My dating checklist

My own personal checklist.

Meeting someone to date...

AT A BAR: Unlikely (for me) at best. Plus potentially yucky, due to beer goggles on either or both sides.

AT ONE'S COMPANY:
Like meeting a woman at a bar (potentially yucky), not to mention potentially stupid and dangerous, especially if/when things go sour. Dating someone on your work team... really REALLY stupid.

AT MY CURRENT COMPANY:
Well, I kinda do this anyway while I'm looking for someone better. NOTE: I am currently self-employed. VERDICT: Handy (groan) but definitely lacking in the romance department.

AT THE GYM:
After over a year of having a crush on one of my kickboxing instructors, we ended up going out on one quasi-date, and then she fled the state two weeks later. Okay, so maybe she got a huge job promotion and moved to Arizona. But still, it was depressing. Other efforts at starting something romantic with gym friends have been less dramatic but even less successful. VERDICT: Not very good place for asking someone out.

AT THE LAUNDROMAT:
I'm one of the few folks at my local laundromat who speaks English. 'nuff said.

AT SCHOOL:
I recently took some extra-curricular classes at my local junior college. Like the above category, few of my fellow students spoke English (making teamwork rather, uh, challenging). The others were typically around 10 years younger than I am. VERDICT: Uh, no way, Jos?.

VIA PARENTS:
"Adam, I know this daaaaarling girl who would be so perfect for you! She has a great job, and she's smart and..." (click) VERDICT: These are the same folks that bought me THOSE clothes to wear to school when I was younger. Uh huh.

VIA FRIENDS:
This really just transpired last week:
"Adam, I know this girl who'd be awesome for ya... she saw your site and wants to meet you... and she's really funny, cute, 5'8..."
"Uh, I'm 5'6". She go for shorter guys?"
"I'll ask her!"
....two days later...
"Oh, I'm sorry, Adam! It's a no go. You're really 5'6"? You seem much taller....!"

(if I had a nickel for every friend who said that last part...)
VERDICT: Friends are well meaning, but not very good matchmakers.

* * *

So, gee, it's not surprising that the Lindy Hop crowd is lookin' better and better, eh?

Especially since I'm attracted to women with similar interests to mine (wow, imagine that!) and Lindy Hop women generally:
- Share my love of swing music
- Love to dance (duh!)
- Are at least a bit social
- Tend to be active / athletic
- Appreciate/admire/want to make violent love with musicians

So, basically, what it comes down to is that the folks I really shouldn't date (people in my currently-favorite and oft-attended 'scene') are those I have the most compatibility with and probably best chance of dating.

These are, however, also the same women that I am reluctant to ask out for reasons that are probably obvious to most of us. I mean, when we see each other every week (or sometimes more often), it's a little transparent to ask a woman out to dinner or a movie or whatever.

Ironic, frustrating. Maybe I just need to start going to out-of-town dance exchanges :D

WHY does anyone still use AOL?

I don't get it.

There was a time when accessing the Internet was, to quote Barbie, "So hard!" Years ago, if you wanted to point-and-click your way to the Internet, AOL was one of your few (albeit odious) choices.

But nowadays, why would anyone pay $21.95/month for access that's slow, littered with pop-up ads (even before you get to the Web), and run by one of the most incompetent yet (IMHO) evil conglomerates on the planet?

Here in San Francisco, even some of my theoretically tech savvy friends use AOL. "I got it with my computer," one of my friends admitted sheepishly, well aware of what a dolt I think she is, "And I don't want to tell ALL my friends that I have a new e-mail address!"

It doesn't matter to this woman, apparently, that she can get much faster and more reliable (and ad-free) Internet service locally for $9.95/month for unlimited use. Or that her money goes to support a company who has singlehandedly dumbed down both the Internet and American news probably more than any other entity in history.

Okay, okay, so this rant isn't necessarily uncovering anything wildly new or shocking. But it was spurred by a piece of junk I just got in my e-mail, which features two physically attractive women chatting with one another, and one saying:

"He asked for my AOL Screen Name, not my phone number. Luckily I Joined for Free Yesterday.)"

Aside from the embarrassingly weird capitalization and punctuation, this raises a burning question: Has anyone, ANYWHERE, gone up to a woman and cooed in her ear, "Hey, baby... how's about ya tell me your AOL Screen Name, eh?"

