A Newer Perspective

The Chronicles started out way back when as a follow-up to an email about me shaving off my goatee. Since then, I've talked about all sorts of random things, and linked to stories I found amusing and generally bumbled my way about. Sometimes I struggle to come up with something to write about.

Now I have a new piece of news that undoubtedly belongs in the Chronicles of Abs. Not long ago, I talked about how I had played a bunch of different roles in weddings, and I had just added Officiant to the list. Well, it looks like I'm going to able to add the role of Groom at some point because the Girl officially agreed this past weekend to add the Wife to her list of sobriquets.

You read it right; I am engaged! Last Friday, as the Girl and I watched the first exhibition game of the IU basketball season (streaming online because it wasn't on actual TV) in our living room, as the band played the William Tell Overture and the cheerleaders streamed all over the court with flags (this sequence is one of the Girl's favorite things in the entire world), I brought out her favorite dessert from the restaurant where we went on our first date, and I asked her to marry me. As you might expect, trumpets heralded, the clouds parted, we were bathed in a shimmering light, the band was muted behind a Hallelujah chorus, laurels and wreaths and nosegays floated through the air. Perhaps all of those things distracted her, because she said yes!

We are excited! And thrilled!! And I am clearly overdosing on exclamation marks! I just had to share that with you, because you are my one and only, most favoritest Internets. Have a marvelous day.

Apt Analogues

Not too, too long ago, I was chatting with the BHK, and he relayed to me something that Steve Czaban had said. For those of you who don't know, Czaban is a radio sports talk guy.  Really, he's just a guy.  He likes to talk about sports, women, and HDTV.  He's the rare non-techie talking head who actually knows a few things about HD, and I don't mind him talking about it.  Sometimes, I even enjoy it.  That's not the point right now, though.  The point is that Czabe was talking about femme-o-the-day acress Katherine Heigl. And what did Czabe have to say about her?  "She's not all that." 

I was surprised by that take, but I have to admit that she doesn't trip my trigger in the most impressive way.  She's certainly attractive and all, but I can see what he was saying, and I told the BHK so. I followed up by saying that I was kind of surprised that Heigl's Grey's Anatomy co-star (and putative leading actress in that particular show), Ellen Pompeo, wasn't able to parlay the show's success into more roles on the Big Screen. I first remember seeing Pompeo play the flavor in Old School, and I thought she was, apart from needing someone to give her a sammich, fairly hot.  However, as the BHK pointed out, she's a skosh old to be the new hotness in Hollywood. I countered by saying that I get that, but she seems to have the bigger role, perhaps the more important role, on Grey's. And the BHK came back by saying, "So she's the Anthony Edwards on ER to Heigl's George Clooney."  I don't think it could have possibly been summed up any better.

... And Carry a Big Shtick

For some reason or another this tale has been rattling around my brain lately. So I thought I would share it with you. Aren't you lucky?

When the Girl and I went on our first date, we hardly knew each other at all. We had just met randomly and had about 1.3 phone conversations. Such strangers were we that I didn't even know her last name. So I suppose that meant that we shouldn't struggle for things to talk about. We met at a decent-but-not-overly-nice resaurant and sat down to have some dinner. We were both clearly pretty nervous in that "I don't know this person" sort of way. So we concentrated on the menus and exchanged some chitchat about food and such. Once that was out of the way, I thought we were in desperate need of an ice breaker. So I said, "Look, I know I don't know you all that well, but I feel like I really need to ask you a very personal question. I hope it doesn't make you uncomfortable, and you don't have to answer if you don't want, but I just have to ask."

"Umm. OK, I guess. That sounds scary. Should I be scared?" she asked.

"I'll leave that up to you to decide, but I feel like I really need to ask," I replied.

"OK."

"What's your last name?"

Now, you may be absolutely rolling your eyes into the middle of next week and groaning. Or you may be smiling and thinking about how disarming and charming that would be. That second reaction is more of what I was shooting for, but I would have taken the first one. I just wanted to calm some nerves. Luckily for me, the Girl leaned more toward the charming response, laughed, and told me the answer. It seemed to work, too, because we seemed to have a much easier time of it after that. That particular exchange might not really have been the key, but this is my story, and that's how I'm calling it.

Recently, the Girl and I attended a vow renewal ceremony for the main particpants of the first post-college wedding I attended, in celebration of their first 10 years of marriage. (That may deserve a story of its own at some point, but not right now. Suffice it to say that you know a relationship has strong underpinnings when, upon receiving a single red rose from the guy in question after one of their first outings together -- not a date, though -- the girl in question said, "You are nauseatingly sweet.") My college roomie, who knows me as well as perhaps anyone on the planet, was also at this ceremony, and it was the first time he and the Girl met each other. While he was chatting her up and getting to know her, it somehow came out that I didn't know her last name when we went on our first date. Upon hearing that, he looked at me and immediately said, "You asked her a very personal question." It was half statement, half question. He was pretty sure of the answer, but he needed to verify it.

So apparently I have a shtick. Are you really surprised?

Help or Hindrance?

