#5: In the End, We'll All Become Stories.

The sour truth is that I shouldn't have known about David.  Hell, I didn't even remember his name until it showed up in an e-mail from the event organizer, asking all of us if we remember being assigned to him during the Project Bundle-Up event a few weeks ago.  This was my second year at the event, and while the third-person view of selfishly I enjoyed watching a bunch of little kids just ooze exuberance over getting brand new coats and hats...items that I would easily take for granted.

*I* wasn't even assigned to him.  The full extent of my experience with David involved a group photo and mindless conversation on the school bus, meant mostly to keep the kids docile until more responsible people showed up to take them away.  He was...boisterous.  Loud, but in a friendly way.  He was built like me at that age, except more extroverted.

The first e-mail was asking who had worked with David.  The second was the group photo with a description of the boy.

The third was a forwarded e-mail from The Salvation Army, explaining that he had died.

Allegheny County police said they believe someone knocked at the family’s door Sunday night, and when it was opened, shots were fired inside the home.

David lived in Mt. Oliver, a neighborhood that City-Data.com concluded is well above average in all crime activity, with a crime index of 754.2 against the national average of 289.6.  In terms of population density, Mt. Oliver is at least two times as dangerous as New York City.  David and his brother weren't actively contributing to the crime problem that night.  They were in their living room, playing video games, when someone knocked at the door.  David's brother answered, and moments later both boys were shot...David was pronounced dead on arrival by the examiner.

She was one of more than a dozen shocked neighbors and friends who aimlessly milled up and down the street, greeted each other with hugs and tears and created a memorial of balloons, a Pittsburgh Penguins teddy bear and a prayer candle on the family’s front porch.

Everyone knew David.

Nobody knows the full story.  Maybe the older brother got mixed up with the wrong crowd, although those interviewed implied that it wasn't likely.  Maybe it was an accident.  Maybe it was just senseless violence and, in the eyes of the shooter, the victim was irrelevant.

What *I* believe regarding the truth is equally irrelevant.  In my mind...in everyone's mind, I would imagine, there's an infinitesimally small number of truths that would lead to the conclusion that an eleven year old boy deserved to die.  Zero.  I'm going to go ahead and say there are zero reasons that this is fell within line of the natural order of life and death.

 The liberal in me wants to point to this and rant about the need for more stringent gun control...that this situation was even plausible because some person that (in all likelihood) didn't have any business owning a gun managed to get his hands on one anyway.  The socialist in me wants to berate the abnormal distribution of wealth and use Mt. Oliver as a paradigm of the effects of the current social strata.  The father in me wants to beat the piss out of whoever shot these two boys.

The mother is not able to go back to the home as she is very frightened and the scene from the shootings has not been cleaned up yet.

The Sandy Hook shooting is almost three years old, but the emotions culled out by the tragedy seem to be stuck on repeat.  The Qabak village suicide bombing at a primary school.  The Franklin Regional High School stabbing.  The freedoms I had at childhood seem like negligent parenting when viewed through today's grayed-out and dismal lens.  I walked to school almost every day until I was old enough to drive.  In junior high, my walk included a mile-long stroll along the railroad tracks.  Our high school conducted exactly one locker search a year for weapons or drugs.  

Now, when my daughter asks if she can walk home from school -- a distance easily half of what I managed at her age -- I reply with "maybe when you're older" and hope she doesn't realize that I'm being purposefully vague.  Now, I'm not allowed to volunteer at her school until I am completely vetted out by the state and they have my fingerprints on file.  Now, if my daughter wants to ride her bike, she has to do it with my vigilant eyes watching...not for her to mess up, but for someone else to interfere.

“That boy knew what love was. Not only did he know what it was, he knew how to give it back tenfold,” Beth Krut, 47, of Mount Oliver said of her daughter’s friend. “You only get that from one place. You get it from your parents.”

David's face would've faded in my mind over time.  Granted, maybe it would've taken longer than usual.  The kids at Project Bundle Up ranged in behavior and demeanor, but he certainly struck out as the one that seemed the most excited to be there.  But now he's an imprint.  An example.  A cautionary tale.  A physical manifestation of the fears we all endure sporadically, but with increasing frequency as time goes by.

