I’ve gone to a lot of weddings this summer. So many, in fact, that I’ve kind of lost count, and I’m finding it difficult to call everyone by their real, new names.
I feel kind of like the main character in Grosse Point Blank, which is, by the way, a phenomenal movie. Martin, the main character, is an assassin who’s coming home for his 10 Year High School Reunion, and to find out whatever happened to his high school sweetheart. Shenanigans do, of course, ensue. There’s one scene, where Martin is talking with said sweetheart, about what’s happened over the intervening decade:
Martin: You got married. That’s hard to imagine. That’s pretty unbelievable.
Debbie: No, that’s pretty normal, Martin, it happens all the time.
He also spends the entire conversation looking nervously over his shoulder, and jumping at loud noises. He’s witty, sarcastic, and dresses in dark clothing. I tell you, aside from the whole murdering people for a living part, this guy is me.
Anyway, I guess I still see marriage as one of those crazy things that happens to old people. Feel free to post your own thoughts on my latest* mid-life crisis in the comments.
So, lots of people are getting married, and since every once in a while I like to imagine that I’m something approaching “normal,” I’ve spent the last few days planning my own dream wedding.
Shut up.
Yeah, I know, the whole “fairy princess dream wedding” thing is generally the girl’s schtick, but I’m a modern man, comfortable in my identity. I tan, and for god’s sake, I even exfoliate. Like I told Jessica the other night, I’m a 220 pound power lifter, and if someone wants to make an issue out of it, they’re welcome to step up and try.
So, here’s a quick list of things that I absolutely have to have in order to have the bestest wedding ever.
Veronica Mars
I am not talking about Kristen Bell, the actor who played Veronica Mars on the television show, I’m talking about the actual character. She’s adorable, smart as a whip, sharply sarcastic, and splits her time just about evenly between needing and doing the rescuing. She is, in a word, perfect.
The danger in this is in falling for someone who looks like Ms. Mars, but doesn’t have the finer qualities listed above. Avril Lavigne, for example, looks kind of similar if you squint hard enough, but I doubt that she could solve her best friend’s murder.
Left: Veronica Mars, the epitome of beauty, grace, and subtle derision of human stupidity.
Right: Avril Lavigne, whose main claim to fame is dating a guy on a skateboard, and spelling poorly.
Please do not confuse the two.**Also out of the running: El, the electro-girl from Heroes, also played by Kristen Bell. A government-funded sociopath with daddy issues and a tendency to electrocute anyone that tries to hold her hand? No thank you.Ms. Bell, by the way, has apparently taken a turn for the naughty; it took me forever to find a picture of her that didn’t involve a small pieces of pink lace. Stuff Veronica would never wear.
Candles
I am a die-hard romantic, and those romantic tendencies tend to run towards the old-fashioned. In this context, that means a softly-playing piano, enough roses to make a botanist blush, and so many candles that the State of New York will require the presence of an off-duty Fire Marshal before they will sign the marriage license.
When this is on fire, it will be epic. And when all one hundred and twenty-seven of them are on fire…
A Sword FightAllow me to explain.One, there’s a whole lot of pressure on the bride – in this case, Veronica Mars – when the wedding day rolls around. I don’t exactly understand why this is – I mean, it seems like someone else could make sure that the flowers got hung on the right rafters, and that my candles haven’t burned the church down – but I recognize that it’s true.
The guy’s part in the whole affair? Show up. That’s it. Just show up, say “I do,” and hope there’s something good to eat at the reception.
This seems unfair to me, and I’d like to contribute a little bit more to the proceedings. Fighting off a jealous would-be lover seems like an admirable offering. It really shows that your committed to making this whole thing work out.
Then there’s the drama of the whole thing. Everyone always says that your wedding day is one you’ll never forget. How much truer would that be if, when the preacher says “should anyone know of a reason why this man and this woman should not be joined, let him speak now, or forever hold his peace,” he was answered not with the traditional awkward silence, but a guttural cry of “I’ll never let you have her, gyyyyyyaarrgh,” plus a drawn sword? People would be talking about that wedding for years.
Someone: Hey, do you remember Johny and Jenny’s wedding? They had such nice centerpieces, and Karl did a great job with the music.
