Younger self, what were you thinking?!

Most people I know say some version of this on a regular basis. Clearly our younger selves are all in for a beating. If we could catch them.

Younger self, what were you thinking?!

"Older self, enjoy not picking up the Valtrex prescriptions."

Younger self: "geez, is he really a Senator?"

It was a combination of 2 and imagining the phone call to my mother describing how they found my dismembered body in a hotel room in Minneapolis.

That whole "younger self, what were you thinking" thing is so hilarious, especially because you know that trying to communicate it to actual young people just sounds *so* pathetically uncool.

Also I'm convinced that Minneapolis is the best city to pick up men in.

my dismembered body

How many members does a body really need?

Young people: so selfish.

Also I'm convinced that Minneapolis is the best city to pick up men in.

B makes the baby Emerson cry.

Younger self made the right call.

Ogged: superego to history.

Hasn't this happened, in some form, to everybody? Nobody got sent to the ER in either of my instances, but both were overnight stopovers before I reached the age of 23. The most egregious mistake I made was when I explained to the seriously cute businesswoman that, given that the airline was paying for the room, we would not actually be saving anything by sharing one. I was quite earnest about it, and, in replying, so was she.

I explained to the seriously cute businesswoman

"Older self, you're gay."

8 - I knew you'd think that, Ogged.

11: Yeah, that's my problem: insufficient foot-tapping. If I could choose my orientation, magic gestures to summon blowjobs would weigh heavily.

Y'all are prudes. She shoulda done it.

Is this a general opposition to one-night stands, or just to a one-night stand in an airport?

As someone unfamiliar with adult dating, the first would surprise me and the second would be strange.

Is this a general opposition

It's just riffing on a theme. I'm generally in favor of random hookups.

You only date children, destroyer?

Ogged, on the other hand, actually is a prude.

Ogged is the ur-prude.

YOu wrote this up in a very un-agenty sort of way.

17: Yes, but only in long-term relationships.

Yeah, I think it was the right call on prudential and moral grounds, but frankly, I'm totally sick of hearing my own opinions so let's speculate about how satisfying the sex would have been instead.

I was flying from Dulles to Undisclosed Western State

hmmm

<wink>I don't think you should have slept with him, Becks.</wink>

let's speculate about how satisfying the sex would have been instead.

Not so much "satisfying" as "exciting" with a stranger, I would assume.

That's right, no rosy glasses here!

I'm totally sick of hearing my own opinions

Half the answer to the question posed in the "Comments" post, and the reason I've never been able to get a good online conversation going on any forum I've had responsibility for.

22 - Hmmm...probably not very satisfying. I think part of the reason I turned it down (besides the reasons in 4 and the fact that I'm not very into random hookups) is that I was flying out to meet my parents for a vacation. I would have been wondering if they would be able to tell I'd been recently laid by a random airport stranger when I caught up with them the next day.

27: what, do they smell your crotch when you get home?

Becks: Since you didn't get it on, you can still joke that even your layover got de-laid.

Look, apparently, no one else has had the opportunity to have dirty airport sex when they've been young, but the prospect is scary. The first time I was clueless, the second time I pussied out. There was probably an element of denial in the first. I actually do not want to have sex with random people, even if they are hot. In theory I do, but in an airport I do not.

I suppose this makes me gay.

It's the funny walk that gives it away.

31 was to 28, but works better to 30.

32: I dunno, the image of Becks waddling after her parents, yelling "mom, dad, come back! It was a mistake! It was... Minneapolis!" is pretty good.

When I lost my virginity my brother-in-law claimed he could tell instantly by the way I stood in my towel after a shower.

Christ I feel like first verb in 33 is offensive in all the wrong ways. Duck-walking? Cowboy-walking? Apo, what's the term, here?

Destroyer are you a boy or a girl?

A boy. I should note that he didn't see me in my towel immediately after the first time. It was weeks later, in fact.

INVISIBAL SADDLE!

