neonleonb

I consider myself a member of the blues community, here in the Bay Area, and our community has some shining stars. Chief among them are the attractive young women who dance so very well. We also have some photographers, and I've noticed that the photographers do photo shoots of the attractive young women. Just up and out of the blue, the photographers take free (and quite good) glamour shots of them.

I find myself intensely jealous. An attractive young woman is gifted with an inherently better life than the rest of us. There are no downsides to her fortune--she can do anything the rest of us can, but she can also inspire desire. As a plain young man, like all men, I will never be so enticing as any of them. No one will ever breathlessly hope to take my picture, nor will they for most people--just these lucky few.

It's not that I don't understand why it's so. It's just that it's so frustrating knowing that, like so many others, I'll always be a second-rate citizen.

Harry Potter was obviously written by a woman. I've been reading/listening to book 5, "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix," and I've just passed the point where Harry goes on a date with Cho. They go to a coffeeshop and sit surrounded by couples holding hands and kissing, and Harry's thought is, "she'll expect me to do that too--how terrifying!"

What. The. Fuck.

Have you ever had a chance to hold the hand of someone you had a crush on? Did you lack the desire to do so? If so, you weren't a young man, because I can assure you, the desire to touch and kiss is extraordinary, matched only by the enormous fear of the consequences if you do so and she's unhappy about it. I can't imagine anyone missing that drive; it's so visceral and all-consuming.

However, I'm told that women often engage in sexual behavior that makes them uncomfortable because they feel societal expectation, and so I theorize that this is the reaction a woman might have--indifference mixed with expectation and fear. How else could you explain such a bizarre set of emotions? It's just such an alien reaction to me, though, that I can't understand how it made it into the book. Wouldn't most anyone who read the book immediately wonder, "Why didn't Harry want to kiss her?"

So, my question to you: when you were young, say, 16, and had the chance to kiss someone, were you excited about it or just expected to do so?

Left side = truth. Right side = wishful thinking.

My mom's in the hospital with pneumonia and a 103-degree fever, which, given her chemo-weakened immune system, is serious. My sister turned 26 today. My uncle finished battling an infestation of bedbugs carried back from a hotel on his luggage. Two friends got engaged. Another friend may be on the path to a happier relationship. All this in the past few days.

But I keep getting hung up on, what failings of mine made me not worth dating? I don't know how to be better.

In 7th grade, I asked a girl out. I said, "Will you go out with me?"

She responded, "Where?" and laughed at my confusion. I had just wanted her to indicate an interest in me; the details of spending time together could be worked out later.

I still have that attitude, that disconnect from the way most others think of dating, to this day. I'm not so worried about finding someone to spend time with; my days already fill themselves. I just want attention, respect, love. Find that, and the rest will work out well enough.

In other news, I'm completely single again. Whee.

I went to Ocean Beach with Moorea and Elena this weekend, and I got some good pictures.



We saw dead things.

( cut for more images, including a dead seal )

I'm pretty sure that according to the feminists, I'm a body fascist. I want to find a woman who is not only intelligent and fun, but also attractive and fit. We're taught that to do this is shallow. You wouldn't judge a book by its cover, so don't judge a woman by her appearance. Form is not function, and a person is not defined by the color of his skin, but by the contents of his heart.

But that's not exactly true. If you believe that sex is important in a relationship, then it follows that sexual attraction matters, too. It's not just, but that's life. While it's undeniable that inner beauty counts, outer beauty counts, too.

Then again, you don't really have to grant all that. You could say that people are different from other things; you can love your dog for being fuzzy, your blanket for being soft, your house for its curb appeal, but you can't look at people in the same way. People should be judged only by their inner qualities.

Or, you might go all the way and dismiss the whole physical world. Just as you wouldn't determine what you think of someone by their appearance, you shouldn't judge anything by its outside. Pain should be ignored, as should pleasure. We eat food for sustenance, not enjoyment. The fact that physical things manipulate our emotions is a problem that can be overcome with sufficient mental strength.

Frankly, I've tended to follow that latter case and deny the importance of physical events. Somehow it rings true. I am what I do, not what I seem. I feel disappointed that I care about appearances, and I'm sad to think of the people going unloved because they don't look lovable enough. Still, down this path lies a philosophical trap. If the material world doesn't matter, why should I care about art or music? After all, there's no function there, only form--there's no inner beauty to find, only outer beauty. In that view, dancing becomes foolish, for it is purely enjoyment of the physical. Somehow that seems wrong.

