Encountering an Asian Stereotype

You may have seen this clip from "Family Guy" before:



Prior to dating Myz, I was aware that this stereotype involving young Asian women existed, but I never thought I would actually encounter it. When I went to visit Mom in 2002, she gave me some water bottles to take on the drive home. They were 10 oz. bottles. I thought they were rather handy and didn't require a lot of extra effort to pick up, twist off the lid and drink while I was driving.

I continued to use these bottles when I made my trips up to San Jose to see Myz. I brought a couple of the bottles into the bedroom. Myz picked up one of the bottles and said, "Oh, my gosh! Look at this water bottle! It's so CUTE!" I explained that I had gotten it from Mom the last time I went to Phoenix. She kept going on and on about how small it was, like she'd never seen a water bottle like that before.

During that same visit, I went into the kitchen to fill a bottle from the water dispenser. All I had filled it, her cousin Haad grabbed the bottle out of my hand and said, "Oh, my gosh! Look at this water bottle! It's so CUTE!" I remarked that Myz had the same reaction, but I still didn't see it as anything special.

A few weeks later, I was going to leave directly from work to drive up to San Jose. I brought a few bottles into the breakroom so I could fill them from the water dispenser. All of a sudden, an Asian co-worker of mine named Xiz picked up one of the bottles and said, "Oh, my gosh! Look at these water bottles! They're so CUTE!"

I have since encountered other Asian stereotypes, but none so glaring as this.



And I guess I should go into a little detail about Xiz. She was a co-worker I had a crush on before I met Myz. She was of Chinese descent and was very pretty. She appeared to be a little flirtatious toward me, enough for me to think that maybe she was interested. But it seemed like she was that way with everyone.

She did have a couple of issues, though. She smoked and she had a kid. Another co-worker had met her daughter. He wasn't aware that Xiz lived in the same apartment complex as him. He saw the girl and thought she looked exactly like Xiz. He then asked the girl if her mother's name was Xiz. The girl said it was. He was shocked at the resemblance.

One day, I overheard her telling another co-worker in the breakroom that while she would date outside her race, she wouldn't marry outside her race. That pretty much told me I didn't have much of a chance.

Fayd vs. "A Christmas Carol"

One of the things I loved doing as a kid was watching all the animated Christmas specials on TV. If it was a cartoon and it was about the holidays, I couldn't be torn away from the TV. (I remember throwing a fit one year because Loyd and I wanted to watch "The Mouse on the Mayflower" on Thanksgiving, but all the men wanted to watch football on the only TV. We lost that one.) And it always lifted my heart to see the percussive "CBS Special Presentation" logo come on and lead directly into the soft piano intro of "A Charlie Brown Christmas."

When I was around 7 years old, I saw that something called "A Christmas Carol" was going to come on. This was the first time I'd ever heard of it. But "Christmas" was in the title and it seemed like it was going to have songs in it, so I watched. (I have confirmed it was the "Famous Classic Tales" version from 1970. You can find it on YouTube.)

I don't recall everything I was thinking while I was watching it. I must have been bewildered by the old guy griping about Christmas. Who doesn't like Christmas? And I was probably pretty freaked out by Marley's ghost and wondering why that was in a Christmas cartoon instead of a Halloween cartoon. (I had seen the "Famous Classic Tales" versions of "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" and "Rip Van Winkle" earlier that year.)

I do know I was thinking that every time the ghosts removed Scrooge from his house that Santa wasn't going to come by. Maybe that was why Scrooge didn't like Christmas. He wasn't getting anything from Santa. I mean, it's one thing if you're at your grandmother's house. Santa knows to bring your presents there. But if you're just gallivanting through time and space, Santa's not going to even try to track you down.

So yeah, a lot of the story was really lost on me. However, I must have liked the cartoon because I know I watched it again the next year. But this time, I had a better understanding of what was going on. That one year made a difference in my perspective of the world.

I came to realize that not every Christmas cartoon needed to have Santa or Jesus in it.

The Reveal to Mom

In my relationship with Myz, I decided to hold off on telling my Mom about it for as long as possible. She always got WAY too excited anytime I was seeing someone. ("Grandchildren on the way!") I was actually glad she never met my previous girlfriend. I don't even remember telling her until after it ended the first time. And I don't even think I told her when we started things back up.

After I'd been seeing Myz for a few months, Mom told me there was someone she wanted me to meet. Her name was Rowd and she knew her from working in the New Mexico Legislature. She was around my age and was living with Mom and Dend in Phoenix until she could find a job and get on her feet. She thought she was someone I would like.

This forced my hand. I didn't tell her about Myz right away. I had to discuss this with Myz first. I had to let her know how my Mom got anytime I told her I had a girlfriend, about the expecations for getting married and having kids. I had to tell her about all the previous disappointments. (Myz knew about my ex-girlfriends. She just didn't know the extent of my Mom's involvment with them.)

We decided it was in everyone's best interests if I told Mom what was going on. This way, she wasn't getting Rowd's hopes up. One afternoon, I called her. She happened to be shopping with Rowd at the time. (Oh, great! I didn't want to do this while she was with her! Well, we've gotten this far. We need to get this over with.) I told her that I had started seeing someone. I said that her name was Myz and she lived in San Jose. "Is she Spanish?" "No." "Is she Black?" "No." "Is she White?" "No..." "THEN WHAT IS SHE?" "She Asian!" "Oh, okay."

I told Mom that her parents had come here from Vietnam. Mom said she hoped that she would get to meet her someday. I don't recall what else we discussed after that.

After getting off the phone with Mom, I called Dad and let him know. I never had a problem with telling him, but I figured it was best to keep him in the loop at the same time.

Not long after that, I had a few days off and went to Phoenix to see Mom and Dend. Rowd was still staying with them. I remember driving and getting there late at night. The first thing I had to do was call Myz and let her know I had gotten there safely. I had a cell phone at the time, but I was worried about roaming charges. (It turns out there really weren't roaming charges, but I didn't know how it all worked.) I had to use Mom's landline to call Myz and use a calling card to make the long distance call. I had to punch in all the numbers and the phone made a very loud beep every time I hit a key. I was afraid I was going to wake up the entire house just by punching in my card number. And then, I didn't so something right the first time, so I had to make those beeping noises ALL OVER AGAIN!

After talking to Myz, I went to sleep in the guest room. I woke up the next morning and saw Mom and Dend. Later, Rowd got out of bed. Usually, when Mom had tried to set me up with someone, she would be like a younger version of Mom, with blond hair and blue eyes. I could tell that Rowd was Native American. I thought that at least Mom was trying to fix me up with someone closer to my taste.

Rowd talked about how all the beeping from the phone woke her up. Mom and Dend hadn't heard anything.

Rowd was nice and very smart, but I knew I wouldn't have started something up with her even if I didn't have Myz in my life. This was because Mom was involved. Now, if I'd met Rowd on my own without Mom's involvement, there was a possibility. But I didn't put much thought into this.

Later, Mom told me that Rowd had divorced her ex-husband after she had been arrested for beating him up. I guess Mom thought that after my other disastrous ex-girlfriends, Rowd would have been a cakewalk.

This provided justification for me knowing that I could never allow Mom to pick my girlfriends. And thankfully, she never got that opportunity again.

Meeting Family and Friends

I'd already gone into detail about how I med Myz' cousin Haad. I wound up meeting a few of Myz' other family members and friends in unexpected ways. But it would be a very long time before I would get to meet her parents, older brother, sister-in-law and niece.

