I saw the book in the corner of my eye. I did a double-take because it honestly never occured to me that she would have a book that begat a Kevin Costner chick-flick.

“Message in a Bottle?” I asked.

She acknowledged that it wasn’t the more thoughtful fare that I was accustomed to her consuming. She then made an excellent point - or I inferred one, anyway - that serious times often call for more frivolous entertainment.

I said that she was probably right.

She went to go use the restroom as I went to the bedroom. I plugged my cell phone in to re-charge and looked at the phone in the wall.

When she got back, we both agreed that it was pointless to think about it and pointless to worry. We acknowledged that in all likelihood, those that we haven’t heard back from are perfectly okay. We further acknowledged that we absolutely cannot spend the next month worrying.

Those close enough to be of the utmost importance will call when they can.

Those that left have a lot to worry about.

Those that couldn’t simply aren’t able.

The one or two we’re not sure about… we just don’t know… and that’s what’s going to hang over us until we do. Sometimes things that you think are going to last forever don’t. We can’t help but hope that this is one of those times.

It’s odd that though you can accept the worst possible outcome, the not knowing is somehow worse than that.

The Truman house basement is looking very, very intently at recent developments on the Gulf Coast. Our attentions are going to be aimed down there until the water recedes and the debris settles. I probably won’t be posting regularly again until next week.

When I was working at Wildcat, an engineering and fabrication company, I was strongly encouraged to wear steel-toed boots. I even got one free pair a year. I had one tan pair of boots and one black pair. I wore the tan pair with jeans, blue slacks, and green slacks, while I wore the black boots with black, white, and khaki slacks. One day I was out in the plant during break when a bunch of the workers started laughing at me. Apparently, I hadn’t been paying attention and put on one tan boot and one black boot. It looked pretty silly and I spent my lunch break driving home to correct it.

Things have changed somewhat since then. It was really difficult to get up in the morning at the time, which was my excuse. Today my excuse is that the boots are the same brand and both are dark (brown and black) and that I had to put them on in the dark so as not to wake Clancy.

The excuses are better this time around, and the boots look less silly (no one has even noticed), but I still feel like a dork.

In the comments to my whiney-lonely post, Barry made the following observation:

There are some people whose level of success in life is defined by the level of excellence they’ve reached in a career, or any kind of job really. I guess it’s ultimately a Puritanic attitude that hard works are what define a person.

For a variety of reasons (pick any one or combination of the following) psychological, evolutionary, or social, males appear to attach a much greater degree of their identity towards their career. The historical family reliance on male income, the dovetailing of economic and social status, and a man’s inability to give birth often place men’s value away from the home and towards the workplace.

I am, in many ways, an unconventional male. Wherever I end up professionally, my wife is almost certain to out-earn me. It never really crossed my mind for that to disturb me or make me feel less a man. Machismo’s never been my thing and between Clancy and myself, I’d say she’s got the more dominant personality.

But being unconventional as I am, the work/identity mindset plagues me nonetheless. It started when I was dating Julie and her academic career was floundering to the point that I would likely be the breadwinner. Then there was Evangeline and my parents constant harping about my unemployment a few years back.

Being unemployed really takes a toll on a guy. This is true when you’re single because you know that a lot of potential wives are looking closely to make sure that you are self-supporting (or, in some cases, family-supporting). When you’re looking to get married, having a good job is a part of the package that says “I’m an adult, I’m ready for this.”

Then, of course, you get married. Women that choose not to work have a great deal of cover, but a guy that is unemployed is assumed to be looking and failing in his search.

This isn’t meant to be a whine. I’m honestly not even lamenting the double-standard (there are reasons that it exist). I’m not saying that it’s any better to be a female. I’m just saying that gender roles and expectations work both ways and one of the ways they work on males is the association of identity with profession.

And merely cut from a different cloth does not insulate one from these percieved and real expectations. This site frequently serves to store my frustrations with my present work. This job frustrates and exasperates me on a regular basis. I don’t like getting up at six in the morning. I wish I had more time to write and meet people and such things.

But at points of lower self-esteem, the job is very frequently something I fall back on. How worthless can one be when someone - a boss, coworkers, a corporation - is counting on you to show up every day? How worthless can you be when you are contributing to an industry serving other industries serving a national economy? How can worthless can you be when you are adding to the nation’s economy rather than pulling from it?

There’s a 90’s two-hit-wonder (”Beautiful In My Eyes” and “Jessie”) by the name of Joshua Kadison, who has a simple, silly, and profound song called “Invisible Man.”

Of course, I don’t actually think of myself as invisible, but the song resonates. I find myself feeling sometimes that if I am not performing then I do not exist. How is performance measured? The paycheck, of course, and the prestige of the position.

A week or so ago, David St. Lawrence said something that really grabbed me:

When you are unemployed, whether by choice or by being terminated, you lose one of the major reference points of your life. Whether you plan to or not, you frequently define yourself to others by the company you work for.

When someone says, “What do you do?”

You probably respond with something like, “I work at ______.”

