This is a blog of an intimate nature. Though it's been 5 or 6 years since the events occured it's only over the past few weeks that these revelations have been made clear to me. Over every relationship and event in life there is an opportunity to learn and grow from the mistakes we make. This was the one that was the best and the worst of my relationships, or rather the strongest and most painful. Dionne was a very outgoing, friendly woman who was artistic and seemed in touch with her emotions. She was as my one friend put it, "engaging". When I was with her, I was better than by myself. There were issues though. When we met, she was the champion of casual encounters. Which I certainly didn't and don't find morally wrong. If you're familiar with the movie Chasing Amy, then you would be familiar with our relationship. We even had the same discusions, almost exactly. Here's the rub, that Kevin Smith and I would disagree on though. Dionne didn't change in a fundamental way once we began our relationship. Sure, she stopped seeing other people and physical fidelity wasn't the issue. But there was another type of mental boundary that was an issue. Here are some examples. She always kept guys around who she had previous encounters with, and not because they were great friends from what I could see. There was always a challenge to me, like 'aren't you gonna stop me'? I'm not a person's keeper, and I don't want to be. It was always a test from her at where I was going to stop her, and she liked to push it. Now there were other issues, one big one that I won't bring up here. But the revelations that I have learned in the past few weeks have been this. I though Something magical had happened and that I just couldn't rise above the banal issues. The truth was that I was a flawed individual with some issues who found some answers from another flawed person in the wrong way. It was never right to begin with.
I started sculpting. I never sculpted before. just thought I would pick it up. I had a picture in my head one day of three figures sitting around in a circle - a man and two women. It would be a scene where the one woman standing up looks as if she has just walked in on the other two who are sitting on a bed. Everyone is fully clothed though. The man has his back to the other two, who are facing each other, sort of. Surprise and guilt are on his face. Was he caught in the middle of something? Does it matter if he was? The one woman is obviously mad at him and he knows it without looking at her. I read in a blog the other day the typical absolute crap about how if a man sleeps around with a lot of women it's a great accomplishment, but if a woman sleeps around it's a scarlet letter. You know the rigomarole. (remember that word?) Here's my actual beliefs on the topic. If a man sleeps around like that, he's admired by other men because he obviously has a great amount of James Bond charm that I don't. Women also admire that man. But the issue is who could take him seriously in a trusting relationship. I think the same is true with women. That is why men don't like, generally speaking, getting serious with women who behave in that way. It's the same issue. I think though that the psychology with a woman in that situation is often more serious, because of the issue of sexual abuse. It is almost a sure bet that for a woman in that type of behavioral pattern there had to be some type of abuse in her past. And that is tragic. Now of course, there is a time in everyone's life when there is a promiscuous period. It generally is around the college years give or take. But most people grow out of it. Not to grow out of it, demonstrates serious psychological problems. I'm not saying that occasional indescretions are bad, but a consistent pattern definitely is. And who wants a piece of that be it man or woman? Me, I think I'll behave myself.
Before we were allowed to enter the second year of school, we had to do what's called a ride along. That's when you spend a shift with a pair of paramedics and shadow them for that shift to see what the job is like. I had never been involved with EMS before signing up for paramedic school, so this ride along was going to be my first exposure. I didn't have to wait long. I showed up at 7 am. Just before 8 am, the first call came in. The call was for a woman not seen for a few days and her mail was piling up in the mailbox. I guess you can see where this is going. The fire company force open the door, and the woman was found in her bed. She had apparently died in her sleep several days ago. Now most people really turn shades of green at the smell of decaying bodies, but I don't. She looked peaceful. It looked like she had just gotten into bed and hadn't even rolled over. I knew I was cut out for the job. As we were leaving the scene, we started talking about where to go to breakfast.