Don posed an interesting question in the comments to my last post about my 2005 numbers. His question was whether shaving my goatee was a help or hindrance in achieving 2005's goals. It's a good question, but I'm not sure I can give a good answer. As far as breaking 90 goes, I think it's safe to say that my facial hair (or lack thereof) had little to no impact. Whether it influenced my ability to go on two dates with the same person is less clear. [Aside: I had to go back and edit the dating numbers. There is one girl whom I completely left out of the tabulation. However, it's really hard to be sure whether get-togethers with her were dates. So I counted them as half dates.] I've mentioned before that a certain Pretty Boy buddy of mine had lobbied for the goat exorcism long before I shaved it off. I also mentioned that he thought the sequence of events that occurred afterwards validated his claims.

In truth, there is some circumstantial evidence supporting his claim, starting with a surprise encounter with a smooth girl. Later, there was a girl who attempted to force her number on me in an attempt to strong-arm me into asking her out. Granted, that girl was annoying (but not the most annoying girl ever), but nothing like that ever happened when I had the goat. Then, there was the goal-achieving two dates. Finally -- and this is a confession for me, as I described this in the third person at the time -- there was the so-unsmooth-it's-smooth digit getting that actually resulted in 2+ more dates. You may be asking how this is circumstantial evidence. It's because while none of those happenings is a clear result of the removal of the goatee, none had happened while I had it. Heck, I hadn't been on two dates with the same person since ... let's just say it was a long time ago.

I'm afraid I can't give a lot of satisfaction on this question. But I think it's safe to say that the removal of the goatee didn't hurt me in the pursuit of my '05 goals. The debate as to whether I look better with or without the goat still rages, though. For the Pretty Boy (I know you're out there), don't think that because you may have been right in this case that I'm going to start wearing pink (no, salmon is not a color) silky shirts and product in my hair. Not gonna happen. Keep your potential gloating to yourself. But, if you were right -- and I'm not saying you were -- thanks.

2005 by the Numbers

Back at the beginning of the year, I threatened to write a post looking back at 2005. Well, now I'm delivering on that threat. I don't make a lot of new year's resolutions that I'm not going to keep. And I'm not big into setting a lot of goals. However, I did have two very specific goals for 2005: to break 90 on the golf course and to go on two dates with the same person. Some of you might think those are ridiculous goals, that I shouldn't be focused on golf, that there is NO WAY that any self-respecting girl would go out with me two times. And I thought of those things, too. But I set those as goals anyway. Besides, my goals didn't require that the girl have any self-respect.

With that rambling preamble out of the way, let's go to the numbers. First, the numbers related to

Golf
18-Hole Rounds (without losing my scorecard): 29
Lost Scorecards: 2
Scrambles: 3
9-Hole Rounds: More than 0, less than 15
[The following numbers are from my 29 18-Hole Rounds whose scorecards I didn't lose.]
Scores At or Over 100: 12
Scores Below 100: 17
Scores Below 95: 6
Scores Below 90: 1
Rounds That Would Have Been Below 90 if I Hadn't Inexplicably Carded an 8 on a Par 3: 1
Total Holes: 522
Bogeys: 165
Pars: 94
Birdies: 12
Eagles: 1
Greens in Regulation: 104
Putts: 1046

So I clearly met my first goal. In fact, I did it on July 28th. Sadly, I haven't done it since, but that doesn't in any way diminish the glory of having achieved that milestone. I know some of you don't give a rip about those numbers, but I have called golf my girlfriend before. So you'll just have to deal.

Knowing who often reads this blog, I'm sure that more of you will be interested in the numbers related to

Weddings
Weddings Attended: 2
Weddings in which I Was Part of the Wedding Party: 0
Wedding Gifts Bought: 1 [I'm still on the hook for the other]
Single Women Danced With: ~7
Married Women Danced With: ~15
People Impressed With My Dancing: ~50
People Disturbed By the Amount of Sweat Produced by Said Dancing: ~200
Hook-Ups Resulting from Impressive Dancing, Alcohol, and Alleged General Aphrodisiac Nature of Weddings: 0

Finally, what you've all been waiting for ... the numbers related to

Women/Dating
Phone Numbers Requested: 2
Phone Numbers Received: 3
Phone Numbers Forced Upon Me Even Though I Didn't Want Them: 1
Phone Numbers Called: 2
Girls Who Impressed Me With Their Smoothness: 1
Girls Asked Out: 4
Girls Who Laughed Upon Being Asked Out: 1
Girls Who Said "Maybe" in Response to Being Asked Out When They Really Meant "No:" 1
Girls Who Asked Me Out: 1
First Dates: 2.5 [It's arguable whether one was a date.]
Second Dates: 2.5 [Same business.]
Second Dates That Probably Shouldn't Have Happened, But I Did After All Have a Goal to Meet: 1
Third Dates: 1

There you have it. Those are the major numbers from 2005 for The Kid. For you scoffers out there, how ya like me now? I met both goals for 2005. In fact, I had them in the bag by July 28th. I considered just taking the rest of the year off, but I couldn't manage it. Besides, I wasn't quite sure how to make that happen. The suspended animation thing doesn't really seem to have gotten off the ground yet. And with all of those accomplishments, I still found time to shave my goatee (I still haven't grown it back), write my blog (really, a result of shaving the goat), win an NCAA tourney pool, and buy new golf clubs. I can only hope 2006 will be as successful. I'm still working on my goals for the year. If you have any ideas, I'd love to hear them. In the meantime, I'll be practicing my putting.