Reality Check Ahead

Shooting from the lip

"...my vocal cords lived their own life, wild and free." -Lorenzo Smythe (Double Star by Robert Heinlein)

I've found that my verbal faux pas fall into two broad groups: when I say something I don't mean (rarely) and when I say EXACTLY when I mean... but I do it out loud for everyone else to hear. Common wisdom has it that you'll regret the things you didn't do but rarely things you didn't say, and woooo, is that true!

Adding fuel to that fire is the fact that I analyze everything. Out loud. All the time. Movies, plays, books and... ahem... people. More than opinions, I critique. I've been forbidden from speaking during movies because I'll guess the plot and, naturally, tell everyone around me. With mixed shame and pride, I have to confess my youngest daughter has inherited this trait and has merrily gone on to spoil the movies of people I don't even know.

Good job, kid.

You know the scene in a movie where someone spouts some opinion and the subject of said opinion is right behind them? That's not a plot device, that's someone following me and taking notes. In college, I went to a play with my artsy friends (I'm more of a STEM kinda guy) where three budding directors and cast were presenting their works.

The first two were acceptably enjoyable but that last one... words fail me. Or rather, they did NOT fail me that night. I complained about the amateurish set placement, the wooden dialog, the garish lighting choices and so on. Most of all, the choice of the play! It was melodrama layered with pretentiousness in equal quantities. Suitable for angsty 14 year olds and not very clever ones at that.

Having said my piece, my friend leaned over and whispered. "Dude, the director is sitting behind us."

[insert quiet pause here]

To which I replied, "Well, he needs to hear this the most, then."

The pen, having writ, is still embarrassing

But my misdeeds don't just lie in the theater, heavens no! I've been part of several writing groups, with mixed success. In case you've never participated in this particular pastime, the budding authors sit around and critique each other's works. The basic rules are 1) be honest, 2) be kind. You'll see that, despite my best efforts, I still managed to go astray.

In one online group we were required to read and comment in proportion to how many items we submitted. Well, I read a LOT of sub-standard submissions. Another rule, barely less important than the first two, is that anything posted should be in the opinion of the author good enough to publish. (Yes, I can hear you giggling in the corners... you're way ahead of me.)

One piece, in particular, stands out. If poor grammar, misspellings and random uses of every tense known to mankind are music, this was the Beethoven's 5th symphony of them all. As I was marking what was wrong, I realized that it would literally be easier to point out the few things that were right. Having known more than a few people whose native language is not English, I deduced that this was the source of most of his problems.

In the end, I had to back off and give my critique holistically rather than line by line. (Don't judge me too harshly; if I had kept to that standard, I'll still be marking it up!) I told the person that before submitting anything, he really needed to use a spell-checker. That 'drafts' are supposed to be finished products that just needed polishing. But most of all, he should get a native English speaker to be his first reader before posting further to the group.

Satisfied that I had met both of the first two rules, I sent my message to the public list per policy. Within an hour, the list administrator privately informed me that the so-called author WAS a native English speaker.

Oy vey.

Looking for love in all the wrong places

I'm not what you would call a player, a Casanova or even social adept. I'll admit it: I'm an uber-geek, an introvert, a wall flower that prefers the walls at home than the ones at the local bar and/or bistro. Added to that, I'm remarkably clueless in those few occasions when a member of the opposite sex HAS taken an interest in me.

Case in point, I was at a <insert geeky convention of some sort> going through the stacks of comic books, looking to fill out my collection. A remarkably attractive woman came by: fresh-faced, red hair, curves in ALL the right places and she was wearing an appropriately geeky T-shirt to boot.

She glanced over what I was purchasing and we struck up a conversation about this and that and... that was it. It wasn't until a YEAR later that my friend had asked me what became of that girl. I wittily said, "What girl?"

He reminded me of the encounter and then informed me, "Man, she was totally into you. And you didn't do anything?!" I replayed the scene and I realized he was totally right. At the next geek-fest I bought a button: Nearsighted, shy and hard of hearing - please flirt aggressively!

Vowing not to let such opportunities go by, I decided to speak up more often. On impulse, I told a stunning woman of my acquaintance that I really liked her. To put it mildly, this was a mistake on any number of levels. She was with someone else. *I* was with someone else. Good googaly moogaly! This had disaster written all over it.

More than twenty years later, we have three kids and love each other more than ever. I guess, sometimes saying too much is just enough.