It’s a convenient way of saying that you are somebody of consequence, even when company _______ has only four employees. When you are unable to associate yourself with a company, you may suffer a loss of importance in your own eyes, if not in the eyes of others. A person without a team is a stranger in a strange land.

When I was dating Julie, I had to drive through a speed trap in her hometown. Without fail, I would get a ticket every three months. Among other questions they asked at the time was who you worked for and that address. The difference in saying “I work for CRI and here is their address…” and saying “I’m not currently employed” felt like the difference between saying “I am a respectible citizen, officer” and “I am the sort of layabout bum you lie awake at night fearing your daughter will marry.”

When it came time to meet my Clancy’s parents, the most immediate fear was how her father would react to my being unemployed. Prior to her, the most immediate fear was how a prospective girlfriend would react to my being unemployed. I was always a relationship-oriented person, but looking back more of my social self-esteem lied in my occupation than my relationship or lack thereof.

Many of you may know the persona of that guy that is so glad to have a girlfriend that he can’t stop mentioning it every five minutes. Though I restrain myself, I feel that way about working. Just as the unexpectedly-girlfriended dude can’t seem to get over the fact that he’s got a girl that loves him, I sometimes look just as appreciably at the fact that I have a job, a place to go in the day, and a contribution - however small - to society.

And I have something to tell people when I’m pulled over or at a dinner party. I am somebody. A peon, perhaps, but a peon with an identity.

And it makes me feel good, which is better than feeling bad. Except that from a longer standpoint, I am setting myself up that much more for a fall when Clancy and I leave this state in a year, because I will then be unemployed again. A nobody.

And while I know that this is not the right way to look at things, it has been so ingrained for so long I don’t know of any other.

Simon invited me over for beerbraut the other day. His fiance Paige met up with us. The food was great, though the company less so (I swear, I’ll explain my anti-Paige thing soon). One of the things we talked about was anti-heterosexual discrimination.

It was an odd topic of conversation because it’s rare that any group in the majority can claim discrimination and that and even so we’re not the ones most likely to talk about it. Paige is a self-described bisexual and Simon and I both have pretty liberal attitudes towards homosexuality. But from their standpoint, they were being discriminated against because they are heterosexual.

Simon and Paige are, shall we say, indefinitely engaged. That is to say that they have no wedding date, it won’t be soon, but they both absolutely know that it will happen. But they need to get out of Deseret and away from his Mormon parents before that can happen.

The problem is that her new job very generously provides cost-free full health and dental to her, her spouse and/or her “lifetime partner.” The problem is that the last one is reserved solely for members of the same sexual persuasion. Since he’s got the tabs and she’s got to slots, they are ineligible unless they get married.

Rightly or wrongly, gays cannot marry. Therefore the only way that they can get benefits is for companies to create a special category. Since the government won’t recognize it, they have to have a sort of “married in the eyes of the corporation” outlook.

But it’s interesting that they choose not to extend this to heterosexual couples as well. The assumption, I suppose, is that if you’re “lifetime partners” then you should get married (gays are exempt from this expectation since they can’t). It’s not an unreasonable conclusion, though it puts couples like Simon and Paige in a the peculiar position of being disadvantageously straight.

But I can think of other examples from people I know that would fall in to this particular crack. One friend is waiting for his dying mother to pass on before getting married. Another friend’s divorce was prolonged for four excruciating years by a spouse with deep pockets, a good lawyer, and a reluctance to let things go. Some religions permit divorce but do not allow remarriage. Then there are those unreligious and anti-religion people that view marriage as too religious for their tastes.

So should Paige’s employer change their policy? Not my call to make, though it does point out some logistical difficulties of the “civil unions” compromise: Namely that if the right were extended to homosexuals, certain heterosexuals would want to be able to make use of that as well. One response might be that it’s an extention of another inequality that heterosexuals will just have to live with. But I have difficulty seeing it being left in a state that is at-all percieved to be discriminatory against the 90+% majority.

History, the notion of marriage as a legal entity is relatively knew. Permanent couplings have existed for some time as have the ceremonies celebrating the union. As written law became more and more prominent, as did legal marriage.

So marriage, at that point, became not only a matter of family and god, but family, god, and country.

In order to attract employees in the 20th century, companies began to provide more than a paycheck. Our employer-based healthcare system is a product of the employee-starved economy during and after World War II. Because what a family is and isn’t began to concern them (in the form of benefits, among other things), it’s somewhat natural that they, too, now define what constitutes a family.

Two can get married by a Justice of the Peace and not be married in the eyes of god (if they do not believe in one, anyway). They can also get married in the church and never turn in the paperwork, being unmarried in the eyes of the government. And now they can be married in the eyes of their employer and not in the eyes of the goverment or god.

I’m not sure why, but that’s just a strange thought to me.

I got a sad email about Aunt Mary Margaret that is apparently dying. The doctor said that the cancer has spread and is probably terminal.

When an aunt on my father’s side falls ill (my grandparent’s generation is reaching that time, so it’s happening quite frequently lately), I typically respond internally by thinking of memories that I’ve had with them or that I might miss them or how much I will.

