It's Been a Long Time

It's been almost a year since I wrote anything, but it seems like the blink of an eye. So what's changed?

Well, I appear to have developed balistophobia, the debilitating fear of missile silos. Yet somehow I still make it through the day. Think I can get a medical marijuana certificate for it?

Other than that, not much and everything.

"Not much" in the sense that I still have the same house, the same job and haven't crossed a damn thing off my bucket list. I'm beginning to wonder whether I was full of shit when I wrote it, or if I'm just a big pussy.

"Everything" in the sense that I've sort of moved on and found someone new.

The phase "sort of" deserves an entire blog post. I've moved on to the degree that I think I am capable. It would be akin to a drummer losing an arm. Life isn't over, he just needs to find a different career. Or not...

What I'm trying to say is that I've lost my naive innocence regarding relationships. The last time it was inconceivable to me that any "real" marriage could fail. Hardly anyone I knew had ever been divorced, and for "those people" there were obvious explanations - infidelity, alcohol, a lack of commitment from the beginning. That wasn't me. Or any of my friends. They were different. I was different. We jumped in headfirst - damn the depth of the river.

The second time around there's a vague awareness in the back of your mind that you're not special. You know exactly how bad it can end and how quickly it can turn.  And because of that, you're extremely reticent to go "all in". It's not like you've got one foot out the door, but you always know where the nearest fire extinguisher is.

Based on what I've read, this is pretty typical. It's the baggage that everyone who goes through a divorce carries with them. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice and I'm ready to sue.

In fact, "moving on" was the one major reason I stopped posting. When I started this blog I had nothing to lose. I was so embarrassed and shamed by my divorce that there wasn't anything that I wasn't willing to write about and share with total strangers. It was "public therapy", a semi-safe place to work out all of the pain, anger, shame and rage that was eating me alive. I was at my lowest point, so the thought of people pointing and laughing at my failures didn't really bother me. Or the fact they would be preserved for eternity where prospective employers and my kid's friends could review and comment.

Granted, I wasn't really taking the "long view" at the time.

Last year I got to a place where I no longer felt it was appropriate to share every random embarrassing thought that popped into my head. I felt it would be a terrible invasion of privacy to blog or write about anyone I was dating, even though the stories would have been great. The potential of being seen with me in public can be embarrassing enough. Having it posted where her parents, kids, friends or husband could see it is just wrong.

Once that filter went up my writing became banal bullshit and I stopped posting any of it. I have 14 semi-finished posts that will never see the light of Google. They all started with a spark of clever inspiration. They all ended with bullshit generalities, platitudes and a lack of any true "feeling."

Granted, it's not like I set the literary bar very high, but if I couldn't control my gag reflex for three paragraphs I doubt any of you would give a shit.

So what's new? Well, my girlfriend is moving in next month.

I'll let that one settle in for a minute.

Yes, I am scared out of my mind. I'm not sure I should be writing about any of this, and if / when she sees this the move may be cancelled. But I've got to work this stuff out, and I don't have time for therapy.

I'm better as part of a team. BLT says that I always wanted to be married. I think he's right. I like being part of a team. I like the support. I like the feeling I get when I can help someone else. Even when I was going through the divorce, I was absolutely certain I would eventually get married again, even if intellectually I was telling myself "Oh hell no".

The woman I have been seeing is wonderful. She's kind, supportive, thoughtful, smart, attractive, progressive, exciting, active, funny, great with my kids and more than willing to put up with me.

You're probably thinking she's perfect, well I'm here to tell you "far from it". She can't make a decision, thinks sleeping to 10:00 AM is acceptable behavior, says Corgi's aren't real dogs and doesn't hate Jhonny Peralta anywhere near enough for my taste. Basically, she's a basket case.

So why am I scared shitless? Because I'm afraid that I didn't learn enough from my divorce. I'm pretty sure I'm a jerk. I try not to be, but it comes so naturally. It's a gift. Or a curse. Now sure, a few of you will feign disbelief and say "Oh no, you're just being a drama king Bob." Thank you for trying to soften the blow. I'm sure a few of you even said that with a straight face, but we all know it's true. I'm a jerk.

Do any of you have a Facebook page dedicated to how big of a jerk you are? I do. For real. And it wasn't even started by The Ex. If you count the Ex's Facebook page, it's actually two pages dedicated to how much of an asshole I am.

I know it's not unusual for children to have contentious relationships with their parents. But I've managed to become estranged from not one, but two mothers. Yes, the people who are hormonally evolved and socially conditioned to nurture and protect their young both think I am a jerk. Granted, one of them is mentally ill and the other is biologically related to me (which is a reasonable excuse I suppose), but still. You couple that with my sociopathic Ex and you can see that I may have problems with women.