I wanted to share this while I was sort of on this line of writing. I was saw a man with a nail in his heart. He was freshly dead by the time I saw him, but he lived for one hour with that nail in his right ventricle. The naile was put there by accident by his brother on a job site. He was using a pneumatic nail gun and turned around to find his brother standing right there and bumped right into his chest with the nail gun. Can you imagine the guilt? These guys were both Spanish speaking immigrants from central or South America. They came to America, were working honest jobs building houses (very expensive houses) and one kills the other by accident. Now here is a callous thought. They were working in a high priced development where the row houses are 250 or $300,000 and the houses might start that low. Will the realtors have to disclose that the man was killed in there house? and will they disclose how? Sad thing is as bad as that sounds, the man might have had a chance to live, had there not been some really stupid red tape mistakes made. The brother took the man to the local ER, who wasn't ready to take care of the guy. They tried calling the 911 helicopter to come get him, but they couldn't because it was a facility. They then called for Maryland's helicopter, and around it went. By the time things worked out the man was dead. Had no time been wasted. Had My partner and I been called to help we could have helped them get a helicopter there immediately, or we could have given the man a chance to get to surgeon while he was still alive.
I get asked all the time if things that I see at work bother me. Not usually. There is a thing called the theory of relativity - it's not my relative, so it's not my business to worry. That's a bit of gallows humor, but it does have some truth to it. I see a lot of sick and injured people, some of them in really bad shape, some of them even kids, some of them dead, and almost all of it rolls of me like water off a duck's back. I did say almost eveything. About once a year something I see bothers me, gets me upset emotionally, makes me work to handle emotionally. One was the guy hit by the cement truck. It wasn't that he was hit by a cement truck. It was that the cement truck knew he was over the weight limit, speeding, made extremely bad driving decision, and rolled his truck on top of two women who were in a minivan and gut squished by the 70000 pouns of truck and cement. Then there was the 20 day old baby whose mom fell asleep with her on her stomach while she was on the couch. The baby fell off her stomach onto the floor. Mom never woke up until baby was dead AND STIFF! That one bothered me. Just thought I'd share some thoughts.
It has been a while since i wrote a life and death tale. So, I think I'll share some thoughts today. The man in our story today (this is lower Delaware, remember) worked in the Trade Center, but took the day off to pick some one up at the train station, or spend the day with them, or something of the sort- one of many stories just like that. This was 11 months later. He was riding his bike on vacation, preparing for a charity event. His wife was just behind him on her bike. They were following all the laws, as well - wearing helmets and everything. When all of a sudden, an overloaded cement truck hit him, then rolled over and pinned her to the ground. His wife happened to be fine, there was enough space for her between the truck and the ground, but he had a broken hand, left tib/fib, seperated elbow, and shattered left eye socket. The fractures stopped exactly where the helmet started. It probable saved his life, or a lot of quality of life. If you have ever seen a movie where someone fell off a building and landed on street and there arms and legs were bent at all sorts of angles, that is exactly what he looked like. We had to move him with all those broken bones and he just 'bit the bullet'. He was fully conscious the entire time. I can be sure of this, because I was talking to him and having a conversation. Granted it wasn't much of one, but it was still a conversation. The one thing he kept asking though was how was his wife. He kept questioning me, because he didn't believe when I told him his wife was fine. He thought I would lie to him to keep his mind focused. Now, how's that for a New Yorker?
So I noticed that almost every single one would say that she enjoys dancing. I don't. I find it emotionally traumatic. Sure, I'm capable of getting by on an extremely rare occasion, but it really is tortuous. It is a lot more common to find an American man like myself that doesn't enjoy dancing. Why is this when dancing has been around for thousands of years throughout the world? It's even common for men to dance together.
Dancing has had a meaning throughout most of history. It was used to tell stories, or celebrate events or the like. In America that kind of folk or ritual dancing has essentially died out. In America, except to preserve other cultural traditions, dancing is mainly for enjoyment. I wasn't raised learning a certain dance for a certain festival or anything of the kind. I think this is the first major difference in the new development in why men like myself don't enjoy dancing. As far as why women enjoy it, first of all is because it is something women have been allowed to do throughout History, as opposed to something like sports.
