronic guerrilla warfare to suppress that exchange of ideas (in addition to the press release from which the quote above comes and which concluded with the e-mail address of the Academy's Director of Communications, the previous day's press release concluded with the e-mail address of the Superintendent himself) should take the time to get their facts straight. Given that the clips were subsequently suppressed (yes, I did in fact attend the seminar, freely and of my own volition, which began after a 20 minute delay rumored to be caused by the debate over showing or not showing the clips), I suppose one must congratulate Mr. Donahue on his success. And one can only hope that he follows through on his promise (in yet another press release) to write yet more letters to those same authorities above and tell them he considers the matter closed. Right. Like that ever works.

But back to that opening of the Gazette article, "Here we go again," and its implied weariness with an issue it implies is behind us. It gets even better. To be completely fair (and to put the deconstructionist's scapel to good use), what the opening paragraph really implies is that the issue ("religious discrimination and overt Christian proselytizing at the Air Force Academy from 2003 to 2005") never actually existed. Instead, Mark Barna writes for the Gazette that, "Nearly one-third of 'Constantine’s Sword' is devoted to a scandal over reports of" those things. Not the fact of those things, or even the scandal over those things, but "a scandal over reports of." Meaning to or not, I think Barna just one-upped Plato's shadows on the wall of the cave. It's a crafty castration (and I recognize that in saying so I may be giving Barna more credit for skill and intent than he deserves), but it's a castration nonetheless, subtly diminishing the point that the film's Oscar-nominated director and the book's National-Book-Award-winning author are trying to make.

So why am I even bringing this issue up here, having not yet even seen the film myself. Two reasons.

First, I believe that if there is any single element of the human condition which should possess the capability of drawing tears from the eyes of God Himself, it should be the relentless slaughter of one human by another that is constantly taking place in His holy name, however those on either side choose to conceive Him.

Second, I believe that better than 90% of what Mikey Weinstein and the Military Religious Freedom Foundation have to say is dead right, despite the fact that Mikey is utterly offensive in his promotion of it 90% of the time.

And I could say more about either of those things, but I'm out of time for today.

Gila Bend Sunrise

If I were to write anything today, it would be profoundly sad. Instead, I'll reach back to that happy place I was in just over a week ago and offer the following, at least partially in response to Piper's own offering over at his place. Nearly without fail, during that two weeks in Gila Bend, I snapped a photo of the sunrise each day. Here's one of my favorites.

OMG Funny

If you don't have nine minutes, a box of tissues, and a chair in which to collapse in laughter, then skip this. Otherwise, do not drink in the vicinity of your keyboard and do not stop before the 1 minute 50 second point. At that point, it becomes clear why the other guys on the stage are laughing so hard. If you can stop after that, you're a better man (or woman) than I.

Hat tip: Jay

C-130 Jump

I finally found a little time to download footage of last Friday's C-130 jump and do a little editing. This or a wet t-shirt contest on some Mexican beach. No contest. This marks my seventh spring break at Gila Bend with the jump team and, I guess, my last. This is what I'll miss most about the AF.

Blue skies. Doc.
>

The World Spins Madly On

Still in that two weeks of jumping, but sometimes the world encroaches upon even our happy places. Sometimes there are words. Sometimes music is better.

Milestone: Jump #900

This particular aging airframe was happy to hear from a flight surgeon a couple weeks ago, "You have the vital signs of a teenager." Part of the reason may be having a hobby that keeps me enthusiastic about life. And in regard to that hobby, yesterday afternoon, in the company of four other enthusiasts, I made jump number 900. To say we had a blast doesn't scratch the surface.

The good news from the Arizona desert is that uplinking through my Treo works like a charm. The bad news is that after making nine skydives in a day, I have just enough energy left to shower, eat, and fall asleep before 9:00 p.m. And, because the nylon flashing on the rig slides under my nails a few times every pack job, typing is now a rather torturous activity.

Nonetheless, I wanted to say hello. An old friend has been busily snapping photographs, and when I can catch up with him at the end of a day, I'll post a few.

Until then, blue skies to all. Doc.