The next one I met was her younger brother Sand. Sand was the one who was supposed to be living in the house when I first came up to meet Myz, but he moved back home before I made the trip. While I was visiting Myz, he showed up unexpectedly. I was in Myz' bedroom at the time. Myz told me he was there, but she didn't want me coming out. (She hadn't told her immediate family about me yet.) She was going to go talk to him to see if he was going to stay long. I thought I should go ahead and meet him because I knew it would look bad if I was trying to hide. She thought he was going to leave soon, so she told me to stay. She talked to him for a bit and then came back. She said he was planning on spending the night. I was going to have to meet him, but she needed a couple more minutes before I came out.

She went back to talk to him to let him know she had started seeing someone and that I was there at the time. She then called for me to come out. I greeted Sand. He just kind of shook his head. "We'll talk about this later. I gotta go." He went out to his car and left.

Myz had to run an errand, so I was left in the house all alone. Sand came back later. He was outside smoking. I decided to go start a conversation with him. I don't remember what all we talked about, but we were both being casual. He then asked how old I was. "37." "Oh, so you've been married a couple of times, then." "No, I haven't been married and I don't have any kids. Myz wouldn't have had anything to do with me if I had."

After that, we seemed to get along okay. Later, Myz and I were watching a DVD in the living room and holding hands on the couch. Sand came in and saw us. He appeared to not like what he was seeing, but he didn't say anything.

Anytime I saw him after that on future visits, he seemed okay. But even though he's my brother-in-law now, we've never really bonded like brothers. (That also goes for Myz' older brother Phod.)

I had visted Myz at least eight times before I got to meet the other occupant of the house, her cousin Robd. He was Haad's younger brother and lived on the other half of the mobile home. (I should point out that the mobile home was a single-wide, but they enclosed the porch area and put in a bedroom, bathroom and laundry room. It looked like a double-wide, but it wasn't.) When he was home and Myz and I were in her bedroom, we could always hear him when he was home.

One of the things that I knew about Robd was that, even though he was 19, he LOVED to drink. All over the house was a number of photos of him getting drunk with his friends. There were a few photos that showed them taking a sharpie to someone's glasses while he was conked out. I got to meet Robd when he happened to be home after Myz and I had returned from doing something. He was there with a friend. I don't know if he knew anything about me beforehand, but he didn't act surprised to see me.

About the fourth time I came up to see Myz, I met Gied. Gied was Myz' best friend from high school. She was a student at San Jose State University. Myz and I were in the bedroom when we heard the driveway door open. The next thing, we heard knocking on the bedroom door. Myz opened it and it was Gied. Gied gasped when she saw me. (Fortunately, Myz and I were fully clothed at the time.)

Once, Myz and I went to a portrait studio to have our pictures taken. When we were there, we ran into a friend of Haad's. She was with her boyfriend doing the same thing we were. Myz talked to her for a bit before we finished our pictures. Later, Myz found out that friend told Haad about meeting us. Somehow, they were able to figure out that I was older than Myz and they thought I was manipulating her. We kind of laughed about that.

Another time, we were in the bedroom and we could hear other people coming in the house. It was Haad and Robd's parents (Myz' uncle and aunt). Myz clearly did not want them to meet me because she knew they would tell her parents. We had to stay quiet in the bedroom for at least an hour. Because the conversation they were having was all in Vietnamese, I don't know what they were talking about. I needed to pee very badly, but Myz wouldn't let me sneak into the bathroom. It got to the point that I thought I was going to have to pee in a cup in the bedroom. At this point, it was quiet in the house. Myz went out and saw that everyone had left. The coast was clear. I could pee in peace.

On another visit, Haad warned Myz that her parents were coming up from Monterey and they would be there in an hour. For some reason, Myz had something she had to take care of at the house and wouldn't leave right away, thinking we had plenty of time. I kept trying to rush things along, but Myz was adamant about completing her task. Finally, we left. Just as we were pulling out of the mobile home park, her uncle and aunt pulled in. They could clearly see us and Myz shyly waved at them.

Later, when we told Haad what had happened, she said that her parents had poor eyesight and probably didn't see me in the car. I expressed my doubts about that at the time. However, it didn't look like they said anything to Myz' parents about me. But when I did actually get to meet them for the first time about a year later, they commented to Haad how they thought I was better that Myz' old boyfriend (whom they saw in the car that one time).

And I also met Haad's boyfriend Tond. An odd thing after meeting him was that I was working at Walmart at the Customer Service desk one day in San Diego. I noticed a TV news crew was shooting footage of me assisting a customer. Tond saw that footage on a Bay Area newscast and recognized me.

I guess I didn't always have to use my car to get around.

But it took awhile before Myz got to meet any of my friends and family.

A True Long-Distance Relationship

So, this was the first time I'd been involved in an actual long-distance relationship. I felt like it was definitely better than being in no relationship at all. I trusted Myz very much and never felt like I had to worry about what she was doing when I wasn't in San Jose. And I felt confident enough in the future of the relationship that I didn't need to hedge and see if I could find someone close to home.

We talked to each other on a daily basis. We also continued chatting on AOL whenever we were both on at the same time. If I was planning on doing something in the evening, I could let her know so we could talk before I left or we could just let it wait until the next day. I was pretty much free to come and go as I pleased while I was in San Diego.

I continued to drive up to see her every three to four weeks. I didn't mind that I had to be the one to always travel to see her. And it seemed like the more I drove up there, the shorter amount of time it took. It was like I was going at warp speed speed because I would literally zone out and the next thing I knew, I was there. (However, this didn't work when I drove back home to San Diego for some reason.) And somehow, even though I was working at Walmart, I always had money for gas, food and other forms of entertainment. It was like taking mini-vacations to the Bay Area all the time. (I didn't even go to Vegas that often!)

There was even one time that I decided to drive up to San Jose on the spur of the moment. I had hoped that she would enjoy me making a surprise, unplanned visit (even if I was going to show up at 2am). I actually wasn't going to tell her anything until I got there. (But if she was happy I did that, I knew I had a keeper!) However, she actually called me about an hour after I left San Diego and asked what I was up to. (I guess she could tell I was driving.) I thought for a moment and decided it would be best not to absolutely surprise her. I told her I was on the way up the San Jose. She was indeed excited, because she was actually going to ask me to come up! She really missed me!

I do have to admit that everything was not always perfect between us. Regardless of if I was in San Diego or San Jose, we would still have occasional disagreements. It was never anything so major that I felt like the relationship was in danger, but they were common mistakes that I made in previous relationships. We were always able to work through them and still continue to love each other.

I still had a dilemma: How were we going to reconcile the distance? At some point, one of us was going to have to move to be with the other for the relationship to prosper. I really didn't want to have to be the one to move. I liked living in San Diego. I had friends and after ten years, I finally felt comfortable there. But I also recalled the disasters that took place when I took my former girlfriends away from their homes in order to assimilate into my lifestyle. Those just didn't work out.

I knew I was going to have to be the one to move this time.

However, we're not going to get to that on this blog for awhile. The posts that follow will give a general outline of the things Myz and I went through during the next year of our courtship. It literally all became a blur (because of the warp-speed drive) so I won't be going into detail about every single trip. I will give a lot of general anecdotes about certain milestones we approached.

Some interesting things did happen, but for the most part, it will be drama-free. Unlike those other situations that involved moving someone to be with me.

A Second Go-Round

After going back home from meeting Myz for the first time, I focused on trying to figure out when I could plan to drive back up to San Jose to see her again. We talked on the phone and/or chatted on AOL almost every day after I got back. This was going to be my first real attempt at a long-distance relationship.

