Since my visit to Philadelphia, I worked for a week in Lexington before coming here to northwest Missouri for my last week of work until New York City. There wasn't much to report from Lexington - long days and nights, some annoying people, and a boss who acted unprofessionally. In other words, a normal week on the road. There will be much more to say once I finally retire.
In the meantime, we've been here in St Joseph, less than an hour north of Kansas City, for a women's $10,000 tournament. This is the entry level of professional tennis; many of the women here do not even have rankings yet. As a result, the level of play has been quite uneven at times, and startlingly competitive at others. In general, there is a wide gap between the skills of the top twenty players and the rest of the top 100. From about ranking 200 through 400, just about any player can beat any other on a given day. Once you get below that - and some players here are ranked around 1000 - the level of play once again drops off. There have been several matches here where the loser did not manage to win more than two games in the match. Then again, two equally inconsistent players could meet on the court and take you for a three-hour ride.
After receiving this assignment several months ago, I heard a few horror stories about the weather. I remember how parts of the Midwest can be in the middle of the summer, so I expected the worst. But we have been fortunate to have mostly overcast days (and a little rain) all week. Friday will finally be the clear and sunny scorcher we have been expecting all week. There was rain all day on Tuesday, creating a very long Wednesday, but now the end of the week is here, and we are back on schedule.
I have worked in a wide variety of tennis facilities in the eight years I have been on the road. This tournament is being played at a park with tennis courts and a track and football field, located alongside a fairly busy residential street. Three of the courts we have played on border the sidewalk and the road pretty closely. In the mornings, the sidewalk is the best place to watch matches and avoid the sun. There is a small building with restrooms and air conditioning. The accommodations are not elegant, but for an entry-level tournament, we have just about everything we need. Well, and we have one thing we don't need.
In all the years and all the cities and states I have visited, I have never encountered as many pigs as I have in St Joseph. Male pigs. Apparently, it is considered the height of class in this city to slow your pickup as you drive by the park and whistle, hoot, cat-call, or blow your horn at the women. It is true that these women are dressed unlike anyone that these pigs will see in their daily lives of work, Wal-Mart, and home. But that certainly does not excuse the behavior.
In the last three days, I have watched countless cars drive down the street - which in the afternoons is directly in front of me - and slow down once the pig drivers realize that lightly-dressed women are playing tennis on the courts. Most pigs slow down for the first bank of courts, speed up until the next bank of courts, slow down again, and so on. A few pigs have nearly caused wrecks, either by slowing down unexpectedly to ogle, or by nearly rear-ending the driver in front because they were not paying attention. At least ten have made some sort of inappropriate noise to signal - well, to signal what, I am not exactly sure.
Is this some weird mating ritual in northwest Missouri to which most of the rest of the country has not been exposed? I've seen men all over this country notice the female tennis players with whom I work, but I have never seen the women treated this way as they have been in St Joseph. Which of these women is going to say to herself, "Wow, he slowed down and whistled out the window, and then drove away quickly. I must be looking good today. And that man - so brave. That's the man for me"? These players know how they are dressed, and they know when they look good. But they did not invite rude behavior, and it offended me to have to see it this week.
Being a gentleman, it has been hard to wrap my mind around the goals of the pig. The one who whistled and then drove off quickly - what is he hoping to accomplish? If she thinks he is a pig, as she should, then driving away quickly might be smart. If he is trying to impress her, how would she know who he is? Is she to stop playing tennis and chase him down the street? The men who yelled, "Yeah, baby," and the like - is this the rural Missouri idea of how to woo a woman, or, more importantly, to treat a woman with respect? What motivates these pigs?
After a few days of witnessing pigs in the wild, and thinking about their behavior, I can only think of one explanation. Pigs aren't concerned with impressing women; they're trying to impress each other. They know they do not stand a chance with any of the women on our courts. So to earn standing with their fellow pigs, they try to demean the women that they cannot have. It is the gayest thing they can do without touching each other. If they were all on an elementary playground, the pigs would be trying to push the women down - that's about how mature this behavior is.