Aging Airframes in Perspective

A quick post, and then, likely, silence for a bit. I leave in the morning for two weeks of balancing bent space against aerodynamic resistance for about a minute at a time, as many times a day as I can pack and get back on the airplane.

And speaking of airplanes. I've said once or twice that a good way of understanding the age of our current USAF fleet is to imagine if say a WWII bomber had been flying as long. The KC-135 came into service in 1957 for instance. That would be the same as if there had still been operational squadrons of B-17s in 1994. Try to imagine that. And the 135 will be around for at least another decade yet. Imagine B-17s flying over Baghdad in 2003. Just try.

So, for what could be my last post for a bit, chew on this link.

To help put this aging airframe issue in perspective, we recently matched the various dates when aircraft from the Air Force fleet officially entered service (Initial Operating Capability) with the events that were occurring during those same respective years. On a first glance this comparison is amusing. However, upon a second look it is clear that we face a very serious situation and must do everything possible to address this critical issue. As one Air Force senior leader recently remarked, “It was kind of funny...in a nostalgic way...to fly the same jet as a 2-star that I flew as a butter bar. I'm finding it difficult to see the humor in my one-bar son flying it.”

The Marines Invade Berkeley

Some stuff you just have to share. When it really gets good is about three and half minutes in when he's interviewing the yahoos on the street. The best comedy is still real life.

Hat tip: Lex

On Cuba, Firsthand response from Phil

After reading a George Will op-ed piece on the Cuba embargo Sunday, I posted an invitation to Phil, from The Archer Pelican, to respond. Not that he should know anything about it, since he only just spent the last week or so in Havana. As I suspected, the information from someone freshly there, contradicts the pundit, just a little bit. Thanks Phil.

Into the Wild, Atonement

Watched Into the Wild tonight.

I do movies. I'd seen 90% of the nominees for any award a few weeks ago.

That said, the three best movies I've seen in the last 12 months were Reign Over Me, Once, and now Into the Wild. The common element, I think, is that they're about relationships. Like the other two, this one gets five stars from me.

And while we're talking movies, if you haven't seen Atonement, it's worth the time too. But don't go thinking it's a romance. It's not. It's about exactly what the title suggest: how do you atone for the unredeemable act? Some consequences can't be undone. You live with them for the rest of your life, however long or short that is. That is what Atonement is about. And it's worth watching. It was also my pick for best cinematography, and still is. See it and see There Will Be Blood and tell me in which you think cinematography plays a more significant role.

But, before you see either one, see Into the Wild.

George Will on Cuba

On today's opinion page was a piece by George Will on Cuba, and on the continuing embargo in particular.

Cuba is a sad, threadbare geopolitical irrelevancy. Far from threatening Castro’s regime, the embargo has enabled Castro to exploit Cubans’ debilitating mentality of taking comfort from victimhood — the habit, more than a century old, of blaming problems on others, first on Spain and then on the United States.

Interesting timing, considering that the same was a topic of conversation at the bar at Plate on Friday night. What I'm really hoping is that sometime soon Phil, who recently visited Havana, will weigh in with the perspective of someone who's had "boots on the ground" since the "regime change." If we can call it that.

3 Doors Down, "When I'm Gone"

Friend Jay over at The Extended Table posted a sort of playlist, not of songs, but of bands. "Southern Fried," he called it. I intend to use it to put together my own radio station on Yahoo Music, for those days I need a trip home and don't quite have the time to get on a plane for the weekend. I am happy to say though, that I'll be on such a plane in late May, flying back to then drive back across to CO with my daughter who's in school on the coast.

But we won't be hitting the road until after the James Taylor concert at Walnut Creek (which number one daughter was willing to hang around in NC an extra two weeks for--I ask you, did I raise her right, or what?) The tickets are already in the study firebox.

I learned something from Jay's post though. I'm a fan of 3 Doors Down, but not enough to have known they were a "southern" band. Piper's list, btw, is a series of links to vids on YouTube. Something to work your way through on one of those evenings you really don't feel like doing anything other than donning the headphones and nursing a couple fingers of Russell's Reserve, neat.

On the whole list though, Piper singles out one vid for special notice. You'll understand why I'll do the same here.