This one must come from my mother’s side cause I haven’t the faintest idea who it is. That almost always means it’s from that side of the family.

Since moving over to QA, I’ve gone from having a bunch of coworkers to having a single partner: Simon Reed. Simon helped train me when I first got hired on and we’ve been on pretty good terms since. He reminds me a lot of my friends in high school, but I like him anyway. Especially since he’s been keeping an eye out for me as I hunt for a new job. He’s already hooked me up with an interview and gave me a lead to another position.

But since working together in QA, he’s been even nicer to me. A lot nicer. A little too nice, in fact. Knowing that I’m an anime fan, he’s offered me access to his collection. He’s also offered to loan me CDs and MP3s and DVDs. He’s bought me slushies and gives me free donuts (he charges everyone else 50 cents. Notoriously quiet, he’s opened up and talked about what’s going on in his life. He’s acted less the coworker or partner and more the friend.

But I have declined his offers, paid for the donuts, not been as open with him, and avoided friendship at all costs. I hate doing it, but I don’t want to be his friend. In fact, I actively want to not be his friend. And I feel terrible for it because it has nothing to do with him and everything to do with Paige, his fiance. Paige used to work at FalStaff and she quickly counted me among her closest friends without really asking my permission. It’s not that Paige is a bad person, but for a variety of reasons she speaks straight to the chill in my bones. I can’t go on about her without getting completely sidetracked. One of the best days at work I ever had was when she gave her two weeks notice.

Of course I can’t tell Simon that. Nor can I really see him without seeing her. She’d insist upon it. So I’m nice and I’m polite, but I keep a wall up that I wouldn’t otherwise. It pains me to do it because he is, in many ways, exactly the sort of friend I need up here but do not have.

I’m not a particularly outgoing person. Neither is Clancy. We’re both kinda loners. When you keep to yourself for long enough, it starts to become every bit the habit that smoking is. Or looking down when you walk. After a while, you forget how to actually make friends. With the exception of Rick and Pen Harley, every friend I’ve made since college has been through someone that I’ve dated (I always had more motivation for that kind of socialization). When I was taking calls for a satellite company I made a friend during training. Got his number but never called. Met another guy at a coffee shop, followed up on that one a couple of times, but eventually decided that it would be best to let that one slide. On Clancy’s end, there’ve been a couple of coworkers that we’ve gotten along with, but one has already left the area and the other has two (or three?) kids to contend with.

A lot of this is circumstancial. We’re not a member of the in-group here. We’re approaching thirty and don’t have kids. She works insane hours. These are things that we cannot help. But even so, we live next to what may be the only non-LDS majority place outside of certain neighborhoods in the state’s capital. A university town, to boot. But she’s been so focused on her career and I’d gotten soft by living around my friends from high school and college.

And, as cliche and high school as it sounds, we lack a “group.” Our politics are out of sync with our temperaments. Our interests are out of sync with our values. Basically, the people who think like us intellectually do not behave like us recreationally. I’m a professional IT person that has come to hate computers. I’m an artist-sort that has donated his talents to corporate America, alienating myself from both groups. I’m not LDS, but I’m also not someone that seems to have dedicated their identity in opposition to The Church. I thought this stuff would stop mattering after high school, but while it does matter less it hasn’t stopped mattering. At some point, my interests became a mile wide and an inch deep. There’s no ready group or club that I can go to, and I’m not good at mustering up the energy to seek people out. I’m trying to figure out at what point I stopped liking people.

Some days Clancy and I are of the mind that we just bide our time here (we’re leaving in July of next year for parts unknown) and try again somewhere else where the deck is not quite stacked so highly against us. But we both have a pretty high locus of control and we hate the prospect of giving up like that.

And throughout all of this, I’m avoiding the one person at work that has gone out of his way to be my friend.

The previous post about Roommates reminded me of this little story:

A long time ago I roomed with two guys: Karl and Dennis. I’d been suitemates with Dennis in college and got along with him reasonably well. Karl and I were on less good terms, though I’m a pretty easy guy to get along with. They were initially going to get an apartment together, but I was needing a place and three ways is safer and cheaper than two.

Things went swimmingly for a while. They were closer to each other than they were to me, for the most part. But that was fine because things with my then-girlfriend Evangeline made me pretty constantly need space and to be alone. I should have noticed, however, when Dennis was distancing himself from us. He’d done the same in the dorms before deciding to keep the door between our apartments locked.

Dennis was a big Delosa Dragons hockey fan. As such, when the Dragons dropped out of the playoffs, he was was pretty distraught. As he generally did when he was distraught, he popped in an adolescent sports movie. It was “Bad News Bears” for baseball, “Little Giants” for football, and one of the Mighty Ducks movies for hockey. This time it was Mighty Ducks 3. Karl, meanwhile, was quite bored, so he was hanging around the living room. I was working on my computers at the time on the kitchen table.