Someone else: Yeah, that was nice. Hey, do you remember Thomas and Veronica’s wedding, where that crazy psycho pulled out a freaking sword, and Thomas had to save us all?
Someone: Oh yeah, that was neat. Also, he sure loves candles.
Which leads into the next reason I want a sword fight: I’m neurotic. Vastly so, as it turns out, but in this case, I’m talking about my massive hero complex. Many of my former loves were girls that needed a little rescuing, and there’s a part of me that still believes that the best love is formed under adverse conditions.
I have, in the last couple of years, realized that this isn’t the healthiest bedrock for a relationship to rest upon, but that’s what makes Veronica’s 50/50 split between rescuing and being rescued so attractive: it makes for more of a balanced relationships, and I’m willing to let her bail me out of a problem with the PCHers, as long as I get to beat up her psycho campus stalker.
Finally, if Hollywood has taught me anything, it’s that nothing says “true love” like rescuing your bride from a nefarious malcontent with inappropriate intentions. When that vile villain draws his blade and announces his loathsome plan, it will seem a dark day indeed, but my inevitable triumph will prove, once again, that love conquers all.
If you don’t think this is romantic, you suck.
A Power BalladVeronica Mars, Epic Candles, and a Sword Fight. What’s left?Four minutes and thirty seconds of hair band sensitivity, that’s what.The only appropriate close to my dream wedding is a power ballad, where the hard-charging, hard-rocking bad guys put down the electric guitars and get in touch with their soft side. If that doesn’t just scream symbolism to you, you either do not know me, or have no soul.I haven’t settled on a particular song yet, but I have narrowed down the list some:
To Be With You – Mr. Big
More Than Words – Extreme
Wind Of Change – Scorpions
Bed of Roses – Bon Jovi
I Would Do Anything For Love – Meatloaf
Feel free to suggest alternatives.
* I started having mid-life crisis around 16 years old. I never thought I’d make it past 25. That’s made the last three years an unexpected roller-coaster, let me tell you.
** I have admit that I do find her song Girlfriend kind of catchy, and her song Don’t Tell Me is an admirable, if clumsy, stab at asserting that women are more than sex objects. This statement would have been more believable, however, if the video didn’t involve her running around in her underwear. Someone needs to have a talk with the director on the subject of theme.
For the record, if someone asks if you can make a “quick run to New York City,” your answer should be an emphatic “no”.
In popular culture, New York City is this fabled, magical land where young people go to discover themselves, a city of unending, never-sleeping excitement, where fated romance lurks around every corner, and billionaire playboys dress up as giant bats in order to do battle with escaped lunatics with self-inflicted facial scarring and clown makeup.
In reality, it’s a land of rude people, impossible traffic, and frightening smells.
A friend of mine is the director of Go Missions, my church’s mission program. They send teams of mostly young people to do humanitarian and religious work all around the world. Think “Habitat for Humanity,” but with less Jimmy Carter and more Jesus. Anyway, one of their teams just got back from Mexico, and I was asked to take the church van down to JFK International and pick them up.
On my way to get the van, I realized that I had vastly miscalculated the logistics of this little adventure. Somehow, I had figured that we’d get down to the city around 9pm, hit up Rosa’s, the best pizza shop in the world, grab the team, and be back in Central New York by 1am. A late night, but nothing particularly unusual for me.
We left around 7:30pm, and didn’t even get to JFK until 1am. The trip down was relatively uneventful, aside from the tractor trailer that felt the burning need to box us in and do 55mph for about eleventy thousand miles.
The trip home, though…
For one, I know that New York is the “city that never sleeps,” but there is no good reason for there to be that many people on the road at 1 o’clock in the freaking morning. Go home, people. Go to sleep. Get out of my way.
For another, I have no training when it comes to civil engineering or public works, but I have to believe that somewhere, in some ancient tome, in some dusty textbook, there’s a rule about not turning a five-lane, major highway in the busiest, meanest city on Earth into a one-lane parking lot. I’m sure those lines really, really needed to get painted, but dear god, figure out a better way to do it.
Seriously, we sat on the express way out of JFK for a bleeding hour, and we moved maybe a hundred feet. I wanted to stab someone on general principle.
