I get my culture from cartoons. Or would, if, you know, I had illegally downloaded JLU and watched it. That's what I meant to say.

The Rites of the Viking Prince via Suspension of Disbelief:

In the closing moments of the Justice League Unlimited episode "To Another Shore," Wonder Woman recites a poem as the League performs the funeral rites for the Viking Prince. The scene is also intercut with J'onn J'onzz taking leave of the team.

The poem is not identified by name during the episode, but it is the exceedingly appropriate The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. The verses that Wonder Woman quotes are from near its end, and read as follows:

And now, all in my own country,
I stood on the firm land!
The Hermit stepp'd forth from the boat,
And scarcely he could stand.

"O shrieve me, shrieve me, holy man!"
The Hermit cross'd his brow.
"Say quick," quoth he, "I bid thee say—
What manner of man art thou?"

Forthwith this frame of mine was wrench'd
With a woful agony,
Which forced me to begin my tale;
And then it left me free.

Since then, at an uncertain hour,
That agony returns:
And till my ghastly tale is told,
This heart within me burns.

I pass, like night, from land to land;
I have strange power of speech;
That moment that his face I see,
I know the man that must hear me:
To him my tale I teach.

...So the next time someone accuses JLU of being merely a children's cartoon, ask them what was the last TV show they watched that quoted a member of the Romantic Movement.

It's all relative

Einstein - "Space and time are not conditions in which we live; they are simply modes in which we think."

"Should I Move to Amsterdam?"

Article series, via Slate:

Lately, for lots of reasons, I've been thinking I might leave the country.

I daydream about moving to Canada. Or maybe New Zealand. In my most crazed and misanthropic moments, I envision myself on some sort of self-contained barge, drifting aimlessly through international waters.

In the end, though, most of my fantasies settle on Amsterdam. It's a modern, First World metropolis, and as such it's a realistic destination for me. It's not too close, but it's not on the far side of the world. It's not too cold but also not tropically hot.

In my limited visits to Amsterdam, I've always felt at home. The progressive social policy, the slicing-edge architecture, the relaxed yet refined mood ... it all speaks to me. It says: Move here...

1: The Bicycle Culture

"There's something about riding a bike that makes you feel like you're 5 years old," my American friend Carey, who lives and works here in Amsterdam, said to me. Indeed, these proper Dutch couples outside the theater seemed to morph, before my eyes, into bouncy little children. I half-expected the ladies to shriek, "Wheeeeee!" as their bikes picked up speed and rounded a corner out of sight.

The next day, totally inspired, I rented a bike from the shop by my hotel. (Of course, a helmet was unnecessary or at least unfashionable—no one wears them here. Nor do they wear Spandex shorts; or wristbands; or water-dispensing backpacks. They just hop on the bike and go, like normal people. You'll often see a mother with two kids perched on the bike holding groceries in one hand and a cell phone in the other.)

Since Amsterdam worships bicycles, there are separate bike paths on nearly every street. There are even bike-specific traffic lights to prevent you from careening into traffic. I still assumed that I had about a 70 percent chance of causing some sort of horrific accident (tram car, canal, Belgian tourist) but decided not to worry about it.

Within moments, I was zooming around the city, elbow-to-elbow in a pack of Dutch cyclists, feeling—yes, a bit like a 5-year-old. It was fantastic. I hadn't ridden a bike in a while, and I'd forgotten the tiny thrill of coasting along with the wind in my face ... standing on the pedals and leaning over the handlebars ... weaving back and forth down an empty street.

Ignoring the wonders this does for your fitness (everyone's thin here, with shapely calves) as well as for air pollution, perhaps the best thing about biking is the utter silence of it. At night, rolling along the elegant western canals, the only sound I'd hear was my own wheels rumbling on cobblestone streets (or the polite ding of another cyclist's bell; or the watery echoes of a boat passing beneath a bridge)...

3: The Quest for Gezellig

The overriding vibe in Amsterdam is coziness. It's like a municipal mission here. Every cafe has a cute little cat in the corner licking its paws. Every canal house blooms with a window box of tulips. Every hooker has doilies on her bedside table. (I'm guessing about this last thing, but it feels right.)