Karl was pretty relentless in his poking fun at the movie. The movie, to be frank, left itself wide open to snide criticism. I wasn’t following the plot or anything, but with a movie like that who really needs to? I kept my mouth shut and Karl didn’t. He pressed on. Dennis, already upset about the Dragons’ loss, got up, got his tape out of the VCR, went to his room, and never spoke to Karl again.

I had already made the decision to go month-to-month, though it was mostly so that I could move out. I figured that they were okay living together cause that was there plan before I entered the picture, I was making enough money that I could afford to, and I could move closer to work. Things didn’t work out as I had planned, though it was certainly good that I had made the decisions I had made.

For an excruciating three weeks, they communicated through me.

“Tell that jerk I don’t want to speak to him.”

“Tell the crybaby I’ll talk to him when he grows up.”

And then one day, Dennis was gone. He was already back a month’s rent and since we had to give notice and hadn’t paid last month’s rent, he owed me nearly four digits. He also dashed my plans for getting my own place. There was no way that Karl could afford his own and it would have been selfish of me to not take him in to account. But at the time I was just glad that the stalemate was over - whatever the conclusion.

I could have lived with either separately, but I had gotten tired of being messenger. Karl and I ultimately made great (if odd) roommates. It didn’t take long to track Dennis down, though it did take quite a while for me to get my money back.

I’m not generally a big fan of adolescent sports movies. They’re formulaic and predictable and tiresome. I did think the original Mighty Ducks movie was alright. I’ve heard that the second is actually better than the first, though I wouldn’t know. What I do know, however, is that I hate Mighty Ducks 3 with a passion I have not even reserved for those few worse movies that exist.

Today I sacrificed the right to ever complain about a lack of time. I took the non-existent ticket and, with nary a match, lit it ablaze. I must confess, though, that it was kind of fun.

As regular readers know, except for when it comes to “commentary” I use fictional locations. Deseret, Delosa, and so on. The rationale is half-heartedly explained here. The long and short of it being that I want to give the casual reader as few identifiers as possible in regards to where I am, who I work for, and so on. Regular readers will be able to sort out most of it, I figure. Anyhow, up till now I’ve had a two-tiered existence, explained here, where both Deseret and Utah theoretically exist just as Gotham City and New York City do in the DC Universe.

Well today I sorted it all out and I spent my afternoon creating a map. The Trumanverse version of the United States of America. Fifty states, some real, some fictionalized, and a whole lot of thought put in to most (though not all) of them. I am now intimately familiar with the regional history, geographical landmarks, the most apparent lattitudinal and longitudinal spots for state boundaries, and rivers that would make sufficient boundaries. I shouldn’t have been so anal and just made it arbitrary. Heck, I shouldn’t have really spent my time on this at all. But truthfully I got a little kick out of it, which speaks volumes of my lack of success with the opposite sex in my younger years. Regardless of whatever enjoyment I may have received, having wasted my entire afternoon in this endeavor, I have relinquished my right to complain.

For those of you interested in what I’ve come up with, a couple disclaimers: This is a rough draft. I didn’t have the energy (or interest) to really conquer the midwest as thoroughly as I did everywhere else. I may go back and do it right some day, but all considered I’m proud of the final product, however unutilitarian the endeavor may have been.

Things to take note of:

1. Most borders are derived from either (a) landmarks, such as rivers or mountain ranges, or (b) lines of lattitude and longitude, preferably those divisible by five. I was probably more anal about this than the people that actually made the maps were.

2. Every fictional state name had relevance. Mountain ranges and prominant rivers were more obvious choices, but in some cases I looked up the region’s history in regards to native Americans and whatnot, since that too was often used. Some decent state names that didn’t involve either of these actually didn’t even end up getting used. Only in two cases did I actually name something that wasn’t either geographical or historical (Delosa and New Troy).

3. New York Island is it’s own state (the burroughs being cities within that state). Washington DC is as well, bringing the number of states up to 50.

4. With the exception of the upper midwest, the state names I left as-is were relevent. Either the history is too rich or the state too large to completely ignore it. In cases of the larger states, they were downsized, though.

5. Some things I did because I always wanted to. I thought Michigan’s two-peninsula thing was silly, so I did away with that. I also really question the need for a Rhode Island and Delaware with Connecticut and Maryland so near by, so I took some pleasure in knocking those out.

6. Disclaimer: This is fun. Locations of states here are not meant as any indication of where they actually exist. To put some city on the map exactly where it is would be a pretty big give-away, even if it’s a fictional city name in a fictional state. One need only look at a map. There aren’t any cities on the map yet, but I thought I would go ahead and say-so anyway.

7. I did still do this from the point-of-view from my writing, though. You’ll note that there is at least one real and one fictional state in every region. That allows me to make a quick reference to the south, for instance, without having to explain my fictional state set-up. It also allows me to have a plant in any region if I’m trying to talk about a city or state without actually talking about it. A nice, if WAY OVER-ELABORATE, set up.

8. If you looked at the history of our country, you’d be surprised how many near-insurrections there have been. Out east at the founding of the country and out west later on. I consider myself reasonably well-informed in US history, but even I was surprised. The self-declared territories were the source of multiple state names.

9. I really, really have no life.

Click on the partial map below to get the whole map.