One of the nice things about telling Myz "I love you" before I left is that I could go ahead and keep saying that anytime we were on the phone. It always felt appropriate to tell her and she would always say it back before we ended the calls. I was so glad that didn't backfire on me, because it easily could have

Before I came up the first time, she had only told her cousin Haad that I was coming up and spending the night. She said that Haad didn't really think I was there until she went into the bathroom and saw my toothbrush. (Either we were being very quiet or Haad is a sound sleeper!) Her other cousin Bind (Haad's younger brother) didn't know anything, period. And I didn't know if I would ever get to meet anyone from her family.

About a week later, I'd gotten my work schedule for the next two weeks and knew what my days off were going to be. We made plans for me to come up during that time. The only problem was that I had to work until 7pm the night before. This meant I wouldn't get there until at least 2am. She didn't seem to mind having to get out of bed at that time to let me in the house.

One of the good things about this upcoming visit is that I would spend two nights at her house. This meant that we could relax and not worry about trying to accomplish too much in such a small amount of time. I was also aware that because of this, it was possible that we would be making love during this visit (even though this prospect was not a part of any conversation), so I went out and bought some condoms just in case.

The second time driving up didn't seem to take so long. I guess it was because I didn't have this feeling of dread in the back of my mind like I'd had before. The nervousness had disappeared and I could concentrate more on enjoying the journey.

I remember arriving at the mobile home park, parking in the guest area and calling Myz to let her know I was there. I walked to the house and she was waiting outside. I felt my heart being lifted when I saw her and she smiled at me. We went inside, I went into the bathroom, changed my clothes and joined her in bed. We just made out for the next couple of hours before we finally fell asleep.

We didn't really do anything special this time. We just wanted to spend as much time with each other without worrying about when I was going to leave. I remember we were in the living room watching TV. We were making out and it started getting very passionate. All of a sudden, it felt like the same thought came across our minds at the exact same time. We both stood up and ran toward the bedroom. We made love.

Some time later, I had to get ready to leave. It was late in the afternoon. Myz said she needed to run to the store for something while I got my stuff ready to go. This meant I was alone in the house.

After I had packed my stuff, I waited for Myz to come back. A car drove up and parked in the driveway. I wondered if it was Myz. I could hear the sound of a woman getting out and talking on the phone. I figured out it wasn't Myz, but didn't realize this until it was too late to close the bedroom door. The driveway door opened. It was her cousin Haad. She saw me and said, "OH, MY GOD! Hang on! I have to call you back!" She hung up the phone and introduced herself. She kept talking through nervous laughter. It was a good thing she hadn't gotten home an hour earlier.

Myz came back. Myz spent some time talking to Haad before I had to go. I was beginning to wonder if there were really other people in the house because no one made any noise. You'd think that with as loud as Haad was talking with Myz (and on the phone before she came in the house), I'd be able to hear her all over the house.

Myz and I said goodbye. I didn't want to leave, but it was nice to know that I would be able to come back again in a few weeks. I had a lot more to look forward to.

Fayd vs. Encyclopedia Brown, Part 2

In last week's post, I expressed my frustration at not being able to solve Encyclopedia Brown mysteries when I was a kid. I decided to purchase and read an Encyclopedia Brown book to see if I could figure things out with my adult mind.

Donald J. Sobol continued to write the books for more than 30 years after I'd stopped. I had originally wanted to get one of the books from the 80s, which would have been close to the time that I had moved on. However, Amazon offered me a $5 credit and the only book I could get for that price was "Encyclopedia Brown: Super Sleuth" from 2009. (I really didn't want to spend any of my own money. I don't make money on this blog.)

The nice thing about having the book on the Kindle is that it made it harder to flip to the back of the book to read the solutions. Unfortunately, if other people who have purchased the book "mark" key phrases in the stories, those automatically show up in your copy. (I was able to turn that feature off when I discovered it.)

One of the things I noticed right away was that Sobol appeared to be writing the stories as if they still took place in the 70s. Nickels, dimes and quarters continue to be considered a lot of money for the kids. There's no mention of cell phones and a passing reference to a computer.

And I'd forgotten that Idaville, Encyclopedia's hometown, was supposedly known for being a place where no one, adult or child, ever got away with breaking the law. But I seriously doubt that they managed to catch every single shoplifter. I mean, how would a storekeeper know for certain that a crime had been committed if the thief was sneaky enough?

Another thing I noticed about the stories was that every time a perpetrator is confronted with the truth, he or she will immediately confess. As a child, I realized this gave me a very unrealistic view of how things work when someone is caught in a lie. In real life, the liar will immediately come up with some clever way to cover it up, or say he was mistaken or claim he misspoke. Not to mention that real criminals lawyer up right away. But I have to remember that these books are aimed at 10-year-old kids, who may have a simpler view of the truth.

However, the first story in the book appeared to take a surprising turn. It involved a suspect looking for loot that had been hidden in a hollow tree. A rookie officer is staking out the tree and as soon as someone approaches the tree, he jumps out and tries to arrest the man for the bank robbery. However, the man is smart. He says he was just walking by and they can't prove that he was looking for loot or was involved in the robbery. It looks like he's just going to walk away (without the loot). But Encyclopedia explains what's giving him away. The suspect immediately confesses. If this was real life, the suspect would declare that it wasn't evidence and wouldn't hold up in court. They couldn't have even asked for his ID and would have had to let him go.

So, how did I do? I did indeed manage to solve every single mystery and for the right reasons. (Hooray! 56-year-old me is smarter than 10-year-old me!) However, one of the stories was very ambiguous with how the clue was presented. In "The Case of the Stolen Moonstone," Bugs Meany accuses Encyclopedia of stealing a moonstone ring from the neighbor next door. Bugs claims that after leaving the scene of the crime, he walked up to his house, put his hands up to the window and peered into the dark room. Although Encyclopedia couldn't see him, Bugs could see the ring on his hand.

I found this very perplexing. I know that when I try to look into a darkened room, I press my hands up to the window above my eyes like this:

You can clearly see my wedding ring. And if there was a gem there, it could also be seen. However, according to the solution, Encyclopedia's palms were supposedly against the window, like this:

In this instance, you wouldn't have been able to see the gem. The story indicates that Bugs put his hands up to demonstrate. It doesn't say anything about what position his hands are in. And if he did have the palms facing out, even the officer he was talking to would have pointed out the flaw in his story without having to wait for Encyclopedia to defend himself.

But the biggest detail that got overlooked is that Bugs filed a false police report. A third party, whom Bugs manipulated into helping him accuse Encyclopedia of theft, did admit the truth, but Bugs never did. And since there's no indication that Bugs confessed or was charged with anything, that means he GOT AWAY WITH A CRIME!

But really, this isn't anything for me to be proud of. My enjoyment of the series during my youth did, however, help me in my pursuit to solve real-life mysteries, like figuring out how someone messed up something at work. That has become very useful.

A Sleepless Night

After our embrace in the Chuck E. Cheese parking lot, Myz asked me where I wanted to go. I suggested Denny's, which was right around the corner. She said she'd drive her car over there while I drove mine. Even though she appeared very happy to finally get to meet me face to face, I was still afraid she was going to use this as an excuse to just run off and leave me behind. I got in my car and she actually did drive and park at Denny's.

I was so glad that our date was continuing, I went up and embraced her again. We went inside, ordered some appetizers and drinks, and started talking. I told her about my ride up. She told me about how anxious she was during her class. She just couldn't wait for it to end.

One thing she told me was that her brother was no longer living at the house with her and her cousins. "Oh, do you want me to go ahead and sleep on the couch like we had originally planned?" "Oh, no! I don't want my cousins to see you. You can still sleep in my room." (Well, okay then.)

