What makes awkward people awkward?

My second roommate moved out yesterday, which inspired this blog delving into the subject of awkwardness. She was a lovely roommate - clean, polite, willing to share food and respectful of my habits and wishes. She returned to Wales yesterday after I helped her lug her 50 lb bag and 25lb backpack to the bus station at 6:30am. I was sad to see her go but not because I will be lonely - I prefer to live alone - but because I couldn't have had a better roommate from a compatibility perspective.

The quirky thing about her was just that - she was quirky. Better put, she was awkward. I've been around plenty of awkward people in my life, notably in upper level math classes in high school (although there were a few at Dartmouth, as well). I've always thought of myself as a compassionate and patient person and I generally get along well with them. But I can't help but feel awkward as well.

What types of things does an "awkward" person do, you might ask? The most notable thing, to me, is the complete lack of fluidity in a conversation. Typically, a conversation with an awkward will go like this:

Awkward: Hiya.
Me: Hello. How was class today?
A: A bit exhausting really. (2 second pause in which Awkward appears on the cusp of saying something) I'm probably going to go straight to bed.
M: Why was it so exhausting?
A: Oh. (Another 2 second pause) I'm not sure really. (1 second) It just was.

Now what do you say to that? In hindsight, it seems like it'd be really easy to say, "Oh I'm sorry, can I get you a cup of tea" or "Yeah, I have days like that sometimes" but for whatever reason, at the moment, I'm speechless. I seriously can't think of anything to say.

That's really unusual for me. Typically I do very well in scripted conversations like "how was your day" or "what's your name/where are you from." But the remarkable thing about awkward people is that they make me awkward too. I can't think of anything to say. And I hate uncomfortable silences (although not as much as Rawson Daniel, who will make up ridiculous excuses like having a class at midnight to leave a conversation after 1/4 second of silence) so I often just try to disappear before the silence gets too long.

In addition to the stagnated conversation flow, awkward people exhibit other common characteristics as well. One in particular is clumsiness and the tendency to get oneself into awkward physical situations. Within 5 minutes of meeting her Alice swatted a full glass of water halfway across the room while making a wildly uncontrolled hand gesture. Her first laundry experience ended in her opening the door to the washer while it was still in cycle, causing a sudsy flooding of the bathroom and kitchen. She says it's quite common of her to be like that and I would agree with that statement. The question is why is she like this? Is it genetic? Is it a learned reaction to society?

There's a number of facebook groups dealing with the subject, and given the healthy number of members, awkwards tend to know and accept that they are awkward. The group "Holy Shit I'm awkward!" has the following description:

You stare at the ground to avoid premature eye contact, you trip over yourself, you can never decide whether or not to say hi to someone when you see them for the third time that day, you laugh at your own jokes, you don't know when to cross the street, every conversation you have has an uncomfortably long pause, and worst of all, you always point it out.

Without really having data to back this up, I'd guess that awkward people tend to also be quite bright. That may be not true, but it certainly seems that it is. Alice is very bright, as were every awkward person I met at Dartmouth and in high school.

I have this theory that we're all given equal amounts of abilities and disabilities. It's as if every possible trait - from height to kindness, metabolism to faithfulness, willpower to boob size were scaled from 1-100. The sum total of everyone's traits would be the same number. The reason that some people are more successful, liked, or happy than others is generally due to the culture's relative value placed on their good traits. So someone with the intellectual capacity of a fruit fly can be wildly successful if his society places value on size and he's 6'9", 315 (NFL offensive linemen). Likewise, someone who 3,000 years ago would have been devoured in his youth by a formidable beast because of his lack of physical strength can become famously successful (Bill Gates). The assumption would be that being awkward is another trait, and some people get more of it than others. I just wonder if there's a society where awkwardness is an advantage...

But I don't really know. And I got tired of searching for answers on google. So I'm going to rather awkwardly end this entry without having really said anything or concluded it properly.

musings on baseball

So I'm watching the Astros game - fourth straight after midnight start this week for me - and I heard this comment by the Milwaukee broadcasting team:

"You know, Andy Pettitte's a guy, just like Chris Capuano, who doesn't throw very hard..."