I want to hug my daughter, to protect her, to hide her from a world that's more unstable than ever, and tell her that I'm sorry.  I'm sorry that she's inherited this world.

#4: It's Loud Enough Inside My Head

INFJs indeed share a very unique combination of traits: though soft-spoken, they have very strong opinions and will fight tirelessly for an idea they believe in.

Until last month or so, my most recent "ah-a" moment (the sudden smack of clarity surrounding a situation, not the urge to listen to 80s one-hit wonders) was when I had taken the Mensa Admissions Test.  There were about 30 people in the classroom -- which was really the basement of a Unitarian church somewhere east of the city -- a proctor and a timer.  We were all uncomfortably milling around the room, engaging in small talk that usually focused on "are you nervous?" and "I'm nervous."  When the proctor finally settled us in he explained some of the camaraderie that goes along with being a Mensan, and for a lot of people it was extremely cathartic.  "All of these folks, who have varying degrees of education, political leanings, musical preferences, favorite sci-fi show, whatever, really...but still you get a very strong feeling when you're with them, best summed up as these are my people.

It was eye-opening in the sense that I've never really felt like I was nestled on the fringes in any social gatherings, at least not for that reason (that reason being "a higher IQ", and even typing that makes me sweat...it feels arrogant...it probably is arrogant), but even in the testing stages of Mensa admission I felt like I was in a room full of people like me, however you choose to define those similarities.  None of them looked like ex-jocks, and I'd wager there were more than a few grossly conservative folk in the mix, but I still got that sense of unity.

I've been a Mensa member for about a year now, and while I haven't experienced any significant benefits (I did get a vanity e-mail address, so now I receive more sophisticated spam at my member.mensa.org domain), I did attend a gathering last month that may qualify as the only party I didn't try to sneak out of unnoticed.

INFJs find it easy to make connections with others, and have a talent for warm, sensitive language, speaking in human terms, rather than with pure logic and fact.

In September I leveraged my tendencies to procrastinate via Facebook quizzes into validating my Myers-Briggs Personality Type.  It's an assessment I took about a decade ago through some team-building exercise at work.  I was not surprised to be one of the few introverts in the sales department, but I was surprised to be the only INFJ in the meeting.  

It's the "I" in INFJ that tends to surprise people (and you can read the parts I didn't plagiarize about INFJs here).  The introverted stereotype is that we're the loners, the folks that prefer the company of nobody, engage in zero conversation, and coast through life with all of their thoughts bottled up tightly so it will never get out, with little credence given to others.

Like most stereotypes, some of that is true.

INFJs tend to present themselves as the culmination of an idea. 

Nothing has ever been so poignant.  That is exactly how I see myself, or rather how I project myself, which often comes off as closeted, or unnervingly stoic.  My brain is just the end result of 35 years of inner thoughts mashed up against outside stimuli, so my default setting is to take the cowardly route and either make some frustrating generalization about my demeanor (i.e. "I feel fine") or say words that may imply my emotions without ever really getting down to it.  

I've never been able to grasp people's abilities to so easily sum up what they're feeling in a word or phrase.  Shouldn't percentages be involved or something?  Right now I'm 60% concerned that I'm feigning expertise of introverts, or at least INFJs, based on some silly web site and my own life, 25% of me is stressed over fucking up some work last week and is trying to both multitask to catch some of it up (my new motto: I Just Need a Win) while trying to quell the stress by writing about it, apparently, and the rest of me is wondering if these two crickets on either side of my street are ever going to hook up...I assume that's why they make those noises...aren't all nature sounds really thinly-disguised mating calls?

INFJs have strong beliefs and take the actions that they do not because they are trying to advance themselves, but because they are trying to advance an idea that they truly believe will make the world a better place.

Altruism has plenty of drawbacks.  While I am more centered on the lamentation that what I do isn't really benefiting anyone in the cosmic sense, I do have a penchant for putting just about everyone else I know ahead of myself on the food chain.  That's not to say I'm selfless.  I'm not giving Mother Theresa a run for her money.  There's some inertia involved, sure.  I was definitely raised by people that gave their time or their effort or their money towards the greater good.  I've always believed that, whatever I have, it's more than what someone else might have, and the only way to feel even remotely connected to the rest of the world is to try to even things out.  Sorry if that got steamrolled by grandiosity.  I'm not combating famine in Africa or anything, as much as I'd like to.