In this work environment, it is not my place to say anything to the pigs. (It is complicated to explain.) But I have apologized to the women when it has tread too closely to our tennis. In my experience, I feel that it has to be something about this place, St Joseph, that all these pigs have in common. I have never seen such disrespect for women anywhere else I have worked. And it bothered me enough to write about it. When women, and even other men, see this behavior, they should object to it. These pigs are close kin to the monsters that abuse and beat women. And often this puerile porcine behavior is how it starts.
Showing posts with label tennis. Show all posts
Showing posts with label tennis. Show all posts
Thursday, July 31, 2008
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
For the Pennsylvania we never found
I spent last week at a women's tennis event in Allentown. For all the time I spent in Pennsylvania as a child, I had never been there. I went there from Raleigh, traveling through the traffic bottleneck approaching Washington, and then up around Baltimore and into south-central Pennsylvania, approaching Allentown from the west and passing through some small parts of Amish country. It was a calm, quiet, and pretty drive - much nicer than the natural utilitarianism I would experience in New Jersey at the end of the week.
When I arrive at the hotel late Saturday night, there was a Jewish wedding party, a band in the bar, and a youth softball tournament that had quite literally overrun the hotel. Consequently, the front desk could not find my room, and I had to put down my own credit card for the night. As I waited, the desk clerk was on the phone with our chief umpire, telling him that there had been an error in reservations, that the hotel was overbooked, and that their company policy for overbooking was that whoever arrived first got the remaining rooms. Thankfully, I got a room, albeit a smoking one.
While I never found out who owned the hotel, it was the most patriotic place I have ever stayed. Seals with eagles adorned doors, carpets, and directional signs. The restaurant was called "America". The walls were adorned with all sorts of patriotic photographic art. Even the cigar lounge was prominently sponsored by Samuel Adams beer. (Although, I admit some trepidation in including this last fact, given that I do not know the provenance of that line of beers. I just know from the advertising that it seems colonial and patriotic.) And each morning at 8 a.m., they salute America with a flag raising. Employees and guests gather at the flag poles and honor hotel guests' family and friends who have served in the armed forces. The flag is raised to the National Anthem, followed by the much-overplayed "God Bless the U.S.A." by - you guessed it - Lee Greenwood. [Right next door to the hotel was the Liber-tee mini-golf. I went over there a few times for ice cream, as well as to play a round of golf by myself one cool night.]
The facility for tennis was decent, the staff was good, and the week was fairly normal. We had a few rain delays, one that moved our matches to the adjoining indoor courts. Imagine, if you will, Noah's Ark. Now, turn it upside down and place it over four tennis courts. That is what the indoor facility looked like. It was constructed of rich, dark wood planks around four inches wide, and it was built quite securely. The arc of the roof gently curved back in the opposite direction before reaching a point at the top. While the entire place smelled like your grandmother's damp attic, it did not leak a drop of water.
On Friday evening after work, I stopped by the supervisor's desk to chat before returning to the hotel. The order of play for the next day was on the table - two singles semifinals and the doubles final. As I looked at it, I said to her, "Well, I bet I know which match I am doing tomorrow." I had already had one of the singles semifinalists that day in her quarterfinal match, and back-to-back matches for chair umpires are avoided. And I've never done a final, so...
"You are doing the doubles final," she said. I told her that I was pretty certain this would be my first professional final. "Don't you think it's about time, then?" she said.
I wound up doing the opposite singles semifinal first, and then the doubles final third the next day. Other than a few extra duties for the final, it was mostly like any other match. I hadn't felt nerves on court in a long time, so it was an interesting feeling. But once we all got a few games under our belts, it was just like any other day at the office. And the match went pretty smoothly.
One note from the singles semifinal. The player to my left came to the next for an overhead smash. She succeeded in putting the ball into play against her opponent, but I heard something hit the ground as I watched the ball speed to the other side. The opponent got her racquet on the ball, but it sailed far outside. That's when I noticed the sound again, and saw the first player's racquet bouncing in her opponent's court. Apparently during the smash, the racquet slipped from her hand, bounced on her side of the court and then over the net. After the ball went out, the first player said to me, "Do I still win the point?" "No," I replied, to laughter from the player and the crowd.