There's a Dutch word for their tyranny of cuteness. The word is gezellig, and it's difficult to translate. You just know it when you see it. For instance: Friends enjoying a picnic on a canal bank, laughing fondly, sharing a bottle of red wine ... this is clearly gezellig. A slob wolfing down fast food as he sprints to a meeting ... not so gezellig.

The larger point is this: They live much better here. They carve out cozy, delightful moments anywhere they can find them. They bring their families on candlelit, nighttime boat rides through the canals. They chat with their friends at outdoor cafes as the sun sets. They leave work by 6 every evening. And these are not special, once-in-a-blue-moon treats. This is how they live, all the time. Even in my short stay here, I've found myself drifting into various gezellig moments (involving, for instance, good food, thoughtful friends, copious pints of Heineken, and a rainy afternoon inside a bar that played only Al Green records).

I realize I'm in grave danger of sounding like a Euro-snob. So, let me be clear: I don't think they're any smarter or cooler than us (though they're certainly taller and slimmer). And yes, of course, we're capable of living beautifully in the States. But the gezellig lifestyle is a national priority with the Dutchies. I'm not even sure what our shared priorities are in America. Getting rich? Appearing on television? It's fair to say that coziness is not high on the list...

5: Kind Bud

Some people visit Amsterdam and neglect to smoke any weed. Frankly, I can't comprehend this.

...Following this impeccable logic, I wandered into an Amsterdam coffeeshop ("coffeehouses" sell coffee, while "coffeeshops" sell cannabis) along the posh Prinsengracht canal—far from the annoying hippie/frat-guy stoner scene near the city center. This particular coffeeshop was called La Tertulia, and it's the cutest little marijuana mart you'll ever see. It has a garden and a goldfish pond. Outside, there's a mural of Vincent van Gogh, and some canalside tables and chairs so you can smoke up al fresco. At the counter, a nice older lady (I'm pretty certain she's the owner) will sell you a zip-locked baggie of pot for 12 euros.

...How does pot's semi-legal status play out in the Netherlands? In terms of overall drug-use rates, some claim it's been a great success (though, as always, there are arguments on both sides). But in terms of everyday life in Amsterdam, I can see how the Dutch might get fed up. Each weekend, hundreds of British teenage boys storm the city, get totally blazed, and stumble around in a zombie stupor. It's like a plague of retarded locusts.

The American kids are less staggering in number but equally irritating in behavior. I watched one frat guy play "I Will Survive" on his acoustic guitar, sitting cross-legged on the grass at Museumplein, as a buddy nodded his head in time and then launched into a feeble somersault. They both had souvenir poster-tubes from the Van Gogh Museum's gift shop. I watched them with a burning revulsion. Later, I saw a different kid sitting alone on a sidewalk at night, his eyes as red as maraschino cherries. He was totally incapable of speech. Or thought. Or standing up. And again, I hated him fiercely. Pull it together, you toasted-out spaz!

Of course, the Dutch deal with doofuses like this every day, yet manage to maintain a tolerant (if unimpressed) attitude. It's the price you pay for enacting a vaguely rational drug policy.

Me, I'm no blazed-out teen. But I did thoroughly enjoy the opportunity to hit La Tertulia, spark up a jaybird, put on my headphones, and then listen to Nina Simone as I walked the canals on a sunny afternoon. I assure you: My eyes were not red, my gait was not wobbly, and the Dutchies were none the wiser.

Am I a doofus? Oh, yes. But a doofus in moderation.

6: World-Class Skinflints

The Dutch are widely thought to be the cheapest people on earth. Wherever there's a guilder-(now euro-)shaving angle, there's a Dutchie. For example: Why are canal houses so narrow here? Because they were built at a time when property taxes were based on width.

...You probably think that "going Dutch" means splitting the check 50-50. But in fact it's much less casual than that. According to my friend Carey, who has witnessed this ritual many times, the Dutch will split each check right down to the dish. Thus six people eating a meal together will carefully examine the bill, determine who ordered what, and then pay precisely their share. (And it goes without saying that you don't have to tip your waiter.)

I get the feeling that I'm being squeezed at every turn. Just look at the bathroom in my hotel room: I'm certain that its cubic capacity is the absolute minimum necessary to fit a toilet, sink, and shower. My God, but these people are masters of niggling. Have a heart, you cheap bastards!

