Grand Romantic Delusions Chapter 04: The Breakdown

     It's a terrible thing, the public eye. 

     Once you have its attention, your life is no longer your own. It scrutinizes you with its x-ray vision, digging into your past, affecting your future, poring over your very soul—and invariably, it finds you wanting.

     The mainstream media or MSM* is always looking for a narrative to catch the interest of the reader, viewer or (more likely these days) the half-listener. And if your life doesn't live up to those expectations, you're a disappointment to society. So what were we supposed to do? After all that happened to us; after the rescue efforts and the TV coverage, we didn't really have a choice. I think we both knew it wasn't the best decision, but at the end of the day, we knew we had to get married.

     I don't know ... does anyone ever feel like things are all right? I used to imagine that other people did. Now I'm not so sure. Maybe I'm not so different from other people. After all, in our own minds, well ... as the old expression goes, we're all the protagonists in our own life stories ... or something like that. (My memory's not what it used to be, and I'm too lazy to look it up.)

     I guess that makes my story a tragic comedy, because the protagonist is a hapless fool.  In order to really explain what happened, I guess I should introduce myself first:

     My name's Celia Wright, and I was a loser.

     Now, if when you first hear the word "loser" you immediately think of someone who's failed out of school, lives with her mother, and never helped anyone or did anything worthwhile, you're on the wrong track. I guess I'm what you'd call a "successful loser" in that I graduated college with honors, excelled in my field, made decent money, got married to a nice and attractive guy, had a really great kid—all the things that are supposed to mean success in our society. But it wasn't enough. Or rather, it wasn't right.

     Lewis and I met in College. I was in graduate school—earning my Ph.D. in Education, while he was still working on his undergraduate degree with an eye towards an MBA at Haas.

     The details of our meeting aren't important, nor are they remarkable. We met at a party, both of us a little tipsy on cheap White Zinfandel (everybody was drinking that crap at the time), and just got to talking the way people do when they find themselves together in social situations. He walked me home and promised to call me the next day, which he did. Next thing I knew, we were a couple.

     We'd been dating a few months, when we decided to move in together. I'm not sure whose decision that really was. It just seemed like the thing to do at the time, since he was spending most nights at my place anyway. And then, a year or so after that, I think we were both starting to get a little tired of each other. It wasn't anyone's fault or anything, but you know how relationships just sometimes get stale? It was like that.  If things had continued on, we would probably have gone our separate ways before too much longer. 

     But that was before the Big Earthquake.

     Lewis and I were in the mall when it hit. As anyone who's spent any time in California knows, no matter how many times you experience it, it's still a gut-wrenching feeling when the ground starts to shake. We immediately ran for the exit, but got separated in the rushing crowd.

     Most buildings in California are built to withstand some pretty major quakes, so it came as a surprise when one section of the mall actually collapsed. Apparently there was a small problem that somehow slipped past the building inspectors. I managed to get outside, but couldn't find Lewis anywhere.

     If you lived anywhere near the Bay Area in 1994, you might even remember me. My fifteen minutes lasted just under two days, and were spent agonizing over Lewis and talking to community papers and local TV news:

     Do you think he could be alive and trapped in there? 

     Have you given up hope? 

     The community is praying for you! 

     If you could talk to him now, what would you say? 

     For two days they searched the rubble—and I must have been interviewed twenty times in that same span. The big story was all about the "young couple who were torn apart too soon." People held vigils. Vigils! They sent me flowers and gifts. Donations came in. The whole thing grew out of anyone's control.

     Then, when the emergency workers found Lewis it was quite the spectacle. Once they got him on a stretcher and pulled him out—before he'd even had more than a sip of water—some reporter was in his face with a microphone and a camera, and television lights. She told him how the whole community had been waiting with me, and how everyone was so happy for us, and then asked him what his plans were for the future and how glad he was to see me.

     So the big dummy just up and asked me to marry him right then and there. He could barely speak, but there he was on live TV proposing. So what was I supposed to say? No?

     We were married in February the next year. And in the end, it turned out to be almost as big a disaster as the construction on that mall.