Hat tip: Jay

Wendy Aarons to Proctor & Gamble

It's taken years, but my friends, the web-savvy ones are well-trained when it comes to forwarding things, be it virus warnings (most of them now check one of the many hoax sites before forwarding) or funnies (they never forward without a note, letting me know my life will be poorer if I don't take the time out for whatever it is they're sending). The few acquaintances left who blindly forward everything that someone else forwards to them each have their own filters in Outlook. >-) (And they wonder why I don't ever reply to the one e-mail where they actually say something once ever six months.)

Last night, a forward arrived in the read-this-I-promise-you-won't-regret-it category. The sender was so right. As it turns out, this is not new. In fact, the author of the letter below, Wendy Aarons, posted it to her own blog back in March of last year, after it gained famed originally on McSweeneys.net in February of last year. McSweeney's has an entire section devoted to "Open Letters to People or Entities Who Are Unlikely to Respond." The point of all this is, yes lot's of stuff that gets forwarded isn't what it pretends to be, but this, so far as I can tell, is exactly what it claims.

And beyond that, it's the funniest thing I've read in weeks. A good friend of mine who also happens to be an award-winning author likes to say that the mark of really good writing is when you think, "Wow. I wish I'd written that." Well, this is like that. And those of you who know me, also know, if I were a woman, this is exactly the sort of thing I would write about something like this. So, kudos to Wendy for what follows; and hat tip to Freda, for forwarding it.

An Open Letter to James Thatcher, Brand Manager, Proctor and Gamble

Dear Mr. Thatcher,

I have been a loyal user of your Always maxi pads for over 20 years, and I appreciate many of their features. Why, without the LeakGuard Core™ or Dri-Weave™ absorbency, I'd probably never go horseback riding or salsa dancing, and I'd certainly steer clear of running up and down the beach in tight, white shorts. But my favorite feature has to be your revolutionary Flexi-Wings. Kudos on being the only company smart enough to realize how crucial it is that maxi pads be aerodynamic. I can't tell you how safe and secure I feel each month knowing there's a little F-16 in my pants.

Have you ever had a menstrual period, Mr. Thatcher? Ever suffered from "the curse"? I'm guessing you haven't. Well, my "time of the month" is starting right now. As I type, I can already feel hormonal forces violently surging through my body. Just a few minutes from now, my body will adjust and I'll be transformed into what my husband likes to call "an inbred hillbilly with knife skills." Isn't the human body amazing?

As brand manager in the feminine-hygiene division, you've no doubt seen quite a bit of research on what exactly happens during your customers' monthly visits from Aunt Flo. Therefore, you must know about the bloating, puffiness, and cramping we endure, and about our intense mood swings, crying jags, and out-of-control behavior. You surely realize it's a tough time for most women. In fact, only last week, my friend Jennifer fought the violent urge to shove her boyfriend's testicles into a George Foreman Grill just because he told her he thought Grey's Anatomy was written by drunken chimps. Crazy! The point is, sir, you of all people must realize that America is just crawling with homicidal maniacs in capri pants. Which brings me to the reason for my letter.

Last month, while in the throes of cramping so painful I wanted to reach inside my body and yank out my uterus, I opened an Always maxi pad, and there, printed on the adhesive backing, were these words: "Have a Happy Period."

Are you fucking kidding me?

What I mean is, does any part of your tiny middle-manager brain really think happiness—actual smiling, laughing happiness—is possible during a menstrual period? Did anything mentioned above sound the least bit pleasurable? Well, did it, James? FYI, unless you're some kind of sick S&M freak girl, there will never be anything "happy" about a day in which you have to jack yourself up on Motrin and Kahlúa and lock yourself in your house just so you don't march down to the local Walgreens armed with a hunting rifle and a sketchy plan to end your life in a blaze of glory. For the love of God, pull your head out, man. If you just have to slap a moronic message on a maxi pad, wouldn't it make more sense to say something that's actually pertinent, like "Put Down the Hammer" or "Vehicular Manslaughter Is Wrong"? Or are you just picking on us?

Sir, please inform your accounting department that, effective immediately, there will be an $8 drop in monthly profits, for I have chosen to take my maxi-pad business elsewhere. And though I will certainly miss your Flexi-Wings, I will not for one minute miss your brand of condescending bullshit. And that's a promise I will keep. Always.

