Prosaic Shades of Gray » Diana

“Shut Up, That’s Why!”

KZ — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 18:18:23 +0000

Kevin: You never understand my Simpsons references.

Diana: That’s because all of your references are stupid and obscure.

Kevin: They’re not obscure, they’re subtle. You know, like the “b” in “subtle”? You don’t really notice it in there, and you never, ever see it coming. It’s just a silent letter. It’s kind of funny when you stop to think about the word, actually. The letter “b” subtly epitomizes the very essence of the word, “subtle”. That’s a highly unusual thing, isn’t it? I mean, isn’t it fascinating how the letter “b” in a word like “subtle” can so perfectly illustrate the definition of the word that contains it?

Diana: . . . (sigh)

Kevin: You like that, Diana?

Diana: Nope.

Kevin: That’s always your answer. Do you ever like anything?

Diana: Not anything that ever comes out of your mouth.

Kevin: Well, that’s not very subtle. That’s like the “s” in “subtle”. Or the “t” in “subtle”. Or to a lesser extent, the “l” in “subtle”. Because you see, you hear the “l”, but it’s not as pronounced as . . .

Diana: Kevin, go away.

Diana Has No Sense of Humor

KZ — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 07:50:11 +0000

I have a story for you, but there are two things you should know first.

(1) I hate redundant language. I hate it when people say “tuna fish”, or “PIN number”, for example. What used to bother me most of all, though, was when people said “ATM machine”. I mean come on, really? “Automatic Teller Machine Machine”? Ick.

But being the optimist that I am, I’ve come to understand that when people say “ATM machine”, I should give them the benefit of the doubt and assume that they wouldn’t purposely utter something so idiotically redundant as “Automatic Teller Machine Machine”. If you’ve been to the websites I’ve visited, then you’d know that ATM can also stand for “Ass-To-Mouth.” Let’s just say in my world, when somebody tells me they’re going to the “ATM machine”, I’m always caught breathless by the shameless depravity of it all. Secretly, I’m also a little bitter that my bank doesn’t offer the same generous service at their own numerous locations.

By the way, Diana finds it really irritating when I refer to “Ass-To-Mouth Machines” in everyday conversation.

(2) Recently one night, Diana asked me to lend her some cash. I didn’t have enough in my wallet, and so I ended up driving to the local bank to make a withdrawal from the ATM.

So that’s where my story begins. I came home, handed Diana the cash, and told her that she’d better appreciate what I’d done for her, because I had just been mugged. She seemed oddly unmoved. Unperturbed by Diana’s cold silence, I pressed on with the full account:

It was dark when I got to the ATM, and I was all alone. So I thought, anyway. I had just inserted my card and punched in my PIN when this big dude with a knife came out of nowhere and pinned me to the wall near the ATM.

“Well, well,” he said, “Here we are at the Ass-To-Mouth machine. Hey boy, do you like ATM?”

I said to him, “Just to be clear, when you say ‘ATM’, you mean ‘ass-to-mouth’, right?”

“Of course, boy, what else could I have meant?”

“Oh.” I said. “Well then, no.”

Then the dude seemed really disappointed and lowered his knife a bit and said, “Oh, that’s too bad. Because I had a real hankering for somebody to fuck me in the ass and to put it in my mouth afterward.”

I realized then that I had misunderstood his intentions. He wanted me to play pitcher, not receiver. I kind of felt bad for the guy, so I ended up fucking him in the ass and going ATM near the finish. You’d think the dude would have walked away happy after that. But the thing is, after we were done, he stole my money anyway, and I had to withdraw more cash before coming home.

It was the strangest mugging ever.

Not one single laugh from Diana. She just continued to stare at me until I left the room. Why do I waste all of my good material on her?

One of Two Best Men: Josh & Sarah’s Wedding

KZ — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 12:42:21 +0000

During the summer of 2008, my good friends, Josh and Sarah, got married in Hawaii amongst an intimate gathering of immediate family. They renewed their vows in late December with a beautiful, romantic, slightly belated wedding reception. I was one of two Best Men to speak that night.