     Now, Lewis wasn't a bad person, per se. Nor was he inattentive—if anything, he was too clingy. At first, the renewed attention was kind of nice. I'd had a few bad relationships before him—you know the kind: the guy's all about you when nothing else is going on, but as soon as some of his buddies want to come over to play video games, or go out and do "guy" things, he acts like your very existence is somehow more inconvenience than he can handle. Yet, as soon as you want to have some time with your friends, he's asking, Why would you want to go out without me? Don't you love me? Are you seeing someone else?

     My first hint of trouble with Lewis, though, came during the planning for our wedding. Most guys just want to know where to get their tux and when and where to show up and say, "I do." They leave the bulk of the planning up to the bride—and/or her mother—or so I've been told. Not Lewis, though; he insisted on being involved in every aspect. The biggest problem was that even though he wanted to help make decisions, he could never make up his mind! He very nearly drove my poor mother into an asylum. Ultimately, I got my own way in just about everything. I think he mostly just wanted to feel like he was part of it.

     The first couple of years were actually rather nice. We had each finished our respective studies and started careers. We had a daughter, Isabella, the November of our second year married. The third year was a bit difficult—we were first-time parents, after all—but we struggled through it. Things were a bit easier the next two years; Lewis was always a caring, loving man. He made a good father, too, and he really doted on Izzy.

     My career took off. I was on a team which published a very important and acclaimed academic study on early childhood learning disorders. We moved north when I was hired at the University of Washington as a research professor.  Lewis got a job in Marketing at a local publisher—nothing terribly exciting, but he brought home about as much money as I did. We bought a nice, older house in Lynnwood and worked to fix the place up. We lived quite well, in terms of physical comforts.

     It was after we'd been married about five or six years that things started to change. I don't know if it was a case of Is this all there is? setting in, or if it was simply a realization that we didn't really quite fit together, or what—but we started doing more and more things apart. We spent more time at our jobs or hanging out with our respective work friends. I know Lewis didn't really enjoy his job. He also started drinking noticeably more. 

     Lewis had always displayed a tendency to over-think everything he did, but it started getting worse. It got so he spent a half hour every morning just lying in bed and agonizing over whether he even wanted to get up and go to the office. He always did go, of course, but by the time he'd make up his mind, he was always running late.

     Then, one Saturday morning when Lewis was sleeping in, I went to check on Izzy. She would have been about five or six years old at this point. I listened to her play-acting with some of her toys. Her teddy bear, Mr. Snoofles, was having an argument with Stinky the Skunk over what they wanted to do that day. The dialogue that Izzy came up with really shook me up. Stinky was berating Mr. Snoofles for changing his opinions to match whatever the skunk wanted. I knew right then that our relationship in general, and Lewis's neuroses in particular, were having a negative effect on Izzy's development.

     I talked to Lewis about it, but the whole thing just seemed to make him worse. It was like he suddenly worried that every minor decision he made was going to hurt his daughter, too. He couldn't handle it. Within a couple of months he would suffer a mental break-down … but, more on that in a moment.

     Lewis started disappearing for days at a time. He just needed, Time away to get my head straight, or so he said. I never thought he was cheating on me, or anything like that. Hell, that would have been easier to handle! He said he liked the freedom of the open road. I think he mostly just liked the idea of making simple decisions like which way to turn at an intersection. It wasn't until later that I found out he was heading far into the Eastern countryside—into places with long stretches of road where intersections were rare.

     Then one day I received a phone call from the police. Lewis had stopped the car right in the middle of the intersection of 45th and Eleventh—one of the busier intersections in town—and wouldn't budge. Every time an officer approached the vehicle, he started screaming nonsense about how "What's done can't be undone," and how did they expect him to decide where to go, when any direction could cause a breakdown in his life stream, or some such nonsense. He'd also blow on the horn and shout threats on occasion. He had something in his hand, and they weren't sure if it was a gun or some other sort of weapon. (Lewis was driving my X3 that day, so it had my plates and my U-Dub parking permit, so they contacted me quickly.)

