Good and Bad.

Good #1 and #2. We all have our problems. Mine happen to be mainly health issues and occasionally employment ones. Even at their worst I have been able to overcome them. Through my own efforts, family, friends, faith and God. Or whatever works. You basically adapt, get smarter or stronger and don't quit.

Two things have happened recently that reminded me to be happy with the problems I have and that I don't want anyone else's issues or difficulties. The first is a friend who is going through the break up of her marriage. She is totally distraught and just overwhelmed. I've been divorced twice, I know what her journey through it is going to be like. I'm happy I'm not in that spot relationship wise.

Second I watched an early screening, for free, of the movie Soul Surfer last night at SDSU. The audience was 80% female due to being fans of C. Underwood most likely. It was also 90% students, I'm sure just due to the venue. When they asked who surfed it looked to be mmmmaaaaybe 10% of the audience raised their hand. (I did)

But I think the real minority in the audience were people who knew this was going to be very 'heavy' movie about her journey in faith and relationship to God. It was not a surfing movie. It is a movie to tug your heart strings and get you to ask questions of an eternal nature.

A bunch of the audience felt this as a "bait and switch" and just watched it like a movie. Others were seemingly stunned to see old, but familiar famous actors in roles with such religious overtones. I'm a Christian and subscribe to most of what was said in the movie but I still felt odd by having it presented to me as popular entertainment.

This is really going to be a movie where you take out of it what you brought of yourself into the theater. Just be prepared it is not just a 'surf' movie, or even a documentary. It is a two hour After School Special about how Christianity will make your life better set against the back drop of a famous girl surfer.

The good I got out of these two things lately? I don't want another's problems. I am happy to have mine, work on them. And help others work on theirs.

Bad #1 and #1.5.

I was never happy with what I was writing for the story contest for Nerve about a worst date. While mine were amusing in some ways, I really lacked the abitily to tell either of them in words in such a way as to make people laugh or cry. Maybe I should have brought someone in to check my work. But as I tried writing them, they never came together in a way where I felt a reader would really laugh or have sympathy for me. AGH! Writing as constructing something artful. Not easy to do!

So I figured I at least owed you my blog readers a short version of each story, hitting the highlights. I never submitted a good version of either of these stories, but feel free to tell me which one you think I could have possibly fleshed out into something better.

Bad date one started as an internet date. Hey, I was living in the Bay area. Everyone is doing techy stuff and online all the time and ahead of the curve. I was on myspace within 6 months of it going live. There is not internet dating stigma in the Bay area. So you should loose yours too.

As she was an executive type person with say, HP I felt a little pressure to kinda match up to her. My nuclear medicine gig was good, but I was feeling outclassed. So I went to Express for men and let the gay dude there dress me up. I kept those clothes for a llllong time because I really did look sharp in them.

We lived in different towns so I bought her some flowers, jumped in my truck and drove to the parking lot of the shopping center we were meeting at. She was hot, had style and good diction. But she was also kinda cool, bossy and aloof. I'm going to stop telling it as a story now and really just tell you what happened.

She threw my flowers in her trunk. No thank, no hug no nothing. We didn't even say hello with a handshake. She said the exterior of my truck was too dirty to ride in so we would take her car. Had I ridden in a Volvo before? Goodness lady, it's a volvo. Give me a break. She drove me to the Rodan sculpture garden on the Stanford campus and that is where we spent a few hours walking and talking. Ok to talk to, a few hiccups in our communication. But she was smart. It is always easier to talk to a smart person for the first time than a dumb one.

After giving my my culture she picks a lunch place. Now mind you, this is a first date. I've already bought an ENTIRE new outfit. She already just casually with no mind tossed my flowers in the trunk. Lunch, with no alcoholic drinks of course, comes to $60!! For lunch!

At this time I was ready to cut the date and go home. So I did. No kiss. Barely a sideways hug. She told me she wished I was taller. I went home confused and unsatisfied with the day. She called me a few days later asking me to go to a movie with her. I had zero other female action on so I went. She barely spoke and at the end of the night in her car in the parking lot she told me she was being transferred to India. Like it should matter to me at this stage..... I told her it would be a great opportunity and to maybe keep in touch. I've never seen or heard from her again.

Date #2 I was having dinner with a club I was thinking of joining at a fairly upscale restaurant. One of the waitresses kept eying me the whole time she was serving our group. I mean, I was a young guy dressed nice, in a nice place surround by a bunch of old rich dudes. She probably thought I was one of their sons. After making heavy eye contact for two hours the meal and meeting was over and I was leaving. She was cashing out her tips and the bar and said "hey wait" as I walked by. So I stopped. She asked me my name, I read her name tag and told her hi as well.

We clicked nicely, naturally. Not my normal type, a tall, skinny, leggy blonde. A ditzy waitress. But she was super fun to talk to and it was very easy to feel comfortable our first time meeting. We had music, sports, books and even some politics in common. I was falling into the trap of the free and easy bohemian girl but I didn't know it.

Leaving her work we go and sit in her car for privacy. We talk about life and stuff in general. She plays music I like and then slips out of work clothes there in the car into an incredibly attractive outfit. Sexy California casual. And I'm in a suit. And she is almost 6' and I'm 5' 7". So now I'm transfixed by the typical california girl goddess.

She asks me if I want to go to one of her friends house. I say sure. But she needs to do just one thing first. Leaning over from the driver's seat to me she reaches in the glove box and pulls out a pipe! Takes a huuuuuuge hit of weed, asks me if I want some and then takes of driving. Just like that. At the next light I put on my seatbelt, take off my tie but keep it on me. She takes another hit of the ganga.

I ask where we are going and she laughs and says again "just a friend." She is feeling looser and more fun and I'm starting to get nervous. I'm also noticing it is almost 11pm now and we are driving into a worse and worse part of an already crappy town. Tah Dah! We are here.

We get out. She holds my hand. Super flirty conversation. I start to calm down. That is until on the front steps she tells me to be "cool" because this is her heroin dealer's house. And they might think I'm a cop cause of how I'm dressed.

Alright Rowdy. Put up or shut up. Can you deal with anything like you say you can or what you gonna do? I go in. I sit. I shut up. She buys heroin. She smokes it. We leave. Now what the heck do I do???????? I get in, tighten my seatbelt extra freaking tight and tell her nicely to drive me back to my car. "Nah, I'm really tired and I gotta work early, I don't think I can hang out any more tonight Ghenny. Sorry. Thanks for taking me back to my car though."

That didn't happen. In a laughing fit she just couldn't drive anymore. I was no longer amused by what was happening. Not freaking out, but ready to bolt from the scene for sure. When she stopped at a stop sign I just got out of the car and said I could walk from there. She drove off. Laughing and smiling.

It's another long story, but I did make it to my car and to home. Safely. Jenny with a G, or H girl as she came to be called still was interested though. She would spontaneously show up at my work to eat lunch with me. Call or text me just to chat. We hung out for a month probably, me normally just admiring from a distance whatever wild ride she was on chemically, intellectually or physically.

Finally though the flakiness of our friendship got to me. And I want to be able to make out with a girl if we were gonna hang out so much together. So it was over. I actually changed my phone number. We amazingly had mutual friends and I would hear about her once and a while but that's it. Never saw her again.

So what do you think? Snooty girl or Druggy girl? Which was the worst date???????