38 to 35, 37.

Cowboy? Waddling up to Dad: "There's a new Sheriff in town"?

BOW-LEGGED!

Walking bow-legged.

Fucking aphasia.

I wonder how long until I meet someone who named their kid "Tustin" "Aphasia".

37: Really a boy? I apologize then, for finding you so very sexy. Bit of a misunderstanding, you know. Let me know how the married life treats you, will you? Sorry about that whole thing.

i flirted with this girl with a great ass once on a plane, but she was married.

<thread convergence>I once got busy in a Burger King bathroom.</thread convergence>

Let me know how the married life treats you

Didn't he say he was unfamiliar with adult dating? I think that means he's still single.

I've been picked up by a girl in a train station.* Although, admittedly, we did wait till we got back to her friends' flat before getting busy.

* she came up and started talking to me because I was carrying a tenor saxophone case, and she was also carrying a tenor saxophone case.

47 is totally valid grounds for casual flings. People have worse sex for worse reasons every day there've been people.

Does this mean you play the tenor saxophone, ttaM? Are you another member of our great fraternity?

re: 49

I used to, I gave up about 12 years ago. I played seriously for 2 or 3 years, and then in a half-arsed manner for a few more. I did used to gig a fair bit with a friend's rock band [just round pubs/clubs in Scotland, the odd small festival]. I don't think I've even picked a sax up since about 1996.

I play guitar too, though, and have played that a lot longer. In retrospect sax was a bit of a detour from guitar [I'm only now getting my jazz chops together a bit more].

Nah, he just carries one as bait.

I think the only time I've flown alone I was 11. Fortunately no one tried to pick me up.

I expect I would have done the same as younger-Becks, although perhaps found a safe/public place to snog a lot first. The random stranger hotel room thing would have worried me I think.

Also, the strange thing about the encounter in 47. We travelled to her friend's flat and the guy whose flat it was turned out to be a legendary older figure from my high school who I'd only seen from a distance but never met. A guy who, in about 1983/84, had gone down the New Romantic route with total verve -- he wore skirts to school and Boy George style make-up -- but who'd compensated it for being a total hard bastard. Notorious for allegedly stabbing a teacher.

47: I've heard that tenor sax players give the best oral sex.

A member of the Charlie Daniels band tried to pick up my sister on a plane once. He told her she reminded him of Barbara Mandrell and bought her five drinks during the flight. She only weighs 100 lbs. but in our traditional culture women are taught how to hold their liquor, and she said goodbye and walked off the plane on her own power. The peculiar thing is that her sociopath husband as sitting there the whole time. ODdly, jealousy wasn't one of he's sociopathies. Probably he would have asked to watch.

I've been picked up by a girl in a train station.

I had a guy fondle my boob when he thought I was asleep, on an overnight train. I ignored it, because we still had hours to go, and just shifted to a different position.

But in the morning he had his buddy take a photo of him and me, as though we were parting buddies. That was the weird part. We had ostensibly had zero interactions for the course of the train ride.

S/B "Oddly, jealousy wasn't one of his sociopathies."

Heeby's story, and worse, is a common on for women travelling alone in many parts of the world.

He told her she reminded him of Barbara Mandrell and bought her five drinks during the flight.

Was your sister country when country wasn't cool?

I like to joke that "I was country when country wasn't cool" is a song from the future, singing from the distant year that country becomes cool.

She lived in an Ozarkish region of Kansas, so I'd say yes.

Her toxic husband had moved to Kansas from Hawaii. However, I still hate the whole state of Kansas.

re: 59

It was cool for a bit, but you had to append alt. to the start of it, and it had to be played by hipsters.

I kinda love mainstream country music, I must admit.

She didn't actually live there, but here's a tip: if you ever want to see a white rural slum, go to Mulberry, Kansas.

I have more respect now than I did as a younger mature adult for the inhibitions of my just-grown self. I think I made the right call in the situations I was in. I had enough casual, even though I'd forgotten it until I started reminiscing here, to know I was capable of good things.