     By the time I arrived, the police were routing traffic around the area, but it was a mess. Lewis was sitting in the car—the ignition was off and the windows were down, and he was crying. As I approached him, I saw that he had a calculator in his hand, as well as a small notepad and a thick black Sharpie.

     And, of course, there were the news cameras, and they wanted their story.

     "Lewis," I said. "Honey? Is everything all right?"

     "Probably not," came the response, in between sobs. "It's hard to know, though." He fumbled at a couple of the buttons on the calculator with a finger. I remember noticing then, for the first time, that his fingers were kind of short and stubby for a grown man.

     He continued; "It's assigning meanings to the values that's so hard."

     "OK, well, maybe I could help you with that. Would you like that?" He looked up at me, confused.

     "You could do that?" He didn't seem to notice anything of the chaos around him.

     "Of course, honey," I replied. "You know, we could just go to the coffee shop over there, and—"

     "No!" He interrupted me. "Don't want to go to any shops … too many possibilities … options … menus."

     "All right, then. How about we just go home? I'll order a pizza and we'll sit down together and … and assign meanings?"

     "Yeah, that would be nice."

     "Great — that's all settled, then. Why don't you just scoot over, there, and let me drive?" 

     Not that the Seattle PD had any intention of letting us just drive away, obviously. Not after what he'd pulled.

     The minute I had him distracted and he'd held his hands up into view long enough for them to see it wasn't a weapon in his hand, an officer had eased up to the passenger side of the car. As soon as Lewis unlocked the car and began to scoot over she pulled the door open and hit him with the taser. Two more officers ran up to assist her, and a third came up behind me and pulled me away. Clearly Lewis wan't a threat to anyone, but they were all very frustrated, and weren't about to take any chances.

     Once we were all on our feet again, the news crews rushed the scene, yelling out questions. I just repeated "No comment" until I found myself in the back of a squad car. I could hear Lewis trying to answer their questions, though, and even asking some of his own. He was pushed into another car and we were driven downtown.

     After hours of questioning, they finally let me call Gina—Izzy's sitter—and explain to her what had been going on. Of course, she'd already seen the whole thing on the evening news.

     Once it was all over, and we were released, I got Lewis in to see a really good therapist, but he resisted. Even when he did go—and he was under a Court Mandate, he didn't seem to want to work with the doctor. After a year he finally managed to do the bare minimum required to get himself released. And then, he started taking his long trips again.

      I just couldn't take it any more. After ten years of marriage, I finally filed for divorce.

     Sometimes, I feel guilty about the whole thing. I ask myself whether I could have done something differently, or why I hadn't really noticed the warning signs. I wonder to myself whether our lives would have been different if I'd paid more attention. What if I hadn't taken the job at U-Dub? Would he have found work that better suited him? What if we hadn't gone to the mall that day? What if I hadn't gone to that party, and we'd just never met? Would he have married someone else? Would he still have had his breakdown?

     It's then that I realize I'm starting to think like Lewis: over-analyzing the past and worrying about every decision I've ever made. That way lies madness, and I have been witness to it.

     Since then, I've re-married. William is a really wonderful, level-headed man. I'm much better off and, I think, so is Isabella. She is almost old enough to drive herself, now. She hasn't shown any signs of her father's neurosis, but I'm keeping a close eye on her just the same.

     As for Lewis … Well, the last I heard he met some woman on one of his long drives through the desert. They moved out east somewhere—Indiana or Ohio, I think. I tried to keep track of him for a while, but eventually, I just gave up. For a man who has a problem making decisions, he sure has moved around a lot.

*The acronym MSM is also frequently used to refer to Mechanically-Separated Meat. This product bears an uncanny allegorical resemblance to the product produced by the other MSM.

Grand Romantic Delusions Chapter 02: The BMV

PART II:

I stole a nervous glance at the woman now behind me in the queue. She was rather tall, with dark, well-coiffed, medium-length hair. Her smooth skin was of a fair complexion. She was wearing a white tank and a short jacket with a matching mini-skirt that showed off her long legs. She looked like she must exercise - but just enough to keep in shape without getting all muscly or anything. Or losing her considerably shapely figure. A lot of the other men in line behind us seemed to be staring at her. Pigs.