Think about the Salem witch trials. Girls were dancing in the woods, even though they could be burned at the stake if they got caught. Where were the boys? Well, they may have been hiding in the woods, watching. It seems to be that women are more able to enjoy the physical and emotional release from dancing. As far as men go, I think American men have found a new release, sports.
Sports for me was always a physical and certainly emotional escape. Does it sound like there are parallels developing? Sports also has that competition that I and some other guys enjoy. Who doesn't like seeing if they can't beat someone else, and have fun doing it?
It was only a couple of hours ago. My adrenaline is still pumping a little bit from the whole experience. I would be exagerating a little if I were to say that it was a near death experience, but it was nearly a 7 car pile up. It was on a dual highway, high speed of course (65 at the time). The first car swerved and slammed on the brakes just as hard as possible. That car went left. The second went right and did the same thing. This happened all the way back to me, who was the 6th car. I went right, but I wasn't about to go into the right lane and risk getting rear ended by another car. So, I moved over just enough. Then I saw what it was all about- A CARDBOARD BOX!!!!!!!!!!!!! While I was forced to slow down to 20 mph, due to someone's utter stupidity, I thought , "What are the chances that cardboard wine box actually has a bottle in it? Somebody needs to hit it, before there's an accident, so everyone else realizes it isn't dangerous." So that's what I did. Right center bumper to cardboard box, no problems, except for the incompetent drivers who almost killed me today!
So, I was thinking about my last blog entry and sports, and racial demographics in sports. Sports are not demographically the same as the at large population, that's a fact. Good or bad is definitely not the issue here. I couldn't care less. It could also be debated why, but that's not for this discussion either. I wanted to talk basketball.
Yeah, basketball is dominated by the African American population, a Chinese man, and a couple of guys who are slavic. Basketball is a team game and has skills to it like everything else, so it by no means is exclusionary, nor do I argue that it is or should be. What I wanted to bring up is the link to the African tribes who have been involved in genetic engineering for years, and it's happened to lead to people who have had advantages that would help them in basketball.
Yes, that's right genetic engineering. Selection of the best mate because he was the tallest and could jump the highest and furthest. Who would have thought that after hundreds of years, as the muslims of Sudan now fight to make slaves of these people or commit genocide on them, that choices they started making hundreds of years ago could help save their lives through success with money and recognition through basketball.
So, I was thinking about all the baseball trades going on, or not going on, and thinking about all the hispanic names that were being thrown around. Baseball has a large percentage of Hispanic players, because Hispanic countries, particularly in the Caribbean are very much focused on baseball rather than other sports. That's the fact part. What else is involved? Did baseball catch on in those countries as a symbol of the American dream, way back when? In order to play you need a large group to play. That's similar to a large extended family. It's hot in the Caribbean and as far as sports go, there's less running in baseball than most of the others. Here's another one that's more nefarious. It's easy to lie about a person's age, which makes them look like a better prospect to the major scouts.
There's almost too many choices in America now. Well that is, if you want America to have the best everything. The talent pool is going to get diluted, wear thin. There was never just one clear cut choice when I was growing up. (If I had played golf, there might have been). There was always the conflict, this or that, never both. I don't think it's like that where there isn't a choice.
A basketball player from the Trailblazers the other day said in a statement that the NBA used black men like "dumb ass niggers". Now this player was African American himself. He went on and some more of the same but that was the gist of it. Warren Sapp did the same thing this year, when he was interviewed by Michael Irvin for ESPN. He said he and other black players were being treated like slaves by the NFL. His interviewer, who was also African American, tried to get him to qualify this statement, but Sapp didn't. He was serious. Millions of dollars a year to play a game where he gets to hit people and be fat, and he calls it slavery. Where have I gone wrong?
The other day, I took care of a 63 year old man who came home to find someone in his house. They were burglars, not unexpected guests. This man wrestled with a burglar, eventually got away, drove to the Exxon on the highway, and called 911. Oh yeah, he got hit in the head 5 times with a tire iron, and suffered a depressed skull fracture just above his left eye.
I don't know that I could do as well and I'm half his age. If only I'm able to have the health and courage as I age.