I would change my habits, the way I lived, to make such interactions much more likely.

But in the morning he had his buddy take a photo of him and me, as though we were parting buddies

How many beads did you get?

I think it was the right call on prudential ...grounds

I have to agree with Ogged about the prudential grounds. There are some bad people in the world. The danger is not worth the benefit.

I don't have a moral problem with it.

I've been pushing Miranda Lambert ("Kerosene" and "Crazy Ex Girlfriend") ever since I heard her on the radio. Usually country radio does nothing for me, so she stood out. She had a #1 record and seems to be doing a revival thing (Outlaws and earlier). The "Kerosene" title song is cowpunkish. It's part of my no-relationship package: "I've given up on love, because love's given up on me."

Alas, there are signs that she's product. You wonder if a nineteen year old has really been through all the shit she writes about. It's like she's a lyrics scholar recombining tropes in a library. She also got the whole nine yards of Nashville production, and even the cowpunk song may have been a commercial ploy. And she's groomed like a blonde Playmate.

Nonetheless.

"I've given up on love, because love's given up on me."

Oh! I totally know this song. I didn't know the name. I love this song.

The young-unformed-me mistakes I really regret were passing up whole romances and girlfriends because I simply didn't know how to handle it, or in one sad case because she was one of the few people in high school even geekier than me. It's amazing how you can see in retrospect the right move in retrospect. I mean, she was simultaneously incredibly geeky and extremely beautiful (recent immigrant from another country allows that combination).

She also has a line about the "No Vacancy" sign switching on when she knocks on Jesus's door.

I needed to repeat "in retrospect" to show the intensity of my regret.

I'm on kind of a Lucinda Williams kick these days.

Mainstream? Bah. Take a minute (or 9) to listen to Don Edwards and Peter Rowan doing 'Midnight on the Stormy Deep' and think about what country music might have been.

Becks' tale is strikingly similar to the story of how I met my wife. We ended up not spending the night together because she unexpectedly was able to catch a connecting flight, but we exchanged phone numbers just before she departed. (Posted presidentially because this is a well-known biographical detail among my acquaintances.)

I want to note that Car Wheels on a Gravel Road is a fabulous cd. A must have.

Her first one, with Passionate Kisses and Am I Too Blue For You is also one of the great albums.

Liking mainstream country and liking country gold is not mutually exclusive.

It's like liking mashed potatoes from scratch and mashed potatoes from potato flakes. It's not the same dish, and if you're expecting from-scratch, you'll be disappointed with from-flakes. But if you let go of your expectations, from-flakes is very nice. Just different.

Gram Parsons: genius or overrated?

Genius

The top 5 shotput marks are 17 years old or more, probably because of drug testing. The champs seem to be in the 25-31 year range, but some guys hang on for decades.

Brian Oldfield was a fantastic athlete.

Lambert moves in the classical country direction, though there are still signs of Nashville processing. She seems to be pretty strong-willed in terms of what she wants to do, and she doesn't like the slick stuff.

Didn't he say he was unfamiliar with adult dating?

Destroyer is at the beginning of his undergraduate career, if I recall correctly.

I like Lucinda Williams, but I really like Mandy Barnett. Unfortunately her gorgeous voice got kind of overshadowed by fancy tricks on her one big album. The Patsy Cline show she was in has a good album, though.

Or just listen to the original. Patsy's in a class by herself.

On another note: Apo's right; I seem to remember that destroyer is 18 or so.

I once accidently picked up a girl on a plane. We chatted from New York to Salt Lake. She showed up at my office two days later, armed with nothing but my first name, that I was an engineer, and the part of town I worked in. She'd been going door-to-door.

It's like liking mashed potatoes from scratch and mashed potatoes from potato flakes.

This analogy only works because instant mashed potatoes are so clearly worse than the real thing. Whether one likes then or not.