And on other note - in another match, a tall player came racing into the net to play a short ball from her opponent. She got the return over, but her foot touched the base of the net in the process, so I called "touch". She looked at me and said, "Touch? What touch? Who touch?" So I told her that her foot had touched the net. As she walked back to the baseline, she shrugged and said, "Eh, my big feet."
Sunday morning I left for Albany for World TeamTennis, a pleasant drive of a couple hundred miles. Since I wasn't in a hurry, I drove mostly 55 mph on this trip. When I arrived, I discovered my gas mileage was 62.5 mpg for the trip. That's when I decided that I needed a bumper sticker reading, "I Drive This Way To Save Money". It amazed me at all the SUVs racing past me, sometimes more than 20 mph faster than me. Before you complain about the high price of gas, how about adjusting your driving habits?
I've also been playing the license plate game with some friends - the hard version, where you have to find all 50 state plates in alphabetical order. I have been stuck on Colorado for a couple of months now, which annoyed me since I was going to be up in New England these two weeks to get Connecticut and Delaware. And despite seeing Washington, California, Wyoming, Florida (lots of Florida), North Carolina, Texas, Alabama, Quebec, New Brunswick, and even Mexico (D.F.), I still haven't seen Colorado. I'll have more to say about this in a future entry about bumper-sticker politics.
I was in Albany for World TeamTennis, a unique format of professional tennis that uses a box umpire in place of a chair umpire. In other words, you do the same job, but just standing the entire time on a box at the net. WTT has different formats, scoring systems, procedures, verbiage, and mechanics. And while I have been a line umpire at WTT events before - a job exactly the same as line umpiring on the pro circuit - I had never been a box umpire before.
I studied the rules carefully, but some of them are arcane and hard to get unless you see them in action. I don't get the cable channel that shows WTT, so I asked a lot of questions in the last couple of weeks. I knew the basics, but I did not know what the actual product looked like, so I was winging it. Players can tell by the little things if you know what you are doing. If you can't get simple announcements and verbiage correct, they'll mark you as a rookie and eat you alive, even if you aren't. So I tried to master the little things that would instill confidence.
WTT has noisy crowds, even during play; it has coaches and players that come from the bench to argue calls with you; it has instant replay and challenges (in some cities); it has a headset microphone and a Palm Pilot for live scoring and a wide range of line umpire skills, varying from city to city. In essence, it is a challenge even for experience officials. And it was one of the few things left on my list of things I hadn't yet done in tennis.
The night seems like a blur, even though I was sweating, my legs hurt, and I was on the box for three hours, as the match went into overtime. But overall I survived it, and I even enjoyed it a little bit. I'll be more prepared for tonight's match at the DuPont Country Club in Wilmington, and then I will be done with WTT for the far forseeable future. (In case you are wondering, I am next off to see family in the Washington area and then have a vacation with Dave, and then I go to Lexington for a week and St. Joseph, MO (north of Kansas City) for a week.)
When I arrive at the hotel late Saturday night, there was a Jewish wedding party, a band in the bar, and a youth softball tournament that had quite literally overrun the hotel. Consequently, the front desk could not find my room, and I had to put down my own credit card for the night. As I waited, the desk clerk was on the phone with our chief umpire, telling him that there had been an error in reservations, that the hotel was overbooked, and that their company policy for overbooking was that whoever arrived first got the remaining rooms. Thankfully, I got a room, albeit a smoking one.
While I never found out who owned the hotel, it was the most patriotic place I have ever stayed. Seals with eagles adorned doors, carpets, and directional signs. The restaurant was called "America". The walls were adorned with all sorts of patriotic photographic art. Even the cigar lounge was prominently sponsored by Samuel Adams beer. (Although, I admit some trepidation in including this last fact, given that I do not know the provenance of that line of beers. I just know from the advertising that it seems colonial and patriotic.) And each morning at 8 a.m., they salute America with a flag raising. Employees and guests gather at the flag poles and honor hotel guests' family and friends who have served in the armed forces. The flag is raised to the National Anthem, followed by the much-overplayed "God Bless the U.S.A." by - you guessed it - Lee Greenwood. [Right next door to the hotel was the Liber-tee mini-golf. I went over there a few times for ice cream, as well as to play a round of golf by myself one cool night.]
