A Chivalry Story

Years ago, I had a female friend in Boston — let’s call her “Ellen.”  She was in a long-term relationship, so there wasn’t any of that weirdness going on between us.  Anyway, we would hang out by ourselves occasionally, and since I was the one with a car, I drove.  Whenever I dropped her off, I waited outside watching her until she unlocked the front door and made it in safely.  But she would never look back and wave afterwards.  I thought, “What, have her parents or boyfriend or guy friends never told her about this?”

She and I had a mutual friend; let’s call him something unusual like “Loren.”  Now he was one of the most chivalrous people I’d ever met, so I figured he must watch her unlock the front door and enter safely before driving off.  But if she doesn’t wave back to me, it’s probably not a personal thing — I bet she doesn’t wave back to him either.  So the next time she and I hung out, I explained the etiquette of being dropped off: the driver (guy) waits to show that he cares, and the passenger (girl) waves back to acknowledge his waiting and thank him.

Some weeks later I told “Loren” this story.  His response: “Yeah, she waves back at me now.”

Fahrenheit 9/11 is a biased but informative movie. Wading through the propaganda, I think the central point was: Bush started the War in Iraq more for self-interest than for morality and justice.

My Birthday and an old Personals Story but no graph

Today was a great birthday.  I woke up and had breakfast with Peggy and Terry while chatting and reading up on xanga.  I met with Tony for lunch — we talked about philosophy, careers, and the evils of unchecked corporations.  It made me want to dig up my old notes on the limitations of capitalism and finally turn it into a xanga post.  (Oh yeah, that will be a popular one…)  He saw Fahrenheit 911 on opening day, so I couldn’t see it with him.  Instead we played 4 hours of Age of Mythology at a cyber-cafe.  I’d bought the game last week to train for this momentous event, but he was still a much stronger player.  (Because he’s not working and has been playing nonstop for 6 weeks.)

Afterwards I ate a Cold Stone Creamery rocky road waffle cup for dinner.

I left and went to meet my friends Nelson and Michele.  Nelson’s an old grad school friend who taught me electric bass.  Anyway, he told me that Rush (our favorite band) was playing tonight, and if I’d be interested in seeing them.  I said sure, and he went and got tickets.  84 freakin’ dollars a ticket, and he wouldn’t let me pay him back!!!  So we saw the concert from 7:30-11, and came back to their new house.

It reminds me of the last time Nelson and I spontaneously went to see a concert.  We were lifting at the Berkeley gym, and the radio was playing an ad for the band Boston.  So we decided to go and see if there were tickets.  And we had a great time at the concert.  But afterwards I remembered that I totally flaked out on my friend Augie that night.  So I called him late-night and left this long rambling apology on his machine.

As it turns out, Augie had a few weeks ago played a practical joke on me by posting a newpaper personals ad for me, listing him as the contact person.  Since I’m a big Rush fan, he used only quotes from Rush songs (he had conspirator help from my other Rush friends, including Nelson).  I guess they figured they might turn up some female Rush fan.  Anyway, this girl Kim answered the ad, and Augie told her he had set up the ad for me, so they met and decided to try to arrange a meeting with me the night of the Boston concert.  I didn’t know this part.  So I thought I was just flaking on Augie, when really I was messing up his plan to introduce me to Kim.  Augie and Kim later went back to his place, where he played the long rambling apology while she listened on.  Then she thought I was really strange and didn’t want to meet me after that.  I learned all of this a few weeks afterwards.

I’m in California for a much-needed week away from it all. But with sporadic internet access. And a lot of time to think about life and dating. So for cesareborgia and his xanga oscars, my latest post is…

The Friendship Rut

Here is a timeline on your chances of picking someone up (starting a romantic relationship with them):

When you first meet them (Point A), your chances are not that good. You’ve got to be exactly what they’re looking for, or else they’ll think you’re coming on too strong.

Point B is a good time to try to initiate dating. This is assuming they like your personality. If not, then Point B might be lower than Point A. Then you should give up all hope and try for someone else instead. Also, “to initiate dating” is different for guys and girls, and different for older and younger people. Maybe I’ll write a separate post on that later.

Point C is the Friendship Rut. This is when you didn’t ask them out at Point B. Maybe because you were chicken, or because you thought Point B didn’t pass the critical Interest Level threshold. Now it’s too late, because you’re “just friends.” So any closeness and intimacy that you develop now is under the aegis of friendship. The person has written you off as a romantic prospect. Point C can last a long time, sometimes years. Your only hope from Point C is to move forward into post-friendship dating at Point D. You might think that if you disappeared for a while, you could start over at Point A, but that’s not true — you move into the Friendship Rut pretty quickly.

Random thoughts while watching Spiderman 2

• It kind of stinks to have amazing spider-strength and super abilities if you’re not allowed to use it because of your secret identity.  And then you have to take a job as a pizza delivery guy.  No marketable skills.  Man, with his brains you’d think he’d at least be able to get an internship at a science lab.
  


• It also kind of stinks to always be sacrificing your personal life and not be able to keep dates with the love of your life because you’re distracted by catching criminals and saving children from burning buildings.  Talk about no work-life balance.
  


• I don’t see how Doc Oc (makes me think Alan should be called Doc Kwok) can absorb punches from Spiderman.  The first punch should have killed him.  For that matter, that metal contraption on his back must weigh a ton, so he should have toppled over whenever he tried to walk.  Unless he invented anti-gravity in his spare time.  But then he should have been able to fly, which he didn’t.
  