The comment continued, but what I noticed was this comparison of a 176-win, 4 time world series champ and a guy with 27 career wins. I've noticed this a lot while watching other teams' announcers. They compare another team's star to their mediocre product. It's as if someone said, "Pujols, just like Geoff Blum, seems to thrive when he's behind in the count." I don't care if Blum's a decent player. I don't care if he really does hit better when he's behind in the count. You don't compare Pujols to him. You can compare him to Pujols. But don't compare Pujols to him. He doesn't deserve it. Neither does Chris Capuano. He can be compared to other greats, but they can't be compared to him as if he's some sort of standard bearer.

This, in a way, is homerism. There seems to be quite a bit of homerism - that is, favoring your own team to the point that you appear stupid to a knowledgeable fan- in sports these days. It's not limited to regional or local media either - ESPN has apparently hired a whole slew of Yankees or Red Sox fans to write, talk about, or otherwise waste my time on info about 'the greatest rivalry in sports'. Bill Simmons, Jayson Stark, the list goes on. These guys don't apparently know that other teams exist.

(Just for the record, Pettitte was just compared to Rickie Weeks and his 440 career ABs, which is about 2/3 of a full season)

Simmons and Stark, among others, frequently act as if no other teams exist than the Red Sox and Yankees. ESPN constantly runs features about Ortiz, Jeter, Manny, or Damon's latest hairstyle instead of actually reporting significant news.

Currently, the ESPN rumor (unsubstantiated, of course) is that Clemens will definitely sign with the Red Sox or the Yankees. Whether that happens or not remains to be seen, but they're the only major media outlet that suggests that the Astros are out of the running.

To me, the Astros have to still be the favorite. They've fulfilled the three requirements Clemens asked for:

1. Competitor, with a reasonable chance to make the playoffs (2nd best record in baseball)
2. Offensive team that isn't going to get shutout in 9 of his starts (averaged 9.8 runs per game in last 5 wins)
3. Had a starter go down with injury (Backe may be out of the year)

They obviously offer the hometown benefits he's enjoyed the last few years, and I have to imagine that business-savvy Drayton McLane will match any salary because of the marketing opportunities/franchise value increase that Clemens brings. I have to believe that because no news has been made, Clemens is just playing the same game the Texans are playing with Reggie Bush - try to leverage his salary with interest in other teams (Clemens' interest in NY, Bos, and Texas)/players (Texans' interest in Mario Williams)

But I could be wrong. After all, I'm probably no better than any of these other homers...

Domesticated

You know you're in a good relationship when you actually enjoy cooking breakfast, cleaning a turtle tank, and driving 45 minutes away to go to a bead store, and you're a guy. But that's the beauty of not seeing your girlfriend but once a month: everyday tasks are actually enjoyable. Moreso when you've been traipsing around countries not knowing where your next meal will come from (dramatic way of saying "eating out") and having to pay just to breathe (hello, UK).

She even surprised me with a free dance lesson (she'd found a coupon in a newspaper) and then I surprised our dance instructor by claiming to know that Germany was in Europe. Apparently "likes to learn complicated dance moves" doesn't really intersect with "knows basic geography." Go figure.

So we had a good time. We went to Jordan's (the best pizza I've ever had) twice, like we always do (even if I'm only there for 2 days) and drank Blue Moon and Sam Adams Summer Ale, cooked apple chicken sausages and watched Astro games. She made a steak dinner for me. Basically, Becka made a convincing case for what I'm missing back in the states.

I'm rather inclined to rule in her favor: I'm currently looking for consulting jobs in and around NYC, and you have to like my chances of finding work there of all places.

But I've got to get back there first. Currently, the Grand Finale has just experienced its third stage of growth and currently is over three times its original size at 7 weeks in length. I've bought my return ticket for August 11, so now I've just got to fill in the gaps.

I'm thoroughly excited about the journey and trying to squeeze the most out of it without overwhelming myself. I'm worried that travelling everyday will wear me out, but being alone, I'll need to see more and relax less. I'm trying to balance checklist sightseeing with genuine vacation, and that's hard to do.

As much as I'm looking forward to my adventure, I can't help but get excited about the little things that await my return: getting a car, finding an apartment, and of course, doing the little chores and errands with my dearest. Call me weird. But at least I'm happy.