If you want to see a superimposed map to see where the shifts are, here you go.

Note: My home state’s name was formerly “Dixona” but was changed.

I’ve never been a pacifist. I guess I’ve always considered war a “necessary evil.” That’s not to say that I necessarily agree with every war that we have ever engaged in or are currently engaging in, but rather that I consider war inherently unfortunate, but not inherently immoral.

It must be difficult to be a pacifist in this country. Even when we’re not at war in the sense we currently are, there’s always something going on somewhere. Combine that with the fact that most all of us know someone that has been in the military, and a pacifist is left with a lot of people that have engaged in (or were willing to directly engage in) something they considered to be wrong. If you’re against the Iraq War, for instance, you can say benignly assume that the soldier didn’t know he would be used for such nefarious ends. But if you’re against war at all, it gets more difficult.

To a lesser degree, the same is true with people that support political positions that you disagree with. They may be the nicest people in the world and they may be doing what they do with the best of motivations, but any way you look at it, they spend time, energy, and money in opposition to your ideals. Benignly and unintentionally, they are your opponents.

The situation I constantly find myself in has more to do with the latter situation than the former, but some days it feels like the former. These people do more than just agree with me, but additionally they support an institution that makes my life more difficult. And previously directly engaged in behavior of those I was regularly annoyed by for more than a year.

The term out here is RM: Returned Missionaries.

My boss and friend Willard is a Returned Missionary. So are roughly half of my coworkers and a number of other acquaintances. They spent two years of their life (assuming they made it the whole way) going out and trying to get people to convert.

It’s a lofty idea that I can appreciate. Right up until they’re knocking on my door. When you’re in their crosshairs, it’s a different feeling entirely. They keep stopping by long after you’ve told them to leave. When they’ve done all they can, they just send a new set.

Shortly after moving up here, I made the mistake of letting some in and accepting their Book of Mormon. Further, I read the sections they asked me to and even the whole books that included them (3 Nephi and Moroni). I asked them questions.

The whole time I was very clear with them about my intentions. I wanted to learn more about the faith so that I could better understand those that live around me. I wanted to understand what they believe and why. I did not want to convert. I told them if they wanted to rack up some conversion numbers, they were wasting their time. They stuck around anyway, I assumed because they were just glad to get someone that wasn’t outright hostile.

It can’t be easy to be a missionary. You’re parachutted into a community that you are most likely very unfamiliar with, and then you’re expected to go proselytize. Most of the people you meet will dislike you. Some will spit at you and others merely curse you. The whole time you are expected to remain on an even keel. In my limited experience dealing with them, they actually do it.

So I have a certain degree of sympathy. Up until it’s time to go on a mission, remaining in The Church is the path of least resistence. But once you’re a missionary, you’re walking the walk. You’re agreeing to be spat upon and cursed. You’re agreeing to being cut off from your family (not entirely, but for the most part) for two years. You’re not only agreeing to move around every two years, but you can’t even really become a part of the community you’re in. You’re there on a mission (figuratively and literally, I suppose) and you haven’t the time. You get one day off, but even then things such as TV are off-limits.

The ability of The Church to motivate young men in their prime (19-25) to do this is a testament to the loyalty they command and achieve. The ability of men to make such sacrifices is, however inconvenient to me personally, extraordinarily admirable. It’s no coincidence that most of the most honorable and upright Mormon men out here that I know are RMs.

So I had some sympathy and thought that they might appreciate some friendliness, even if I wouldn’t be a notch in their belt, so to speak. It didn’t work that way, of course, just as Clancy told me it wouldn’t. The missionaries I had the understanding with were swapped out with others and then others still. None of them would take “no” for an answer.

It got to the point that I did not want to be in my own place on the Saturday afternoons that they would stop by. All the while, I was working beside people who had spent two years doing to others what was being done to me. Besides the cognitive dissonance that this generated, it also had an isolating effect. I wasn’t partnered with Simon at work yet and had no one to even talk to about it. I wanted to ask my RM friends up here how to get rid of them, but the people who would help me most I was least able to ask.

Even the non-RMs were not particularly approachable. The missionaries are extremely highly regarded. Those leaving on mission get a mention in the paper in between the engagement and Eagle Scout announcements. Anyone who has driven down the Interestate has seen an area devoted entirely to signs put up to welcome returning missionaries. To suggest irritation with them is like cursing the military outside the big city: not kosher.

I finally turned to a web site called ExMormons.org and asked what I could do that would make the missionary playbook tell them to leave me alone. The answers usually include “Leave Deseret” and pestering the local LDS Bishop. We’re stuck in Deseret for another year or so and the Bishop is a co-owner of the company I worked for. They said such things were not uncommon and wished me well.

It wasn’t all for naught, though. I found out that while they will follow former members from state to state, if you’re not in their registry they won’t. The bad news is that the “Do Not Contact” list they apparently have for former members (to avoid harassment charges, I suppose) they do not have for folks like me. They also did suggest that we not leave a forwarding address when we moved from the apartments to the basement so long as my landlords were members of the Brethren, so we didn’t.