Speaking of thread convergence, this story would have been even better if the guy had been Ste/phen Bald/win.

Marcus is a mashed potato snob. No use arguing with him.

Random hookups with total strangers are sketchy and gross. Random hookups with friends and acquaintances, on the other hand, are perfectly fine.

On a related note, know what's awesome? The Russian version of Winnie the Pooh.

Random hookups with total strangers are sketchy and gross.

... except when they're Totally Awesome.

She'd been going door-to-door.

Dude. Is that the Mormon chick version of "you talked to me, now you're my girlfriend"?

For you urbanites, the last verse of MOTSD is about a guy who moves to Minnesota to pursue a no-relationship lifestyle.

So fare-thee-well I'd rather make
My home upon some icy lake
Where the southern sun refused to shine
Then to trust a love so false as thine

To 76: A legendary life, a little overrated as a performer. "Return of the Grievous Angel" was a tour de force, not unlike the Labs-Brock "Crazy Train" collaboration.

Is that the Mormon chick version of "you talked to me, now you're my girlfriend"?

I don't think Mormon chicks are allowed to have girlfriends, Ogged.

82: I had a flyer printed up explaining the no-relationship policy which I give out in circumstances like that.

random people, even if they are hot

Doesn't this depend on how good one's sense for judging people is? If you can reliably detect the hand motion or facial expression that indicates something is wrong inside this person, your "random people" will leave you feeling like the whole world is kind and we should all share more. If the radar is out of tune, bad things will happen unless you force yourself to pay attention. I had no such sense when I was young, and may not have much now.

Generally the old have better radar than the young, so
si jeunesse sauvait, si vieillesse pouvait.

A legendary life, a little overrated as a performer.

Parsons certainly did some great things at such a young age. But, we do worship those with shortened lives. Always wondering about the great potential and forgetting that sometimes genius is short-lived even when the life is long-lived.

mainstream country

Porter Wagoner's satisfied mind could be from the Dhammapada, plus it's great music. He recently released new music, which I haven't got yet on CD.
Tangentially:
The Gospel Harmonettes Jesus is on the Main Line is very nice indeed

This thread was very enlightening. From now on I will assume the girls that reject me are not doing so because they find me ugly or boring, but just because they think I might be a psychopath who will kill and dismember them.

I feel better already.

97: This was news to you?

You have to hit the sweet spot -- not too much nice guy, not too much psychopath. Also, it's important to be yourself and be confident. If you want to know why you're such a loser, it's because you lack confidence.

just because they think I might be a psychopath who will kill and dismember them.

A couple nights ago, it was raining hard and I was driving down my street. I came upon a cute 25 yr oldish woman who had fallen in the street while running.

Although she had obviously hurt her knee badly, she didn't want me to give her a ride back to her house or to call anyone for her. I pointed to my house and offered to go get my gf so she could help.

After looking at me warily, she refused, claiming to live close and, very pathetically, hobbled down the street.

I came upon a cute 25 yr oldish woman

Did you really expect her to accept your help after this introduction? Sheesh, will. Have some tact.

Did you really expect her to accept your help after this introduction?

I didnt think she would notice in the rain.

"Hmmm...as I see it I have a 12.15% chance of dying of blood loss or trauma while hobbling down the street with my injury, versus a 3.75% chance of being raped and murdered by this friendly man."

This was news to you?

I can't tell if you are kidding LB, so I will be earnest. Not really, but since this is generally not my one of my main concerns I'm always little surprised to be reminded of it.

Geez, will: give her a business card, and ask if she wants to sue the county.

CharleyC:

Your firm moved to water-proof cards, didnt they? I need to get me some of them.

100: Oh, man. Yeah, I can see what was going on -- accepting help from you would have been dangerous; accepting help from your girlfriend after you'd already offered would have been rude, because it would have confirmed that her initial refusal was based on the possibility that you were a psychopath. So, better to walk home bleeding in the rain than to be rude.

So now we know that Will doesn't look trustworthy.