The facility for tennis was decent, the staff was good, and the week was fairly normal. We had a few rain delays, one that moved our matches to the adjoining indoor courts. Imagine, if you will, Noah's Ark. Now, turn it upside down and place it over four tennis courts. That is what the indoor facility looked like. It was constructed of rich, dark wood planks around four inches wide, and it was built quite securely. The arc of the roof gently curved back in the opposite direction before reaching a point at the top. While the entire place smelled like your grandmother's damp attic, it did not leak a drop of water.
On Friday evening after work, I stopped by the supervisor's desk to chat before returning to the hotel. The order of play for the next day was on the table - two singles semifinals and the doubles final. As I looked at it, I said to her, "Well, I bet I know which match I am doing tomorrow." I had already had one of the singles semifinalists that day in her quarterfinal match, and back-to-back matches for chair umpires are avoided. And I've never done a final, so...
"You are doing the doubles final," she said. I told her that I was pretty certain this would be my first professional final. "Don't you think it's about time, then?" she said.
I wound up doing the opposite singles semifinal first, and then the doubles final third the next day. Other than a few extra duties for the final, it was mostly like any other match. I hadn't felt nerves on court in a long time, so it was an interesting feeling. But once we all got a few games under our belts, it was just like any other day at the office. And the match went pretty smoothly.
One note from the singles semifinal. The player to my left came to the next for an overhead smash. She succeeded in putting the ball into play against her opponent, but I heard something hit the ground as I watched the ball speed to the other side. The opponent got her racquet on the ball, but it sailed far outside. That's when I noticed the sound again, and saw the first player's racquet bouncing in her opponent's court. Apparently during the smash, the racquet slipped from her hand, bounced on her side of the court and then over the net. After the ball went out, the first player said to me, "Do I still win the point?" "No," I replied, to laughter from the player and the crowd.
And on other note - in another match, a tall player came racing into the net to play a short ball from her opponent. She got the return over, but her foot touched the base of the net in the process, so I called "touch". She looked at me and said, "Touch? What touch? Who touch?" So I told her that her foot had touched the net. As she walked back to the baseline, she shrugged and said, "Eh, my big feet."
Sunday morning I left for Albany for World TeamTennis, a pleasant drive of a couple hundred miles. Since I wasn't in a hurry, I drove mostly 55 mph on this trip. When I arrived, I discovered my gas mileage was 62.5 mpg for the trip. That's when I decided that I needed a bumper sticker reading, "I Drive This Way To Save Money". It amazed me at all the SUVs racing past me, sometimes more than 20 mph faster than me. Before you complain about the high price of gas, how about adjusting your driving habits?
I've also been playing the license plate game with some friends - the hard version, where you have to find all 50 state plates in alphabetical order. I have been stuck on Colorado for a couple of months now, which annoyed me since I was going to be up in New England these two weeks to get Connecticut and Delaware. And despite seeing Washington, California, Wyoming, Florida (lots of Florida), North Carolina, Texas, Alabama, Quebec, New Brunswick, and even Mexico (D.F.), I still haven't seen Colorado. I'll have more to say about this in a future entry about bumper-sticker politics.
I was in Albany for World TeamTennis, a unique format of professional tennis that uses a box umpire in place of a chair umpire. In other words, you do the same job, but just standing the entire time on a box at the net. WTT has different formats, scoring systems, procedures, verbiage, and mechanics. And while I have been a line umpire at WTT events before - a job exactly the same as line umpiring on the pro circuit - I had never been a box umpire before.
I studied the rules carefully, but some of them are arcane and hard to get unless you see them in action. I don't get the cable channel that shows WTT, so I asked a lot of questions in the last couple of weeks. I knew the basics, but I did not know what the actual product looked like, so I was winging it. Players can tell by the little things if you know what you are doing. If you can't get simple announcements and verbiage correct, they'll mark you as a rookie and eat you alive, even if you aren't. So I tried to master the little things that would instill confidence.