While common wisdom would suggest that the best way to deliver a toast is to speak extemporaneously and directly from the heart, I took the exact opposite approach and drafted a script that I intended to memorize and deliver. I was so honored that Josh had entrusted me to say something meaningful and to help set the right tone for the night. I prepared as much as I could in order to reciprocate that honor to Josh.

Being one of the Best Men at Josh’s wedding was an experience that I will always remember with great fondness. I’m so glad I was a Best Man at least once in my life, but once is frankly enough. I was a nervous wreck two weeks prior to the wedding reception. I’m a writer, not a an orator.

Special props go out to the other Best Man, Carlos Oliveira, for his support and encouragement while I was on the brink of hyperventilation during the minutes leading up to my speech. I’d also like to mention Conrado Oliveira, who started clapping and chanting “KZ” to help me through that awkward pause when I forgot my next line. This act came from a place of love, and I won’t soon forget it. Special thanks go out to Tommy for heckling me from the guest tables as I was setting up one of my jokes. It’s all love, Tommy, I know. Wiseguy. Finally, thank you to my wonderful girlfriend, Diana, whom I love deeply, and whose loving support gave me the courage to believe that I could do the speech my way, and succeed in doing so.

If you’ll please forgive me this indulgence, I have posted below the original script of my Best Man’s speech.

The Other Best Man – by KZ

Believe it or not, ladies and gentlemen, I am the other Best Man. We’re kind of doing the People Magazine thing where they name the sexiest man alive every year, but oddly enough, every year it’s always a different dude. It kind of cheapens the honor, don’t you think? Well, whatever, there’s two best men now, and one indecisive groom. The way Josh explained it to us, he couldn’t decide between me or Carlos, so he decided to honor us both as his Best Men. That’s a cute explanation, but if you really want to know the truth, I just think Josh has problems with commitment.

Now, I know what you’re thinking. You’re sitting there in your chair, folding your arms and thinking to yourself, “Oi! How can you say such a terrible thing at the bloke’s wedding reception?” First of all, please drop the terrible cockney English accent because it is not working for you. But secondly, relax. I emailed this very speech to Josh this afternoon at 2 PM. I assume since he never got back to me with a reply or a complaint, that everything I’m doing up here is fully sanctioned by Josh.

Having said that, I would like to read a poem I wrote specifically for this occasion. I wasn’t sure whether I should read this poem tonight. I’ll try to keep it short, but it’s about seven…seven…seventeen pages long. But again, Josh gave me his “silent OK”, so anything goes. Four letter words and all. And…it’s in my other tux. Thank you very much Diana for reminding me on the way out of the house today. Let’s give her a round of applause, ladies and gentlemen. She has ruined my entire speech.

At this point, Josh probably hates me, and he’s regretting that he ever asked me to come up here and say something nice about him.

Truth be told, Josh and I have known each other for twenty years now, and we have never been able to get rid of each other. We met at the age of seven at Five Wounds Elementary School. Then we went on to Bellarmine College Prep for high school. Then finally, for undergrad, we both ended up going to Santa Clara University. We’ve remained friends long after graduation. For twenty years, I’ve had the privilege of calling Josh my friend. And for the past four years, I’ve had the delight of getting to know Sarah, and I now consider her one of my closest friends. It makes my heart sing to know that these two have found so much happiness together. After twenty years of friendship, I am proud to witness these moments, the time in my good friend’s life when he starts a new life with his wonderful bride. Josh has gotten married before I have, by the way, and my girlfriend Diana won’t let me hear the end of it. “Oi! Josh and Sarah did it. When are you and me getting married?” Diana’s English accent is terrible. Why does she talk to me like that? She’s not even British.