When it comes to romantic relationships, INFJs take the process of finding a partner seriously. Not ones for casual encounters, people with the INFJ personality type instead look for depth and meaning in their relationships.

This part was "ah-a" to me only because I thought that's what everyone was looking for.  Casual dating is such a fucking mystery to me.  I'm more of a "casually wearing the same jeans all week" kind of guy, I don't want my informality bleeding into a relationship.  My jeans aren't important.  

Granted, I haven't had a lot of relationships, and as each day passes I'm extended my personal record of "Number of Days Single", but I have had enough dates that were frank enough to say that they were a little confused by how I was "all in" on the first encounter. 

It's a fair assessment from them, but not something I tend to take as a criticism.  I don't do leaps of faith very well.  Every relationship had a long gestation period of getting to know each other.  I thought that's just how I viewed relationships in general: as friendships that evolved.  But, apparently, that's just my personality type, I'll take the time necessary to find someone they truly connect with.  Sorry/not sorry if that's frustrating.

Despite this, INFJs will also push their children to think independently, make their own choices and establish their own beliefs.

The last time I used "because I said so" as a rationale for any order handed down to my daughter, she was six.  I think it's a perfectly valid reason to kids that age or younger, who may be curious to hear the reasoning behind why they shouldn't smear their hands with glue and pet the cat or why I'm not even turning this car on until they put their seatbelt on.  But, along with being highly impressionable, they are severely absent-minded, and there's plenty of days where I'd rather throw out the "I'm your dad so you do what I say" card than launch into the pros and cons of eating pie for breakfast.

But she called me on my bullshit three years ago, when I told her to brush her hair before bed (because I said so).  She retorted with "well you don't brush your hair before bed."

Shit.  That's true.  That's so true.

"Well, my hair's different than yours.  It's shorter, and I take showers in the morning so I don't have to worry about brushing it before bed."

"What if I try not brushing it before bed and see what it's like in the morning?"

I guess that was the night the hair elves showed up and tied her hair in knots, because she woke up totally ready to jam out at Burning Man, but probably not ready for school.  Leave it to my daughter to turn hair-brushing into an experiment.

We don't see eye to eye on a lot of issues already, particularly my vegetarianism vs. her "MEAT IS GOOD, EAT MEAT YOU WEIRDO" stance, and it's hard to toe the line between foisting beliefs upon her to match my own and letting her sort out her own battles.  I want her to be her own person, but within the confines of what her mom and I deem to be a "good" person, which sounds counterintuitive.  Because it is.  This is pretty much parenting in a nutshell.  Be unique, except like me.

INFJs are likely to prioritize harmony and cooperation over ruthless efficiency, encouraging a good, hardworking atmosphere and helping others when needed. While this is usually a strength, there is a risk that others will take advantage of INFJs’ commitment to their responsibilities by simply shifting their burdens onto their more dedicated INFJ colleagues’ desks.

Oh yeah.  I've been there.

It's disillusioning, in a sense, to both a) gain such a sense of relatability from a freaking Facebook quiz and b) come to the conclusion that I am largely in the minority (making up less than one percent of the population), but that feeling is more than offset by the notion that someone gets me.

Of course that "someone" is a web site.  Which probably surprises no one.  I mean, I've typed more words over the last hour than I've probably spoken all day.

#3: Aging Sporadically

While I was never much of an underage drinker in high school (this post is off to a rockin' start), I was a little jealous of Canada and the UK for having much more relaxed age limits.  I lived/live pretty close to Canada, but not quite close enough that I could justify driving up there just to drink, especially at 19.  I was saddled with other important commitments like "flunking out of my first college" or "being a really terrible telemarketer".

The 21-vs-18 oddity in United States age restrictions is more than a little confusing.  The government is telling me that I'm old enough to enlist in the Army and elect government officials and smoke and buy lottery tickets and get a credit card, but NOT old enough to drink or gamble (really? so the lottery isn't gambling?)

...and either way I'm not old enough to rent a car.