And to the guy three cars behind me, who kept honking at the world: thank you. Thank you for letting us all know that you are in a hurry. None of the rest of us had considered the idea that someone might not enjoy being stuck in unmoving traffic for hours on end. But now that we know you are being inconvenienced, we will all certainly move our vehicles out of the way, and allow you to surge boldly ahead toward whatever massively important destination you are trying to reach. I can only assume that you were slated to address the General Council of the UN, perhaps set to give a speech that would finally solve the tensions in the Middle East, or perhaps announce the cure for cancer. If only the other five thousand people on the road hadn’t gotten in your way.
And then traffic cleared and, surprised by the sudden movement, the other two vehicles in our caravan got separated from us. Shenanigans ensued. Lengthly, nerve-fraying, profanity-producing shenanigans. Note to self: next time we go to NYC, every car gets a GPS.
It was almost 7am by the time we got back to the church. I had been awake for almost 26 hours straight when we pulled into the parking lot. That made going to work the next day (read, two hours later), an interesting proposition.
My status update that morning took the form of an email:
Long story short, but I just got back from NYC. Busy dying, be in late.
So I spent a good portion of this week reading about Michael Phelps. What he’s accomplished is, obviously, remarkable, but that isn’t really what caught my attention. What caught my attention were the numerous articles on his diet. He puts down, on average, between ten and twelve thousand calories a day. To put that in perspective, he eats in one day what I eat in five.
And his diet is atrocious; pancakes, waffles, entire pizzas in a single sitting. He does basically the exact opposite of everything modern nutritionists tell you to do. And then he steps out of his $500 racing suit, and shows the world single-digit body fat. The jerk.
Anyway, one of the articles I just read said, verbatim, “If you eat 12,000 calories a day, you’ll be setting world records, too.”
Dear God, no.
This is exactly what we don’t need to be telling the average American. I can just hear the gears turning now: that’s why I’m so fat! I’m not eating enough to kick my body into overdrive! Honey, make me a pizza! And get me a beer! I gonna get jacked!
Everyone’s talking about how much Phelps eats, but no one seems to be focusing on how much he works. Six hours a day. He works out longer and harder in one day than I do in an entire week. When you’re working that hard, you absolutely need a massive amount of fuel constantly filling your body. But if you aren’t training like an Olympian, please don’t eat like one. The only records you’ll be setting are for “largest sentient land mass.”
Anyway, Karl joined up this week. I have a lot of respect for people that want to make a change in their lives, and then actually do something about it. The world has enough talkers; it needs more doers.
And Karl is doing a few things that definitely improve his chances of success. The biggest two: he’s telling his friends about what he’s doing, in order to drum up some positive peer pressure, and he’s actually listening to what his coach (that’s me, by the way) is telling him. I’ve worked with a lot of people that will stare at me for half an hour, nod all the way through my spiel on proper diet, and why it’s expensive, and then head out to Applebee’s.
Monday: Metcon
5 Chins
20 Dips
20 Swings @ 45 lbs.
10 Long Lunges per leg
20 Pikes
5 Circuits
I broke Karl today. He fell out of a squat and fractured his finger, which I’m pretty sure makes him the first man in history to hurt his hand while doing a leg exercise.
Wednesday: Basketball, 1 hour
Thursday: Ultimate Frisbee, 90 minutes
Friday: MetCon
5 Chins
20 Pushups
5 Snatches @ 95 lbs
10 Short Lunges per leg
20 DB Situps @ 20 lbs
Today sucked. My knees were on fire from frisbee the night before; I was limping before I even got onto the floor, and it was downhill from there. Also, I haven’t eaten carbs in like a week, and I have no explosiveness to speak of. C’est la vie.
“You’re a religious guy; do you think Obama is the Anti-Christ?”
I was actually asked that question. This taught me two important things: one, that there is a group of people that do believe that Obama is the Anti-Christ, and two, there are people who think I might belong to that first group.
Neither fact is reassuring.
I don’t write about the Left Behind crowd very much, because adequately addressing their bad theology would require me to explain the literary form known as “apocalyptic literature,” and how it was used in Hebrew culture, and then provide an overview of first-century Rome’s history and culture, and then use that foundation to make a section-by-section analysis of the Revelation, as well as “Mini Apocalypse” of Matthew.