"So now we know that Will doesn't look trustworthy isn't hot enough to be worth the risk that he might be a psychopath."

I'm mildly disappointed that no one has responded enthusiastically to my Russian Winnie the Pooh link.

I agree with 107, 108, and 109.

Please understand that this is the same street where my daughter screams bloody murder and I have to drag her into the house.

Wow. What do you do about that? I'd think you'd have to really work on being chatty and friendly so all the neighbors knew you and her, and understood her autism. But at fifteen (that's her age, right) that's got to look really fucked up to someone who didn't know what was going on.

I have an ironic affection for "I was country when country wasn't cool" because the person who played it for me was someone that I liked, as a person, but with whom I had no overlap in musical tastes and who had absolutely no sense of irony.

I remember listening and thinking "what would it be like to be someone who took everything you liked literally?"

As far as recommendations go, I don't know country, but I would encourage people to keep an ear out for Corb Lund (and the Hurtin' Albertans). He was described to me as one of the best young songwriters working today, and I have to agree. The album that I listened to (Hair in my eyes like a highland steer) is very good, and has a sense of untapped potential. He clearly knows how to write songs, and just needs to learn to relax a little bit in the studio.

Dammit! I was just starting to bond with the banned guy!

accepting help from you would have been dangerous; accepting help from your girlfriend after you'd already offered would have been rude, because it would have confirmed that her initial refusal was based on the possibility that you were a psychopath. So, better to walk home bleeding in the rain than to be rude

There's also the possibility that she thought Will's girlfriend didn't actually exist, but was a fiction invented by Psycho Will to make her feel more comfortable/lure her into his house.

We know just about everyone.

We have huge block parties every July 4th. Plus, she loves to walk, so we are constantly around the area.

The problem is passersby or newcomers.

Last night, at my son's football practice, my daughter decided too scratch a lady's bottom as we stood watching the practice. The lady took it in stride. Some other ladies called out asking where their bottom rubbing was.

I'm mildly disappointed that no one has responded enthusiastically to my Russian Winnie the Pooh link.

I'm sure it's fabulous, but it keeps freezing 11 seconds in.

Now that I'm watching it, I'm entranced.

87, 110: In Soviet Russia, honey eat you!

Also Vinni Puh is completely the wrong color and has a funny voice, even for a bear of five-year-plan brain. On the other hand, the sign pointing to the honey tree transliterates as "doob."

In a semi-related note, the best bar in Budapest right after the changes was Tresspassers W.

The last time a woman picked me up, I let her initial conversation gambit go unanswered for several seconds because I had no inkling that she was (i.e., would be) talking to me, even though we were the only two people in the little shop. Smoooooooooooooth.

And yet she successfully picked you up?

I had no inkling that she was (i.e., would be) talking to me, even though we were the only two people in the little shop.

The social fear of the Bluetooth generation is that it's perfectly plausible in that situation that she wouldn't have been talking to you.

"Successfully" implies more than transpired. We've had a few cordial conversations over meals since. I think my usual (and genuine) affect of shy, boyish absent-mindedness helped cover my initial obliviousness.

115: You don't want her to get the desperate houswives started, Will.

My saxophone didn't have anywhere to append the alt. to it. Oh, well.

My first Bluetooth revelation was when I saw a woman walking down the road alone talking vociferously while gesticulating wildly. I was just about to register as "Surprisingly well-groomed for a bag lady" when iI noticed her headset. She was probably a medical student or even a resident.

Russian Winnie the Pooh!

The beauty of the Bluetooth is that you can cover up your crazy with one so easily. Feel like talking loudly to the voices in your head while walking down the street? Hey, just have your earpiece visible, and passerby will assume it's a perfectly normal telephone conversation.

Very belatedly...

Destroyer is at the beginning of his undergraduate career, if I recall correctly.

Yes. You don't socialize with many true strangers in high school. And even when you do, you have to be pretty advanced to fuck them the first time you meet.