I think the Dutch are secretly happy to dominate the soft-drugs tourism market (all the annoyances aside). It's a highly profitable niche, and they can't resist it. Same thing with prostitution, which is a massive tourist draw.

7: Hookers

Speaking of which, I suppose I should address the hooker issue.

I can give you no first-hand accounts. My girlfriend would not be coolio with that. Frankly, I would not be coolio with that, either, girlfriend or no. Paying for sex seems rather icky.

With your interests in mind, though, reader, I tried to enlist a few single guy friends as surrogate reporters. I was hoping one of these dudes might be willing to indulge in some red-light shenanigans. But I found no takers. What a bunch of nerds my friends are.

So, here's what I can say: Even if you never close the deal, it still puts a bit of a zing in your step when a stocky, pockmarked whore waves you over to her window, flashes a dun-toothed smile, and gives you her best bedroom eyes.

Maybe next time, you squat, sexy minx!

8: Living the Dream

...This leads us to a broader discussion of the Moroccan ghettoes growing on the far side of Amsterdam and about the reactionary xenophobia that's been brewing all over the Netherlands. The country has been inflamed in the past few years by the anti-immigration bluster of politician Pim Fortuyn (who was eventually assassinated); by the death of filmmaker Theo van Gogh (who was stabbed and shot in the streets of Amsterdam by a radical Muslim); and by the more recent assault on a gay American couple (who were beaten by a group of Moroccan men).

It's all quite depressing to think about. I'd built up Amsterdam in my mind as a progressive-thinking paradise—a perfect escape pod when I decide I can't hack it in the United States any longer. But it turns out the legendary Dutch tolerance (for soft drugs, prostitution, homosexuality, euthanasia) does not extend to immigration. Perhaps Moroccans are not gezellig?) The bottom line is: This country has its problems, too...

9: Satori

It's my last day in Amsterdam. I've got no one to hang out with. I've seen all the good museums, I've biked through all the interesting neighborhoods. What's left?

Ah yes, one last thing to do: eat psychedelic mushrooms.

...It's time for me to dance with the fungus.

Luckily, the "smart shops" here are incredibly professional. They tell you precisely the dosage to take (it's pre-packaged), help you determine which shrooms are best suited for your purposes (I took a pass on the daunting "Philosopher's Stones" and went for the wussiest option: "Thai"), and even explain how to come down if you're freaking out (you fill your stomach with food and sugary drinks, which mutes the effect).

So, now I've bought some shrooms, scurried them back to my hotel room, and gobbled them up. And now the waiting game begins. I walk around Amsterdam aimlessly, doing some window shopping, trying to kill time until the trip kicks in.

I'm in an H&M, on the edge of the socks and accessories aisle, when the drugs begin to take hold. My body starts to yell at me: "Something is happening! What is happening?! Yeeeee!!" Racks of cotton dresses shimmer together in a wavy mass. Sounds that were soft are suddenly loud, while sounds that were loud are now fading away.

I manage to stumble outside to an empty park bench. The trees here are waving wooden fingers at me, and birds are somehow flying without flapping their wings. It feels like I'm in a scene from Koyaanisqatsi. And my stomach seems poised to eject from my torso at any moment. I am clinging to broken shards of reality.

Then, after a few terrifying minutes like this, it all smoothes out. My stomach settles. My eyes refocus. I decide that I am not in fact dying ... and that the basic laws of physics still pertain. I gather myself, and I stand up straight.

It feels like there is a magical accordion in my skull and that it's pumping a thick, steady breeze of colors through my brain.

The rain has picked up and that low, weighty Netherlands sky looks sort of evil, so I duck into a nearby cinema. I complete the ticket transaction with a surprising degree of competence. Now I find myself watching What the #$*! Do We Know? in a theater with a few dozen people. The British women to my left whisper during the coming attractions, gossiping about their love lives. Their voices sound like they're living inside my cortex. Then the film starts up, and it turns out to be just the ticket: an exploration of quantum physics and the meaning of life, written by members of a bizarre, guru-centered cult. Perrrrrfect.

The accordion in my skull eventually slows. The experience is becoming less physical and more cerebral. My thoughts race and blend. Concepts and forms crystallize, then melt, then merge.