I’m actually capable of doing that, with a little bit of work, but I’m honestly too lazy. Plus, the people that already know this stuff will just say “yeah, so,” and the people who agree with LaHey and Jenkins will just say “you’ve been deceived by the Anti-Christ spirit, and if you don’t repent of your heresies, your soul will burn for all of eternity in the flaming pits of the Abyss, forever tormented by the Great Demon Abbadon, Master of All That Is Foul, Ruler of the Black Depths, and Author of Every Pain! Are you Rapture Ready?”
So, for the most part, I ignore the whole thing.
But over the weekend, I saw a new ad from John McCain. I was kind of confused, because it paints Obama as something of a Messiah figure:
Now, if the ad had stopped there, I could sort of see the point: “Obama’s arrogant.” Fine. But the ad wraps up by saying “He may be the One, but is he ready to lead?” This confused me, because McCain’s ad essentially agrees with everything they’ve just said about Obama. “He’s anointed, he’s charismatic, the world will be blessed by him, oh, but by the way, don’t vote for him.” What?
Doing some reading this afternoon, though, I stumbled on a pretty disturbing interpretation of this ad; it seems to be playing off of the Left Behind crowd’s fear of a charismatic, peace-making world leader. The ad is suggesting that Obama is The Anti-Christ.
I didn’t see this at first, because my worldview doesn’t default to “lunatic theology,” but the analysis I’ve read is fairly convincing. The typography, iconography, and phraseology of the ad come straight from Left Behind, and that group’s theology teaches its adherents to vehemently oppose anyone who talks about peace, love, and reconciliation. McCain is painting Obama as the Messiah because many people in the evangelical camp will make the leap from “Messiah” to “False Messiah,” while everyone else just gets the “arrogant” message.
McCain is actually campaigning on the idea that his opponent might be the Devil incarnate.
Holy crap.
You can read a thorough analysis of this ad here, and a nice commentary here.
All other things aside, I wonder if the people who actually fall for this will vote for McCain, due to their fear of the Anti-Christ, or if they will vote for Obama, in hopes of speeding up the End of Days.
Obama should totally start using “Maranatha!” as a campaign slogan.
Allow me to give you a brief lesson in gym etiquette.
“Can we work in?”
The correct answer to this question is yes. Especially when we were using the chin-up/dip station well before you waddled into the gym. Especially when we are in the middle of a metabolic circuit, the entire point of which is to not stop working. Especially when you’re just sitting there, something you could just as easily do off to the side.
The correct answer is not “you can wait for me to get done. I’m not going to do that much.”
No, you’re not, and that’s part of the problem. You aren’t going to do that much. If you were, I wouldn’t have a problem. If you were, I wouldn’t be filled with apoplectic rage. But you’re not. You’re just going to drape your corpulent mass over the only chin-up station in the entire gym, wasting God’s precious air and my precious time, accomplishing nothing. We both could have done out sets in the time it took you to “catch your breath.” How your breath got away from you is anybody’s guess, because it certainly wasn’t due to physical exertion.
Twenty minutes. It took you twenty bloody minutes to finish four sets. We could have finished an entire workout in that time. We usually do, unless someone like you gets in the way.
And I’m so glad that your son followed after you. The night wouldn’t have been complete without that little bit of Americana. I’m encouraged to see that you’ve instilled that same sense of entitlement and laziness in the next generation.
But the best part was when you suggested that we move on to the next station. At least, that’s what Michelle told me you said. I had already walked away, because I just couldn’t deal with you any more. Move on to the next station. I mean, sure, you’re a paragon of physical development, a student of human physiology, a genius of kinesiology, a veritable Einstein of metabolic conditioning, but I really would rather you allow me to trudge through the workout I designed for myself, as faulty as it may be. Even though I’m sure my goal of hitting all of the major muscle groups in some kind of order, and my attempt to balance the fatigue and recovery of the same, are laughable in the face of your two sets of chins and two sets of dips, supersetted with five minutes of power-leaning each, but I would like to fail on my own terms.
Did you see the guy that wandered over after you were finally done? We worked out together, and it wasn’t an issue. He got on, did his set, and got out of the way. I got on, did my set, and got out of the way. Michelle got on, did her set, and got out of the way. It was almost like none of us needed to lean on the equipment in between sets. It was as if it were possible for us to catch our breath standing off to the side. Imagine that… people sharing a piece of equipment.