She also had brilliant green eyes that seemed to light up the whole room when she smiled. Which she did. At me.

I turned back to the sweatshirt-wearing woman in front of me. She was still playing peek-a-boo with the little girl.

"Anyway," I started again. "What were we talking about? Vampires? Oh! Wait. 2012! So, do you really think the world is gonna end in 2012? I guess that's what a lot of people are saying. My friend told me that his pastor said it was right in line with some stuff in the Bible, too. I don't really understand all that prophecy stuff, myself, but I thought I might go to church with him tomorrow, just to hear what they have to say."

Despite her best efforts at playing hard-to-get, she couldn't ignore me any longer. She turned back to me.

"No," she said. "I do not, even for a minute, think that the world is going to end in the year 2012. If there were something disastrously wrong with the planet, or the sun were about to explode, or if we were about to be hit by an asteroid or something, I think NASA or JPL, or the ESA or some scientists, somewhere would know about it before your local pastor."

"Yeah," I countered, "but what if the Mayans are right and there's a secret planet that's dark, so the telescopes can't see it, and that's what's going to hit us. Or maybe that's when the aliens promised the Mayans they'd return, and when they get back, they're gonna be pissed that we haven't mended our ways, or something, so they're gonna wipe us out and take our planet."

Oh no! I was arguing with her! That's not at all what I wanted. I'd have to find some common ground again!

"Do you have any idea," she asked, "how crazy that sounds?"

I was stunned. She continued, "If there's a dark planet out there that telescopes can't see, just how do you suppose the Mayans would have known about it? And besides, there are no Mayan prophecies about dark planets. You're getting your doomsday scenarios mixed up. Then again, it seems everyone else in the world is, so why not?" She threw her hands up in frustration.

I noticed that a couple of the Registrar workers were putting up "Out to Lunch" signs at their stations. That should slow things down a bit. I felt a wave of relief. I had little more precious, precious time. Women are fascinated by men who can carry on an intellectual debate. Maybe I could spin this in my favor, after all ...

"OK, but what about the aliens?" I asked.

"What about them?"

"I mean, what if that's why the Mayans ended their calendar in 2012. Because of aliens."

The woman behind me must have been listening, because the interjected at that point. She sounded a bit ... Irish? Or French. I wasn't sure. Who can tell the difference between all these crazy foreign accents, anyway?

"I have heard that calendar ends because it is begins of new age of peace." Greek, maybe?

We both turned towards the woman who had so rudely interrupted us.

My dream-girl responded before I could say anything. "What the hell does that even mean? New Age of Peace. Pfsh! Suddenly people are going to stop fighting over wealth and power, and everyone's going to start sharing, and then some mystical race of space aliens is going to come on down and Buy the World a Friggin' Coke?"

The dark-haired woman tilted her head to one side, her eyes narrowing. "I don't know. Is just something I heard on the tele-vision." The way she said television, it sounded like two words. Definitely French. Or maybe Russian.

"Besides," the first woman continued, "the Mayans "ended" their calendar in the same way the calendar on the wall over there "ends" on December 31st."

She was actually using finger-quotes now. How quirky and adorable! I think I really like that kind of thing in a woman.

"It doesn't mean the world's going to end," she went on. "It means you start a new calendar. A new year. Or, in the case of the Mayans, a new calendrical cycle. Or do you panic every year when you get to the last page of your calendar?"

I had to step in and fix this, and fast: "OK. You're probably right. I was just theorizing, you know ... because of your book."

The man with the two girls was called up to one of the two stations that remained open at the counter.

"Have I mentioned how this isn't my book?"

"NEXT!" Oh no! I was too late. Unless the guy with the kids finished in a hurry, my moment was slipping away. The woman in front of me turned on her heel and went up to the counter.

The woman behind me said, "I do not know what she is angry over. I think new age of peace be nice for good change."