I start contemplating my visit to Amsterdam: how wonderful travel is—the way it jolts you from patterns and ruts and lets you examine your everyday life from the outside. I think about the people I've met here, conjuring their faces in my mind. I remember the thoughts and stories that spilled out in our conversations. Each person and thought and story forges a teensy new dot in my brain ... a dot that hadn't been there before ... and these dots join a web of connections in my head ... and the people and places and thoughts and stories swirl together in an overarching conceptual understanding of the universe and my place in it ...

I know it's silly. I know I've totally lost you here. And I don't mind you laughing at me—I realize that this seems not nearly so profound as it did when I was in that satori moment.

One thing about interesting drugs (not boring drugs like cocaine or Vicodin) is that they can help you appreciate simple truths. Things you've been taking for granted. I mean, you look down at your hand, and the drugs say, "Wow, far out, there are bones inside my hand!" but then the sober, together voice in your head says, "Well, of course there are bones inside your hand, you doofus—you have a skeletal system to provide structure for your body," and then the drugs say, "No, dude—there are bones inside my hand! That is trippy!"

And the thing is, both of you are right.

When the film ends, I sit in the cinema lobby for a while (it's a plush, upscale place—not some popcorn-shrapneled megaplex), and I let myself come down. I sip on a fountain Vanilla Coke. I watch people come and go. A few Dutchies have set up a sort of picnic at a table in the corner. They are surrounded by their empty bottles of Heineken. Their children are playing a game of tag, shrieking and circling the bench I'm sitting on. People board the escalator, and I follow them with my eyes as they ascend. Everyone I see, I love. You, guy in the glasses with a backpack: You're A-OK! Hey, you, mom with the stroller: Rock on! I feel deep empathy for all humankind. This is a feeling I wish to hold onto forever yet also wish to be rid of as soon as possible.

I suck at my straw and the last drops of Vanilla Coke burble up to my tongue. So, this is the end. My travels are over. Tomorrow I'll get on a plane and be back at home, back at work, back in the swing, back on track.

But I've realized it's just a state of mind. Going to an art museum shifts my perspective. Meeting new people shifts my perspective. Taking mushrooms shifts my perspective. Being here in Amsterdam shifts my perspective. But I needn't actually move to Amsterdam (or, thank God, be on mushrooms) to find the life I'm seeking. It's all waiting for us, up there in our noggins. We choose to become who we are, and together we all create the world we live in. And now my rational, together voice is saying, "Duh! You're a mushroom-eating moron." But my Amsterdam voice is saying, "That is trippy!"

Sumo Nail Bomb

Your regular dose of Warren Ellis:

"How did they get a nail bomb inside a Sumo wrestler?"

Falconer, the great consulting detective, smiled his cunning smile. He indicated, in turn, the heavy work gloves, the makeshift battering-ram propped beside the closet, and the blood-spattered shovel.

"It occurs to me," Falconer responded, twisting the Cigarette Of Victory between his long fingers, "that it is a signal indicator of the condition of this country that you ask how they fitted a nail bomb inside a Sumo wrestler, rather than why. Exeunt."

War Memorial

Vastly out of sequence, pics from either my second or third day here. Some folks from the board of ed took me sightseeing, including these pics from a monument to a Japan-Russia Naval battle off of the coast here... Kinda cool.

Parades

Parade at the local shrine [Miyajidake], an annual thing to invoke good fortune, crops, etc. Certainly good fortune for me, as the vice principal pulled me outta school for an hour and a half or so to check it out. Parade watching, for fun and profit. Gotta like that.

One might get the impression...

...that I don't actually do much here in Japan.

One could think that.

Sandy

My wife's pretty...

Even when she's eating :)

"Grant Morrison is proof that comics are a wonderful thing..."

I swear Morrison's interviews are almost better than his comics. Excerpts, from Pop Thought:

AN: Why do you write?

