Day Off

After working so much I’m kind of at a loss as to what to do with myself. It’s especially bad because we were given Friday off, and Monday is a holiday. It’s a four day weekend and I have no big plans. So Friday I’ll catch up on my Fencing Division Secretarial duties, then Saturday I’ve got a demo and rock climbing on the books, but that’s about it. The real bummer for me is that when I realized I would get Friday off, I started to dream about making an impromptu trip to see Jersey Girl. Preexisting plans and expensive airfare put a kink in that plan, so she’ll be getting snail mail instead

It’s interesting to work in the same place Matt does. I don’t mean the same physical location/cubicle. I mean the same supernal plane of work existence. A place where people work late not because they have to, but because they want to do good work and deliver on time. It’s a euphoric feeling to be at work the same time the next day as when you got there and to want to work the rest of the day. I’m not saying I want to make a habit of it, because I’m already an above average developer being paid a below average salary, and working anything over 40 hours doesn’t make financial sense. But from an emotional /pride stand point, it feels amazing. And when Matt and I walked in to work on Wednesday, when it was all over, with our nicest shoes, wearing our ties, everyone knew that we knew we had done good work.

That’s what sets my work experience at Passageways apart from any of my eleven previous jobs. I don’t feel alone when I take pride in what I do. And not just that there’s one person who keeps me company, it’s pretty much everyone at Passageways. It’s why Agile works there, people want to do good, they want to do the right thing, even if it’s the hard thing. That kind of energy is to be treasured.

Good… Morning?

Tonight’s my second night working till 3AM. It’s self inflicted this time, we committed to doing more than was asked of us, and now we have to finish, and so that’s ok. What really gets me, is that I have no idea what day of the week it is at this point. It’ll only get worse since Tomorrow… well “today” and potentially Friday look to be the same way. Jackpot!

More About Jersey Girl

Preface: I really hope I don’t offend her, or embarrass her in a bad way, or make her think I’m head over heels for her in a way that will only leave me feeling disappointed. What I hope to do in the post that follows is to tell everyone about this person who continues to impress me, a person who is a reminder that I can be impressive to quality people like herself. So here goes…

I met Laura in the Summer of 2006 in a far off land known as Colorado Springs, CO. We were there for coach’s college (fencing that is), but our reasons for going were very different. I found myself separated from my club and was seeking a reattachment. She was roped in to being the coach of the high school varsity fencing program where she teaches English.

Right from the start I knew I liked her. It was easy to catch a guy’s attention when you’re one of only a handful of girls around, and Laura certainly had them all beat on looks in my book. When they called her up front on the first night to hand her the course materials I made sure to write down her name. Soon after I found myself in a conversation with her about our sabre lessons, talking about what we had  covered and I realized how much that helped me, just to talk. Several days later I wrote in my journal “Laying here in the grass in the park would be so much nicer with Laura here with me to talk to.” I think that pretty much sums it up.

She’s supportive. Have you ever met someone and they look at you and tell you “I’m sure you’ll meet someone” or “I bet the next Mrs. Right is just around the corner” and you find yourself skeptical, but with a little bit more hope than you had before she said it? That’s Laura. She wrote all kinds of positive, encouraging things on my whiteboard, things I get to look at every time I leave my apartment.

This weekend she shared some of her goals and dreams with me. There was a comfortable amount of reservation too, telling me she was willing to open up to people, but she also wanted to get to know a person, to understand him. She was playful at the Indy Children’s Museum, and serious when we talked about the things that were important to us. She laughed at my jokes, played along with my stories, and jumped in feet first when put in to a new group of people. She was decisive when asked for an opinion, and accommodating when requests were made of her.

Laura packed lightly for a three day trip. She showed a mastery of both diction AND logic throughout her stay. She displayed creativity when I presented problems I had struggled with. She showed passion and emotion when the speeches were given at the reception.

If there was such a thing as a dating resume, then I would hope she would use this as a letter of reference when she decides to put herself out there again. “To a wonderful girl, may you find yourself happy in all aspects of life! Cheers!”

A Twenty-Something Goddess

When I asked Laura what she’d like to be called other than “woman” she said “how about ‘a twenty-something goddess?’”. I laughed because I thought it was at least a slight exaggeration. This past weekend however, has proven me wrong.