The good thing about a basement apartment is that it’s not as easily accessible in streetsweeps (where they knock on every house on a block), so we haven’t had to deal with them since. It’d be nice if the Jehova’s Witness folks let that stop them, but I don’t have the social pressure to be nice if worse comes to worse.

Kyle, one of my best friends back in Delosa, is moving out of his apartment. His platonic roommate of a few years now, Laney, has flunked out of school for good and is moving away. In a way it’s a blessing, though, because he and Laney haven’t been getting along. I had no idea of it until recently.

When two friends split up, you find yourself walking a balance. Kyle has been a good friend over the years. When push comes to shove, my loyalty lies with him. But I really like Laney as well. From a selfish standpoint, I might need her help in the future and I have no interest in burning that bridge. From a personal standpoint I feel bad for her. She had a lot more to give this world than she has given. She’s the National Merit Scholar gone bum. I know more people like that than I would care to admit.

Kyle and Laney had a really solid friendship for a while. Laney is gregarious and outgoing and Kyle curmudgeon and cynical. It worked. A few years ago when Kyle got wind that I liked Laney, he almost lit up because it was two people he cared about making each other happy (if it worked out, another story altogether). He really cared about her. He doesn’t care about many people.

But now I don’t imagine that they’re even going to speak to each other after they part ways.

My best best friend Clint had a roommate for a while, too. It started out well, but the last straw came when his roommate left town, leaving behind a kitchen full of vomit.

This happened more-or-less with his last set of roommates, too. Another set of uncomfortable situations. It’s difficult to live with someone for too long, I guess, unless there’s sex or kids in the bargain (or both!). I had a roommate throughout college and by the time it was done, I had no interest whatsoever in maintaining ties with him. Our common circles were a little too intertwined for that and with some time on my part and some patience on his, we got past most of our issues. Mostly, anyway.

My next roommate Karl and I got along with famously. But he and I almost never left our rooms. It was the perfect arrangement, really. It was like living alone, except we were able to split big-city rent. I was sorry to see that end.

But I really haven’t talked to him in quite a while. Not since I moved out, actually. Looking at Kyle’s situation, and Clint’s, I am starting to realize how really good I had it. And thinking that maybe I should send him an email or something.

Some of you may have heard about this on CNN, but an interesting story from the region is a billboard that was placed in I-15:

Lance is apparently a 31-year old bachelor with all the right stats for the area: Returned missionary, BYU basketball player with an MBA from Harvard and a love for kids. He is surprisingly unmarried, a predicament that his coworkers seem intent on fixing. They took out the billboard without his knowledge.

The Date Lance site is here and is worth poking around. Of particular interest is the disclaimer. An excerpt:

In the event you or a friend do end up going out with Lance, we cannot guarantee that 1) you will fall in love with Lance 2) that Lance will fall in love with you 3) that you will be married someday 4) that if you date him and then marry him that it will always be perfect 5) that if you have kids with Lance that they will be honor roll students.

Funny stuff.

Simon, my partner at work, came across this interesting nutbar theory: The Mormons and Jehova’s Witnesses are the same people. The Freemason connection is old hat, but extra bonus points on crackpottery for folding them in to the evil Satanists and twice-evil Illuminati! And yet another point for just mentioning Adolf Hitler in there.

It was one line in an otherwise uneventful email:

“Sergei and I are getting a divorce, but we’re ending it on good terms.”

Ellie and Sergei were married by a JP at three in the morning. It was a spur-of-the-moment thing. Her parents found out a year later in an equally spur-of-the-moment fashion.

They were staying at her parents for the weekend. They came home a little earlier than expected and caught them in bed (door closed, thankfully). “We’re married,” actually, turns out to be a good excuse when trapped in such a situation.

The circumstances and the man were the least surprising part of it. Ellie had always had a disdain for anything remotely conservative, so the surprise was that she married at all, much less married young (before her older sister, my wife Clancy).

Sergei is a Ukranian/Russian (born in one, spent more time in the other), and given Ellie’s disdain for anything American, it made perfect sense. The Russian capitalist and American socialist complimented each other quite well. The Himmelreichs will always be greatful that he got her on anti-depressants, a move which has made her a much more tolerable person.

Clancy and her younger sis have quite a bit in common, temperamentally, though you wouldn’t know it meeting them. A lot of the aspects of Clancy that I butt heads with are those she has in common with Ellie.

Though Ellie and I have limited interaction with one another, I feel like I am facing off with her regularly. It feels like tug-of-war wherein I am pulling Clancy towards my more conventional ways and she, represented by the temperamental aspects that they share, is pulling her in a different way altogether.

In many ways, Ellie’s marriage with Sergei is the type that I do not want to have.

Up until recently, they lived in different states. She was adamantly against children (which for her is for the best, though it was a shame that he wasn’t going to be a father because he would make a good one) and needed so much space that it may have been living together that did them in. Or maybe it was the has-been rust-belt city where he is doing his residency.