GM: I write to live and to make sense of things. Words and voices come out of my head when I ask them to and I write them down and show them to people, at which point the stuff from my head miraculously converts into money, then the money turns into houses and cat food and trips abroad and clothes and savings. I view the process as pure sorcery and treat it with the respect and devotion it deserves.
--
The weird thing is that I did many of these things force the sole purpose of having experiences worthy of putting into stories, so, if I hadn't wanted to include Australian magic, Jeet Kune Do, or the tawdry allure of transvestite glam in The Invisibles, I might never have gone there or done that. Instead, I've been round the world three times on my own and with friends, visited a ton of countries, and had loads of mad relationships and weird experiences. This is how a hypersigil works to change the world around you. This is total surrender to the text, total immersion and deliberate self-annihilation. I'm not doing 'stories', I'm desperately writing biography to celebrate life in this world and to negotiate with depression and meaninglessness. I become possessed by characters and texts to the point where my own 'personality' is reconfigured and it's partly what gives my comics their particular, occult, and often irritatingly 'cultish' flavour, I reckon.
--
All I can say is, there may just be some readers who are TOO DUMB for comics but they're not a part of my audience.
So Joe Six-Pack? He can f*** off for a start.
--
All stories are filled with metaphor, like all of human life... My own personal taste doesn't run to literal work or stuff where everything's neatly explained to me and tied in a 'clever' bow. The world's a big, wild mess and I like to reflect that. As a reader, I like to join in and not just watch, if you see what I mean, so as a writer my intention has always been to create experiences which deliberately raise questions or suggest further, untold stories and don't necessarily have one easy solution or outcome. I like to leave people with something to talk about and fire their own imaginations and I'm trying to capture the real patterns of real life.

To elaborate on that, in real life, people say things they don't actually mean and they don't have little thought balloons or captions hovering nearby to explain what they're really thinking: even if they did, they'd be thinking several contradictory things at once and in different voices, with pictures and scribbly feelings attached. In real life, we judge people by how their actions and their words match up. In real life, we don't get all the facts but have to use our logic and emotions and sense of smell to draw our own conclusions. In real life, two people can appear to be having the same conversation while actually discussing several quite different things.

In real life, conversations are peppered with weird dead ends, misunderstandings, interruptions, surrealist non sequiturs and in-jokes. In real life, you don't get neatly-controlled dramatic set-ups and resolutions. In real life, the writer isn't nearly as clever as he'd like to appear on the page. And so on.
--
As I said, metaphor occurs naturally in ANY story. The fact that Tolkien's Ring can easily stand in for the Bomb, or for Addiction, or for any number of things - which it can - doesn't seem to hamper people's enjoyment of the elephant fights in 'The Lord of the Rings', so metaphorical content shouldn't be looked upon as anything highbrow or unusual. I tend to see it everywhere, but that's just how I'm wired up. I don't know about you, but I can't look at Godzilla without seeing the atom bomb over Nagasaki, the screaming, hyper-enthusiastic shopgirls of Shibuya, Tokyo, and the devastating smile of the goddess Amaterasu, among other things, all piled on top of one another and representing the very same something.

Metaphor's there to be read or applied if you want to enrich your experience of art. It can just as easily be ignored if all you want to do is watch the action and look at the weird, cool pictures. The same is true of my comics, or anyone else's. There's subtext everywhere, but you don't have to bother with it if it's not your thing. Just dance to the beat of the story, and if you don't 'understand' everything, well, good. It'll stand you in good stead for the real world - a place filled with people and events you will NEVER entirely understand. You don't have to understand an experience in order to have it. You will, in fact, DIE not understanding most of what goes on in the world and why. Don't sweat it. Dance with it.
--
Politics, in the sense of party antics and showbiz elections, is just misdirection and bullshit to divert our attention from the real work of the world, which is all done by very rich people we don't get to see much of. Once you've watched a couple of governments do their pathetic dance and come and go, you've really seen it all. The same kinds of people do exactly the same kinds of things and continually try to keep us interested in their daft, unconvincing shtick. I lost interest once I realised how boring, repetitive and stage managed the whole circus is, with even a new Bush cropping up every generation. All I want my elected officials to do is make the trains run on time and stop spending my tax money on useless weapons of war, so I'm already screwed.
--
Seaguy is about a naive, would-be hero in a super-commercialized world where a state of permanent, ignorant happiness is ruthlessly enforced by a mysterious, well-meaning, but misguided, elite who have reduced the population to an infantile level and somehow neutralized all the superheroes by making them feel stupid and out of date. Perhaps that's too close to reality for some readers, but otherwise, what's not to get?
--
AN: What is the goal that you have for the work that you do?

GM: To make contact and Find the Others. Something like that, maybe.
--
What can I say? The world may be going to hell, but I'm having a great time.

You know...

I can't even imagine what they were going for with this one.