WTT has noisy crowds, even during play; it has coaches and players that come from the bench to argue calls with you; it has instant replay and challenges (in some cities); it has a headset microphone and a Palm Pilot for live scoring and a wide range of line umpire skills, varying from city to city. In essence, it is a challenge even for experience officials. And it was one of the few things left on my list of things I hadn't yet done in tennis.
The night seems like a blur, even though I was sweating, my legs hurt, and I was on the box for three hours, as the match went into overtime. But overall I survived it, and I even enjoyed it a little bit. I'll be more prepared for tonight's match at the DuPont Country Club in Wilmington, and then I will be done with WTT for the far forseeable future. (In case you are wondering, I am next off to see family in the Washington area and then have a vacation with Dave, and then I go to Lexington for a week and St. Joseph, MO (north of Kansas City) for a week.)
Saturday, April 05, 2008
Cross Country Days 7-18: Not much happened...well, one thing happened
My work in California, and the enjoyment of the non-work time, plus the drive back to Alabama were times that I did not feel like writing, so I am a little behind. So let me just summarize what happened for the week there and on the trip back.
I spent a week in Redding, California. It was very beautiful, and with only one exception, the weather was fantastic. I found a nice park and running trail where I could work out, and I managed to keep my slow but steady weight loss going while I was on the road. (I lost three more pounds, and I am now down sixteen pounds since the start of the year.) Also, I had a very good week of work. I was complimented by a fellow higher-ranking official on the job I had done that week. (This despite a day in which I gave six penalties in two matches, including a well-deserved penalty that cost a doubles team their match.)
On the drive back, I spent a night with my cousin and her husband in Napa. They work in the wine and beer industry. She had been bitten on the face by a dog the day before, but was in remarkably good spirits, and we had a nice visit. I spent the next night in Phoenix, and then the next two nights visiting friends in San Antonio (more below). On the next to last day of my trip, I drove through Austin and visited my old high school. I got lots of hugs and smiles, and it was very nice to be so warmly remembered. (I am considering a job offer there.) I spent the night in Lewisville with my sister's family, visiting my nephew (who is gigantic and not even two yet). Then I drove to the University of Mississippi for a college tennis match, and finally back home for a week of rest. The visits with friends and the urge to be home made the last week of this trip fly. But overall, it was an excellent experience. Two-hundred-mile drives are nothing to me now.
So, back to San Antonio...
At the start of this trip, I had six friends in San Antonio: three sets of gay couples. I met the other two couples through the first couple, Jeremy (I've known ten years) and Jon (I've known in one way or another for fourteen years). The other couples are James and A.J., both Starbucks baristas, and Jonathan and Justin, who split up in the recent past, but still live together out of circumstance. Jon and Jonathan are my age, and everyone else is in their 20s.
Jeremy and Jon have always been my main place to visit and stay when I come to San Antonio, even when I lived only an hour away in Austin. They have the biggest house, the most computer toys, and always seemed welcoming, or at least ambivalent, to my visits. Jonathan and Justin moved from Ohio and lived with Jeremy and Jon for a few months until they go on their own four feet. Initially, I was going to visit Justin after he got off work late, because I wasn't arriving from Phoenix until around 11pm. But I was exhausted when I got close to town, so I begged off meeting him that night, and instead called James and A.J., who were happy to wait up to see me, and gladly let me spend the night.
I had a great visit with them, even though it was short, and my plan was to spend the next day with Jeremy and Jon, hopefully have Justin and Jonathan come over to visit, and go out to dinner like we usually do when I visit. So, I left James and A.J.'s place and went to get my car serviced. By noon I was out, and I called Jeremy and went over to their house (Jon was at work). I confirmed again that when Jon got off work (Jeremy said around 7), that we'd all go to dinner.
During the first part of the visit, Jeremy says to me, "In exchange for sleeping here, would you clean the kitchen?" I was very taken aback - I've never had to sing for my supper before, so to speak. But for some reason I agreed, probably in part because I never have to do any cleaning in my own house.