Best,

Wendi Aarons
Austin, TX

On the Opinion of our Peers

Two observations and a story.

Observation 1:

First, it occurs to me that a healthy disregard for the opinions of our peers is something that some people never develop. Oh, they matter. But only sometimes and in regard to some things. I think I'm known for speaking the truth. That matters to me. It doesn't matter to me that I'm known for doing so somewhat indelicately--what one unfortunate supervisor whom I revere to this day as the finest officer under whom I ever had the honor to serve referred to as "poking sticks at snakes." "But they're snakes," never seemed to answer the mail on that. I've gotten better though, more choosy about my battles. Still . . . >-)

So, in some respects, I do care what people think. Should they ever think me dishonest, cruel, ill-spoken, etc, then I suppose I would admit the need to seriously examine my behavior. But, if the labels they're tossing my way tend more toward "nuts," "flippin' crazy," "completely out of his gourd," well, those are just reminders that I'm probably still a hell of a lot happier and better adjusted than they are. >-) (There are psychiatric labels for this sort of conceit, I'm sure, but I am more resistant to cure in this respect than MRSA.)

In my case, it took a long time for me to reach this place. In some respects, I often think my current disregard for the head-shaking of my peers (my best friends just cheer--it's one reason they are my best friends) is a sort of balancing of the scales. I cared, like most teenagers and young adults, way too much, for way too long about the illusive twins of approval and acceptance. Way too long.

Observation 2:

Which brings me to my second observation. It also occurs to me that, at least early in our lives, we tend to possess that healthy scorn for the approval of our peers in uncannily inverse proportion to our need for it. The person who is part of the "in" clique has more peer approval than he or she knows what to do with, so whether they care or not doesn't really matter.

The person who marches to the beat of Thoreau's different drummer though, that poor person has a real need for a numbness to criticism or even attention. You may be thinking, I'm sure, that such a person's eccentricities are themselves a sign of possessing that precious disregard, and rarely, you would be right. More often though, the gene of utter uniqueness isn't paired with either the gene of self-confidence or heedlessness. Doubly cursed, such a one is equally incapable of running with the crowd and of not caring where the crowd is going or that it notices her solo journey.

A Story:

Way back in . . . well, a while ago--the year I graduated from college actually--I gave Britney (unborn at the time) a run for her money in the field of short marriages. (Hang with me. It relates.) Right after graduation, I'd looked up a girl I'd been thinking of for no less than two years, but had never dated because when we'd met, she'd been the girlfriend of a fellow student and friend. He'd moved on and I moved in. We dated through my summer leave, kept the flames burning through the fall, and then I flew her to Sacramento for her fall break in October. After 10 blissful days, she wanted nothing so much as a proposal. I held out for a couple of weeks (well, maybe a week at least) after her return to Western Carolina before admitting to myself that there was really nothing about bachelorhood nearly so appealing as beginning and ending each day in the glow of her raven-haired, blue-eyed, Cherokee-cheek-boned smile. Had her continuation at school been certain, I'd not have considered it, but she was thinking that finances were going to force her to take at least a semester off. So I asked if she had plans the day after Christmas, offered a suggestion in case she didn't, and she said, "Yes, yes, oh yes." Yeah. Exactly like that. Like it was yesterday.

And so all was excitement. For a few weeks, maybe a month. Then, the opinions of peers began to kick in. Back on campus, in the dorm, on the court (she was "most athletic" in her high school class) she began to hear, "Why do you want to get married? You can have any guy you want. What are you thinking?" Had they known me, they'd have known what she was thinking. That 6'1" tanned blond guy in the flight suit driving the British convertible when he wasn't flying wasn't exactly hard up for options either. But, by the time Christmas rolled around, "Yes, yes, oh yes," had become, "How would you feel about waiting until June?" This, two whole days before a wedding to rival Princess Diana's. Hmmm. BOLDFACE: BAIL OUT! BAIL OUT! BAIL OUT!