To the pink water buffalo that jumped onto the chin bar without asking to work in, and proceeded to monopolize it for the next ten minutes by doing set after useless set of assisted chins and dips with all the enthusiasm of a dead sloth: I hate you and I hope you fail. And, judging by the intensity of your “workout,” fail you will.
Monday: Metcon
5 Chins
10 Renegade Rows @ 25 lbs.
20 Dumbbell Swings @ 45 lbs.
10 Long Lunges / Leg
20 Pikes
5 Circuits, approximately 25 minutes. Thanks, pink water buffalo.
I’m just getting back into squatting, which is why I had less weight on the bar than some tiny girls. Once my knees are capable of bending without causing me terrible, terrible pain, I’ll see what I can do.
Wednesday: Basketball, 1 hour
Quote of the game: “don’t you every get tired?” No. No I don’t. Fortunately for you, I can’t dribble, shoot, or defend to save my life.
Thursday: Ultimate Frisbee, 2 hours.
I lost five pounds during this game. I was a dirty, sweaty mess when we got done.
Friday: Strength
Clean and Press: 135×5, 155×5, 165×5
Front Squat: 95×5,5,5
Chins: 12, 10
I had to do the front squats off of the bench, because the only (?!?) rack in the gym was being used. At least he was using it to squat, I suppose.
Speculative and Science Fiction writers sometimes talk about “The Singularity.”
In astrophysics, a singularity is a point where gravity is so intense that anything at that point has infinite density and infinite mass, and the laws of physics actually break down; for example, the center of a black hole.
One of the features of a Singularity is that no information can escape it. Once something goes in, it never comes out, and this applies to light, radio waves, and other forms of radiation just as much as solid matter. You cannot see what’s inside the singularity; that’s what makes a “black hole” black.
This information-hoarding property is why fiction writers have adopted the term “Singularity.” They use it to talk about a time when society has changed so much that we are incapable of even theorizing accurately about it.
Writers like to speculate about what will happen to us when we develop Artificial Intelligence that is superior to our own, or create an energy source so efficient and so plentiful that we will never have to worry about scarcity again, or when medicine is so advanced that humans become effectively immortal.
This kind of speculation can be fun – at least, if you’re something of a nerd – because it lets the imagination run wild. What will “we” be when “we” are no longer recognizable? What will happen when we finally transcend out limitations?
But while I as reading this morning, I had another thought: what will happen if our limitations transcend us? What will happen if our weaknesses, foibles, and peccadilloes become so pronounced that we actually start regressing? What happens is the Singularity doesn’t represent infinite progress, but infinite regress?
America is quickly becoming anti-science. We hamstring out technology leaders in order to maintain the profitability of the media companies. We invent new ways to deny evolution because of people’s flawed theology. Instead of math, science, and engineering, we tell our kids that the path to success is an MBA. Instead of reading something, we turn on the television or surf to YouTube. We will probably lose our technological edge to China and other emerging nations within the next decade, if we haven’t done so already. We don’t really think critically anymore, but listen to whatever pundit has the smoothest voice and nicest hair.
We used to play baseball in the street; now, we play it on the computer. We used to go out and make friends; now, we make them on-line. We used to be a social people, but now, more and more, we are becoming disconnected from one another and from the real world itself. I was just reading a report that says many children are unable to identify common plants and animals. They don’t know what an oak tree is, because they’ve never really seen one.
Our health, instead of progressing toward immortality, is actually regressing. The current generation will, if trends continue, be the first generation in history to die younger than their parents. Obesity is rampant, heart disease is the number one killer, and we’ve managed to give Adult Onset Diabetes to our children.
This is the Singularity I’m worried about. What happens if these trends continue? What happens if we become a society of individuals, cut off from the real world, anesthetized by a constant stream of entertainment, trapped in bodies we are unhappy with and that fail us all too soon, thinking what we are told to think, believing what we are told to believe, and doing absolutely nothing to better ourselves, our society, or our world?
What happens if, instead of solving all of the problems that require physical and mental ability, we simply decide that we don’t care anymore? As long as we have bread and circuses…