Once is bad luck. Twice is a coincidence. Three times and it's probably your fault.

What happens when my girlfriend realizes that she's living with a jerk? Hopefully she's less sociopathic than my ex, but then again what if I'm just a horrible judge of character? It's not as if rapists and serial killers introduce themselves with their chosen avocation while announcing their intention to gut and skin you for sport.

"You got a pretty mouth boy."

"Um, thanks... I gotta go. Bye."

If only it was that easy.

So what do our friends think? Most of them say it's "too early". But when asked "How long would be long enough?" they shrug.

Twelve months? Eighteen months? Six years? I don't know either. People in arranged marriages may only meet one or two times prior to their wedding and yet statistically they are very successful. According to multiple sites, the global divorce rate for arranged marriages is only 6%! Now granted, there are numerous caveats to that statistic since it is heavily culturally biased. It doesn't consider the impact of familial shame, the poor economic prospects for women in countries that favor arranged marriage or local laws prohibiting divorce.

But believe it or not, November will mark two years that my girlfriend and I have known each other. That's a significant amount of time. It's longer than I knew my ex-wife before we moved in together. In fact, by the two year mark we were engaged and well into planning our wedding.

I know full well this could turn out to be a flipping disaster to rival the last one. But it could also be a wonderful start to a new life together. In life there are no guarantees and no one knows how this is going to end. But I know that I'm a lot happier when I'm with her. So nothing ventured, nothing gained.

I'm going to jump in that river again, even if this time I'm keeping one eye on the life preserver. Wish me luck.

Annus Miserablis

Annus Miserablis? I don't even need to translate that one, do I?

I hate explaining my jokes. Latin. "Horrible Year". Jeez!

I've had bad days, but nothing quite like the string of crappy days I've been facing these past few months. Some days it's been a real challenge just to crawl out of bed. Pretty much every day I say "Nothing can get worse." And then I get an email from my lawyer.

Funny thing, I've established several new email relationships with old and new friends. When the little 'You've Got Mail' icon pops up on my Palm Pre there's a brief rush of excitement.

"What could this be?"

"Who is about to bring joy into my life?"

"Are there naked pictures attached?"

No, I don't actually get any naked pictures. For most of my friends, this is a really good thing. For those of you who are not fat, hairy males, feel free to contribute.

But it really bums me out when I get email from my lawyer's office. He has two assistants, Gabriela and Samantha. I don't know either of these women, but I've come to think of them as the 'harbingers of doom'. I wonder what they look like? Would I appreciate them more if they included naked pictures?

I learned that in the 12th century, a harbinger was a "lodging-house keeper". The word derives from 'harbourer' or, as they spelled it then, 'herberer' or 'herberger'. It wasn't until the 13th century that the word came to mean a scout who went ahead of an army, and finally a sign or warning of bad things to come. Technically, "harbinger of doom" is redundant since the word already has a negative connotation. 

Recently I got an email from Samantha (harbinger #2) announcing that my custody deposition had been scheduled for my birthday. Wonderful! I can't imagine any place I'd rather spend my 42nd birthday than the Friend of the Court going over every one of my financial documents from the last two years.

Well, unless we can add a couple of lawyers.

And I get to pick up the tab? Oh joy!

My crappy year got me thinking about the concept of the 'best year ever'. I've had some great years. For me, my best year so far was probably 1991 or 1992. I was living with Best Friend Brian on Jefferson Avenue in Cincinnati. I didn't have a care in the world. My days were spent studying whatever I wanted. My evenings were filled by great friends and conversation. My weekends were spent pasting my friends on the football field before getting pasted each night.

But that's not the 'Best Year Ever'. The title of 'Best Year Ever' has to go to Albert Einstein in 1905 - and there is no second place. 1905 is commonly referred to as Einstein's Annus Mirabilis (Miracle Year). The title refers to the Annus Mirabilis Papers published by Albert Einstein in 1905. These four papers published in the German Annalen der Physik journal forever changed our views on space, time and matter. And 105 years later still form the basis of much of modern physics.

At the time of publication, Einstein was only 26 years old. Let me say that again so it sinks in. When he completely redefined objective reality Einstein was 26 years old. When I was 26 years old I was still trying to figure out the difference between shit and Shineola. And I wasn't very successful. I was 24 before I even graduated from college.