I picked her up from the airport right on time at 1pm. We drove to Lafayette stopping for Subway along the way. We talked about previous weddings she’d been to, her upcoming birthday, and a bit about theater. Once we made it back to my place, we took a quick foot-tour of Purdue’s campus so she could see what my college life was like. Then I cooked some pork chops, corn, potatoes, and crescent rolls. As we finished our last bite we were out the door on our way to RCF so she could see the club and see me fence/coach.

She got to meet my fencers, the characters in so many of my stories. They got to meet her which made me super happy because now I can tell them all the good things about her and they can put a face to the name. A new fencer showed up and as I talked she jumped right in and started writing things down for him. Wow, it made me feel all warm inside with just that simple act of kindness. Then back at my place we sat out on my porch and wound down the evening.

Saturday we kicked off the morning with homemade chocolate chip pancakes, then hit the road for Indy where Bruno was getting married. We checked in to the Columbia Club hotel on Monument Circle and then took a stroll around the circle. We found a Civil War museum underneath the monument and explored the history there, tying in nicely with an earlier conversation about Abraham Lincoln.

Shortly thereafter we were all gussied up and ready for a wedding. We took the shuttle over, and met up with a bunch of fencing people from when I was in college. Laura [and I] were very impressed with the organization of the wedding; everyone seemed to know what to do, the program was well though out, the priest was even funny in his sermon.

Up until this part of the weekend, Laura had been a pretty captive audience and now I really got to see her shine. We all stopped at a restaurant called “Ram’s” where we were seeking drinks and appetizers to hold us over till dinner. There were 14 of us at the table(s) and she found a way to engage each and every one of them in conversation. She said it helped to have common experiences, like fencing, and teaching, and theater with most of them, but it was clear that she had made the effort to not just hide behind me. She got the huge thumbs up in my book just for that, and it continued through the night!

At the wedding I fought off a headache with some Advil, but she didn’t skip a beat and stayed cheery the whole dinner. By the time the dance floor opened up my head was better and we had a blast out there. it was a shame there wasn’t a bucket of water I could throw over myself or something to towel off with, because we were moving. She even joined the Locomotion locomotive around the dining hall. And she was great to slow dance with too. All in all a very memorable night. We wrapped it up by chatting ourselves to sleep down in our room…

In the morning I woke up before the alarm clock, but I didn’t want to get up because I knew that if the day started it was going to end eventually. I could see she was awake as well in her bed. So I pulled the covers over my head so I could just barely see out, and I wondered what she was thinking. Soon enough the alarm went off and we were checking out. She grabbed me an Hot Carmel Apple Cider from Starbucks (omg the best drink ever!) while I had the valet bring the car around. Then we were off to the Indianapolis Children’s Museum.

One word: DINOSAURS!!!! We had so much fun there. It was tough to be bummed out about her leaving when there’s mirror-mazes, sand boxes, water clocks, slides, and party-mammals desperately waiting for the ice age. We even saw a dinosaur named after the fiction of J.K. Rowling. Did you know many dinosaurs had a second set of ribs on their belly that weren’t attacked to any other part of the bone structure and that the ICM is among the first to include them in their skeletons? Laura and I also became spies while we were there, and we found that I am not as great at hiding behind a brick wall as I may fancy myself to be.

We got her to the airport on time, but her departing flight wasn’t nearly as prompt, so she was still sitting on the runway at 5:30 texting me about delays. I would be lying if I said I didn’t want her flight to get canceled so that I’d have to go pick her up. But is seems as though her flight is in the air and she’ll be arriving back in New Jersey very soon. I think the best way I can end this post is to say that I hope I get to see her again, sooner rather than later.

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Interesting Part III

The other thing I wanted to explore a bit was the idea of “suspense”. They say the art of conversation is telling someone just a little less than what they want to know. Me, I’m big on being informed so I try [too hard] to lay all the cards on the table at once. I think by leaving something unexplained, you leave room for the imagination to fill in the gaps. The real trick is to have the imagination fill in the gaps in a positive way.

One of the best examples of this happened by accident. I was walking back to my room when I passed a woman I knew who was walking the other way with some friends. I said ,

“I’ve got a question I need to ask you later?”
“What kind of question?”
“The kind that needs answering!” I said as I winked, waved, and walked out of hearing distance.