I don't remember everything else we talked about, but I do remember getting up and going to the bathroom. She was still there when I got back. Always a good sign.

We left Denny's and I followed her back to her house. Again, she did not try to ditch me. She drove into a mobile home park and went to a guest parking area where there was a playground. I parked my car, grabbed my bag and went into her car. We sat and talked a little bit longer. During this time, I started holding her hand. Almost immediately after I intertwined my fingers with hers, she says, "Wait a minute here," and removes her hand. Uh-oh! Did I do this too soon? She reached and got a tube of lotion. She squirted some on her hand and started massaging mine. "This is something I learned in my massage therapy class!"

We talked a little bit longer as she continued the hand massage. She then had to do the other hand. It was nice. She said, "I think my cousins are asleep now." Myz drove her car over to their mobile home. We got out and went inside. Her bedroom was across from the driveway door. She pointed where the bathroom was. I grabbed my toothbrush, toothpaste and sleeping clothes (a t-shirt and the sweat pants from my Halloween costume) and went into the bathroom. After changing clothes, brushing my teeth and using the bathroom, I left my toothbrush and toothpaste on the sink and went back into the bedroom. I was aware there were other people in the house, but I couldn't hear them.

We got into bed and laid down. We told each other good night. I started kissing her on the lips. We continued making out for the next couple of hours before we finally fell asleep.

We woke up a few hours later. We were still tired. Myz asked me if I still wanted to go to Monterey. I said it would be a good idea if we left the house, but I was still really tired from having to drive the day before and I was going to have to drive home again later that day. I was going to have to take a nap in her car while we drove down. I didn't like that I couldn't be 100% alert during this time, but she didn't seem to mind. I tried to sleep on the drive down, but I was not able to conk out before we got there.

She asked me if I wanted to see Cannery Row. I don't know if she knew this, but I really liked that novel by John Steinbeck. I was expecting the area to resemble the description in the book, but the whole area looked like Toon Town with a drive through. It was a tourist trap, like Seaport Village in San Diego, but on a much larger scale. Where did all the winos go?

We also walked around the wharf for a little bit. We went up to one of those photo booths to get our picture taken. She asked me to choose a background. I chose the one that said, "I (heart) You." She didn't say anything when I picked that. We posed and had the photo taken. We had two copies made. (It's interesting, because a lot of photo booths don't have the option for making more than one copy.)

We drove back to San Jose. We were definitely enjoying our time together. We went back to her house and into her bedroom. While we were making out, we started engaging in activity of a sexual nature. I was surprised at how fast this was moving along. She asked me if I wanted to spend the night that night and wake up early enough to make it in time for work the next day. I was very tempted. I think I was scheduled to start at 4pm, but I didn't want to risk trying to drive all day and then trying to summon up the energy to work an eight hour shift, especially after I had gotten little sleep the night before and expected to get the same amount that night. I had to tell her no, but I definitely wanted to come back up in a few weeks. She seemed disappointment, but said she understood.

As I got ready to leave and we were saying our goodbyes, I had trouble coming up with a way to close this incredible time together. I pulled a Ted Mosby: "I love you!"

She hesitated for a moment, then she said, "I love you, too." But I didn't hear 100% confidence in her voice. I think she didn't really know what to say, either.

"I'll see you soon. I promise."

As I left, I hoped I hadn't just ended the relationship.

It turns out I hadn't.

The Road to Romance

The day I was going to drive up to San Jose to meet Myz was quickly coming up. I had gotten all of my affairs in order in the event that I never returned.

Then a new situation arose just a couple of days before our date: Myz informed me that her younger brother (the one NOT in a Vietnamese gang) had moved into the cousins' house and was sleeping in the living room. That meant that I wouldn't have a place to sleep. This put me in a real bad place. I mean, I had enough money to pay for stuff like gas, food and other activities. But I sure didn't have enough for a motel room.

I brought up the possibility that I may have to sleep in my car somewhere up there. But she said, "No, you can just sleep in the bed with me." WHAT?

At this point, I felt like it was REALLY too good to be true. I mean, this NEVER happens to me. We had spent a lot of time talking on the phone and she knew a lot about me. While I felt I knew enough about her, it kept seeming more and more like I was being set up. But if the worst that happened to me was getting beaten up and having my car stolen, then I would have learned something and never made this mistake again.

Finally, the day arrived. Even though I was nervous about what was going to happen, I was still able to get a good night's sleep. I wasn't going to leave San Diego until 12pm. This would be a good time to drive up as I would have an easy go in traffic through Los Angeles.

I don't recall anything eventful taking place along the way. I stopped to fill up with gas in a small town called Buttonwillow. I came up with a good joke to remember the town. "Check out the Butt on Willow!" (I was a big "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" fan at the time.)

The entire way up, I was excited and nervous. I kept thinking that if I didn't get killed, the second worst thing would have been for her not to like me and just abandon me on the date. I knew that this was far more likely to happen.

I stopped at a restaurant called Apricot Tree in Firebaugh. This was a small town that was basically just a rest stop off the highway. There were several restaurants and gas stations in this one small area. I ate a meal of biscuits and gravy. I was expecting that I would get something to eat with Myz later, so I just wanted something light. At this point, I was still 100 miles from San Jose, but four hours away from the time we were expecting to meet. That meant I was going to have to kill some time once I got there. Still, it was going to be best to arrive early in case any obstacles got in my way up there. (As smooth as driving through LA was, I just KNEW there was going to be some major accident clogging up I-5 on the way up!)

I got more excited as I got closer to San Jose. I drove through the town of Gilroy. I'd known about Gilroy, because when I worked at the Hillcrest Cinemas, we were always shipping films to a warehouse there. I was not aware of the Gilroy Garlic Festival at the time, but boy, could I smell garlic all over the place!

Coming into San Jose on Highway 101, I saw an exit that led to Hellyer Avenue. I thought about Myz' celebrity crush on Stone Cold Steve Austin and thought, "Hell Yeah Avenue!" Very soon, I came up on Tully Road around 7:30pm. Since I was still a couple of hours early, I decided to park and scope out the area. I drove into the Chuck E. Cheese parking lot.

I called and left a message for Myz to let her know I was in town. I was kind of hoping maybe she didn't go to class and would just come meet me right away. After a few minutes, she didn't return my call. I decided to go exploring. I noticed there was a Denny's nearby. I figured that was where we would go get something to eat. (At this point, I had heard about the reputation of Chuck E. Cheese pizza. I commonly referred to it as UpChuck E. Cheese. I was NOT planning on eating there.)

I drove down Tully Road to see what else was there. I remember going to a Blockbuster video and checking out the titles they had. One of the surprising things they had was the original DVD version of "Tron." I had the newest edition that had come out. I was surprised to see how barebones the packaging was.

I kept driving down Tully until I got to Eastridge Mall. I noticed it was a large open area with a parking lot. I didn't go into the mall because it apparently close to closing time. I decided to go to McDonald's and get a soda. While I was drinking out in the parking lot, Myz called. She was still in class, but was about to leave. She knew I had left a message and she couldn't wait for class to end so she could call me. She would be at Chuck E. Cheese in about 30 minutes. I started driving back.

I parked again in the lot and started walking around. I noticed there were a couple of guys hanging around across the street. They were just loitering. I felt like they were getting ready for something to go down. But if they were going to do something to me, it wouldn't make sense for them to wait for Myz to arrive. But I really had no idea how these things worked. I did notice that Chuck E. Cheese closed at 9pm. Maybe they were waiting for that, so I wouldn't have a safe place to run to.