"Uh-huh," I said, dismissively.

She continued. "Do you no think so? Or you be thinking the aliens coming?" She gave me another one of those smiles.

"I dunno," I replied to her. "We were just talking, is all." I turned back towards the counter again, straining to hear what the woman in the sweatshirt was saying to the Deputy on duty. She was being very quiet, but I thought I made out the name ... Dessoshin? Fezozchin? What the hell kind of name was that?

Thankfully, the Registrar repeated it. "Mary Sue Defozchin?" He'd obviously had had a tough time hearing her, as well. So her name was Mary. I decided that was my favorite name. I still couldn't quite get a handle on that last name, though ... Dechoshkin?

Mary handed the guy some paperwork. It looked like a simple tag renewal, so it probably wouldn't take long. Unfortunately, the guy with the kids was renewing his license, so he would take some time. And I was there to renew mine, as well.

Jesus help me, I thought. That woman there has your mom's name, and I think maybe she's the right one for me. Please help me out here, OK, Lord?

"You seem a smart man, and I like to hear you opinion." That had to be some kind of Eastern European accent. Maybe she was Polish or Lithuanian or something. "I buy coffees, you talk to me about this? I have not many friends in America, as I am just moving here for school."

The woman behind me just would not leave me alone! Still, I didn't want to appear rude.

"I'm sorry, ma'am, but I'm really busy this afternoon. Good luck making friends, though." I looked her up and down. No ... she wouldn't have too much trouble making friends. Any other day, I would have accepted her offer. But not today. Today I had a mission. A mission named Mary Sue Defaozzchinin. Or something. It was destiny. I could feel it.

"Sir!"

I turned back towards the counter. The man with the two girls was standing in front of me. It was the man behind the counter addressing me, though.

"Would you mind watching that man's daughters for a moment, so we can take his license picture?"

"Um ... sure?" I didn't know what else to say. Besides, Mary was bound to be impressed. Women like men who are good with kids.

The man told his girls to stand there with me, and that he'd be back in a moment. He walked down to the other end of the counter where the photo station was set up.

The man behind the counter then motioned to the woman behind me.

"Ma'am, you can come on up here. We'll help the gentleman in front of you after those girls' father is done."

The dark-haired woman gave me a little sniff as she passed me. I guess she didn't take rejection well. This was just great! Now there was another delay. I'd never get out of here in time to catch up to Mary.

There was now an elderly gentleman behind me. He looked like a stereotype. He was grey and wrinkled and looked about five feet tall, hunched over the way he was. He wore a red Cardigan over a white shirt and the kind of grey pants that you'd have to call slacks. In one hand he held a cane. In the other were his registration papers and a grey fedora with a feather in the band.

I turned back to the counter quickly, before the man could try to engage me in conversation. You know how old people can get when they have an audience. Besides, I had these girls to attend to. One of them started pulling on my shirt. The other grabbed me by the hand. Hers was tiny and sweaty and sticky. Ugh.

The man behind me started playing peek-a-boo with the smaller of the two girls, using his hat to cover his face. Why does everyone always want to play peek-a-boo with little kids? Do the kids ever get sick of it? I mean, how long can that remain even a little bit fun?

After a couple of moments, the girls' father came back, freshly-minted license in hand. He mumbled a thank you at me, and took his daughters. Come on, lady, I thought at the Serbian woman, or whatever she was. Hurry up!

Then it was all over. Mary walked away with her new license tags and registration packet, and headed out the door. Maybe it just wasn't meant to be.

"Next!" The woman behind the counter was waving me forward. I walked up and took my wallet and papers out of my pocket. That was when I noticed a wad of bubble gum rolled into the bottom of my t-shirt. Thanks, girls.

I handed everything across the counter, and said, "I need to renew my license." I willed myself not to cry. I wouldn't give the Slavic lady the satisfaction of seeing me cry.

The woman on the other side of the counter barely even looked at me. "Is your address still the same?"