I mean, of course, I've traded e-mail addresses with folks before, but sheesh! At risk of sounding like a total snob, if a woman's got AOL, this knocks her down one peg in my book.

"But, but..." you may stammer, "I get multiple e-mail addresses with AOL! I can access it with many different numbers around the country!"

Uh, true. But it's the same with, for instance, Earthlink. And MSN. And probably many other Internet services as well.

And did you know that when you view the Web on AOL:

- You're not actually surfing the Web. Each time you request a Web page, you're actually talking to AOL's server, which then goes and either fetches the page for you or sends you an old (stale) version that it fetched earlier, and then sends it along to you. Why does this matter? Well, it's slowing down your Web experience, and you may not even be seeing the most recent version of a page. Not so good for news sites, eh?

- By default, you're seeing crappily compressed versions of pictures. AOL compresses regular graphics into ".art" form, which is sort of like you ordering pizza and having the delivery boy squish your entire large pizza into a lunchbox so he can save space. Great for the delivery boy, but not so good for your pizza... or your stomach. Then again, with the Web pictures... maybe you LIKE seeing blotchy and less-colorful pictures. Who knows?

So to those of you on AOL... I hope you seriously think twice about your choice to pay $21.95 a month for substandard service. If you have any questions about switching, please don't hesitate to drop me a line. I'm happy to help in the intelligent fight against mediocrity :-)

Pledge allegiance under God... but no breasts!!!

So once again, our brilliant U.S. federal government (with, sadly, probably the support of a majority of boneheaded citizens and ineffectual parents) strongarmed our students into the world of the Moral Majority.

Our kids are already forced to give up rights of search and seizure. Choir kids are forced to pee into cups for mandatory drug testing. And for years, student newspapers have enjoyed practically no first amendment protections.

Adding insult to injuries, now students' research efforts are being routinely hampered because the federal government has basically forced all but the wealthiest U.S. schools to install ridiculously bug-ridden Internet filters.

If you're student and trying to research breast cancer, forget it. And of course, anything dealing with information on contraception, sexually transmitted diseases, or -- probably in some cases -- even "sex discrimination" is undoubtedly more than the typical lame filters will allow. It's hard to know for sure, however, since the filter companies insist that info on what they block is strictly "proprietary." So heck, yeah, they say, we'll decide what your kids can and cannot access and study, but we're not going to let you, the parents, know any details!

But it's okay. Because Lord knows that if some of our children encountered a naked breast or saw the word "condom," they'd be scarred for life. And we all know that even sixteen-year-old students -- and for that matter, their local teachers and administrators -- simply can't be trusted to weigh the risks and benefits of filtering anyway.

Forgive my mock surprise here, but gee, you don't hear about Sweden or other European countries installing such filters. And unless I'm mistaken, their kids seem to turn out pretty well. They might even have a leg up on our children when it comes to studying Bucky Balls.

And boy, I guess THIS blog entry isn't gonna reach any American schoolkids, is it?

So when's it okay to lie?

A very attractive acquaintance of mine, who once had beautiful flowing long hair, got her tresses cut, well, awful short :(

So short, in fact, that I wasn't sure it was her when she was in my arms tonight while dancing. "Hi, I'm Adam" I hesitatingly introduced myself, to which she replied with mock exasperation, "Uh, I'm [so-and-so], remember?"

She realized, of course, that I didn't recognize her because of her major crop job. And certainly, my expected response would have been "You look great."

But I didn't think that was true, so I just smiled and apologized for my doofish inability to recognize her.

She smiled back, but I'm wondering whether she was hurt that I didn't compliment her on her new doo.

I might even have considered saying something nice, but I'm a lousy liar.

This, indeed, also explains why I never became a lawyer.

Flowers in Manhattan

Click to see a larger version of this photo, taken in October 2000 from a random a florist shop street offering. It was scenes like this that made me frequently stop and appreciate the surprising beauty of the crowded Manhattan on-the-way-to-work hustle and bustle during my week-long business trip.

More thoughts on 9/11

I'm faced with a balancing act here.

I have strong feelings about 9/11... about our government's reactions... and about individual responses. However, I also want to be sensitive to others who may feel that excessive questioning or cynicism about patriotism and similar issues are inappropriate at this time.