Eventually, I saw a car drive into the lot. It was just as she described, but the license wasn't personalized. What I did see was a decorative license plate in her windshield that said "Austin 3:16." If I was going to get attacked, that information wouldn't have provided any guidance for the investigators.

Myz got out of her car and was very excited to see me. She came up and gave me a hug. While we were embracing, I was looking over my shoulder to see if anyone was coming up from behind. Nope, all clear!

"And that, Boyd, is the true story of how Mommy and I got together."

"Great, Dad. Are we done?"

"Oh, we're not even close!"

"..."

What's the worst that could happen?

After a few weeks of AOL chats and phone conversations, Myz and I decided to actually meet in person. When I knew my days off from Walmart a couple of weeks in advance, we started making plans for me to drive up. (While you never knew way in advance when your two days off each week were going to be at Walmart, they were almost always consecutive.)

One issue was that she had a massage therapy class the night I had planned to drive up and wouldn't get out until after 9pm. This didn't really give us much time for a actual date. Since it was going to take me about eight or nine hours to drive to San Jose from San Diego, it meant that I was going to have to spend the night there. I didn't have enough money for a motel, so she said I could sleep in the living room where she lived. (She lived with her cousins.)

We also made plans to drive down to Monterey the next day so she could show me where she used to live with her parents. (She didn't have class that day.) I expected that I would be leaving around 3pm to get back home in time to be at work the next day. It seemed like we were going to be cramming a lot in such a short time frame.

This was the plan for meeting: I would arrive in San Jose, call her and leave a message that I was there. I would then wait for her to call me. We would meet in the Chuck E. Cheese parking lot off Highway 101 and Tully Road. After that, we would figure out where we were going to go for our date. We were probably just going to get something to eat.

There was no guarantee that any of it was going to happen. She could have decided not to meet me after I'd gotten there. This was going to be a big risk.

But for me, there was an even bigger risk. With what she had said about her brother being in a gang and what I had read about there being a problem with Vietnamese gangs in San Jose, I started fearing that I was being set up to be beaten up and have my car stolen. I was also afraid that I was going to get murdered, or at the very least, left unconscious with no one to help me get to a hospital. Even though I was willing to take this risk, I needed to take measures to ensure that someone didn't get away with it.

I wrote a letter that I would leave on top of my computer in my apartment. If someone was going to investigate my murder (or find out why I was in a coma), I knew this was the first place they would go. The letter included instructions to turn on the computer. The first thing they would see was a photo of the suspect. The letter contained as many details as I could provide. One problem was that while I knew her first name, she never gave me her last name. I included her age, phone number, a description of her car, with the possibility that it had a license plate that read something like "AUSTN 316." (You can only have up to eight characters on a California license plate, so I knew there was no way it actually said, "Austin 3:16.")

I also took a copy of the letter to Abed and Pesd. When I told them them that Myz was 21, Pesd said, "Wow, she's younger than me." (And I need to go off on a tangent here: Pesd had a lot of really cute friends. I was always disappointed that she never thought to try to fix any of them up with me. Maybe she didn't think I was interested in anyone that young. But one of them was a single mother. She couldn't have even thought she was appropriate?)

I knew I might be walking into the biggest mistake of my life. But I also knew that it would be an even bigger mistake if I didn't follow through on it.

There will be more tomorrow.

Fayd vs. Encyclopedia Brown, Part 1

I did quite a bit of reading before I was a teenager. I had a tendency to read material aimed at kids, now referred to as "Juvenile Fiction." I was never the type of person to read things that were considered advanced for my age. I didn't read classic stuff, like Charles Dickens or William Shakespeare. I mostly focused on age-appropriate books.

But there was one book series that ALWAYS caused me frustration. It was Donald J. Sobol's "Encyclopedia Brown."

The stories are about a 10-year-old boy named Leroy Brown, who had read and memorized the entire encyclopedia. He was supposedly so smart that he could figure out the solution to any kind of caper that was taking place in his hometown just by listening to people give details about how incidents had played out. Between 1974 and 1977, I probably read the first 13 books in the series. And for the life of me, I could not solve a single one of the mysteries.

This was irritating to me. I figured I was as smart as Encyclopedia Brown. So I was bewildered as to why I couldn't figure any of the stories out. Even worse was that there were a couple of stories in which I SHOULD HAVE KNOWN the solution. One involved a cave drawing showing a man fighting a dinosaur. I KNEW THAT DINOSAURS AND HUMANS DIDN'T EXIST AT THE SAME TIME! HOW DID I BLOW THAT?

I guess the main problem was that the answers were easily accessible at the end of the book. I couldn't wait to read the answer, so I would just turn to the back to get the end of the story. If I had been more patient and taken the time to re-read the story and look for clues, I likely could have solved them on my own. I was able to determine which passages were important, but never could reach that "Aha" moment that I was looking for.

Reading the books kind of provided a level of wish fulfillment for me. I could identify with someone who was very smart, but still had to go to regular school like everyone else. In any other reality, Encyclopedia Brown would have been enrolled in some school for genius kids and he would have already have finished high school. He also never got beat up, even when thwarting the plans of the local bullies. While the books attribute this to the presence of Sally as his bodyguard, you can also bet that the fact that he was the Police Chief's son played a big part.

I stopped reading the books in 1977. At that point, I was two years older than the main character and had no interest in reading about someone who was younger and smarter than me.

But there were a few things that bothered me while reading the stories and the answers. Sometimes, it seemed like the author wasn't playing fair and would be rather ambiguous about the depth of Brown's expertise.

For starters, there was one story that involved a suspect who explained that he was holding some object in his right hand, and while he was running, he put the object in his left pocket. The answer stated that it was impossible for someone to put their right hand into their left pocket while running. (And if you're thinking "Challenge Accepted," the boy in question also had his left arm in a sling. This means that he would have had to reach over his left arm to get into the pocket.) Let's be clear, that is not in any encyclopedia. And I'm surprised we haven't seen that scenario play out on "Mythbusters."

And there were also "set up" situations, in which Encyclopedia would lay out a trap. One involved a character named Algernon. When confronting someone and introducing him as "Al," the bully claims to have never met him. However, he tells someone else his name is Algernon. At the time, I didn't get what happened until I read the solution. Another time, he tried to catch a bully who stole money from kids. The bully would always say that he asked for change and the victim lost his money in the sewer. The set up involved the victim having an amount that would not produce exact change. Again, this was not something in an encyclopedia.

I also recall the contest mysteries that involved cheating. One was an egg-spinning contest in which the cheater was using hard-boiled eggs instead of raw eggs. Later, I would think that since that was an easy way to cheat, why would the organizers allow participants to bring their own eggs? And if they did, why didn't they try to crack open the eggs after the spinning had completed just to make sure they were raw?

And there was another contest that involved drinking terrible-tasting concoctions. In this instance, participants had to drink something that tasted like a "mustard bath." (What, did they combine mustard with soap?) The boy who won every year was seen sucking on an ice cube because of the hot weather. However, Encyclopedia determined that he was cheating by using the ice cube to desensitize his taste buds. Today, I maintain that if there was no rule against consuming ice cubes in the contest, then he wasn't technically cheating. However, I soon discovered that ice cubes don't really freeze your taste buds and I could still taste food that I thought was yucky!

But because I couldn't figure any of this out on my own as a kid, I started wondering lately if I could solve Encyclopedia Brown mysteries today, with 45 years' life experience behind me. I decided to do an experiment. I bought a Kindle book on Amazon to see if I had what it took.

I'll give the results next Friday.