But since finding out yesterday it’s been a cause for reflection. Just as in many ways Ellie is a very extreme version of Clancy, their relationship is a more extreme version of ours. Some of the “problems” there (at least I would consider them such, they apparently did not) are some of the areas that Clancy and I need to work on.

I think one of the biggest fears I have is that of a professional marriage, which is in many ways what I considered theirs to be. Couples without children tend to drift apart. Couples that have children can allow children to be their only common bond. Whichever route Clancy and I go, I don’t want the result to be a non-intimate affair where we live our lives more in parallel than together.

This is not commentary on where my marriage is now. Right now she’s a resident and I am a residency widower. There isn’t terribly much that we can do about that, our lives have to be as much in parallel as together. The biggest questions - and biggest fears, I think - involve what happens when that curtain is drawn and we get to see what we are like when we’re less pulled apart. Will we need distance and pull back to a parallel existence or will we have the kind of marriage I’d always intended?

For someone that liked things nailed down, the notion that “time will tell” is disconcerting.

Ugh!!

I thought that we were finally rid of missionaries. I thought that we’d finally done it! But alas, we’ve got new ones. They’re not even Latter-day Saints folks, but rather the Jehova’s Witness kind. Even worse, I took their reading material. That’s always going to be my downfall. People give me something and ask me to read it, I say “sure.”

And their magazine, The Watchtower, is actually quite fascinating. I used to read it when they’d leave copies in the laundry room of an old apartment complex. While I certainly have my doubts about it being divined from god, I’ve no doubt that the writers were quite inspired. I can just imagine them in a library full of right-wing and left-wing conspiracy literature, stoking on LSD, and smoking some pot as they come up with all the stuff therein. At least when it comes to the Revelation-style stuff. This one was just about death, which was actually somewhat anti-climactic. Honestly, it would be cool to write for such a publication if it didn’t require believing in it.

You may not be able to tell, but I’ve been working on Hit Coffee all day today. Apparently at some point the archives went out. Thanks to a bunch of help from Ethan and Webmaster Guy, my generous host, we’re back up and running at full capacity.

Or at the capacity I’ve been posting at, which hasn’t been that much.

Not to worry, though, posting will be picking up soon as Ethan says that he installed a bug that will blow up the site if I don’t post at least fifty times a day…

My coworker Clem is getting married some time in the coming week or five. I have an invitation on my desk, though I’m too lazy to look it up. Not an invitation to the wedding, but something else.

Being a gentile in Deseret is inconvenient, but there are certainly some ways the Mormons are good about reaching out and weddings are one of them. More often then not (at least around the office) the weddings are in a Temple. According to religious tradition, of course, we’re not allowed in there (many Mormons aren’t, in fact, unless they’re in good standing). In fact, even families members aren’t allowed.

But they seem to work around it with very inclusive wedding parties. Inclusive enough that I’ve been invited to a couple despite not being in their social circles. It’s actually probably the perfect compromise. They get to maintain the integrity of their Temple and also share their matrimony with the rest of us.

So, as I complain about being excluded, I should make note of the places where it’s not so much the case.

There’s no way in heck I’m going, but that’s another story altogether.

One of the last things I intend to use this site for is political content. In fact, one of the few reasons I’ve had a lull in posting is because politics has been on my mind somewhat, crowding out other topics that are open for discussion. So this post isn’t about politics, but it is about society and myself and people generally.

I sat in a waiting room for a couple hours today and Fox News was on. Clancy and I don’t watch broadcast or cable/satellite television, so my observations may be about as new as moldy oranges, but they’re new to me. I was struck by how… I don’t know… frivolous it was. While Fox is probably the most sensational of the cable news networks and may not be representative of its competitors, it’s also (from my experience) the more hawkish and war-interested station out there. I would expect national news to be covered there as quickly or more quickly than MSNBC or CNN.

Anyhow, where I’m getting with all of this is that the news was bombarded with a guy that was thrown off a cruise ship, Michael Jackson follow-ups, the missing 20-something blond of the week, and that schoolteacher who had the thing with the student. It reminded me of Gary Condit, that congressman who was romantically involved with an intern that went missing. And it reminded me of all sorts of stories notable in large part because they happened five years ago when the public hadn’t much to be concerned about. I guess it’s been coming for a while, but I got an overwhelming feeling like foreign policy is, once again, foreign. Our men and women are fighting overseas, London has been reacquainted with terrorism (albeit from a different enemy), and we, meanwhile, have been hearing all about that runaway bride.

Which would be fine except that a sort of indifference allowed the attacks to happen in the first place.

And maybe that’s a good thing. Getting back to business has been our charge since September 12, 2001. It mattered at the ballot box and all that, but it was never supposed to consume our lives.

It makes me think of those times in my life where I’ve sworn to the gods above that things would never be the same again. A breakup or two, the death of a friend, finding religion, losing religion, having some sort of revelation. And in some ways things do not go back to being the same. But often it feels like we meet ourselves down the line, where we would have been had the All-Important-Event never occured. Or perspective is different because we went down a different road. We have some scars we might not have otherwise had (or are lacking scars that would otherwise be there). But where we are and what we ‘re doing is largely the same.