Let me just say, though, that I find it highly ironic that there's seemingly a nationwide push now for companies to go 'dark' on 9/11. Most recently, I read about how many telemarketing companies have pledged not to interrupt us on this Wednesday.

How strange. Wasn't it our very own president who suggested that there was nothing better we could do than SHOP after 9/11? Remember all those American-flag-as-shopping-bag stickers all around the place that proudly trumpted "America -- Open for Business"?

Okay, so most folks would agree that the telemarketing scum aren't self-imposing this moratorium out of the goodness of their hearts; they simply don't want the bad PR from selling Florida timeshare units and getting screamed at by indignant Americans.

But wouldn't it have made more sense to have the telemarketers not just go home and loaf around, but instead make telemarketing calls on behalf of bonafide charitable organizations for free?

Imagine this... you get a phone call from someone asking for donations to the Red Cross or for -- this'd be wild but sweet justice -- aid for International Terrorism victims (not just US folks!).

While I hate all telemarketing in general, at least this'd be for a good cause... and might even actually even raise MORE money than usual with people in a somber or reflective or giving mood!

What do you think?

Courtesy or lack thereof

Sometimes I'm really embarrassed to be a Democrat.

While I abhor much of the ideologies (or at least practiced ideologies) of the Right, I'm similarly distressed when those on the Left abandon all pretenses of civility and courtesy through their consistent heckling of those espousing contrary viewpoints.

I think back to my college days, when it was a common yet-still-disgusting occurrence to have conservative speakers booed and yelled at mid-speech by liberal protesters. I was particularly ashamed, because I knew of no similar instances of liberal guests being treated with such disrespect by conservative students.

As most of us sadly realize, angry and impetuous liberals don't miraculously mature after their heady pot-smoking college days. As fellow blogger Matt lamented recently, Colin Powell was soundly booed by protesters at the World Summit in South Africa.

Like Matt, I make no pretenses about supporting the viewpoints of Mr. Powell, and I sure as hell don't like our current President or his idiotic and damaging policies.

However, I feel that common human civility compels -- or should compel -- people to let others speak their mind. I also believe that it is through respectful dialogue that we learn about ourselves and the world around us, whether such learning challenges or solidifies our current beliefs.

How embarrassing and sad it is, then, that even at our most venerable institutions of learning such as Harvard and Northwestern University, even heads of state are unable to speak to an assembly without being screamed at.

Are these liberals so fearful that their viewpoints cannot be effectively communicated before, after, or in a different place concurrently with those ideas they rail against? Cannot their beliefs stand the scrutiny of rational and polite discussion?

Matt argues that civility is now just a "pipe dream" and "about as foreign an idea as a politician with integrity." But somehow it seems that the greatest loss of respect is highlighted by my fellow liberals.

I wish I knew why this was. And more importantly, I wish I could put an end to the nasty behavior.

When it just clicks

Don't you love it when stuff just clicks?

I take Lindy Hop lessons every Thursday from two of the world's top swing dancers, and afterwards, I generally stay for their three hour dance party. Sometimes I stay because I just don't want to go home, not because I'm having a particularly stellar night.

But last night, my dancing just seemed to click into place. I was having fun. My partners were enthusiastic. And I was feeling MUSICAL!

It didn't hurt that I got very high compliments from two respectable follows, either.

One of them was shocked to hear that I had been dancing for just a bit over a year. "It seems like you've been dancing, well, maybe three years!" she gushed. When I told her at the end of the dance that it had been (honestly) a pleasure dancing with her, she responded, "Please ask me again!"

Another follow asked me for a third dance during the course of the evening, and apologized humbly saying, "I don't mean to monopolize you, but you're so much fun!"

That, indeed, is one of the top compliments you can get from a follow in Lindy Hop... anything with the word "fun" in it. That, and being asked for additional dances :-)

* * *

It's only recently that I've been finally reaching that point where I can play with the music, move my body a bit more gracefully, and lead with more assertiveness and confidence. In fact, it was merely a few months ago when I mercifully crossed over a particular line... when Lindy Hop became filled with more regular joy than regular stress... stress over whom I could ask to dance, stress about whether my partner was enjoying spending a three minute eternity with me, and so on. Now I'm finding more things to smile about... compliments, achievements (wow that double spin was smooth!), and an increase in the number of love affairs, at least on the dance floor.