Some folks I work with...

From the City Board of Ed and the various schools I ALT at...

Hanabi

Yuko and her mom were kindly enough to invite me to the last fireworks festival of the season, bout a month ago... Lots of fun. The Japanese fireworks shows have a tendency to drag on a bit, but they always finish with quite the finale.

My job couldn't be easier.

This is Yuko. Besides being an obviously great lover of photography, she's also a volunteer translator at the local board of ed... Whereas many JET's have to struggle with the language barrier at schools, particularly elementary schools, where there may not be anyone who can speak any degree of English, Yuko's been going with me to classes to make everything easier...

She actually spent a few years living in Pennsylvania, going to school and then dancing ballet. Speaks English like a native. Albeit with a Philly accent. A slight injury brought her back home to Fukutsu a couple months ago and then her mom... ummm... "volunteered" her help to the school board. Been just a marvelous help... And makes my job even easier, as if that were possible...

KickAss picture of the day...

C'mon, how cool is this?

Via Warren Ellis:

Stuntman Jim Trella wore a suit that was on fire to greet host The Rock at the annual World Stunt Awards.

Camping, Part II: The Trekkening

From a bit of walkabout once the great sun god rose, having accepted our pure and virginal sacrifices. Pretty.

Words mean things...

For example, "camping" in Japan actually means renting a couple rooms, bbq'ing and drinking all night. Not a bad definition, actually.

I am utterly fascinated by this...

...and I don't know why. Via Treehugger:

This one is for the ladies. And to all you men who are reading this please spread the word to your women folk...

The Mooncup is revolutionary for all of us who spend ridiculous amounts of time and money using the various products out there for absorbing our monthly flow. The case against sanitary towels and tampons is well documented, due to their huge contribution to landfill and the risks to our health: with chlorine bleaching, carcinogenic absorbency gels and potential Toxic Shock Syndrome.

Without going into too much detail, for the more squeamish among you, I will briefly explain what the Mooncup is and how it works. It is a silicon cup about five cms long which can be folded and inserted (sort of like a tampon). Inside it resumes its natural shape and ‘forms a seal with your vaginal walls allowing your menstrual fluid to pass into the Mooncup without leakage or odour.’ The cup can be emptied as often as necessary, though this is usually less frequent than tampons or towels need changing.

Apart from the fantastic convenience of only needing one cup rather than carrying around lots of bulky tampons and towels, the advantages of the Mooncup are numerous: Environmentally speaking it greatly reduces waste going into landfill and it doesn’t require the usage of the usual chemicals, bleaches and synthetics that go into producing all those super absorbent, whiter than white products we normally buy.

Tattoo/Piercing horror/funny stories...

These are brilliant. Many more at the link.:

A few years back, we had this kid come into our studio with a badly splitting lobe... It turns out he had cut the holes into his ears with a normal pair of household scissors.
..
I had somebody came in with a nail through their tongue once, with a rubber band wrapped around each end to hold it in. Their tongue turned black around the “piercing” — I refused to say anything other than “please go to a hospital.”
..
A friend of mine that I was piercing hit himself in the head repeatedly to “get psyched up” for his septum. Gave himself two black eyes. Genius.

Comb-me quickly; don't put me so much pomatum...

Great wisdom, that.

From "English as She is Spoke" (1883), according to BoingBoing:

"...the worst English phrasebook ever produced. Its author, a Portuguese speaker, did not speak English. Rather, he took the a French-English phrasebook and a Portuguese-French phrasebook and translated the former using the latter."

From the book:

"Your razors, are them well?
Yes, Sir.
Comb-me quickly; don't put me so much pomatum. What news tell me? all hairs dresser are newsmonger.
Sir, I have no heared any thing."

For Cindi

Best Dave Barry ever:

The Difference Between Men and Women

Let's say a guy named Roger is attracted to a woman named Elaine. He asks her out to dinner; she accepts; they have a pretty good time. A few nights later he asks her out again; and again they enjoy themselves. They continue to see each other regularly, and after a while neither one of them is seeing anybody else.

And then, one evening when they're driving home, a thought occurs to Elaine, and, without really thinking, she says it aloud: "Do you realize that, as of tonight, we've been seeing each other for exactly six months?"

And then there is silence in the car.