Internet Tease #4: Riez

Before things started going full steam with Myz, I was continuing to see if there was someone in San Diego that I would be able to meet on-line. I was still excited about the prospect of meeting Myz in person, but I was concerned about having to drive all the way up to San Jose and was also thinking that maybe I needed to meet someone closer to my own age. This was what I was striving for. It wasn't like I was targeting women in their 20s, but they seemed to be the only women who showed any interest in me.

I came across Riez on AOL. I don't remember which chat room (but it was probably one of the "Big and Beautiful" ones). She was 35 years old and lived in San Diego. I don't remember too much about her. I do recall that she seemed to think I was very funny while we were chatting. I had actually gotten rather good at being clever when chatting on-line and I guess she liked my sense of humor. Once she suggested that we go get ice cream. I told her that I was up for that. "Are you serious?" I actually thought we were going to meet.

I guess she decided not to meet right then and there, but did ask me to send her a picture of me. I sent the two photos that were stored on the computer. She sent me a couple of photos of her. I recall that one of the photos showed her with a big smile. I commented that she had nice teeth. The other one almost looked like a photo on an ID badge. She appeared to be someone that Fraz would take an interest in. I wasn't ready to go down that road again, so I decided that if we became involved, I would delay her meeting Fraz as long as possible.

I gave Riez my phone number and told her she could call me. I was expecting her to call me right away. But she didn't. In fact, she didn't call me until the next day.

By this point, I had already started on the plans to drive up to San Jose to meet Myz. I was actually becoming invested in this. This may have been on my mind when my phone rang. The person on the other end said, "Is this Fayd?" "Yes, it is." "Do you know who this is?" (Great... Someone playing Internet Roulette, but I knew this couldn't be anyone else.) "Is this Riez?" "Yes, it is!"

I know that I was not being as clever or funny on the phone as I had been during our chats. And I know I can easily do that over the phone. But with her not really being that attractive and her not giving me enough to work with, the conversation just fell flat. We were only on the phone for about five minutes before she said she had to go. I guess it was better that I disappointed her then instead of later. It allowed me to concentrate my efforts on meeting Myz.

I don't know her last name, so I have no idea where she is now. I was just glad she didn't get in the way of me taking my next big risk.

More on that Monday.

Red Flags a Flyin'

After my first online chat with Myz, I couldn't wait for the next chance to connect with her. It seemed like she was very interested in me.

I was concerned about what would happen if we decided to meet in person. I looked up how far away San Jose was from San Diego. It was about 450 miles. That meant at least an eight-hour drive. On top of that, I would have to drive through Los Angeles on I-5 to get there, so that could cause it to take even longer.

I had added her screen name to the list of contacts I wanted to see when they became active on AOL. I hoped that she would be looking forward to hearing from me, too. Over the next couple of days, I didn't see her log on while I was on. Then one day, she IM'd me. It was great that she reached out to me! However, I noticed that she didn't show up on my "active" list. Did she block me from being able to see when she was on-line? Why did she do that if she liked me?

Whatever. I was just happy she didn't completely disappear. We chatted for a short period of time. But she wrote something that was a little strange. She made reference to her sister. Wait, she only mentioned that she had two brothers, but no sister. I pointed out that she hadn't mentioned the sister the day before. She clarified that her sister was her older brother's girlfriend and they had a child together. Even though they weren't married, she considered her a sister.

Okay, so I was starting to wonder if this was the tip of an iceberg, like with Molz. Was this going to be another situation in which I might be subjected to a Spanish Prisoner scheme? The problem was that everything else she said seemed so genuine. I wanted her to be real. I just had to figure out how much caution to use moving forward. How would I know for certain?

This chat got cut short because of a problem with the computer. I wasn't able to save it.

We would continue the on-line chatting for the next couple of weeks. Another thing I learned about her that caused me some distress was that she was into pro wrestling. (What is it with so many women I meet being into pro wrestling?) She was a big fan of Stone Cold Steve Austin. She said she had videos, a poster and a license plate that said "Austin 3:16." (At the time, I didn't know what it meant. While writing this, I decided to look that up. It was not what I was expecting.)

Eventually, she sent me her photograph. She was very cute, with a round face, long black hair and a little mole above her lip. I responded that I thought she was beautiful. She said no one had told her that before. (I'm certain that wasn't true.) I sent her my picture. She said, "Not bad." (But I wasn't certain if she really liked what she saw. However, she considered to chat with me, so I guess my appearance wasn't an obstacle. But if a con is going on, the level of attractiveness is the last thing that's going to bring the scheme to an end.)

There was another issue that was concerning. She told me that her older brother had been involved in a gang in Monterey and had gotten in trouble with the law before. But he was doing what he could now to stay clean. I looked up Vietnamese gangs in San Jose on the Internet and found there was a real problem with them in the area. I started getting worried about this prospect. I didn't know how protective he was of his sister and maybe he might not like her dating someone who was considerably older.

Eventually, I got up the guts to ask her if she wanted to talk on the phone. She excitedly said yes and gave me her number. She told me that I needed to be prepared because she sounded really young. I called her up and she answered. The first thing that struck me was that she didn't have an accent. When she told me during the first chat that she was Americanized, I guess this was what she meant. (To be honest, it was hard to tell from the chats. She didn't use punctuation and had a lot of mispelled and shortened versions of words. it was like she was typing with an accent.)

We talked and had a very good conversation. A lot of the fears I had about her being genuine were generally laid to rest. However, I knew I had to continue being cautious. We were obviously heading toward finding a way to meet each other. I knew that I was going to have to drive all the way to San Jose to make that happen. I didn't think we were going to be able to arrange to meet halfway in the middle of California.

That little adventure is coming up.

Just an average evening on AOL

After losing a good job, having to move out of my apartment and in with friends, and resorting to taking a almost-minimum wage job at Walmart, I did not consider myself in any condition to try to meet any women. I was in such a bad place that my prospects were limited to those who were in even worse places. I devoted my time to trying to improve my lot in life. I needed more confidence or else I risked making things worse.

By March of 2002, I had health insurance, moved into my own apartment and started feeling good about myself. so I decided to try my hand again at meeting someone on AOL. It was going to be the usual routine: I would enter a chat room, try to connect with someone who lived in Southern California, start chatting and see where that would go. I had done fairly well prior to losing my job, except that I never go to meet anyone in person. I only got as far as phone conversations.

On the night of March 10th, I went into a "Big and Beautiful" room. I participated in the general chat for a bit. Then I asked if anyone in the room was from Southern California. One woman responded and said she was from San Jose. No one else in the room mentioned where they were from, so I figured she was the only one from California in there.

I IM'd her and started by saying San Jose was close enough. I asked her how old she was. She said she was 21. I had to hesitate here. I didn't know if I should tell her my real age. I was afraid that if I did, she would reject me right away. However, if I lied to her and had to tell her the truth later, she would probably reject me then. Since she lived so far away, I figured I would get the rejection now and I could just move on to the next attempt at romance.

I told her I was 37. She didn't seem to have a problem with that. I was relieved that the conversation was going to continue.

She hold me her name was Myz. She was originally from Monterey. She had two brothers, one older and one younger. She was currently taking classes to become a massage therapist. It was her dream to be able to make enough money to be able to provide for her parents. She wanted to be able to buy them their own home and something like a laundromat that they could operate as a business and make their living that way.

I thought this was all very ambitious. I was ashamed to tell her that I worked at Walmart. I told her that I worked in retail. If she pressed for more details, I would have told her who I worked for, but fortunately, she didn't ask anything further about it.

