Real Joe

It wasn’t a great week for my relationship with my wife. The little stresses seemed to take a toll: my misjudging our tax situation, me getting a cold, increasing worries about my daughter’s back fusion, me forsaking writing Joe to Gos in favor of prospecting for contract work, and Robbie having a very hard time with her Tinnitus. By yesterday afternoon, we were clearly feeling distant from each other and she was admittedly cranky.

We knew we needed to get out and spend some time together and do something fun and distracting that wasn’t expensive. As we left town, I challenged her contention that part of her crankiness was that I’d ignored her all week. I was all set to have one of our occasional verbal battles that helps clear the air, and typically ends with each of us seeing how we contributed to the problem. Only this time, she just broke down in tears and said she wanted to go back home. It’s just not like her at all to do this and it was then I realized that she had reached the edge of her ability to deal with her medical problems on top of all the stresses of the week. I was assuming she was just her normal, spunky self, able to have a quick fight with me, resolve it, and move on to having fun and being intimate.

So as we drove to the Cities in silence, I just reached out and touched her leg affectionately and within a few minutes, she reciprocated by touching my hand. As we went from store to store to movie and back home, we kept holding hands, locking arms, and sending little squeezes back and forth. We never did any more talking about “the issues” and I think now it’s because we both realized that there wasn’t anything important enough to resolve that couldn’t just be “let go.” So we just fixed ourselves with affection, then a good movie comedy (Bridgitte Jones’ Diary – romantic comedy), and when we got home, candles, wine, music, and related activities.

I think I’ve learned something.

Car Talk’s web site has a listing of the top 5 chick cars and the top 5 guy cars. Problem: the Neon is #5 in the chick category (VW Beetle is #1) and I drive a Neon. My ego and image are suddenly at stake here. The founder of Real Joe can hardly be seen driving around a chick car, can he?

I think I can rationalize my way out of this, though.

1) It’s a Neon Sport, a much more masculine looking model than the others.
2) It’s black. No neon colors. This quote hurts though: “Even in black, they are feminine and adorable, only just a bit tougher, like Tattoo Barbie.”
3) It’s old. I bought it in the summer of 1994 when Neons first came out. It now has 185,000 miles on it.
4) It’s reliable. I’ve had virtually no major repairs on this car. I’m still on the original clutch… no small feat considering that all 3 of my sons learned to drive with this car.
5) It’s a five-speed and it’s fast. When these Neon Sports came out, they could go from 0 to 60 faster than any other Chrysler made car except for the Viper. It’s still fast, too, enough to satisfy the sports car driver in me.
6) It’s a piece of shit. It’s got dents and scratches and rust everywhere. I rarely wash it. It’s not been waxed since 1996.

So I like this car. It’s got history, it’s got character, it still runs great, and it’s cheap. Phew, I feel better.

I’m going to have to wait till the end of the weekend to catch up on the Joe to Gos. I’ve got notes on various topics I want to consider writing about, but since I have a lot going on at home and with work, I just don’t want to push myself to get an edition out each day. I guess I’m rationalizing that since Real Joe is still in ‘beta’, that I’m not charging for subscriptions (yet!), then it’s ok to fudge with the JTG delivery schedule.

I still want to have at least one weblog entry each day, however. I’ve been doing it since Nov. 2 and there’s something about that discipline that’s helpful.

Ninety percent of the work done in this country is done by people who don’t feel well. - Teddy Roosevelt

I’d be in trouble if I was sick a lot. I got a teeny cold this week and my energy level and willingness to push myself hard just goes down the toilet. I guess I’m in Roosevelt’s 10 percent.

I struggled to keep my cool yesterday. My wife Robbie bought a new printer for her home office, so after dinner when she and my daughter went off to choir practice, I thought I’d install it all for her as a little surprise for when she came back home. I needed to score some points, I reasoned, since our finances have been a source of friction lately. I figured I could get it done in 10 or 15 minutes and then head to the racquetball club.

Her PC froze right in the middle of the print driver installation, and thereafter wouldn’t let me start over because of a corrupt file. Aaarrrggghhh. I could feel my blood start to boil. Every time I tried something to fix the problem, I had to reboot which required a 3 minute wait. After the 3rd reboot, it occurred to me that it was stupid to get all riled up over this small problem, so I started breathing deeply at each subsequent reboot and to resign myself to not getting to the club. Ahhhh, much better.