I’ve been thinking a lot this week about love, and what I can say about it without sounding redundant. What can you really say about love that hasn’t been said literally thousands of times before? What more can I say when so many inspired philosophers, authors, poets, and playwrights have already weighed in on the subject with far more eloquence than I’m capable of? Just as humankind has always done for centuries, we are born, we grow, we learn, and we fade away. But in between, there are some beautiful moments where, with a little luck, we find love, we get married, and we celebrate with grand parties just like this one. It’s happened billions of times before throughout the ages, and I should think that it will happen billions of times more in the future. When you begin thinking of anything on that grand a scale, you begin to wonder, “So what?” Love? It’s all been done before, so what’s all the fuss about? What a tidy little rut we find ourselves in.

But love is no rut, not in any form. Love is the grand experiment of life that constantly surprises us by joy, one generation after the next, and always with the same old bag of tricks. The human dance wouldn’t be the same without love to guide us with all of its familiar refrains. Robert Frost once said, “Love is an irresistible desire to be irresistibly desired.” That innate desire lives inside all of us, and it begs us to dream, challenges us to grow, and dares us to care about someone other than ourselves. Love is that immutable constant of the human spirit that invariably keeps us all human. Love is our guarantee that the human spirit, for all of its frailties, will always have something worth celebrating. Tonight, my human spirit soars with gratitude and joy because two people whom I love very much have dedicated their lives to loving each other. I can think of no better reason to celebrate.

Tonight, my friends, let’s all raise our glasses in celebration to Josh and Sarah.

Casanova KZ

KZ — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 03:08:19 +0000

For as long as we’ve been dating, Diana has complained that I hardly ever write about her in my blog. “Why don’t you write about how wonderful your girlfriend is?” she asks me periodically. “You can write pages about all of your ex-girlfriends or about how you’re pining over some girl, but you never write about me.”

Over the lifespan of this blog, I’ve written a fair amount about unrequited love, and I’ve occasionally referenced an ex-girlfriend or two since I’m still friends with almost everyone I’ve dated. But you know, Diana is right. It’s about time that I paid her proper tribute. Here’s a little poem I wrote exalting the many ways that I love Diana.

Lesser-Than Sign, 3

D is for the delight of her awesome Diana-ness
I is a letter in the name “Diana”. So they tell me;
A is for her abundant, annoying attempts to pimp a shout-out on my blog
N is for the necessity to fill this poem up with nice words…almost done
A is another letter in Diana, who is awesome, and who rules!
<3 <3 <3!

I hope you like it, Diana. This one’s from the heart.

Ghosts and goblins and go-go poles

KZ — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 10:59:36 +0000

I give in. After four years of dating my girlfriend, I’ve come to accept a simple truth: Octobers belong to Diana. Because Halloween is her favorite time of year, Diana always insists on packing our October weekends with Halloween-related activities. We spend a lot of time watching terrible and tedious horror movies, carving pumpkins, shopping for costumes, setting up decorations, and paying people to scare us in all of the local (and not so local) haunted maze attractions. In the vernacular of Halloween connoisseurs, those haunted maze attractions are simply known as “haunts”.

I’ve grown to tolerate haunts over the years, but I still can’t love them. I’m still a little sour on the idea of paying money to be hassled by screaming wackos who get in your face and threaten to touch you, but who never do. If I wanted to spend money to experience that level of abusive frustration, I’d be much better off visiting my neighborhood S&M strip club. At least there, they touch you a little after you pay extra. Speaking of which, part of the reason why I’m a little uncomfortable with haunts is that they subject me to the same kind of mental and moral dilemmas that I experience in strip clubs, but in far more hostile settings.

There’s a similar element of dehumanization involved in haunts as there are in strip clubs. In either setting, people place themselves on display for your amusement, inviting you to regard them not as people, but as scenery — as props in an elaborate stage production. A stripper on stage transforms herself into an object of sexual desire, and your enjoyment of the show depends on your ability to objectify the performer. The show seems a lot less fun when you you start looking the stripper in the eye instead of staring at her curves, and you imagine her applying your folded dollar bills towards her rent or next month’s car payment.