I'll have four please, and make it quick

Someone better test me for designer recovery steroids, because I'm just superhuman right now. I don't get affected by jet lag. I was in Portugal Monday morning and New York/Connecticut last night, with Ireland and Englad mixed in between, and yet I'm ready to go. That's four countries in two days and I'm hardly affected. My body believes it's 11AM and I'm not particularly tired. Moreover, I don't tend to have the problem going the other way across the Atlantic either.

It's mostly to do with flight times. I try to leave NY at night around 9PM ET, sleep on the plane and wake up in London 10AM (5AM ET), a little sleepy but tricked into thinking I slept through the night. With the ensuing flights to Spain, I nap a little bit more and basically get in in the afternoon and think it's the afternoon.

Going back's easier any way you do it: you're basically gaining daylight, so if you go to bed a little earlier than normal, you'll feel like you went to bed a little later than normal and you can catch up the next night, but you won't feel particularly tired either way. I dunno, maybe it's more genius and less super powers, but I prefer to think the latter.

Since I wasn't sleeping on the plane, I had to do other things to keep from crying my eyes out with boredom (which wasn't actually possible: the desert-like lack of humidity on the plane made excretion of tears inconceivably difficult). I initially tried seeing how little time I could spend in between lavoratory stops. I was terribly thirsty and brought my new 1-liter Nalgene on the plane, full from the water fountain. It expired before takeoff. I had to refill from the lavoratory (whose water has an odd milky white look for about 5 minutes), using the complimentary paper cups they provided because my behemoth was too large to fit in the sink. I did this thrice more throughout the trip. Needless to say, I set a new personal best at 7 minutes and made full use of my carefully-chosen, four-star location as aisle seat 42H, two rows in front of the lavoratory.

After sufficiently passing the time in such a way, I turned my attention to reading. After the recommendations of a few Brits, I had picked up Bill Bryson's Notes from a Big Country (US title: I'm a stranger here myself) a collection of weekly newspaper columns published in a London newspaper by an American who'd lived in England for the previous 20 years. He is literally me if I was 25 years older and extended my stay in Europe by 20 years, dumped Becka, married an English woman, and moved back to the states. He writes just like I do, or perhaps more appropriately, as I wish I did. He uses self-deprecating humor and criticism to cover up the fact that he's really just a big whiner. He is constantly fascinated by the most trivial things (like what happens when you stick coffee grounds down a garbage disposal - answer: think something similar to Mt. St Helens) and is forever engaged by miscellaneous statistics (like you're more likely to get cancer from eating pork chops once a week than inhaling second hand smoke every day of your life). Moreover, he is socially conscious (like the fact that we use twice as much energy per capita than the average ultra-developed western european does) and is hypercritical of the American way of life (well I am moreso of the europeans, but close enough). Lastly, he is living in none other than Hanover, NH while writing this book.

This means, of course that Dartmouth is given a fair mention (always favorable), as well as other local establishments such as Lou's or Rosey Jekes or the itty bitty theater in West Leb. In one of the recent columns, he describes how he was saddened to not find a diner in Hanover when he moved there. I immediately thought, "What about Four Aces in WRJ?" Sure enough, on the next page, he finds it and is immensely satisfied (although he gives the erroneous footnote that it closed a few months after the column published). The book's a great read and reasonably funny. I think it'd be more so for Brits (the intended audience) than Americans, though, so I'm rather looking forward to reading his other entries, especially one about the absurdities of the English language called The Mother Tongue and one about small-town USA called The Lost Continent.

In any case, I've got some errands to run today and then I'll probably take a nice long nap so I'd better go. It's the jet lag, you know. It gets to you.

Ireland: Land of Not very much Ire

so I think Ireland's my favorite country ever. I've only been here a few hours but it's friggin' awesome man.

So you've got the whole different culture thing, but they speak english. AND, that different culture is sort of your culture. So things like the Book of Kells actually mean something to you, and they're cool. I dunno. Maybe I just like it b/c it's english-speaking, the people are friendly, and i found a cheap hostel to stay at. Or maybe b/c I've had about 5 pints of beer. Not sure. But I like Ireland.