There's a deeper trap, too, since ultimately we're physical objects ourselves. Our natural reactions to certain stimuli may be arbitrary, but they're nonetheless real. My emotions come from my experiences of my body--without sweaty palms and butterflies in my stomach, how would I know I was nervous? Without a pounding heart, how would I know I was excited? In the end, there is no pure spirit to fall in love with; the book is all cover. Trying to deny the importance of the physical element of our lives requires denying nearly all our emotions.

Similar problems afflict any attempt to ignore the beauty of possible mates. The appearance of your lover does change how you feel about them. If their skin is soft, if their eyes sparkle, if their sweat smells sweet, then that really does affect your interactions, and sad as it is to admit it, it matters. We're only human, and these things affect us in a visceral way that we cannot out-think. Moreover, there is no way to rise above being merely human, because there is nothing else there. It might be noble to imagine ignoring all appearance, but it turns out that in our world, form is function, and you cannot just forget it.

So, yes, I want a woman who is not only a good person, but also makes me feel the little excitements of being human. It's horribly unjust to all those people who, through no fault of their own, cannot do that, but nonetheless it remains true.

13 internet first dates

• 4: I rejected, or the rejection was mutual
• 2: stopped responding to my messages after the first date
• 2: I dated for some period of time
• 2: told me they were too busy to date me
• 2: told me I was nice but they weren't romantically interested
• 1: had started dating someone the day before, but went on a first date since I'd already bought tickets

That's not counting the rejections that occurred before there was a first date, which were mostly split into the "I rejected", "too busy," and "stopped responding" categories.

The biggest thing I've learned from this is that I do after all have strength and standards, and I'm capable of rejecting people. It wasn't previously obvious that was true--after all, I married the first woman who expressed an interest in me.

I also learned that I look good on paper. I also come off fairly well in person, but I think there's something missing from what I project. I'm not sure what it is, but it's something important that people are looking for romantically. Perhaps it's a certain confidence or assertiveness; I know those to be some of my weak points.

I was at a party, and I asked for a woman's number. That's a first. She gave it to me. Another first! Even in the (likely) case that I call her up, ask for a date, and am rejected, this is a significant success for me. I have a certain amount of courage, and I can talk to a woman in a new situation without coming across as a huge idiot. I mean, that doesn't sound so hard, except that it's a Berkeley grad student we're talking about, and she probably has decently high standards. In any case, go me, and hopefully the Phone Call goes well.

So, you ask, how did the duck go? Well, for starters, buying a duck at a Chinese store (Ranch 99) means that I got more duck than I'd expected. In particular, it had a head and feet. They weren't hard to cut off, but still I hadn't expected to have to behead it with its beady little eyes staring me down. 

I made a plum sauce according to the advice of Nancy, another grad student: I sauteed shallots in butter until they were translucent, then added "a tart liquid" and my plum jam, and simmered that for a while. The recommended tart liquids included vinegar (augh, the most horrible liquid invented) and sherry, but I used pomegranate juice with a small splash of vinegar. In any case, it ended up being very good, and I'm writing it down here in part so I can look it up for next time.

Then, while the duck baked, I cut the fat from its neck and used that to fry up some potatoes, which ended up quite tasty. Seasonings: onion powder, garlic powder, paprika, cayenne pepper, salt. I'll have to do that again.

Frankly, the duck didn't end up as well as it should have. It was supposed to have a crispy skin, but the skin on the breasts should've been cooked longer. I have a theory that my oven isn't as hot as it's supposed to be. The duck's meat was tasty anyway, especially with that delicious plum sauce, but next time I'll try to do it right.

And, how did my date like the duck? Well, she's apparently sick right now, so there was no date. I'm not entirely sure that she wants a second date at this point, but I'll try to stay reasonably optimistic until my final rejection. I really did think our first date went well, but since then I haven't exactly gotten positive signals. I mean, really, I haven't gotten any signals, and this is a case where no news certainly isn't good news.

While waiting for rejection, though, I'm doing everything I can with that duck. I'm boiling its bones (and neck) for stock, and I rendered its fat. I don't know how to make jewelry from its bones, or I'd probably try that, too. I have a vision, though: matzo ball soup, in duck stock, with matzo balls made with duck fat. That will be far and away the most exotic use of matzo I've ever made.

Oh, and between the many uses of duck and the chocolate mousse I made for tomorrow's Thanksgiving potluck, I really was cooking all day. Consider: 4 hours of duck baking, 4 hours of stock making, and the interim was filled with all the other stuff. I guess I'm nearly ready to be a stay-at-home father.