In an oddly analogous way, your enjoyment of a heavily staffed haunt also depends on your ability to suspend a portion of your human empathy. Within the confines of those haunted mazes, cast members become monsters, beasts, and supernatural fiends. They pop out of dark corners with intimidating growls and screams, or they stare at you blankly in the center of a room beneath a macabre layer of fake blood and graphic wounds, forcing you to find a path around them. When these cast members confront you, you have a choice between recoiling in fear and fleeing the “monsters” at your heels, or laughing with good nature and smiling at the cast members — the people who are placing you in this ridiculous and socially awkward situation. Those who cringe and flee suspend their disbelief just long enough to believe in their tormentors’ lack of humanity. On the other hand, I feel a little guilty for laughing and smiling at the cast members because it almost feels like I’m celebrating my own dignity at the expense of others who would willingly sacrifice a little bit of their own dignity to frighten me. Those are the kinds of situations where I feel like I can never win. I’ve never walked out of one of those haunts feeling anything else other than relief that the ordeal is over.

Halloween approaches fast this year. Soon it will be the 31st, and then it will be November. I just need to hold out a little longer, and the whole ordeal will be over. Freaking Halloween. What other time of year can you walk down the street armed with a chainsaw and a bloody hatchet and people will regard you with smiles of approval? I’m just looking forward to better days, when the only people whom I will overtly objectify are strippers and exotic dancers. Man, that’ll be sweet.

Timber

KZ — Sun, 20 Feb 2005 03:25:00 +0000

The title of my last post is a tongue-in-cheek reference to Matthew 7:1-5, in which Jesus tells his followers not to judge others. “How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me remove that splinter from your eye,’ while the wooden beam is in your eye?” says Jesus. “You hypocrite, remove the wooden beam from your eye first; then you will see clearly to remove the splinter from your brother’s eye.” I was being judgmental in that last post, and I knew it.

A reader named Darren found my blog and left a critical comment about my inclination to judge. I wrote him a short and civil letter, explaining that while it’s true that I was being judgmental, I didn’t think my complaints were entirely unwarranted. It’s one thing to be conservative and religious, but it’s quite another thing to force those views onto your adult granddaughter and severely limit her autonomy as a result. In response, Darren had this to say:

While my comment was snarky, you *are* being judgmental. If grandma were insistent of some things that *you* like, but your girlfriend doesn’t, would you be as judgmental? My guess is that it’s grandma’s conservatism you don’t like.

There’s a cost to everything. That’s the cost of living with grandma, who, as you pointed out, is doing a lot of good things for your girlfriend. If the emotional cost of living with grandma becomes too high for your girlfriend, well, there’s always Kevin’s house

As you’ll learn if you drop by my blog, RightOnTheLeftCoast (mostly about education since I’m a teacher), I’m a big fan of *personal* responsibility. We make our choices, and we alone are responsible for the consequences of those choices.

I started to reflect on the tone of the previous post, and I realized that Darren made some valid points. The root of my resentment has more to do with Connie’s conservatism than I’d care to admit. Additionally, Connie is being wonderfully generous with her money and time, so that vindicates her insistence on setting some house rules. There is–and ought to be–a “cost” of living with grandma. In the end, the cost is probably well worth Diana’s while, but I still reserve my right to object when I think grandma is abusing that inherent imbalance of power. But Darren, your point is noted. I shouldn’t forget that, on the whole, Connie has been selflessly kind. Sometimes, though, I just wish she’d realize that the world has changed a bit since 1955.

The wooden beam in my eye

KZ — Wed, 16 Feb 2005 06:50:00 +0000

I’ll keep all the sordid details to myself, but the gist of the story goes something like this. For nearly a year and a half, my girlfriend Diana had been working retail and living with friends that didn’t mind the fact that she couldn’t afford to pay the full amount of her share of the rent. This January, her friends politely asked her to leave. Not having many options, Diana turned to her grandmother, Connie, who graciously took Diana into her home. In many ways, Diana is much better off. Diana has medical and dental insurance for the first time in years, and Connie has promised to help her go back to school next fall. Diana now pays zero rent, and she eats nutritious foods far more often than she bothered to while living on her own. Connie is giving Diana all of the basic necessities that her granddaughter was cheated out of in childhood. There’s no faulting the woman on her generosity.