Highlight of the day: Guinness storehouse, narrowly beating out seeing the Book of Kells (beautifully gold-plated, spectacularly colored manuscript of the four gospels that was "the greatest prize in the Christian world" according to some Irish crazies in the 1100s when it was lost, and the Brian Boru Harp, the same that appears on the Guinness logo and the Irish Euro coin.

Denounced by my guidebook as "overrated", I found the Guinness Storehouse fascinating and well-done. A temple to everything Guinness, it featured high-tech displays showing how Guinness was made, a large section on advertisements (Guinness ads are some of my favorites), and of course, free samples.

I actually wound up with 2 pints of Guinness instead of the customary 1. I jumped the gun and started drinking my pint when it was about 5/6 full after waiting for about 3 minutes for the black to separate from the white, as I'd been told to do. When it became clear that I wasn't getting it topped off, I started in on the beer. But then the bartender flipped out and told me he couldn't let me drink it b/c "he wasn't allowed to serve an imperfect pint" or something like that. He'd have to pour me another. And it wasn't necessary to throw out the 5/6 full pint. I could drink both. You can imagine the fit I threw...

In any case, I hadn't really had much to eat since 11 am, so those two stouts hit hard. By the time I left, I was certified drunk. And cold. It's a good 20 degrees F colder here but I decided to wear a t-shirt. There was some drunk running going on, for sure.

Stunner of the day: the Guinness Book of records is not coincindentally named the Guinness book of world records. It's actually sponsored by Guinness. It was first written to answer typical Irish Drunk questions like "What's the fastest gamebird in the world?" and has grown into the largest copyright (Bible and Koran, etc are non-copyright) bookseller of all time. We've had copies of it for years, but I never realized that its Guinness was the same as the Guinness...

Head off to NY tomorrow to see the illustrious Miss Duvall. Should be thrilling, but not as much so, as a fresh pint of Guinness from the source.

Lisbon, day 1/2

After a deliciously free breakfast of hot chocolate and bread, the 6 of us started out for Belém, a suburb of Lisbon but loaded with touristy things to do. I booked a hotel at the tourist office for 20€ per night. The twist was when we saw the name of it: Dos Naçaos, the same place we'd stayed at the night before. I'd paid 35€, the others had paid 25€, but for the next two nights, I would pay 20€. It's Portugal.

At 11:30, we finally boarded the cable car for Belém. After a 30 minute excrutiatingly slow and packed ride, we made it to the Torre Belém (pictured, below left), Monument to the Discoverers (pictured, right), and the Monastery of Jerónimos.

After spending a few hours in Belém, we took a bus back that was faster (but not much) than the cable car to the Oceanarium on the opposite side of town. It was cool and definitely worth the time and money to see Europe's second largest aquarium, but didn't really come close to rivaling Shedd in Chicago. There were 4 exhibits representing the four main oceans (Indian, Atlantic, Pacific, and Artic) around the outside of the huge central tank that held sharks, sunfish (largest bony fish in water that can weigh up to 2 tons) and other larger swimmers. The Penguin exhibit was rather lame, and since I judge all aquariums by the strength of their Penguins, I couldn't give it my complete recommendation. Still, very cool, and one of the better things to do in Lisbon.

The group was a lot of fun, and even a day was enough time to get a feel for the individual characters and humor that everyone had. Lieven, one of the Belgians, needed some bootie badly and kept taking 'babe of the week' photos every hour.
We took a ton of photos, so hopefully I'll be able to include them later.

When they finally left, I felt as if we'd spent a lot more time together than just a day, and it made me realize how important it is to have someone to travel with, if just for sanity's sake.

Unfortunately, by the time we made it back to the hotel, they had given my room away 5 minutes earlier. They said I had needed to show up at 6 to ensure they don't give away the reservation. Fortunately, the woman was nice and worked her butt off to find me somewhere else. I ended up having to carry my two 20kg bags up two broken escaltors of 215 stairs each, but at the end, I found a 95€ per night hotel waiting for me with my own private bathroom and shower. Since she somehow decided it was her fault for giving up the reservation, I only had to pay 20€ each night. I think it was worth it.