Yes, it's about loving each other for those three minutes... connecting with your partner... forgetting about everyone else (well, aside from watching out for collisions ;-)... and just sensing your partner, their movements, and how you balance and move together. It really is a kind of love that's hard to describe unless you experience it.

It's also about loving yourself, as crude as that may sound out of context. Earlier in the evening last night, I had actually made peace with the realization that I was never going to be a Lindy Rockstar.

"And that's okay!" I told myself. And I think for one of the first times in my life, I really believed it. I could still enjoy dancing, and -- of equal importance -- women could still enjoy dancing with me with all my special nuances and quirks and foibles and "special" moves and all. I could still be somebody on the dance floor -- myself -- and be happy with that.

Sure, I had grown used to being a "Rockstar" in academics when I was younger... a Rockstar in music... and in many other things I set my mind to.

I just didn't -- and don't -- have a natural brilliance in dance. It's not me. But I can accept that.

I wonder if it's perhaps more than irony that I had some of the best dancing in my life when I finally learned to accept my dancing for what it is and what I'm capable of.

Of course, I don't plan to just rest on my laurels. I will continue to practice, to improve, to push myself. But the goal will be to better myself... not in comparison with others (because they will get better, too, and always be ahead of me), not in comparison with an official yardstick (can I win competitions? can I do four spins in a row?) but rather, what can I learn that makes me happy?

Because once dance stops making me happy, that's when I'll stop dancing.

But as I wrote in a journal entry perhaps half a year ago, I just hope that day never comes. Music and movement... beget some of the greatest joys one can hope to have :-)

Is it really snobbery?

It's so easy to assume the worst in people.

That woman who won't look me in the eye? She thinks she's too good for me.

That guy who barely grunts two words in response to my compliment? Arrogant asshole.

And that woman who never asks me to dance and just ignores me when I walk past? What a snob!

By assuming the worst, I can always be pleasantly surprised when I'm wrong.

And... I usually am. Both wrong, and pleasantly surprised.

There's this one woman in the dance world, "Jaya," who moves with incredible grace and sensuality... always dances with the same few hot guys... and is, unsurprisingly, drop-dead gorgeous.

Doesn't take much of a stretch of the imagination to pin the "SNOB!" label on her, does it?

Imagine my surprise then, when one of my friends ("Mark") spoke well of her, and indeed confided in me that he even went on a few dates with her some years back and she was "a total sweetheart."

Understandably incredulous, I asked Mark how he ever ended up talking with Jaya, much less going out on dates with her.

He lowered his voice, and said with some embarrassment, "Uh... the tele-personals."

"The tele-what?!?" I said, not believing what I heard. Images of 1-900 sex line late-night ads popped into my head.

Well, the reality of the situation was less raunchy but no less strange. Five years ago, before Internet dating had really taken off, there were apparently actual "personals" lines you could phone up, punch in your stats and preferences, with the goal of meeting one or more single people in your area who'd be compatible to date. San Francisco's a big place and Mark -- a handsome and successful businessman who had just moved to an outside sleepy suburb -- was simply not having luck meeting women in bars or anywhere else for that matter.

Okay, so I could understand this guy, despite his fine qualities, hitting the telepersonals in desperation. After all, women are -- no matter what the numbers -- almost always the 'hunted' while we're the frustrated hunters.

But what about this dream woman? When Jaya could probably get 100 guys to her side with a flick of her eyelashes, what the heck would she be doing on a service featuring down-on-their-luck male suitors?

"She's shy, Adam. Really, really, really shy" Mark insisted. "She hides it, yeah, I mean, she dresses nice and is a killer dancer. But she's afraid of rejection, and guys are intimidated by her anyway."

I was stunned. I always thought Jaya had it all... total cool confidence, everything / everyone her heart desired, and so on.

And here she was, actually scared guyless in the dating world.

Mark also told me about other women he had gotten to know who were -- contrary to popular opinion -- actually insecure and/or shy and not snots at all. And over the last few weeks, I've made my own similar discoveries... learning that many "cold fish" are actually scaredy cats who open up when they get to know someone.