• Heros (like Spiderman) need to have danger and a compelling mission to be productive.  Otherwise they’re just delivering pizzas.  I wonder how many of us are doing the same thing?
  


• Sometimes to do what’s right, you have to give up your dream.  I don’t know how true it is, but that’s a line that will stick with me for years.

Since the beach day was rained out, today I:

• put up some blinds and found that the directions were suboptimal.  Grrr….  Ask if you want more details.
  
• installed an outlet box for my range hood.  I cut the main circuit breaker first because while 120V won’t kill you, the resulting fall off a 10′ ladder might.
  
• filed down a door strike so my bathroom door can close more easily.  I got the idea from a google search on “door won’t close adjust”.
  
• blend-painted the strip of kitchen wall just above my backsplash, and also painted the window ledge under the blinds.
  
• sorted my screw collection (how weird is that!) into wood screws and metal screws.  I have too many, so it takes too long to find the screw I need.  No comments, please.
  
• finally installed my kitchen tool rack above the stove.  Now my tools can rest in peace.  Or maybe it’s me who can rest, knowing that my tools are in their proper places:

P.S. The colors are funky because it’s a mix of incandescent and fluorescent lighting.  Digital camera CCD’s can’t handle the mix because they can’t perfectly model the color responsivity of the human eye.  This the metamer problem.

Boxing James

Jwkcheng cracks me up.  I have a growing collection of him in weird poses.  Here he is in my finished bookcase.

Flowers: Real or Fake?

One of the changes we made this year to Soul Food was to add white paper tablecloths and fresh flowers.  The upside is that it looks so much better than bare decrepit folding tables.  The downside is that the total cost is about $1500/year, or 12% of the Soul Food budget.  That amount of money is enough to hire another pastoral intern.  Or shave $15 off the all-church retreat registration fee.  Or could feed X number of homeless people for N days.

It’s a tough tradeoff, and I’m not sure if there is a “right” answer.  Any thoughts?

Mammon

Coming back from lunch yesterday, I walked through Alewife office park and marvelled at the imposing gleaming structures.  Buildings dedicated to and used by corporations.  Future archeologists will dig through layers and conclude:

• Ancient Israelites worshipped YHWH at impressive temples
  
• Medieval Europe worshipped kings and The Church at impressive castles and cathedrals
  
• Americans worshipped corporations at impressive office buildings

Corporations are just the societal structural embodiments of money.  So in reality we worship money.  That got me thinking about the ways we worship money, and what it would be like if we didn’t.

At the Highrock missions service auction last month, I saw a taste of a money-free attitude.  Once the bidding got up to around $200 for a service, the rest of the services seemed to go for that much also.  It’s as if the spirit of generosity descended on the room, and everyone agreed that $200 was a decent amount to donate for any service.  In contrast at a previous service auction I remember hearing people calculate the actual value of an item, and the final bidding rose just a hair past that.

Materialism is one obvious way to worship money: flaunting it to show off to others, or deriving self-value from the market value of one’s possessions.  So I’ve heard sermons preached about how we should strive to live on less to give more, etc…  But just thinking about money in those terms — less and more — is itself a worship of money.  Because the language of Money is figures, arithmetic, plus and minus, less and more.  God, on the other hand, seems to enjoy upsetting those scales.  Three hundred men rout fifteen thousand.  99 sheep are left behind for finding one.  A worker who works an hour is paid the same wage as one working the whole day.

Don’t get me wrong — I love math, and I think God who made the world an ordered mathematical place loves math too.  But there’s more to life, especially when it comes to relationships with each other and with God.  When we get married and raise kids, we don’t calculate the net worth of the spouse and children.  We don’t set allowances on our spouses, calculating to the penny.  Instead, what’s ours is theirs, and the family has an equal responsibility with ownership, or rather stewardship of the finances.  Likewise, I’m not really comfortable with the idea of tithing an exact 10%.  That in itself is a holdover from a Jewish tradition of saving up 10% for a huge annual party.  So when I hear the question of whether we should tithe before or after taxes, I have to think that’s not the point.  I believe we should spend enough to live a non-distracting lifestyle, save enough for a rainy day, and put the rest of our money to kingdom uses.

That will look different for each person.  Some people’s kingdom uses may be to support missionaries, as one new Highrock i-banker is doing.  Another might be to help with family finances as an expression of honoring, obedience, or witness.  Another might be saving up for future life as an inner-city volunteer.  Or maybe building a nest egg for Highrock’s upcoming building fund drive.

Uh-oh, this post is turning out too long and scattered and out-of-control.  What I really meant to say is that we worship money in a variety of ways, even though we don’t see it that way.  Just because we make a commitment to tithe doesn’t necessarily solve the heart issue of worship, just as a chocolate addict who limits herself to two pieces a day doesn’t love chocolate any less.  If the concept of planned financial giving leads us to first count the cost, then we are worshipping money by putting it as a first priority.

Missed Connection

My friend (really!) saw this cute girl at dragon boating a few weeks ago.  She was on the MIT boat which is maybe connected with the Association of Taiwanese students at MIT?  Anyway, if you know her, could you please pass me her contact info, which I’ll pass onto him.  Or I could pass his info onto you to pass onto her.  Thanks!

[5:30 edit: he asked me to take down the picture after the matter was resolved.  So taking a page from clieu's book...]