On Sunday, I went on an excellent date with a Woman of the Net. Yes, I'm practicing Internet dating, because the Computer Science department doesn't have many women, and I don't have occasion to interact with many people outside of the department. In any case, I met a very interesting and attractive woman, we saw a great taiko drum performance, and we already have a planned date for Friday evening. I happen to have a duck in my fridge right now, and I'll cook it up, and she'll bring wine, and everything will be splendid.

So here's where you come in: how can I prepare the duck in a fancy way? The Joy of Cooking tells me how to bake a duck, and it sounds good, but I'd like to take advantage of my special ingredients: I have homemade plum jam and homemade pomegranate molasses. Surely one of those will go well with the duck. Now, the Internet has a little bit of advice, but the recipes I found all call for cooking the duck at a much higher temperature than the Joy of Cooking does, and I'm inclined to trust the Joy. The Joy has a recipe for orange sauce to go with your duck, and I could probably adapt that to use plum jam instead of orange marmalade, but it's not clear that's best. So what can I do with a duck and some plum jam, or maybe some pomegranate molasses?

So, for a few weeks I was dating two people at once.

I didn't really do it deliberately. It was a product of online dating, in which you pretty much need to be in contact with more than one person at once because you have no idea if you'll get along or not, and it's so easy for someone to drop you. So, it happened thus: I was in contact with one woman, and another contacted me, and I figured one (or both) would be eliminated at a first date. But they weren't, nor were they on the second date, so I just kept dating two women. For a while it was highly entertaining, with me going on 4 dates in one week (the High Holy days, actually). It was also good for my self esteem--it suggests that I'm genuinely interesting to young urban San Franciscans.

I also didn't hide this non-exclusivity from them, since I'd have felt highly dishonest doing that. But they didn't seem to mind, and I didn't want to make a big decision lightly.

In the end, I didn't have to make any decisions. I was dumped by one woman and then the other, in a little more than a week. Neither really objected to who or what I was; they just didn't feel that they really clicked with me. That's fair enough, I suppose, and all of these events were overshadowed by Louis's death.

But I did come out of this with a few entertaining stories. Like the time I made a pumpkin pie, just because I wanted to eat some damn pumpkin pie. But then I ended up sharing it with both of them and getting double credit for my baking. Or there was the time that both of them planned to attend the bluegrass festival, and I'd already agreed to go with one of them, and I hoped endlessly that we wouldn't run into the other one (we didn't).

I've received a few questions about my newly-single Facebook status, so I might as well answer here so I don't need to keep doing it.

Yes, I'm single now. Megan and I decided, for reasons including the uncertainty of both our futures, that we shouldn't try to maintain a long-distance relationship. It's sad but practical. We'll remain friends, but that's all.

So, I'm single again. Ladies, look out--there's a single geek who might talk to you and make you feel awkward!

So, Megan was telling me about making some sort of food with potatoes and cheese, and you fill up a dough shell with that and then seal it and boil them. And I said, holy crap, you make pirogies?! And she said, you know what they are?? So, the story is that we both have Polish backgrounds, and about once a year our families spend an afternoon making pirogies, which we eat with sautéed onions and butter. It's such a bizarre, awesome connection.

I created a new user icon for this post. It's me on a hang glider, but that's not really the relevant bit. The relevant bit is that it's airborne and not crashing, unlike the plane userpic seen recently.

I went on a date with an amazing woman named Megan! (I think she likes me!) She's substantially more awesome than I am! We talked for hours! I'm too excited to fall asleep! We have a second date planned! We met at a dance class, and I immediately recognized her awesomeness, which was only confirmed by further conversation! Yes, it takes all these exclamation points to capture my mood! Top of the muffin to you! (That was a Seinfeld reference!) I am dismayed that no one else is awake to whom I can yell my excitement over the phone!

Holy crap, Batman!

My fears feel very similar when either launching a hang glider from a new height or trying to talk to a girl woman I'm interested in. No, I haven't asked anyone out, but I have the intention to do so when the time is appropriate. The question is, will I be able to run off of that hill when the wind is right?

W00t, metaphor.

No, really, the feeling is much the same in both cases. I feel a lightness in my stomach, and a need to simply back away. It feels like it's not too late to turn around and go home, and maybe waiting for a few minutes wouldn't be so bad after all, and then the wind changes, the woman walks away, and it turns out that it's too late to succeed after all.