Had 9-11 never happened, there is a good chance that in that waiting room, watching the news, and noting how little I cared about it all. Had some of these All-Important-Events never occured, I might be the same. Or maybe in some other lobby, thousand miles away, thinking the same thing, what I had for lunch having more an impact in my life than what was once the world, or my world at least, coming apart. And that’s a bit of a disconcerting thought to me.

A few coworkers (including myself) embarked on a conversation about dating today. The subject of the day was Elise, the girl next to me, and that she is presently dating a plethora of fellows up including co-worker Marcel. She draws a line between fun-dating and serious-dating as many do. I never was one for that sort of thing, but for logistical rather than moral ones.

She recounted that on the Fourth of July, she had four dates this year. It reminded me a bit of a story about my mother.

When Mom was a divorcee living in the nation’s second largest city, she dated regularly and pretty frivolously. Until she met my father, remarriage was not a concept she was hip on. But dates were good at passing the time and getting free meals, both of which mom was all about.

“I discovered about then that men are dumb, dumb, dumb,” Mom told me as she prefaced the story I’m relating to you.

She was dating a couple guys at once with exclusivity implied but never stated. Guys are, unsurprisingly, extremely routine-oriented. One guy would always ask her out on Friday nights and the other always on Saturday nights. Without fail. Every time. This worked out great until her birthday, which was on a Friday, and on which both wanted to take her out. Somehow she convinced Mr. Saturday Night to go ahead and take her out Saturday instead.

When each had announced that they were going to take her out to a very nice restaurant, she was elated. Mr. Friday Night took her out to this expensive steak place without so much pretense as to be unwilling to sing “Happy Birthday” to her on Friday’s prompting. She had a wonderful time. But when Saturday took her to the same restaurant, she got worried. The staff, which was the same as the night before, was very professional. A largely unchanged staff sang “Happy Birthday” to her.

No one said anything about the night before.

They all got a nice tip.

They were probably, in Mom’s hindsight, actually used to that sort of thing.

At the meeting on Thursday, two dreaded words came up. First was the “A” word. It was mentioned several times, usually with the word “voluntary” in front of it. Then, towards the end of the meeting, the dreaded “L” word was uttered.

The “A” word is “attrition.”

The “L” word is “layoffs.”

A freak thing happened a couple of weeks ago. We ran out of reqests. Whereas we were once behind by some 800 documents (a two week backlog, give or take), we busted through almost all of them. We in QA have some work, but OSI has none. And them running out means that we’re on borrowed time.

At first it was just a quirk. Everyone happened to be doing something else besides generating requests for a spell. But a couple weeks later, it became apparently systemic. When we found out that the Assistant Accounts Chief had left, we thought that might be it. But apparently he didn’t do much, anyway.

Requests are cyclical. When I was first hired, there was a lack of things to do. Then a process got changed and before we knew it we were knee-deep in (mostly) unnecessary requests. That’s apparently run its course and we’re sort of out in limbo.

It was noted by Willard weeks ago, though there were assurances that there was enough work to be done to keep everyone employed for years. It’s still true, but increasingly irrelevent. He’d been saying with confidence that there would be no layoffs, but he was a bit dour all week last week. Then the news at the meeting. And a chart:

Necessary QA: 2
Existing QA: 2

Necessary OSI: 4
Existing OSI: 10.5*
Known Attrition: 3.5
Expendible: 3

*Note: two people are known to be leaving soon. three are going from full-time to part-time once school starts again.

Now, Willard was 100% correct that there is enough work to keep everybody there for quite a while. But right now there is a lull and there will be for the forseeable future. So one of the following three things is likely to happen:

1. They realize that resources are being wasted and will reconfigure things so that more requests are sent through RLC.
2. They realize that resources are being wasted and rather than reconfigure things so that their employees will keep their jobs, they’ll just start laying people off and pick up more people when the requests inevitably start getting generated again.
3. They’re going to take advantage of the opportunity to let go of some dead weight. My partner Simon and I have been comparing notes with Willard for a few weeks now. It would be a good managerial decision to go ahead and let go of a couple people. From a personal standpoint, though, the weak performers are the ones with the most to lose. Wife, kids, and mortgage.

My preference runs 1,3,2. We’ll see how that goes.

It may not ultimately be my problem. The good news is that there is an opening in the IT department. Willard fully expects to lose someone from OSI. Of the group, I’m not sure of any that are more qualified than I am. I have over two years of network administration experience under my belt and a college degree. No one else there can boast either. Unfortunately, Willard won’t have my back this time. Last time he wanted me to move along in part cause he didn’t want to lose Mindy. This time I’m the one he doesn’t want to lose. And I lost the other promotion to Mindy due to seniority, and if they go by seniority this time around I will lose out to Simon. I’d be okay with that, though. Simon is about to take on two step-kids and a mortgage. He needs the money more than I do.

Part of me is a little irritated with the opening. I’d finally resigned myself to my current position as other opportunities dried up. Now I have something to hope for again. That’s not always such a good thing.