Later on during the chat, she mentioned something to the effect that she was Asian. This IMMEDIATELY got my attention. But I remember getting burned by Niz, so I wanted to make sure we were both on the same page as to what her definition of "Asian" was. I asked her what her ancestral background was. She said both her parents were from Vietnam. I responded, "That's Asian alright!" But she qualified it by saying that she was Americanized. I wasn't certain what that was all about, but things were definitely looking up.

When we both decided to bring the conversation to a close, I told her I hoped to be able to chat again with her in the future. She said she also hoped to find me on-line again. I was really feeling optimistic about this. So optimistic, in fact, that I did something I'd never done before. I actually saved our chat. I had a very strong feeling this was leading somewhere.

And it turned out, I was right.

Girlfriend #8 (A Prelude)

Romantically speaking, I'm about to enter the last phase of my life on this blog. This means an end to all the girlfriends, friend zones, ring zones, Mistops, Lostops, etc. I can't possibly keep you in suspense. The next woman I write about will be the one I wound up marrying and having a child with.

As I indicated in a previous post, I was about to give up on this prospect. In fact, I had my sights set on just dating without any serious commitments. But that all changed sooner than I expected. Actually, it was within ten days after I came up with the plan to send letters confirming my bachelorhood.

I'll be going into more details about everything that happened during my posts for the next few weeks. I still have plenty to say about my experience working for Walmart. (I've barely scratched the surface.) I also wound up with a few different employers in the next few years, so it's not all going to be about one person (although I could easily make it that way).

Before all this happened, I was in a bad place. I was barely scraping by and I had to depend on the hospitality of my friends Abed and Pesd to provide me with a place to live. I couldn't imagine any woman wanting to have anything to do with me, so I wasn't even going to start trying to find someone to be with. I truly didn't have anything to offer outside my 10% Walmart discount.

But once I got my own apartment, my confidence in myself was restored and I was able to start hunting for a girlfriend on the Internet. I didn't waste much time on that.

However, the big question for me moving forward was, "What name am I going to use to refer to my wife on this blog?" On Facebook, I've only ever referred to her as "Ms. Ogolon" without providing her first name. It doesn't make sense to call her "Ms. Ogolon" on this blog when detailing our courtship because we weren't married yet. And I'm not going to call her "The Future Ms. Ogolon." That's just going to use up too many keystrokes.

So, what is her name going to be? It's "Myz." She will eventually become "Myz Ogolon."

She will constitute "Girlfriend #8." Since this subject on the blog will have no end, I'm not going to title the articles "Girlfriend #8: Myz (Part 1)." They will each have their own titles.

I do have to let you know from the start that there isn't going to be a lot of drama, like I had with previous girlfriends. That's actually a good thing, because I didn't think a lot of drama was a very good foundation for a marriage.

And it all begins tomorrow.

Going Down in The Flame

For most of the time I lived in San Diego, I was aware of "The Flame," a lesbian bar near the intersection of Park Blvd. and University Ave. As I had acknowledged before, I had a fascination with lesbians. However, I knew that I could never walk in there all by myself. I didn't want to be seen as one of "those guys" who hope to hook up with someone not attracted to his gender. (But goodness knows I attempted to do this before.)

One Saturday, Fraz and I had planned to go see Angelic perform music at the Hazard Center that night. She asked me if I wanted to go with her to hang out at the Flame beforehand. Yes, I was very much interested.

We got there early in the evening. There weren't a lot of people there. I was somewhat surprised at the interior. All the walls were painted black and it was kind of dark. It almost didn't feel like a lively atmosphere. (As more people arrived, that would change.) However, the people who were there at the time were grouped together and seemed to be having positive discussions. I did my best to look casual and avoid any appearance that I might have been staring.

Fraz and I took seats at the bar since it seemed like all the booths and tables were occupied and we didn't know anyone there. Fraz ordered some kind of alcoholic drink. I just ordered a Coke. Fraz started a kind of open conversation with a couple of other women sitting a few feet away from us at opposite sides of the bar.

For both of these women, it was their first time going inside a lesbian bar. They were both in their 30s, married to men and wanted to explore some feelings they had regarding their sexuality. They didn't know each other before.

One of them I'll refer to as "Alice." This was the name she gave, but I don't think it was her real name (which is why I'm using an actual name). She made a reference to being "Alice in Wonderland." She was from out of town on a business trip. She had discussed the possibility she was attracted to women with her husband. He said he didn't have a problem with her seeing what it was like to be with a woman. I asked if he was thinking about the possiblity of a threesome. She said, "No, he told me there was no point in being with two women who didn't like what he was doing."

The other I'll call Suld. She came to The Flame because her husband was out of town. She appeared to be very cautious about getting to know anyone. However, the four of us kind of grouped together at the bar and Fraz was more than happy to discuss her experiences (without getting into a lot of graphic detail).

During the next couple of hours, some women would stop by and talk to Fraz, Alice and Suld. They appeared to be very engaged as the conversations opened up. There was this one woman named Sterd. She acted rather masculine and outgoing. She was almost like a guy coming in trying to pick up on women. She said she was 50 years old, but she really didn't look it. She had a really good tan and I thought that if she was really that old, her skin should be showing more signs of age if she was spending that much time out in the sun. (However, I have since gotten to know a lot of people in their 50s who managed to escape the obvious signs they had been around a while.)

Fraz suggested that the four of us go to the Hazard Center together to see Angelic's show, since she was a lesbian. Suld rode with me and Fraz while Alice took her own car and followed us. (And I don't recall if Alice had any alcohol.) We managed to not lose her. The performance was held outdoors on the plaza and we were able to find a table to sit at. After the show, Angelic came over and sat with us. After she left, Alice talked about being approached by Sterd. She said she wasn't attracted to her, but when Sterd ran her hand up and down her arm, she found that she enjoyed that feeling.

We drove back to The Flame. Alice mingled around. Suld ordered a drink and was sitting next to me at the bar. She asked me a few general questions about myself. I recalled getting a close look at Suld's mouth. Her teeth had these dark areas next to the gum line. I remember thinking that she was presentable, but probably used to be very pretty. She then asked to give me a massage. I thought this was kind of weird and was wondering if she was hitting on me. I mean, I enjoyed the massage, but I knew it wasn't going to go any further than that. I wasn't desperate enough to hook up with a drunk married woman who wasn't sure about what she wanted to do while her husband was away.

Later a tall, butch woman came by and started talking to Fraz and Suld. (By this time, I had completely lost track of Alice. I never saw her again.) This woman was on the skinny side, but said she worked as a security guard someplace in town. (I'm just going to call her Guard.) Fraz and Suld seemed really taken with Guard. I tried not to pay much attention to what they were talking about and focused on watching the TV with closed-captioning. (It was the VH-1 documentary about TLC.) I later turned around and saw Fraz and Suld move in to kiss each other. Guard was standing there and had a big smile on her face, like she had coordinated that. This was the only time I'd ever seen Fraz kiss another woman. (Or for that matter, anyone.) I know I kept on watching that happen and didn't seem to care if anyone could see how wide my eyes were.

Before I knew it, it was 2am and we had to leave The Flame. Suld and Guard started walking south on Park Blvd. They were arm in arm. Fraz was walking right behind them shouting and trying to find out where they were going. The next thing I knew, a very attractive tall blonde woman grabbed Fraz by the arm. I thought, "Wow! The lesbians just start picking anybody up at the end of the night!" But she was actually one of the noise enforcers for the apartment building next door. She just wanted to tell Fran that everyone needed to keep the sound level down when leaving because it disturbed the residents who lived there.

Fraz asked her if she was a lesbian. "No, I'm just here to try to keep everyone quiet while they leave the bar." Fraz was rather disappointed. She thought she was leveling up from Suld and Guard.