Can you imagine being the editor of Annalen der Physik that year? The editor at the time was Paul Karl Ludwig Drude. Every few months some punk kid is submitting another unsupported paper redefining decades or even century old ideas about light, energy, time, space or matter. "Well Mr. Einstein, we like your paper, but do you think you could you punch it up a little bit? The whole thing on Special Relativity is just a little dry. What if we add some cartoons of astronauts. Oh wait, astronauts don't exist yet? Go with bicycles. Or clocks."

The four papers were on the photoelectric effect, Brownian motion, special relativity and matter-energy equivalence. Not clear enough?

Have none of you spent years studying theoretical physics? What is wrong with you?

Photoelectric Effect
The photoelectric effect defines and describes energy quanta. Einstein proposed that light could only be emitted or absorbed in discrete quantities. These discrete quantities were later defined to be "photons". Einstein, a patent clerk at the time, directly contradicted the existing wave theory of light. It took sixteen years for the rest of the scientific community to accept his theory completely. Later, this paper became the foundation of quantum mechanics. He won the Nobel prize in 1921 for this discovery.

Much later, quantum mechanics was polluted by Deepak Chopra and many other charlatans to explain the magical power of positive thinking. No, it doesn't work. You can throw your copy of "The Secret" in the recycling bin. Wishing doesn't equal work.

If you want more evidence, click here. Michael Shermer does a much better job explaining this quackery than I ever could.

That doesn't mean I'm against inspirational books in general. I like inspirational books. I just think they should stick to reality. It's good to have a positive attitude and think positive thoughts, but without hard work you're just engaging in mental masturbation.

Brownian Motion
This paper proved the existence of atoms. "Brownian motion" describes the motion of small particles suspended in a stationary liquid. If you mix very small particles in water and look at them under a microscope you will see them moving around haphazardly like the chips on a Plinko board.

What is with my fascination with Plinko and "The Price is Right"?

While this had been observed for decades, before Einstein's paper no one could explain the cause of the motion. I won't get into the details, but Einstein's explanation for the motion conclusively proved the existence of the atom. That's right, using a pencil, paper and microscope Einstein proved that all matter was made of atoms.

Special Relativity
First off, don't confuse special relativity with general relativity. General relativity wasn't invented until 1916 and special relativity had nothing to do with gravity. In this paper Einstein reconciled the laws of electricity and magnetism with the laws of mechanics by redefining time, distance, mass and energy in a way that was consistent with electromagnetism. This is the paper that proved nothing can move faster than the speed of light, and time is not 'fixed', but is relative to a body's velocity.

Sorry, that's just about as simple as I can make it. 'Special Relativity' is heady stuff even for me. 'General Relativity' really takes it to the next level.

Matter and Energy Equivalence



Is that clear enough for you? It's only the most famous equation in all of physics. It's the basis of the nuclear bomb, the nuclear fusion that powers the sun and the nuclear reactions used for power generation.

Not bad for twelve months, eh? Any one of the papers would have made him a physics legend. The fact he published four put him in the same discussion as Sir Isaac Newton.  Publishing all four in the same year? Mind blowing. It would be like one athlete winning the football, baseball and basketball MVP awards in the same season.

Or the EGOT. Give a shout-out to our 30 Rock fans! I wanted to find a clip of the EGOT, but this will have to do. Why are my therapy sessions nothing like this?

At this point in my posts I generally try to shoehorn some boobs in, but it just ain't happening for me tonight. How about Marisa Tomei in 'The Wrestler'? She'll be 46 this year.

For me personally, this has been more of an Annus Miserablis. Obviously the change that is occurring around me is not conducive to great physics discoveries. I'm lucky to 'discover' change in the dryer right now. But the changes I am making are helping me to redefine what is important to me and they have had some measurable positive benefits.

I haven't written anything 'creative' since Ms. Meixner's 12th grade AP English class at Parma Senior. That was 'only' 24 years ago. And yet, here I am blogging (for free) and getting suckers like you to read my scrawlings. I've had almost 500 page views - that's probably more than the Detroit News this week.

Wow, I'm glad I'm not in the newspaper business.

I managed to spend nine years in college and never walked into an English classroom. Not even by accident. That's got to be a record. I'm not saying I'm proud of that fact, it just sort of happened. There was always something just a little more interesting. On the other hand, I am an engineer. We're hardly known for our communication skills.

You think it shows?

There are other positives. I've rediscovered some old friends. I've initiated a few new friendships. I've lost a lot of weight. I'm exercising again. I feel better about myself and I'm really starting to like the guy I see staring back at me in the mirror.

I wouldn't wish divorce on anyone, but it's not just an ending. It's also an opportunity. But to take advantage of that opportunity to need to accept and embrace the change that comes along with it. I'm just now beginning to understand that.