When she saw me several hours later at our class, the first thing she did was track me down and ask me what I wanted to ask her. By the way she said it, I knew she had been running through all the possible questions all afternoon. I almost felt like I was letting her down when I only wanted to know why she picked me over someone else to be her student for her practical exam demonstration; a question I was too embarrassed to ask in front of other people.

My point being that the unknown held her attention. Much like someone saying “…remind me to tell you about the time I almost died.” Whoa! You’ve got me on the hook now. You could talk about the boringness of working in a box factory for the next thirty minutes and I’d hang on your every word so I wouldn’t miss the start of the real story. Even when the ending is known, the attention of the audience is held. Interesting.

Interesting Fellow

In my last post I wrote about the importance of being interesting versus just being the nice guy. The nice guy does the right thing, the interesting fellow does the exciting thing. So what makes Will Read interesting?

I have friends scattered all over the country. Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Ohio, California, Florida, Washington, Virginia, South Carolina, the list goes on. Some I’ve met though fencing, another interesting thing about me, because I stab people for fun. I also coach, and referee. Did you know I helped to start a national fencing championship for collegiate clubs? That’s kind of interesting.

I’m adopted. My brother and I do not have the same birth parents. I wouldn’t trade in my adoptive parents for the world, they support me in so many ways. The people that I pick to spend my time with are of the same quality as my parents in this regard.

I knew I wanted to own my own business when i was in middle school, I just assumed it would be computer related instead of fencing related. I didn’t have a girlfriend to speak of before I was 19. I didn’t drink before I was 21, and think I would drink when that time came around.

The only time I really want to show off is when I’m on water skis. I’m not bad at it, but by no means am I a stunt man. Something about being the only guy being towed behind a boat full of your friends feels like a virtual spot light I guess. I miss being on stage, but not enough to carve time out of the things I’m doing already.

I wonder if I could cut the mustard as a police officer or in the military. You could say I enjoy the outdoors, but I really just enjoy sitting out on grass in most any weather, not the dirt trails or and all the other outdoorsy stuff. Secretly, when people have children born on my birthday, I hope they name that child after me.

Among the things I enjoy are books by Christopher Moore, because he sees life as a crazy string of related events. I’m a lot more introspective than most people; beyond this blog, I spend even more time wondering why I make the choices I make.

There are people I’ve met who I have been impressed with. And some of those same people have been impressed with me. Those relationships are generally the ones that help me grow the most because the person on the other side is rarely as similar to me as my other friends.

I enjoy cooking, but not for myself when I’m alone. The company at a meal is the real flavor I seek. I always have room to grow. Teaching others to fence has been the most rewarding, long-lasting, experience of my life to date. Also on the rewarding list is spending a summer as a staffer for a housing project in the Appalachia Mountains. I can run on very little sleep when surrounded by a lot of positive attitude.

I cannot dance nor sing well, but that does not prevent me from trying (loudly and with great gusto). In doing so, I often find I make small children laugh. When I was fifteen I trained myself to feel no emotion, humor was the only thing that reminded me I was alive, so I bathed in it. I also gave up lying at that time. When I was twenty, I was taught (indirectly) how to feel again. Today, my short-term memory is weak because there’s no need to keep track of the things that I’ve said.

I’m not like anyone else I’ve ever met; I’m more of an assembly of the things I think I should be, which makes me unique. To me, that is very interesting.

Interesting

in·ter·est·ing [ íntrəsting ]

adjective

Definition:

1. arousing curiosity or attention: arousing curiosity, attracting or holding attention, or provoking thought

2. not boring: enjoyable because of being varied, challenging, stimulating, or exciting

Today’s free-write is on what is interesting. The topic was sparked by a journal entry I read on a dating site. Yes, I frequent a dating site. I like this one particularly because of the light-hearted way it approaches dating, and the community they’ve built of both singles and those in relationships.

Anyway, this woman wrote about “nice guys” and how yes, it’s true that it isn’t fair that nice guys finish last, but that they tend to finish last because “nice” ends up being a synonym for “boring”. Now I will exude some hubris when I say that I am a nice guy. I don’t have any way to back that claim up, it’s simply who I strive to be.

Part of that mentality is that, as a nice guy, you don’t stand out. You’re not special, you’re just an average guy who will do the things he’s supposed to do. Sounds boring right? Exactly. It’s what women say they want on paper, but in reality, it puts people to sleep. In order to better break up this post, I will stop here and in my next post I’ll set aside the “nice guy” and explore what makes me an “interesting fellow”…