My Celebrations of Adulthood Part I and Part II were anticlimactic...a feeling shared by many, I'm sure.  I remember my friend taking me to Giant Eagle at 12:30 in the morning to purchase cigars, and after perusing the exactly three cigar options available at that hour I settled on Tijuana Smalls (under the rationale that Primus' "Shake Hands With Beef" featured the not-so-subliminal line "Roll out the cannon, boys.  Steal us some wine. Puff Tijuana Smalls.")  This was my first and last time partaking in this brand.

By the time 21 rolled around I was already pretty well-versed in drinking (HI MOM AND DAD), and while my actual birthday featured no drinking -- to the best of my recollection -- we did throw a pretty kick-ass Y2K party in our apartment, where I drank a lot of Zima.  This is, by far, the most dated sentence I've ever written.  If I could have incorporated "and then my friend called on the home phone" or "just after logging into AOL..."

The actual sensation of adulthood, though, seems to come even later than 18, or 21, or 25 (not that renting a car doesn't come with a thrilling sense of responsibility).  It sort of washes over you in waves.  Here are just a handful of occurrences over the past 20 years that added a few points to my adulthood score.

• If I see a car with a backside full of bumper stickers I think man, he is going to have SO much trouble getting fair trade value for that thing.
• My 401(k) was significantly affected by the stock market crash.
• I have a 401(k).
• I went to the movies by myself (Matrix Reloaded, for those curious...I fell asleep in the middle).
• I have a vested interest in the aesthetic state of my front yard.
• I got a certified letter from the borough demanding that I pay my past-due garbage collection bill (despite them never sending me said bills...and I was sure they had my address, since they collect trash four feet from my fucking house every single week).
• My daughter has complained that "you're embarrassing me, Dad."
• Cashiers refer to me as "sir".
• Music I used to listen to in school is in steady rotation on the oldies station.
• I care less and less about sports with each passing second of time.
• I am occasionally content with doing absolutely nothing all weekend and I'll brag about it to coworkers on Monday.
• I once was 20 minutes late to work after sitting in the car to listen to the rest of a long-form news story on NPR.
• The only time I'm carded is out of pity when I'm drinking with someone that does look young enough to be carded.
• I've complained about the rowdiness of my neighbors.

I didn't feel like an adult when I turned 18.  I mean, it's hard to put on an air of responsibility when you're living with your parents and bringing in a $400 paycheck that seems like an incredible amount of money.  Ditto for 21, when my parents paid my rent (although I adultishly reasoned with them that my rent would be cheaper than the cost of on-site housing at college) and my roommates and I shopped exclusively at Sam's Club so we ended up eating pierogies or ramen every day for months at a time.  I didn't even really feel like an adult when I got my first job, because after bills I was most likely to spend my disposable income on cigarettes and Playstation games.

I think the government should modify the definition of "legal adult" to one of three achievements (whichever happens first):

1. "The age at which you feel slightly embarrassed to be shopping at the mall."  For me this was around 24, when stores like Hot Topic started cropping up to remind me that there is an entire generation at my heels that are driving supply and demand more feverishly than I could ever hope to.  
2. "The age at which you're at the pharmacy at 4 in the morning buying children's tylenol"...because, c'mon...what you REALLY want to do after you get your vomiting toddler to go back to sleep is to down a few stiff drinks and fall asleep to Friends reruns.
3. "The age at which you adopt a pet."  I realize that you could adopt a pet at like 14, but a) you're at least imitating someone that aspires to be a responsible person, b) you're giving a cute animal a loving home (and it BETTER be loving), and c) the next decade of early morning poop walks/constant litter box scooping/never-ending cage cleanings should give you the right to reward yourself with a beer or the chance to throw $20 away on some slot machine.  Besides, wouldn't pet shelters be virtually empty if this was a legitimate rule?  Kids would be scooping up dogs by the armful just for the chance to throw a kickass party.  THINK ABOUT IT, BIG BROTHER.

#2: Finding Your Niche

I met this woman at the Cage.

Context is everything.

Squirrel Hill Cafe is the legal name for the Cage, or at least the name plastered on the facade. For those on a lower frequency of the hipster spectrum, the Cage is a dive bar that seems to attract clientele that like their beer cheap and their lungs filled with smoke.  It's as if all of the cliques from my high school hold a weekly reunion there.