And sometimes all it takes is a random event or issue to bridge the gap.

I played a silly piano medley at a swing dance "talent night" and to my amazement, I got a standing ovation. Even more startling, however, was when one of the ice queens came up to me later, gave me a huge hug and said, "Wow, you are AMAZING!" And she's been relatively friendly ever since!

This isn't to say, of course, that I haven't encountered people who have -- quite consistently -- proven that they are indeed unrepentant snobs. But strangely, this has turned out to be the exception, not the rule.

Will this change my behavior, prompting me to assume the best in aloof folks, rather than the worst?

It should, yes, but I doubt I'll change anytime soon. After all, despite my generally optimistic and sunny disposition, it's just too much of a pleasant surprise being proven wrong in this context, again and again :D

Okay, I've finally lost it

I decided to add myself to the "Am I Hot or Not?" site, as seen here.

I have no idea what possessed me. Go inflate my score anyway :D

Monks (?) taking a break amongst the ruins

(Click photo to see larger version)

I took this photo while on a weekend vacation in Rome, during the summer of my internship in Germany in 1997.

It actually took me forever to find the Coliseum, or any exciting Roman tourist stuff in general, since stubborn/stupid me depended on a free and lousy McDonald's Map (no joke!) from the tourist office which somehow had me walking for 5 hours in the sleepy suburbs of Rome where no one spoke English... in the OPPOSITE direction of where I was trying to get to. I suppose it beat being fed to the lions, though!

Update on blog'n'site changes

This past last weekend, I spent over 20 hours learning CSS and XHTML and stuff like that, and have finally made a prototype new template for my Web site. Woo hoo!

I will also likely switch this blog over to that format, too, with the blog content in the middle (duh!), the blog 'controls' on the right, and the main SmileZone menu on the left. In case you were dying to know :D

There'll be several major benefits:
- Readers to my blog can "meet" the rest of my site and visa versa
- My blog will be readable by those with disabilities (yes, the tiny font will finally be user-configurable!)
- I'll slowly integrate quotes and aspects from my blog content and blog comments into the rest of my site.

I welcome any comments on my early prototype, and thank you for reading :-)

UPDATE: I forgot to mention that I was up 'til 7:30 am last "night" working on that darn template, and I'm now typing to you on 4 hours of sleep. At 12:24am now, why the heck am I here and not in bed?

Good question.

Healthy onion sorta-rings!

I've learned that with a little perseverence and luck, it's possible to make VERY tasty and healthy stuff to substitute for evil FFC (Fast Food Cravings).

Tonight's strange but wonderful dinner:
- Salad with fresh greens, almonds, and raisins and lowfat ranch dressing
- Baked crispy sweet potato chips and onion petals

The salad is pretty self-explanatory.

For the baked crispy stuff, I took two small sweet onions and TRIED to cut them into petals like you see at the fancy restaurants, but that didn't quite work out. So I contented myself to just have lots of cut up "loose petals."

I sliced one sweet potato into as thin of slices as I could, and failing that at times, made some cubes out of the remainder.

I put all of the onion and potato pieces directly onto cookie sheet, which I had lightly sprayed (with a Misto sprayer) with garlic olive oil first. I then sprayed additional oil on top of the veggies, and on top of that, sprinkled some paprika and cornflake crumbs.

I baked this for 30 minutes at 425 degrees, and voila! Lightly crisp, nicely seasoned, and very yummy. The onions are of a similar taste, though not consistency, to fast food onion rings... albeit a zillion times less greasy and more healthy.

What the heck is Lindy Hop?

The (favorably) ever-present Harald noted in a recent comment that he wasn't sure what Lindy Hop is.

I think I may have explained it WAY earlier in my blogging, but it bears repeating: Lindy Hop is the original American swing dance, invented and popularized by blacks in Harlem, New York.

In its most showy form, Lindy Hop can be the sort of thing millions saw in the famous swing Gap (clothing) commercial a few years ago... lots of acrobatical throwing people overhead, under legs, etc, to upbeat music.

At its core, though, Lindy Hop isn't really about wild airsteps. Rather, it's a highly improvisational and fun partner dance set to a wide range of music (originally big band back in the 20's and 30's). It includes steps like the Charleston, Swingout, Shorty George, Lindy Circle, and others.