But I have to admit something. In the short two weeks that Diana has been living with Connie, I’ve grown to resent that woman. To preface my point, it might be helpful to know that Connie is a right wing, religious conservative, “moral majority” kind of lady that locks her television set to the Fox News Channel all day long. That in itself is no reason to dislike anybody, because everybody is entitled to an opinion. But what upsets me about Connie is the fact that she rigidly forces her repressive morality onto Diana and treats her granddaughter as if she were nine years old.

For some inexplicable reason, Connie thinks that computers are the Antichrist. I shit you not. She actually refers to them as the fucking “Antichrist.” Apparently she got that idea from the Book of Revelations. It is because of this questionable religious assertion that Connie has decreed that Diana is limited to using her computer for no more than ten minutes a day. Never mind the fact that Connie keeps a computer of her own in the study, and that she uses it to read her email in increments of hours per day.

Then there’s the curfew thing. Diana is not allowed to stay out any later than 8pm. Her bedtime is 9pm. I suppose 9 is a reasonable time to sleep when you’re forbidden from watching anything else besides the Fox News Channel. I understand that this curfew thing is a product of a generation gap, but I have a hard time believing that Connie never stayed out past 8pm when she was in her early twenties.

As if limiting Diana’s freedom weren’t enough, Connie can’t help but think the worst about people. Yesterday, Diana’s former roommate, Gabe, went over to the house to help set up Diana’s computer. When Diana wasn’t looking, Connie took Gabe aside and asked him about me. Why do I hardly visit Diana? Why does it seem like I never have time for her? I say I’m busy with law school, but I can’t be that busy. I must be cheating on Diana with another girl. Thankfully Gabe had a friend that went through law school, and he told her all about the hell that is the life of a 1L. Upon hearing Gabe’s explanation, Connie just looked at him and calmly said, “I didn’t know it was that hard.”

You’re absolutely right, Connie. This whole academic spin story is just a cover. How busy could I be? It’s only fucking law school. When I say I’m doing homework for my Torts class, I really mean I’m doing a tart in the backseat of my Chevy. I make your granddaughter happy, so I must be scum. And I am scum, Connie. But at least I don’t sodomize Sri Lankan flamingos with my pentagram-encrusted cane the way that you do every Tuesday. See, Connie? I can make unfounded accusations, too.

I recognize that this isn’t an attractive side to me. I don’t like being judgmental and acidic. I originally intended to lay out my feelings with maturity and balance. But this is the way it came out, and I don’t have much of an inclination to change it. I try to live my life with compassion. I don’t hate Connie. And even though I’m the resident agnostic in this sick little arrangement, I’ll have to do my part to be as much like Christ as I can be. Do unto others as you would have done unto you. Love your neighbor as you love yourself. Judge not, lest you be judged. Support the woman you love while she endures the greatest test of her life. This move was about her, after all. I’m just a spectator with a vested interested. I love Diana, and I know she’s in store for plenty of hardship. She’s seen hardship before, and she’s stood tall with the help of friends. This time around, I’ll do my part to keep her standing.

Far from alone

KZ — Sun, 16 Jan 2005 00:30:00 +0000

Kevin: i liked the old one though
Diana: nah, this one looks better
Kevin: i’m the only one who liked the old picture
Diana: bwahahaha
Diana: and the cheese stands alone, my friend
Kevin: the mice will find me
Kevin: and then i’ll indulge in a huge rodent orgy
Kevin: yeah, you like that, Hammy? [Diana's hamster]
Kevin: ooh, do it, Mickey
Kevin: hey, Chuck E. Cheese, get in here!
Diana: ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww
Diana: WTF
Diana: why is hammy in there?????
Diana: and why are all the rodents guys?

Friday, I’m in Love

KZ — Sat, 31 Jul 2004 10:35:00 +0000

And I truly am.