We talked for a while (this woman and I, not the high school cliques...focus, seriously), mostly leaning towards the job-interview-esque questions like "what do you do?" and "what's your biggest fear?" or "when can you start?"  I'm mostly kidding.  But eventually (by which I mean "after enough alcohol") the conversation degraded into my wheelhouse of half-assed one-liners and non-sequiturs.  I think this happens because 75% of the conversation I'm actually having is going on inside of my head, and what the general public hears is the illogical conclusion.  As a result I'm prone to blurting out things like "shouldn't ALL animals have been named after the sound they make?" or "I think you and I have very different interpretations of the color green."

Later in the evening she bet that she could guess my middle name.  And I think I replied with "ummmmmmmmmmmmmmm......okay?"

"Okay, so what's your first name, again?" (I realize that this does not imply a successful encounter, but I don't think my name is particularly irrelevant compared to other specifications, like my favorite smells, or if I like my dressing mixed into my salad or on the side)
"Timothy."
"Oh, Edward."

She said it just like that, like my middle name was the lamest discovery in the history of time...as if it was tattooed on my forehead and I just wasn't aware.

I mean, that's cool shit, isn't it?  Not helpful in any way, but still cool.  I don't think she possessed any sort of extra-sensory perception or supernatural affinities, but I'd imagine some heightened sense of social redundancy gave her the ability to determine the most reasonable middle name to go with a first name.

Not that I said any of that to her.  I think I stopped after "that's cool shit."

She asked me if I had any unique skills that paralleled hers and my first instinct was to say "no...I mean...who does?" So what I said was "no...I mean...who does?"

Yesterday I was typing up revised guidelines for some changes to a database I made at work (in case you were concerned that my home databases are undergoing significant changes).  Being hyperfocused on the task at hand and donning headphones means my coworkers have to try unique ways to get my attention, often involving projectiles.  But, this particular employee was not aware of this caveat and instead stood in front of my desk for a good five minutes before I had looked up.

"Were you working?"
"Yup...just typing up some steps."
"Wait, so you were working?"
"Yeah...why?"
"You weren't just mashing your keyboard and pretending to ignore me?"
"Ha, um, nope.  Why would I ignore you?"
"I just...nobody types like that."
"Like what?"
"Like...all crazy like."
"Oooookay....well, I guess I type all crazy like, then."

I didn't think much of it until a few hours ago, when I was writing an e-mail and my daughter asked me if I was actually writing words or just typing gibberish.  So, before I took her home I tested my ability to type, since it appears to be so unnerving to people:

I don't know if there's any significant benefit to typing 105 WPM except that it's going to take me 1/3 of the time to write this blog when compared to an "average typist".

But, on the plus side I know what I can tell the next stranger at the next bar!  And then I can be all "oh so you don't believe me?  Someone pass me a laptop, I'm about to throw down, mofo!"

#1: I Hate to Cry

I am not new to online dating (cue sad trombones), which leaves a chance that my irritation with the banal or the redundant can be chalked up to what I imagine is a longer-than-normal tenure.

But...why? Why is this such common commentary to find in people's profiles?

To pull some of these snippets I ended up doing a Google search, so now random men all over the country have me listed as a visitor to their profile.  Maybe they'll think "hmm...my writing inflection must be a little too androgynous" and rewrite their profiles.  I should send them a message that says "I'm not interested, just proving a point about the superfluity of information on this dating site."

That was a really long way to explain that describing oneself with "I love to laugh" apparently crosses all genders.

OF COURSE YOU LOVE TO LAUGH.  You are not a masochist (and if you were there is still a reasonable chance that you still love to laugh, but not as much as you love being in pain).  You are not a robot.  Unless you have a hernia or you're constantly drinking milk and afraid of any nostril-related accidents, you love to laugh.  You can't get enough of it.  A good portion of your day is dedicated to seeking laughter.

From my own perspective, when a woman lists "I love to laugh" in their summary, she's telling me "I am as interested in you reading about me as I am writing about me, and neither really interest me."

And that's fine, I suppose.  A few years ago I'd have to glance at another person across the bar/library/muesum/busy intersection and think I wonder if THAT woman loves to laugh...  Busting out the knock knock jokes was always such a shot in the dark.

I don't know if online dating is really for me, at least not anymore...but I am 100% certain that, should I find some success in that bizarre land, it won't be with someone that loves to laugh.  I am going to totally date the only laugh hater in town.  You snooze, you lose, man.