The kitchen was a disaster. There were flies and bugs crawling because of how unsanitary it was. Food was caked onto plates and the range top. The microwave looked like a lentil soup had exploded inside it. Cereal bowls were stacked up six-high in the sink. The floor was covered with dog hair, dog food, and all manner of crumbs and human food remnants. It was disgusting. And it was somewhat expected - Jeremy and Jon are slobs. Part of the rent arrangement when Justin and Jonathan lived there was to clean the house. I watched Justin do ten loads of laundry one day, and he couldn't even catch up.
Well, like a good friend, I diligently cleaned up. I spent forty-five minutes on the microwave alone. As I worked more and more, I became angrier and angrier that Jeremy would even ask such a thing of me. You don't ask friends to clean your house, especially in exchange for letting them stay at your house, when you have let them stay at your house for years before without such a request. So now, I was stumped as to exactly what the hell was going on in his head.
While I am working in the kitchen, Jeremy is mesmerized by World of Warcraft. I am used to this obsession, however, and I visit with him while I play Wii in the same room. About an hour later, a man comes over - middle aged, hulking, and, according to Jeremy, a divorced masseur. Jeremy said he always has a massage at 2pm on Wednesday -- "ALWAYS" -- so would I mind? He said I was welcome to stay and play games in the meanwhile. Sure, I thought, no problem. Well, that was the next problem.
See, the massage didn't take place at Jeremy's house. Jeremy left and went somewhere else, probably to the guy's house, which Jeremy said was in the neighborhood. And then Jeremy was gone for three and a half hours. I couldn't leave because I didn't have anywhere else to go at that point. And, by the way, there was much more than massaging going on, from the behavior between the two of them when the man was there.
So Jeremy is back now, and it is almost six o'clock. Both of them are flakes, I know, but I've overlooked it for a decade, so why stop now? Jeremy goes back to his computer games, so I go back to the Wii. (Actually, I had never left the Wii for the most part in the previous three hours - there was nothing else to do there.) Time passes, I am hungry, and we are waiting for Jon to come home so we can go to dinner. Suddenly, I notice two things at once. First, it is nine pm. And second, Jeremy is getting dressed and putting his shoes on.
I asked where he was going, and he said to the gym to workout. So I said, um, hey, it's nine pm, and where's Jon, and we're supposed to be going to dinner, right? And he said, oh, I thought I told you, Jon is going to have drinks with friends after work, and won't be home until nine or ten, buh-bye. Well, not quite buh-bye, because I told him I was hungry and aggravated, and that he in fact had not told me that. He replied, oh, I must have said it to (the massage guy). So Jeremy leaves me alone in the house for the second time that day.
About an hour later, after ten pm, Jeremy calls and says, "Okay, my workout is done." Long pause. Like I am supposed to say something in reply. ("Great, I am ready for dinner. Don't mind me, it wasn't any inconvenience at all.") Finally I said, "okay." He had just spoken to Jon, who was on his way home. So I said, fine, we'll figure out what to do when you get here.
They both arrive home around the same time, and I explain the situation to Jon. After some arguing, Jon agrees to make some Hamburger Helper for dinner. Not what I was expecting, but not horrible, either. So he cooks, we chat, and Justin comes over to visit. (He'll wind up staying for about four hours, probably the nicest part of the day.) When it is done, Jeremy says, "Eat what you want and I'll take the rest." So I do. Jon sees what has happened and says, "I didn't cook for you guys to eat it all." So he comes and takes some from each of us. Thankful for anything to eat, I just consume my Helper in mostly silence.
While we are eating, and Jeremy goes back to his computer games, I explain to Jon what happened with the kitchen. Jon tells me that he had told Jeremy the day before to clean the kitchen, because it had gotten disgusting. Now I am pissed. Jeremy, my "friend", used me. Neither Jon nor Justin seems to have an explanation for this. So as the night continues, and the three of us stay up late talking, I ask Jon what he really gets out of a friendship with me. Justin tries to explain, both then and in a later IM exchange, that friends are not ledger sheets. That made sense, but it still did not explain why Jon tolerates me, much less calls me friend. He's never needed me for anything, never had to rely on me for anything, and I don't have anything he wants or needs. He sometimes shows contempt towards me between being affectionate. And all of those things, especially in recent years, apply doubly to Jeremy.