"Listen," I said. "I don't want to wait in line again, but I need to be able to find the woman that you just helped. Would you please give me her name and address?"

The woman looked up at me. "Are you serious?"

"Yes."

"No!" She replied. "I can't do that. It's illegal and unethical."

"But you don't understand! It's destiny! Mary and I ... we are meant to be together!"

"Look, sir. I don't care about your destiny. My job is to renew your license and send you on your way. If you want to go chasing after her, I can't stop you, but you'll have to wait in line again."

I looked behind me. There were at least thirty people in the queue now.

"But ..."

"But me no buts, mister!" She wasn't going to budge. "This isn't some kind of movie where the rules don't apply and everyone is expected help you find your true love. This is the BMV."

The dark-hared Slovenian at the next station was looking at me as if I'd lost my mind. Maybe I had.

"All right," I sighed, resigned to my fate. "Let's do this."

"Is your address still the same?"

"Yes."

We then went through all the standard questions. She told me to look through the eye-testing machine for my vision test. When I stepped up to the machine, I spotted it. Mary's copy of Twilight of the Gods. She'd left it right on the counter next to the eye tester! Oh, Joy of Joys!

After my vision test, I carefully slid the book off the top of the counter. Here it was ... the clue I would need to find Mary. She'd have to come back after her friend's book!

I would find her.

Oh yes, I would.

Futures of Days Passed

What the hall happened to the Future, anyway?

I know this is fairly well-worn territory here - at least for people of my generation - but every so often I look back at some old piece of science fiction or remember childhood trips to COSI or the National Air & Space Museum, and wonder about this. Where are the rocket backpacks or domestic robots that can do more than sweep the floor?

The other day it was a list on Topless Robot: The 10 Greatest EPCOT Attractions That No Longer Exist.

It wasn't just the vanished exhibits that got to me, though. (I already went through that a few years ago when we took the kids to Disney World and discovered that EPCOT, while still a lot of fun, just wasn't as cool as it was back when I was a kid.) More than that, it got me thinking about the loss of a sense of optimistic wonder I remember from my childhood. And it's even worse now, as I'm approaching 40, and my kids are growing up. I feel like my generation has failed theirs in some indefinable way.

Growing up in the late 1970s/early 1980s, when we heard the phrase "the Year 2000" it sparked something magical. I remember believing that by that time we would be living in a Jetsons-esque technological wonderland featuring robotic housemaids, flying cars, instant communication via wrist-watch and vacations on the Moon.

What do we have, instead? The ability to post 140-character messages to mostly strangers in real time, and to publicly compare one another to Nazis because of our opinions regarding TV shows we've watched on our computers - often featuring dancing people who are barely famous for something other than dancing.

What a ginormous let-down!

Now, don't get me wrong - the internet and smart phones and, pausing/storing live television programming is cool. I mean, after only a few weeks with it, I quickly realized I could never go back to life without my DVR. Same with my iPhone. But we're far from where I thought we'd be by the time we got to the year 2010!

Now, here we are knocking on the door of the year 2010 and there are still no humans on Mars, and we haven't even sent anyone back to the bloody Moon in 38 friggin' years. Worse than even the fact our adolescent visions of the future never came true, though is the fact that any hope for it seems to have disappeared.

The other morning I asked one of my kids if he thought that in 20 to 30 years he'd have a robot at home that would clean up, cook, do laundry ... that sort of thing. Or if he thought he'd be able to take a vacation on the moon by the time he was my age.

He actually laughed at me. He was shocked to discover that I had ever thought such things would be real by the time I was 40!

So ... what the hell happened? Well, that's a topic for a whole other article - one that probably requires some research, and is thus beyond the scope of this blog.

I don't think that the vision I had for the future when I was 12 is going to come true any time soon, but dammit, I want that feeling of hope back. I want to believe that even if I can't have a jet-pack in 10 years, at least my kids will be able to vacation on the moon. I want them to believe that, as Dan Quayle once said, "The Future will be better tomorrow." (I'm not saying I want my kids to be retarded - just that I want them to have hope.)

All I can say now is that I want my future back!