As you might expect, I have a number of stories along these lines. I don't really feel like telling them now, though. Maybe I'll do a post later.

I hid behind two post college frat boy types when a dude accosted me on the street late at night. At ffirst they thought that it was a fight between a boyfriend and girlfriend, but when they saw the look of terror on my face after I walked away, they knew taht that wasn't the case.

One guy started defending the other guy when the African American older man got in his face and called me racist for being afraid of him at night. he frat boys were white, but they hadn't been accosting me.

They were getting into a cab to go to a movie theater to look for a lost wallet, so I went with them, but there was a woman with them.

Yes. You don't socialize with many true strangers in high school. And even when you do, you have to be pretty advanced to fuck them the first time you meet.

I have a friend who fucked a boy scout on a train, which I thought was pretty damn impressive.

(They were both in high school at the time.)

I had a guy fondle my boob when he thought I was asleep, on an overnight train.

I woke up on a train in Spain with a man lying *head down* in my lap. Asshole.

I ended up sleeping on the goddamn floor, which was freezing.

131: Ooh! I once had sex (with my husband) in a seminary!

I have a friend who fucked a boy scout on a train, which I thought was pretty damn impressive.

I once had sex on a train with a reasonably well-known lefty blogger (though she was neither a blogger nor well-known at the time).

I once had sex (with my husband) in a seminary!

My parents did that all the time, back when my dad was in seminary.

I bow to your parents' superior perversity.

His going to seminary was the real perversity.

Semenary.

I'd pay $7 to watch a film adaptation of 130 as directed by David Lynch.

re: 133

I've had people fall asleep leaning against me a couple of times on late night public transport. In a non-pervy way, though. I can't imagine what would go through someone's mind to think putting their head on someone's lap would be OK.*

* well, presumably the same fucked up reasoning that generally lets people sanction their own harassing behaviour, but I can't imagine what that is ...

When I was in college and traveling back and forth to visit my parents, I once sat on a plane next to some grown man who felt the need to confess his most secret sexual crimes/desires to me. For the space of two hours, we had extremely explicit, whispered conversation about who and where and how. We never touched each other, or acknowledged each other once we got off the plane. It was incredibly hott.

Since then, I have never conversed with a seatmate again.

Now I know how to strike up a conversation the next time I'm seated next to an attractive young woman on a plane.

Why did 142 stop before the heroine discovered the dark secret linking her and the mysterious stranger? I'd hoped for a car chase too, but ending there is just confusing.

After Gram Parsons' death, his wife Sahai bumped around a bit and ended up living with their daughter Polly and a bunch of other like-minded folks in an "ashram" in Ames Iowa. In 1979 I was clerking in a liquor store (working my way through engineering at Iowa State), running cash register, singing "Summertime" mostly under my breath to celebrate the absolutely splendid summer day going on outside and my satisfaction therewith. Customer with long dark hair, heavy eye makeup, a little gone to seed but still lovely, the marks of hard living in her face, wearing a sari. "Nice song" she said and I sang a bit louder till the end of the chorus and we talked a bit and then I saw her again one day at the Whole Foods CoOp and eventually Sahai and Polly started to attend parties at the house I shared with friends, for the rest of that summer, and a few times the next year.
It was strange to talk to someone whose young life had been so different from my own, so very public, so very tragic, so very burn-the-candle-at-both-ends hard and fast. She never talked about the past at all, never mentioned Gram in my hearing. I can't say we were friends, and I doubt she'd remember me today; she wasn't very interested in anything I had to say, and the mysticism/spiritualism/New Age thing she was doing then isn't interesting to me. She was delighted by my friends who could juggle, I remember, and she tended to put on Janis Joplin when she chose the next record. Never Byrds, or Buffalo Springfield or that lot.

89: Fifteen months later somebody asked me what had happened to her. I went googling and found a lovely pic of her with her husband and infant. Girl was on a mission, so to speak.

142: Since 82, neither have I.