I should have stayed with James and A.J. again that night, but it was late, and I just said, screw it. Sleep, get up, leave without saying goodbye, go to Austin, and don't look back. And that's what I did. I don't consider Jeremy or Jon friends anymore.
It's funny how time can pass, and you can think things are just fine, and it takes a strong slap across the face ("clean my kitchen") to realize that you have been ignored and abused all that time. I guess I kept going back to them because they had things I needed - computer knowledge and equipment, a place to stay in town, occasional fun friends. It is hard to believe that at thirty-four, I can still be surprised by things like this.
I spent a week in Redding, California. It was very beautiful, and with only one exception, the weather was fantastic. I found a nice park and running trail where I could work out, and I managed to keep my slow but steady weight loss going while I was on the road. (I lost three more pounds, and I am now down sixteen pounds since the start of the year.) Also, I had a very good week of work. I was complimented by a fellow higher-ranking official on the job I had done that week. (This despite a day in which I gave six penalties in two matches, including a well-deserved penalty that cost a doubles team their match.)
On the drive back, I spent a night with my cousin and her husband in Napa. They work in the wine and beer industry. She had been bitten on the face by a dog the day before, but was in remarkably good spirits, and we had a nice visit. I spent the next night in Phoenix, and then the next two nights visiting friends in San Antonio (more below). On the next to last day of my trip, I drove through Austin and visited my old high school. I got lots of hugs and smiles, and it was very nice to be so warmly remembered. (I am considering a job offer there.) I spent the night in Lewisville with my sister's family, visiting my nephew (who is gigantic and not even two yet). Then I drove to the University of Mississippi for a college tennis match, and finally back home for a week of rest. The visits with friends and the urge to be home made the last week of this trip fly. But overall, it was an excellent experience. Two-hundred-mile drives are nothing to me now.
So, back to San Antonio...
At the start of this trip, I had six friends in San Antonio: three sets of gay couples. I met the other two couples through the first couple, Jeremy (I've known ten years) and Jon (I've known in one way or another for fourteen years). The other couples are James and A.J., both Starbucks baristas, and Jonathan and Justin, who split up in the recent past, but still live together out of circumstance. Jon and Jonathan are my age, and everyone else is in their 20s.
Jeremy and Jon have always been my main place to visit and stay when I come to San Antonio, even when I lived only an hour away in Austin. They have the biggest house, the most computer toys, and always seemed welcoming, or at least ambivalent, to my visits. Jonathan and Justin moved from Ohio and lived with Jeremy and Jon for a few months until they go on their own four feet. Initially, I was going to visit Justin after he got off work late, because I wasn't arriving from Phoenix until around 11pm. But I was exhausted when I got close to town, so I begged off meeting him that night, and instead called James and A.J., who were happy to wait up to see me, and gladly let me spend the night.
I had a great visit with them, even though it was short, and my plan was to spend the next day with Jeremy and Jon, hopefully have Justin and Jonathan come over to visit, and go out to dinner like we usually do when I visit. So, I left James and A.J.'s place and went to get my car serviced. By noon I was out, and I called Jeremy and went over to their house (Jon was at work). I confirmed again that when Jon got off work (Jeremy said around 7), that we'd all go to dinner.
During the first part of the visit, Jeremy says to me, "In exchange for sleeping here, would you clean the kitchen?" I was very taken aback - I've never had to sing for my supper before, so to speak. But for some reason I agreed, probably in part because I never have to do any cleaning in my own house.
The kitchen was a disaster. There were flies and bugs crawling because of how unsanitary it was. Food was caked onto plates and the range top. The microwave looked like a lentil soup had exploded inside it. Cereal bowls were stacked up six-high in the sink. The floor was covered with dog hair, dog food, and all manner of crumbs and human food remnants. It was disgusting. And it was somewhat expected - Jeremy and Jon are slobs. Part of the rent arrangement when Justin and Jonathan lived there was to clean the house. I watched Justin do ten loads of laundry one day, and he couldn't even catch up.
Well, like a good friend, I diligently cleaned up. I spent forty-five minutes on the microwave alone. As I worked more and more, I became angrier and angrier that Jeremy would even ask such a thing of me. You don't ask friends to clean your house, especially in exchange for letting them stay at your house, when you have let them stay at your house for years before without such a request. So now, I was stumped as to exactly what the hell was going on in his head.
