by Michael S. Kaplan, published on 2007/12/16 04:48 -05:00, original URI: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/michkap/archive/2007/12/16/6781863.aspx
It had been a little while since I had been out over the weekend.
So when I was asked, I figured what the hell.
Have you ever seen The Matrix? The first one?
There is a scene near the beginning just after Neo decides to follow the white rabbit. He is in a club that is pretty loud and people are enjoying themselves -- including Neo's hosts. But Neo himself is standing there, looking distinctly out of place, talking to no one.
Well, I had a bit of that going on tonight....
I figured out what the problem was. It was that (scooter or cane) it is hard to go places when at least one person you are with is uncomfortable with the whole gimp thing. Definitely made me miss my old compadres a bit. Especially since being comfortable in this case is like
and
when most people have the ratios more like
I have decided this cannot really be trained -- it is like absolute pitch (some have it, some don't). Not a huge dealbreaker and I tried to shake it off. I was mostly successful.
Ironically, the episode of Women's Murder Club that I was busy missing was a rerun from late October that I remembered a scene from (memory refreshed from the original ReplayTV'ed episode!), a bit of dialog between Angie Harmon (Inspector Lindsay Boxer) and Paula Newsome (Dr. Claire Washburn):
Claire: Anyway, you have options. Some of us would kill for those.
Lindsay: What's going on at home, Claire?
Claire: Nothing.
{Claire sits down, sighs}
Claire: Specifically in the bedroom.
Lindsay: Okay, we've never actually talked about this. Is it difficult because of the--
Claire: The wheelchair?
Lindsay: Yeah. I mean, can Ed--
Claire: He can. We just don't.
Lindsay: Well who usually initiates?
Claire: Before the shooting, my husband, always and everywhere.
Lindsay: Well step up to the plate, sexy momma. Seduce the man.
Claire: {whispering} I can't do that.
Claire: And how did we get from the autopsy report to my sad sex life?
Lindsay: It started with mine.
Not completely on the topic (that is not my worry here at all t the moment!), other than the uncomfortable factor that the gimp thing can add to formerly comfortable situations. I figure there but for the grace of Bob go I, etc.
I suddenly realized I had yet another reason to not go to my 20th high school reunion -- the lack of a person who is comfortable with the gimp thing, which keeps any of it from being weird. Because if there is somebody right there you interact with then anyone else passing by knows they can interact too -- and then it is weird for no one. Like a wingman1, you know?
A lame reason, perhaps. But it is a long way to travel to go to the reunion you are likely to be uncomfortable at for a school you technically didn't graduate from. :-)
There are other reasons, too. One of them is actually now a blog post based on excerpts of what seems like an antiquated (possibly dilapidated) chat log that is light and interesting, perhaps a little funny and definitely a little sad. I haven't decided if I am actually going to post it yet -- if I do, I'll first have to file off all of the identifying serial numbers. It is probably worth posting so I might make use of some of my vacation time to take care of it (and maybe clean up some my other half done posts -- there seem to be more and more of them all the time!).
I'll work on it. If you never see it, assume I couldn't get it in good enough shape....
I'll probably oscillate back and forth between going and not going a few more times before I decide for sure, though the gimp thing with no wingman1,2 has some decided disadvantages that Saturday night out really put into sharp relief.
It takes a lot of effort to be able to just do stuff without worrying about it, sometimes....
1 - Or maybe wingperson; since most of my friends are actually female it seems rather short-sighted to limit my options that way!
2 - Since you may not have read the first footnote inline, I figure I could not apply the lesson contained there in just yet -- thing wingperson. :-)