Category: Musings

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Box of Matches, Casualty of War

I spent last night at Cannon River Scout Reservation (the higher-ups renamed it Philippo a couple years back, but I know the real one…) for an Order of the Arrow ritual. OA is an exclusive group in Scouting that requires getting voted in by your peers and/or cronies, but to earn each of the three ranks—Ordeal, Brotherhood and Vigil—there is a test the candidate must overcome.

I don’t want to spoil the ritual, but to reach Vigil (what this weekend was for), one part of the test is to start a fire. I was a guide for one of the candidates and… he had a rough start. I was given a box of 32 matches and a candle before we left—I used two of them to burn most of the wax off the wick. Maybe I shouldn’t have wasted the second, but there were 32 matches, right?

So we got to the site with 30 matches left. I eventually tried to help out—unfortunately, my physical efforts and verbal suggestions were all for naught—I couldn’t get the fire started either. Time ran on and the box was slowly but surely becoming lighter and lighter. He’d strike a match, but the flame wouldn’t last long enough to get anything burning. Or when he’d get a twig burning, he’d drop another piece of wood right on top of it and snuff it out. After multiple failed efforts, the kid gave me the box… it had one match inside. And he still hadn’t started his fire.

I had a map of the campsite in my back pocket, so I gave that to him and he tried using strips of the paper and small pieces of bark to light the fire. Without matches, what was he using? The candle. He’d hold some bark over the flame, get it lit, hold it flat instead of pointing downward (like I was suggesting) and it would go out almost immediately. More and more paper and shreds of bark were disappearing into the pile of charred wood and ash.

Finally, finally, he had a decent fire burning and I was allowed to leave. Just as I got back to the shelter, I saw Dad coming out of the building—he was about to call me on my cell phone to see if I’d gotten lost. I walked inside, looked at the clock, found out when we left, did some calculations—it took the kid an hour and a half, two dozen matches and the candle to get his fire started. And his test had just begun.

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Six degrees from Blake

Have you heard the theory that you can find a connection between yourself and Kevin Bacon within six degrees? Something like “My brother worked at a dry cleaner, a production assistant cleaned his clothes there on Thursdays, that guy went on a date with another PA, she worked on a certain project with a director and that guy directed a movie starring Kevin Bacon.” Just imagine—you’re that close to knowing Kevin Bacon.

Here’s another diagram I created today that I find rather interesting: My little brother graduated from The Blake School (the same school I did), he had many friends, my mother sometimes gets together with their mothers for lunch, one of those mothers graduated from The Blake School, she told my mother and my mother told me that this weekend is Homecoming, which also makes it Reunion Weekend.

See? Less than eight hours ago, I found out when my 10th year high school reunion was and it was within six degrees. It would have been fewer if they’d put that information on the card the school sent me three weeks ago, but this was way more exciting.

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Oktoberfest in the suburbs

While Lakeville has been developing at an astronomical rate around Interstate 35, the downtown area has been trapped in a bubble that’s hardly changed since my childhood in the late 70s and early 80s. (There’s one main street that has a single stoplight, maybe a mile long, it still has a four-lane bowling alley… very old, very quaint. I like it.) But once a year, the Lakeville Lions turn it into a loud and obnoxious party town.

Okay, maybe that’s a bit of an exaggeration, but it’s still Oktoberfest and there’s still plenty of beer, loud (accordion) music and people wearing lampsh… lederhosen. Since my dad is a member of the Lions and was selling brats that evening, I thought I should at least come by to say “Hi”, grab a bite to eat, maybe win something in a drawing, find some girls who recognized me from TV… two out of four wasn’t bad. Continue reading “Oktoberfest in the suburbs”

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Light a Candle

Today marks the 4th anniversary of the destruction of the World Trade Center. That morning, I was studying in Hachey Commons at William Mitchell College of Law. I looked up and noticed a group of people staring at a television in the corner of the room, so I walked over and joined them just as the second plane hit and turned into a giant fireball. As I was turning away to go to class, the first building fell. (Ours was an “online” section, so we all had wireless Internet access for taking quizzes, downloading study materials, etc. The professor made a futile plea for all of us to pay attention for the next hour.)

Hurricane Katrina hit the gulf coast earlier this month and the resulting damage continues to climb. While surfing the Web, reading the newspaper and watching the television, we learn of horrors unimaginable to those of us who have never experienced it. A city under water, people jammed into a football stadium for safety as they run out of food and water, homes and belongings completely destroyed… a descent into chaos.

From chaos comes order. A nation, united as one to recover from these tragedies. By donating money or clothes, giving aid to people who have nothing left or simply providing moral support, we will work together and we will recover. In the face of tragedy, we are family. Brothers and sisters, I light a candle for those whom we have lost. Be safe and be well.

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Why can’t you be more confident?

I spent Saturday night at a bonfire with a group of Gen-X Mensa members—a couple of us lasted until the wee hours of the morning and eventually began a conversation about how the men in the group felt insecure around women. (Incidentally, it started sometime around 2:00am—the God Hour.) The final result… there obviously weren’t any ultimate conclusions, though I’m left to wonder whether it was because we were butting heads or speaking entirely different languages.

What’s most unfortunate is that I felt like the go-between in the group. I used to be horribly self-conscious around women I was attracted to; since my time in California with Scarlet and everyone else in the mansion, I feel (somewhat) more confident. In the end, my personal experience didn’t matter: the final result was still “Why?” “Because.” “Because why?” “Because!”

For the ladies out there who can’t relate to the men’s point of view, I need to make something completely clear: being self-conscious is not something you can just shrug off and decide it’s not there anymore. Since that night, I’ve literally spent hours trying to think of something else you could compare it to. I could say “It’s a character trait that develops over time,” but since that wasn’t sinking in, how else could I describe it?

It may seem habitual, something you keep doing over time, but it’s not like a bad habit. You might be able to stop biting your nails cold turkey, but that nervous feeling in your gut is a trait that won’t just go away when you really want it to—hell, it’s usually when you really want it to go away that it springs up in full force.

I thought about comparing it to smoking, but it’s not an addiction, either. Being self-conscious will never give you a rush, it won’t help you relax or fit in and it can’t accomplish anything which might seem fulfilling. Moreover, if you can get past the point of feeling nervous around women, you don’t have to worry about relapsing. (I can’t attest to this final point for certain, but I’m down to half a pack of shyness a day…)

A lack of confidence around the opposite sex is a character trait, something that gets imbedded in your system and festers there for a looooooong time—it’s like gut rot. Sad to say, it’s very difficult to have your emotions amputated. You can’t tell someone, “Don’t be so greedy!” and expect them to start donating all their disposable income to charity the next day. It’s not that simple.

For some reason, the women we were talking to couldn’t or wouldn’t look at it that way. They just kept asking “Why not?” When you run out of reasonable explanations… “Because!”

There was one thing I managed to come up with that related to another part of the conversation: why men in a relationship seem more confident around women. (Yay me! One decent metaphor!) Compare men’s interactions with females to cliff diving.

Guys who are self-confident walk up to the edge in anticipation of the rush of jumping and falling down into the water. Self-conscious guys creep forward, look down and think, “Man, this is high… I wonder if there are sharp rocks below… God, that’d hurt really bad… maybe jumping isn’t a good idea.” Guys in a relationship have a safety rope tied around their waists. If they have any lingering insecurities around women, they can still dance along the edge and then pull themselves back into the arms of their partners.

Still hard to understand? I don’t blame you—it’s still hard to try to explain it. All I can ask is for women out there to be patient: if a guy walks up, stares at his feet and has trouble talking, wait and listen instead of shoving him away—there may be sharp rocks below.