For more info, you could check out http://www.ncls.com, or type Lindy Hop into google for some random interesting sites :-)

Or, if you're looking to see some amazing (modern) Lindy Hop, check out the great video clips at www.sflindy.com and www.glitterlisa.com.

If you have any specific questions on Lindy Hop, feel free to post 'em in the comments below, and I'll answer there! :-)

Moving forward and telling 10% to go home and change

It is with determination and excitement but also some sadness that I am completely redoing my main Web site in XHTML and CSS. To you non-geeks out there, that may elicit a hearty "huh?!" and "who gives a flying cow chip?"

But you should care. For approximately 90% of you, my site will load faster, look cleaner and more professional, be easily updatable (leading to more frequent updates!), and also be accessible to voice browsers, the colorblind, wireless browsers, and more.

That's the good news.

The bad news is that approximately 10% of the folks currently visiting my site are still using old old old old browsers from 1997. When they access my site in the future, they'll get a boring straight-text layout.

I'm sorry, but I'm not that sorry.

Almost anyone can download new browsers for free, or -- in those places where connection time costs money -- for a few dollars at most. I can no longer justify spending countless hours mangling HTML and dealing with futzy layouts and holding back the progress on my site for the (overwhelmingly) ignorant or lazy... or, in some sad cases, the few truly unfortunate souls who simply can't run the most modern browsers on their older systems.

If you're managing to see this entry but everything else on this page looks garbled... well, I hate to tell you this, but then I'm talking about you. And no, I'm not the only stubborn mule on this point nowadays. You're being shut out of lots of sites, trust me.

So if you're one of those 10%, go to http://www.microsoft.com/ie or http://www.netscape.com or http://www.opera.com/ and download a new browser. Please. For your own sake.

Strange Practical Fleeting Dream

As I noted in an earlier entry, I'm sick. Not horrible on-my-death-bed-sick, just an annoying cold, but it's enough to have thrown my body out of whack with regards to eating and sleeping habits.

Anyway, so I went to bed at 4am last night, got up at 1:30pm, worked on some stuff for a bit, and then realized that I was exhausted... laid back down, and slept until around 5:30pm.

But during that sleep time, I had a very odd Strange Practical Fleeting Dream.

I was in bed with Anna Nicole Smith and an acquaintance of mine.

Purely in a non-sexual sense. I mean it! And, oddly enough, I never saw Anna Nicole nor touched her. I just somehow knew the identity of that (big) lump to my left.

So the acquaintance ("J") is enthusiastically going on and on about some Lindy Hop Luminary Lady, which induces me to dream (within a dream) of this woman teaching me some Lindy Hop steps.

These turned out to be honest-to-goodness steps I learned a few months ago, but had forgotten I knew! This was my Lindy Angel!

And then I wake up. J's just as excited as I am, and gets a jazz history book (one which I don't own) off my shelf (which does exist), and points out that this Lindy Luminary is indeed historically famous. I marvel that this woman knew "my" moves! I'm also honored that J is sitting in my bed and helping me out (Anna Nicole still doesn't quite register as anything more than a, ahem, large but unimportant presence; she's still mute and moot).

And then I really wake up. I'm still confused but honored that J was in my dream, and I can't wait to add those moves back to my repetoire and also write about the intricacies of this strange dream of a dream.

It's 5:30pm, though, and I haven't eaten anything since 4am the night before, when I pretty much emptied an entire tin of mixed nuts into my stomach. Sure, I couldn't smell them, but how important is that with nuts anyway?

I made myself some spaghetti from leftover pasta and canned sauce plus bunches of extra dried red pepper flakes for that extra nose-clearing kick.

I ate. I reflected. I came back here to my computer.

And then I realized that I forgot 98.6% of the dream. My description above just scratches the surface of the strangeness that was involved in the layerdness, the significance, and the practical brilliance of the dream.

I've also pretty much forgotten those kick-ass Lindy moves that that Lindy Luminary (re)taught me. I remember, in fact, just enough to be frustrated about what I've remembered and forgotten.

And lastly, I don't think I'm going to tell J about him being in bed with me, platonic or not, and it's probably wisest not to let Anna Nicole know of this either.

Oh well. Back to the real world. Let me know if you find my dream, please.