(And I have to go off on a tangent here: The people who move into this apartment building have to be aware they're living next to a popular bar and that there's going to be a lot of noise every night at 2am. There really should be no need for people who don't live there to hush the crowd. The patrons are going to make noise no matter what and I can't imagine telling everyone to be quiet is going to make that much of a difference. In fact, the people yelling "Be quiet!" were probably louder than the rest of the crowd.)

We didn't see where Suld and Guard went after that. After we found my car, Fraz told me that if that woman hadn't grabbed her, she would have gone with Suld and Guard. Fraz also told me that when I had gone to the bathroom while I was at the Hazard Center, both Alice and Suld asked about me and Fraz' relationship with me. They wondered if I was gay and if that was why I was at a lesbian bar. I get the idea she didn't exactly deny that.

Within the next week, Fraz had heard about something interesting that happened. After spending the night with Guard, Suld wanted to leave her husband. She wanted to be with Guard. But Guard wasn't looking for a relationship. Suld still wanted to leave her husband.

Fraz and I went to The Flame again the next Saturday. It wasn't quite as big an adventure, but we did run into Guard. She actually went with us to check out some live music at Twigg's Coffee Shop up the street. The inside was packed, so we hung around outside. Guard was telling me that she wasn't looking into commitments, especially with Suld. She just wanted a good time. Then she made reference to how she had other clients. (What? She was a professional lesbian?) I didn't probe further about that. We all drove back to The Flame later. I don't recall Fraz and I sticking around as long that night.

The Flame closed years ago. They've been trying to redevelop the area into an apartment building.

So, we never saw Alice, Suld or Guard again. But that was a night that appeared to change a lot of lives.

A letter to my relatives

I've mentioned before how, for most of my life, there was a lot of pressure put on me to get married. A lot of this came from my Mom, Grandma Bend (her mother) and Aunt Cind (her sister). Usually, at some point during a family gathering, one or more of them would make some comment about me needing to get married. Sometimes, I would think I could clear a visit without this topic being brought up, only to have one of them mention it when I was saying goodbye.

Something I noticed recently is that the majority of my Mom's male cousins could be described as nerdy, geeky, dorky, twerpy, etc. (Pretty much how you would describe me.) In fact, there was probably only one alpha male out of the whole bunch and a couple of betas. Everyone else was pure gamma. But they all found someone to marry early in their adult lives. For the most part, they managed to meet someone willing to be with them during college and pretty much stuck with that one person.

So yeah, this is what I figured was going to happen to me. I thought I would start dating someone in college and we'd like each other well enough to decide to get married before we graduated. We'd be following the same path that my parents did. In addition, my three older cousins, Wend, Sted and Grad, each got married before they finished college. And this appears to be what my Mom imagined was going to be my path. I guess we both just figured things were going to just happen that way, that nature would just take its course.

Because of this, no one considered putting any effort into making me suitable husband material. Now, having been married for more than 13 years, I look back and I know there was NO WAY I was ready for marriage at that age. What were they thinking?

But the scary thing is that, if I'd had a real girlfriend during college, I probably would have married her. I'll admit that I thought that Loz would have made a good wife candidate when I dated her, but my unintentional stalker behavior ruined that for me. (Again, some general guidance from my parents might have helped here.)

And of course, there was Biz, the only other woman in college who I know liked me. If I hadn't known her from Artesia before, I probably would have said to myself, "Well, it's not going to get any better than this," and gotten involved with her. That would have led to us getting married sometime after I graduated.

After this, I had a succession of girlfriends (already noted in this blog). With each one, I became less and less convinced that I would ever meet anyone who could be considered suitable for marriage. In fact, with my last couple of relationships, I refrained from bringing up the topic. It just seemed like they were going to come to an end, with or without my participation.

In March of 2002, I was 2 1/2 years away from turning 40 years old. I started to realize I had no prospects on the horizon for marriage. I knew that if I hit 40 without having met someone who would make a suitable wife candidate, I was probably never going to get married.

I really didn't have a problem with this. While I always struggled to keep a roof over my head and avoid starvation, I was fine not involving another person in my misery. I was prepared to go through the rest of my life alone if it had to come to that. I knew I would still date and continue to have relationships, but I would no longer attempt to force them to take the path that would lead to us being together forever. And at this time, I was working at Walmart, so I know I didn't have much to offer as a potential husband.

However, I knew this revelation would not sit well with Mom, Grandma Bend and Aunt Cind. If I didn't do something, they would continue to hound me about marriage until they all passed on. I could not live the rest of my life waiting to get an emotional sucker punch at all future family gatherings.

I planned to combat this by writing a letter to each of them. I would plan it out so that the letters would arrive on what would be my 40th birthday in September of 2004.

While I never did actually sit down and write those letters, I pretty much knew what they would say. What follows is an approximation of everything I wanted to express at the time:

"Dear Mom, Grandma Bend and Cind,

"Today is my 40th birthday. I wanted to send you a letter to express gratitude for how much you love me and want the best for me.

"However, this birthday is going to be a very painful one for me. I have decided to give up on trying to get married.

"Let's face it: in 25 years of dating, I have not come across one woman who was capable of becoming a member of our family. (And goodness knows you've all met most of them.) Each of them had a whole host of problems that could not be overcome by simply loving them. I do not consider any of my ex-girlfriends as 'the one who got away.' To me, they're all 'glad they got away.'

"The worst part about this is that I feel like I've let you down. You were all looking forward to being able to welcome someone who would bring new family to your homes. I wanted that, too. And I know you feel like there isn't any reason why I wasn't able to find that special person, but things just didn't turn out that way. There wasn't anything I could do to make myself appear more desirable and no matter how much I went after the women slightly out of my league, I always had to settle for the ones who required damage control.

"So I have one request of you going forward: Please do not talk about the prospect of me getting married ever again. It's hurt in the past when you've done it and I've just been too nice to say anything about it. It's going to hurt even more now, to the point that if any of you bring up the subject, I will get up and leave to avoid discussing it further.

"And if you think you can circumvent this by doing what you've done before and mention something when I'm saying goodbye, I may never come back to see you again. I really mean it when I say it's that painful.

"I hope you understand and will honor my request. I do look forward to being able to visit you again and discuss more pleasant subjects.

"Love, Fayd."

As it turned out, I never had to send anything out for my 40th birthday.

Fayd vs. The Fireworks Factory

I never expected to go more than a year and a half between posts. I feel bad about neglecting the blog. While I can easily say that I've been stressed out by work all this time, it's only partly true.

The real fact of the matter is that I'm about to embark on being a true grown-up. All that wacky and wild stuff that happened to me when I was younger kind of made me want to stop getting into those kinds of situations anymore.

I enjoyed doing the blog because even I was astounded by all of the messes I had gotten myself into, with crazy ex-girlfriends, dead end jobs and a string of cars that constantly broke down. Somehow I lived through it all. But I was just about done taking chances. I was lucky to still be alive after all that.

So, to use a "Simpsons" metaphor, I've about run out of fireworks factories to get to. I had so many of them before. I couldn't wait to finish with one just so I could get to the next one. If you found them exciting to read, I found them exciting to write.

And I am excited to write about the final phases of my life. I have to figure out a good stopping point. Everytime I think I have finished all my milestones, I always keep hitting more and more. I'm also afraid that if I end the blog, that will mean I no longer exist on a physical plane. (Sometimes, I already feel like that.)

There will definitely be stuff worth reading coming up. I hope you'll all be interested in the real adult period of my life. I know I was never ready for it before.