After an hour and a half, I finally got the damn thing fixed. And I was even feeling a bit smug about how relaxed I was able to get about the whole thing. Then I went downstairs and saw that our dog had peed on the floor. Aaarrgggh. I took him outside and found myself gruffly putting on his chain and shoving him out the garage door. It then occurred to me that I wasn’t as calm and cool about the printer fiasco as I thought.

Robbie was appreciative, but by the time I went to bed, she asked, “Are you mad at me?” I wasn’t but evidently my irritation with the whole evening was still showing, unbeknownst to me. AFOG.

Newsblog: “I am not tired of apologizing, but I am tired of crying. It kills me that nine people died because of an accident.” – Commander Scott Waddle

Here’s a man to admire as he struggles with his whole career collapsing around him. Bitter Passage: Once a Navy star, Scott Waddle keeps replaying the tragedy that smashed so many lives

If the reporter got it right, then Waddle’s journey of self-discovery is inspiring as it is riveting. It’s a story that’s in stark contrast to what emerged about Ted Turner from the New Yorker article this week. It’s too soon to know, but if Waddle’s deepened relationships with his God and his wife remain steady, he’ll likely remain man of integrity and find new ways to contribute.

As for his crying (see the great photos in the Time mag piece), I wonder if men and women perceive it differently? It appears to be real grief to me, and I’d guess that this kind of vulnerability would be seen as a sign of strength by most women of character.

The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance; the wise grows it under his feet. – James Oppenheim; Happiness isn’t something you experience; it’s something you remember. – Oscar Levant

Are these contradictory quotes? It appears so. I’d like to think I can experience happiness several times during the day today, despite my recurring anxiety about cash flow, taxes (I filed for an extension, so they’re not over yet), and possible new complications from my daughter’s back surgery. It’s not likely to be memorable happiness, like a perfect day of vacation or a celebration of some accomplishment, but it can still be worthwhile.

Newsblog: Ted Turner says he was suicidal after marriage breakup (Strib/AP article about a piece titled “The Lost Tycoon” in this week’s New Yorker)

I’d wager that Jane Fonda’s becoming a Christian is a teeny part of his marriage breakup, but regardless, his story illustrates how mistaken ideas from childhood can snowball into a whole series of them. And it appears that Turner, while evidently no longer suicidal, hasn’t yet learned what his mistaken ideas might be. Acknowledging that he’s an insecure superachiever is not enough to make a difference. His unhappiness is likely to continue plaguing him, no matter his laudable goals to work on world issues.

We know that people we love are both good and bad, but we expect strangers to be one or the other. – Russell Banks

Elaine Sluti, the mother of the kidnapped girl who was released by fugitive Anthony Zappa, reportedly said that her heart goes out to Zappa’s family. Now that’s a classy remark to make. It’s easy to think of Zappa or other violent felon as dirtbags through and through. But Sluti has compassion, if not for Zappa, at least for his family. Zappa’s mother loves her son just like Sluti loves her daughter and she knows that his mother has had years of heartbreak and problems of all kinds… and more on the way.

Consider Slobodan Milosevic, war criminal in all likelihood. Or Timothy McVeigh, about to be executed for the Oklahoma City bombing. The people who’ve known and maybe loved them have likely seen the good in them.

I’m not arguing for an outpouring of compassion for these guys, nor am I arguing against the death penalty. I’m just doubtful that an outpouring of hate is helpful, for us as a society or even for the relatives of their victims.

And it reminds me that there are plenty of people who I tend to see as simply good or simply jerks. Maybe even Elaine Sluti has a nasty side. And Nelson Mandella. And I wonder who sees me as simply wonderful or as simply a jerk.

For the first time in the many years that I’ve been doing our taxes, I misjudged our tax situation and today I discovered that we owe about $5K. I had guessed that, with the loss from the business, plus all the unreimbursed medical expenses, we’d be ok with just one large quarterly payment last year. Shit.

I was worried that Robbie would be really pissed, but she wasn’t. Just a sigh of resignation. It’s pretty clear now that we need to get a second mortgage to get a better handle on the debts. We’ve been through this before, but it’s a bummer to have to do it again.

And now it occurs to me: do I know for sure that this is bad news?