After my relaxing bath, I headed out to Barrio Alto, the nightlife of the town for a bite to eat and to use the internet.

Today was nothing special, although I managed to find a fantastic old Moorish castle (Castelo São Jorge) and pretend to be an archer shooting down the Christians. I probably wouldn't have spent this day here if I had to do Lisbon again, but I did enjoy not having the need to rush everywhere and see everything before the ticking time bomb went off.

I'm not in love with Lisbon - I wouldn't agree with the Spaniard on my bus with whom I had the following conversation:

Me: Does anyone know where the bus is?
Spaniard: No. But this is common. It's Portugal. It's the third world.

...but I don't think it's got quite the history Paris or the extravagance of London. In fairness, it's probably a lot like Madrid with a bit of poor southern Spain mixed in. Not a ton to see, a few cool public squares, lots of sun, but a bit falling apart.

Tomorrow I leave for Dublin, at 10:20 Portugal time. I'll have a day there before I take an afternoon flight to New York to see Becka. If things keep going as well as they are now, I'll be very pleased....

Peachy in Portugal

So far, excepting my week with the lovely Becka, today was the biggest success I've had on vacation. I made some friends with some intelligent europeans (and a brazilian too) and spent a pleasant and peaceful day in the company of others without having to freak out about everything going perfectly. Again, some valuable lessons learned.

I arrived in Lisbon last night at 8:30, but by the time I loaded up on Brazilian import sausage, got my metro card stuck in the machine, worked my way across town, and eventually found the neighborhood I needed to be in for cheap hostels, it was close to 11. This brings us to note to self #5: don't show up to cities at 11pm and hope to find cheap accommodations. They will either all be taken or be so difficult to get to that you will get frustrated and end up staying at the first available place, often at a premium price.

Seemingly the beginning of another disaster Munich-style, I managed to turn it around with a cool head and a more adventurous personality. Walking past an outdoor restaurant, I overheard some English. Instead of ignoring it and walking past like I might have done before, I stopped, turned around, and asked them, "Do y'all speak English?"

After kicking myself for making a worse intro line than "Did it hurt when you fell from heaven?" I was able to pull it together enough to ask a better follow up: "Do y'all know where to stay around here?"

Turns out they did. And they had a buddy who was looking for someplace to stay for the night as well. Maybe we could split a room at their hotel and save some money. Although we ended up paying $35 (for two) instead of the $25 they paid, I wasn't crying about it, just happy to have a place.

The group of 5 (including my recently arrived roommate) and I went out for a bit for some drinks and ended up meeting some other folks in the process. Of the 6 of us, we were a Spaniard (not me), two Belgians, a Czech, a Brazilian, and of course, the Emerican. Four of them were studying at Coimbra, a big Erasmus destination 2 hours north of Portugal. The fifth was working on his medical degree there as well. All were practically fluent in English, although the Belgians and the Czech were a notch above the Brazilian who was herself a notch above Pablo, the Spaniard.

Pablo and I were to stay together, in a tiny room hardly big enough for the smallish double-sized bed. All the Euros rebuffed my attempts to suggest it might be too small for the 6'2" Pablo and I to share, saying "beds are smaller in Europe than in American."

However, when I walked in their room the next morning, I remarked, slightly surprised, to Karel (Czech), "did you guys (he and the Brazilian, Ana, are dating) have two beds?"

"Yes, of course. What would you expect?"

"Well, Pablo and I slept in the same bed."

Laughter ensued. Only made worse by the following comment: "That's too bad, b/c we didn't even use one of the beds!" grrr...

Pablo and I already hadn't gotten the day off to the best start when we trusted my alarm clock I hadn't used in a month to wake us up. It worked alright, and even woke us up at 9:00 like we wanted. Only thing was Portugal's an hour behind Spain and the rest of Europe. Pablo and I didn't realize this until after we had showered, packed, and got ready to meet everyone for breakfast. Having gone to bed at 4:30, every hour counts. I whuffed.

The difference was these whuffs, these problems, this kinks in the plan, didn't affect me as much. One reason is I'm more experienced as a traveler and I've been through some pretty unfavorable situations. But the biggest was that I had other people there to cushion the blows. This was an important lesson.