To Elaine, it seems like a very loud silence. She thinks to herself: I wonder if it bothers him that I said that. Maybe he's been feeling confined by our relationship; maybe he thinks I'm trying to push him into some kind of obligation that he doesn't want, or isn't sure of.

And Roger is thinking: Wow! Six months.

And Elaine is thinking: But, hey, I'm not so sure I want this kind of relationship, either. Sometimes I wish I had a little more space, so I'd have time to think about whether I really want us to keep going the way we are, moving steadily toward... I mean, where are we going? Are we just going to keep seeing each other at this level of intimacy? Are we heading toward marriage? Toward children? Toward a lifetime together? Am I ready for that level of commitment? Do I really even know this person?

And Roger is thinking: So, that means it was... let's see... February when we started going out, which was right after I had the car at the dealer's, which means...let me check the odometer... Whoa! I am way overdue for an oil change here.

And Elaine is thinking: He's upset. I can see it on his face. Maybe I'm reading this completely wrong. Maybe he wants more from our relationship, more intimacy, more commitment; maybe he has sensed, even before I sensed it, that I was feeling some reservations. Yes, I bet that's it. That's why he's so reluctant to say anything about his own feelings. He's afraid of being rejected.

And Roger is thinking: And I'm going to have them look at the transmission again. I don't care what those morons say, it's still not shifting right. And they better not try to blame it on the cold weather this time. What cold weather? It's 87 degrees and this thing is shifting like a garbage truck, and I paid those incompetent thieves $600.

And Elaine is thinking: He's angry. And I don't blame him. I'd be angry, too. I feel so guilty, putting him through this, but I can't help the way I feel.

I'm just not sure.

And Roger is thinking: They'll probably say it's only a 90-day warranty... idiots.

And Elaine is thinking: Maybe I'm just too idealistic, waiting for a knight to come riding up on his white horse, when I'm sitting right next to a perfectly good person, a person I enjoy being with, a person I truly do care about, a person who seems to truly care about me. A person who is in pain because of my self-centered, schoolgirl romantic fantasy.

And Roger is thinking: Warranty? They'd better not say its only a 90-day warranty.

"Roger," Elaine says aloud.

"What?" says Roger, startled.

"Please don't torture yourself like this," she says, her eyes beginning to brim with tears. "Maybe I should never have... Oh my, I feel so... (She breaks down, sobbing.)

"What?" says Roger.

"I'm such a fool," Elaine sobs. "I mean, I know there's no knight. I really know that. It's silly. There's no knight, and there's no horse."

"There's no horse?" says Roger.

"You think I'm a fool, don't you?" Elaine says.

"No!" says Roger, glad to finally know the correct answer.

"It's just that...it's that I...I need some time," Elaine says.

There is a 15-second pause while Roger, thinking as fast as he can, tries to come up with a safe response. Finally he comes up with one that he thinks might work. "Yes," he says.

Elaine, deeply moved, touches his hand. "Oh, Roger, do you really feel that way?" she says.

"What way?" says Roger.

"That way about time," says Elaine.

"Oh," says Roger. "Yes."

Elaine turns to face him and gazes deeply into his eyes, causing him to become very nervous about what she might say next, especially if it involves a horse. At last she speaks.

"Thank you, Roger," she says.

"Thank you," says Roger.

Then he takes her home, and she lies on her bed, a conflicted, tortured soul, and weeps until dawn.

When Roger gets back to his place, he opens a bag of Doritos, turns on the TV, and immediately becomes deeply involved in a rerun of a tennis match between two Czechoslovakians he never heard of. A tiny voice in the far recesses of his mind tells him that something major was going on back there in the car, but he is pretty sure there is no way he would ever understand what, and so he figures it's better if he doesn't think about it.

The next day Elaine will call her closest friend, or perhaps two of them, and they will talk about this situation for six straight hours. In painstaking detail, they will analyze everything she said and everything he said, going over it time and time again, exploring every word, expression, and gesture for nuances of meaning, considering every possible ramification. They will continue to discuss this subject, off and on, for weeks, maybe months, never reaching any definite conclusions, but never getting bored with it, either.

Meanwhile, Roger, while playing racquetball one day with a mutual friend of his and Elaine's, will pause just before serving, frown, and say, "Norm, did Elaine ever own a horse?"

And that's the difference between men and women.