While I am working in the kitchen, Jeremy is mesmerized by World of Warcraft. I am used to this obsession, however, and I visit with him while I play Wii in the same room. About an hour later, a man comes over - middle aged, hulking, and, according to Jeremy, a divorced masseur. Jeremy said he always has a massage at 2pm on Wednesday -- "ALWAYS" -- so would I mind? He said I was welcome to stay and play games in the meanwhile. Sure, I thought, no problem. Well, that was the next problem.
See, the massage didn't take place at Jeremy's house. Jeremy left and went somewhere else, probably to the guy's house, which Jeremy said was in the neighborhood. And then Jeremy was gone for three and a half hours. I couldn't leave because I didn't have anywhere else to go at that point. And, by the way, there was much more than massaging going on, from the behavior between the two of them when the man was there.
So Jeremy is back now, and it is almost six o'clock. Both of them are flakes, I know, but I've overlooked it for a decade, so why stop now? Jeremy goes back to his computer games, so I go back to the Wii. (Actually, I had never left the Wii for the most part in the previous three hours - there was nothing else to do there.) Time passes, I am hungry, and we are waiting for Jon to come home so we can go to dinner. Suddenly, I notice two things at once. First, it is nine pm. And second, Jeremy is getting dressed and putting his shoes on.
I asked where he was going, and he said to the gym to workout. So I said, um, hey, it's nine pm, and where's Jon, and we're supposed to be going to dinner, right? And he said, oh, I thought I told you, Jon is going to have drinks with friends after work, and won't be home until nine or ten, buh-bye. Well, not quite buh-bye, because I told him I was hungry and aggravated, and that he in fact had not told me that. He replied, oh, I must have said it to (the massage guy). So Jeremy leaves me alone in the house for the second time that day.
About an hour later, after ten pm, Jeremy calls and says, "Okay, my workout is done." Long pause. Like I am supposed to say something in reply. ("Great, I am ready for dinner. Don't mind me, it wasn't any inconvenience at all.") Finally I said, "okay." He had just spoken to Jon, who was on his way home. So I said, fine, we'll figure out what to do when you get here.
They both arrive home around the same time, and I explain the situation to Jon. After some arguing, Jon agrees to make some Hamburger Helper for dinner. Not what I was expecting, but not horrible, either. So he cooks, we chat, and Justin comes over to visit. (He'll wind up staying for about four hours, probably the nicest part of the day.) When it is done, Jeremy says, "Eat what you want and I'll take the rest." So I do. Jon sees what has happened and says, "I didn't cook for you guys to eat it all." So he comes and takes some from each of us. Thankful for anything to eat, I just consume my Helper in mostly silence.
While we are eating, and Jeremy goes back to his computer games, I explain to Jon what happened with the kitchen. Jon tells me that he had told Jeremy the day before to clean the kitchen, because it had gotten disgusting. Now I am pissed. Jeremy, my "friend", used me. Neither Jon nor Justin seems to have an explanation for this. So as the night continues, and the three of us stay up late talking, I ask Jon what he really gets out of a friendship with me. Justin tries to explain, both then and in a later IM exchange, that friends are not ledger sheets. That made sense, but it still did not explain why Jon tolerates me, much less calls me friend. He's never needed me for anything, never had to rely on me for anything, and I don't have anything he wants or needs. He sometimes shows contempt towards me between being affectionate. And all of those things, especially in recent years, apply doubly to Jeremy.
I should have stayed with James and A.J. again that night, but it was late, and I just said, screw it. Sleep, get up, leave without saying goodbye, go to Austin, and don't look back. And that's what I did. I don't consider Jeremy or Jon friends anymore.
It's funny how time can pass, and you can think things are just fine, and it takes a strong slap across the face ("clean my kitchen") to realize that you have been ignored and abused all that time. I guess I kept going back to them because they had things I needed - computer knowledge and equipment, a place to stay in town, occasional fun friends. It is hard to believe that at thirty-four, I can still be surprised by things like this.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)