But, I was, back then, among the most susceptible of humans to that despicable craving for approval and acceptance that this post is all about. I knew what I needed to do. It was, as they like to say in physics texts, intuitively obvious to even the casual observer. But the thought of attempting an explanation to all our friends and family who expected a blissful event in two days time was petrifying. And so, knowing it wasn't the right thing to do, I stood there as she came down the aisle, and I betrayed us both.

A week in NC visiting relatives. A flight back to California one week after the wedding. Last, "I love you," I ever heard from her in the airport in Louisville, KY, changing flights. Two weeks in Sacramento, growing distance, faraway looks, "What are you pondering there?" "Just thinking about what I'd be doing if I weren't married." "I'm afraid it was just that the, you know, was so good." October, inseparable. January, low-level, moved to the couch, unable to sleep with someone not wanting to be touched, and needing to sleep before days zipping along at 250 kts and 500 ft. Three weeks to the day after the wedding, a trip to the airport, and in the worst winter storm Sacramento had seen in decades, I sent her back home to NC.

It's still open for debate whether the dumbest thing I've ever done was on the day after Christmas or on that day three weeks later. But looking back, one thing about the whole affair that is clearer to me now than ever is the role played by an inability to ignore, disregard, brush off, rise above, and otherwise overcome the opinions of our peers, hers and mine. Her lack of immunity to those opinions had basically killed a thing of such intense passion that I long ago gave up the hope of seeing its like again. My own hypersensitivity to those opinions had allowed me to ignore her one brief plea for help, "How would you feel about waiting until June?"

The opinion of our peers. What do they know of our hearts? Of our choices? Of our fate? The objective value of those opinions is constant over time. What changes is our understanding of it. Our susceptibility to it. Our immunity to its influence. Until we can achieve that, we are ever likely to purchase acceptance and approval with self-betrayal. None of this, mind you, is meant to be chiding. These are observations only; not lessons. For those born susceptible to it--and God knows most of us are; I know I was--no amount of reading or schooling can impart the needed disdain. Only time and life do that, and even then, not always, not for everyone.

As I said, I'm busy balancing my own scales in that regard. That I'm also feeling a little déjà vu these days is sad, but I would be the last to condemn anyone I otherwise admire so much for a susceptibility I once sported myself in spades. At any given time in this journey, we each have just so much disdain to distribute. If we march to a different drummer in one corner of our lives, sometimes we need to keep step with our peers in another. We all choose battles. And for those of us able to take all comers if we so chose, sometimes there is more honor in ceding the field.

The Regret I Can LIve With and the Regret I Can't

There are two forms of regret hovering in my future these days. Of course, if I didn't think these translate to others' lives as well, I wouldn't think about them out loud here. Basically, we can call them the regret I can live with, and the one I don't think I can.

The one I can live with involves the long shot. Because it is the long shot, the likelihood of feeling that regret is pretty high. But the regret one feels for taking a chance and things not working out, however unlikely success may have been, is qualitatively different from the regret one is always in danger of feeling through playing it safe.

Maybe the difference boils down to whether our personality leans more to the pragmatist or more to the romantic. If to the pragmatist, then maybe you go with the odds and never look back, never wonder what if. But, if you're a romantic, and God knows it seems to be a trait that no amount of real life has been able to strip me of, then the almost certitude of failure does little to nothing in terms of negating the regret of not trying, of not giving even the thinnest chance an opportunity to defy the odds.

I can live with taking a chance and not succeeding. Even more so when success was never a thing anyone but I thought possible. But I can't, I don't think, live with always wondering what might have been if I had been willing to risk it all.

My life has never been normal, has defied one set of odds after another. I've at least one friend who never fails to point out my six- or seven-time membership in "the extra days club."* Given the choice though, I would rather die in joyfully attempting the "impossible," than live to a ripe old age in the safety of cloying normalcy. So, for those few friends who know the real topic here and think I need my head examined I can only say--"Yeah. So what else is new?"

*As he explains it, after some events--the ones of which we can honestly say, "I should've died that day,"--every day we live on is an extra day. Let me see: plane crash, car crash, coma, two unplanned canopy rides of less than 7 seconds, snake bite, rock helmet split open on a mountainside--I should stop counting, just in case nine lives is some sort of magical limit.