I wasn’t paying much attention, so I was surprised when I eventually realized that Al Schnier, (guitar/keyboards/vocals) was holding court outside the main entrance. Lately, moe. has been letting folks video and audiotape some of their concerts, so Al was surrounded by mini-DV cams, and the fans holding them. Somehow, it wasn’t a paparazzi madhouse. I was mesmerized by the natural vibe, and the way that Al seemed to blend in, to emanate a sense of calm that everyone around him picked up. I had no desire to participate, just wanted to hang back and listen in. After about 10 minutes of relaxed interaction, Al disappeared back inside the club.

My focus wandered back to the people standing next to me in line, and to the fact that I could no longer feel my toes due to the cold temperature. Before I’d realized it, Al had come out of the club again, gone into the bus, and popped back out with his own DV-cam in hand. Now it was his turn to ask the questions.

In fact, one question: “Who was your first favorite band?”

Immediately, people jumped in with their answers:*

“Zepplin!”

“The Rolling Stones”

Al began to pan his camera around the impromptu-semicircle, pausing briefly as each person answered. He turned to Rick.

“Lynyrd Skynyrd.”

“Pavarotti,” I threw in, as Al’s camera panned passed, then snapped back.

“What?,” he asked.

“Lucciano Pavarotti,” I repeated.

“Really?” He raised his eyebrows, doubting.

“Yes! I remember, I was five years old and I used to listen to opera for hours and hours. I was totally in love with Lucciano Pavarotti.”

Al smiled.

“What was yours?”

“Kiss,” he answered.

“Did you wear the makeup?”

“Nah, I couldn’t really do makeup. It’s hard to get all that makeup on when you’re 10 years old.”

He began to move around the rest of the circle. When he got back to the beginning, he started walking away.

“Excuse me,” he said. “I have to find Jim; it’s his 100th show tonight and we’re going to celebrate.”

“Did you get him a cake?” asked Rick. Al turned around and frowned, sheepishly.

“Sshhh! I forgot.”

As it turned out, the guys remembered after all. They brought out a cake, with numbered candles: “100″.

Author’s note: Although I use quotes, they are purely decorative. This entire conversation is paraphrased. Forgive me Al. If I can get a copy of that videotape, I’ll be happy to transcribe it.

When you chat with a friend on the telephone, you can do other things. You can multi-task! You can prep dinner with the phone cradled against your ear, and still make out the music coming from the CD you have on in the other room. Your friend might be attending to personal hygiene matters—such as clipping their nails, you dirty-minded gutterheads—while sneaking peeks at Jeopardy on the tube, for all you know.

With instant message (IM) you can juggle even more tasks. You can check the weather, catch up on the news, check e-mail, listen to music, and still be able to discuss the unimportance of Janet Jackson’s bejeweled mammary on IM with a friend halfway around the world. Your friend, in turn, might be chatting with their partner, reading an article you just sent about what an asshat our president is, while listening to BBC radio. Whatever your “buddy” may be doing, you can rest assured, they are not sitting there with baited breath waiting for you to reply. They are doing other things. Just. Like. You.

Even in-person conversations can flow uninterrupted while participants do other things. Dining probably being the most popular, I’d assume. One small difference with face-to-face interactions is that—more intimate ones, at least—can often involve silence. Silence is a beautiful thing. Not the silence of sitting in front on the telly, waiting for the commercial break. The silence of sitting in front of a fireplace, or reading in another’s company.

But none of this is preparation for video chat…

With video chat, you are not only on display, but you are limited to where you can be and still remain a viable video chat partner. Plus, it is significantly more difficult to do other things. You can surf, but unless you are looking a photography site, you will be a poor chat partner, and probably rude too. Music is right out. You won’t be able to hear your chatmate, and the video portion devolves into some strange pantomime. Forget silence. Silence on a phone is awkward. In person it can be either beautiful or uncomfortable depending on the company. On video chat, silence is just down-right creepy. And even with quality equipment there are bound to be creepy silent spots in your conversation as you and your chatmates learn to take turns speaking and listening.

Hence the conversation ping pong.

Each chat participant has to find the right balance of speaking and listening, as well as keeping track of whose turn it is to talk. With a one-on-one video chat this is a little easier. You speak, your friend replies. He follows with a question of his own. You reply. [short awkward silence] You think quickly, and ask something of a technical nature regarding the video chat equipment. Something like, “um, the picture is really, um, good on your end. How do I look?” If you’re lucky your friend has some specific things to say to keep the conversation going. At least long enough to justify the bother of conducting a video chat in the first place.

If each camera has two people on it, then you really have to be good. I have found that in two-on-two video chats there are four basic roles for participants to possibly play: The questioner, the answerer, the quiet one, or the fool. I have found I am better at the last two roles, and a little sloppy on the others. I am good at nodding and flashing a thumbs-up, or a big grin, to convey agreement or amusement. I am not so good with asking, or replying to, questions without stepping on another chatter’s turn. My best role is the fool, of course. And I don’t mean amateur video pranks like rabbit ears. I am more of an illusionist, and enjoy floating in and out of the shot from various places on the screen.

The key of course is to do this when you chat partner needs you most… during the creepy silence.

Earlier this week, we were watching a show about redesigning a master bathroom. One of the proposed floorplans had the toilet in the middle of the room, between the sink and the shower enclosure. While the homeowners kept mentioning that they wanted the toilet in a separate water closet inside the main bathroom, they also kept repeating the phrase: “light and airy.” All of a sudden my vivid imagination combined these requests and I couldn’t help giggling madly to myself. Rick looked over and asked, “What’s so funny?”

“A See-Through Loo^TM!” I replied. “A little glass enclosure around the toilet in the middle of the bathroom. You see, that way, you get the enclosed space without blocking the light! Your personal time on the potty will be aurally and olfactorily blocked from the rest of the room, but you won’t feel like you’re confined to a little box!”

Hi, my name is Sarah and I am addicted to home decorating programs.

“You never really understand a person until you consider things from his points of view—until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.” —Atticus Finch

I don’t care what anyone thinks. It doesn’t makes me any less of a man to wear my wife’s undergarments. I am confident in my manhood! And, dammit, her long johns keep my ass warm!

So last night while we cuddled up in front of the fire, I couldn’t help but think about the snow I was going to have to move the next day. It didn’t worry me, and it certainly didn’t keep me from enjoying our first fire, but it was at the back of my mind.

Luckily, we bought a house that doesn’t have much of a walkway—and no driveway at all, yet—so it wasn’t too much effort to shovel our walk and the sidewalk in front of the house. In fact, it was so easy, I shoveled our next door neighbor’s walk as well.

My reward? Not that I needed one, but Sarah had delicious pancakes and coffee waiting for me.

And that’s because: Once you have a kid, it’s like going camping every day. Every day! Did we pack the diapers? The two extra changes of clothes? Rain gear? Sun gear? Wipes, lotions, ointment? Bottles, snacks, juice? Toys, blankets, shoes, hat and mittens? Can we even fit the baby in the stroller with all that other stuff?

And it’s not just for a year or two, or even three. Having kids is like signing up for camp for at least the next 16 years of your life! Sure, they’ll lose the diapers and wet naps and blankets, but that will be replaced with books, homework, more toys and games, art supplies, sports equipment, ballet shoes, karate uniforms and everything else kids need for school and fun.

Granted, I realize that hauling around a ton of crap everywhere you go may be the least of most parent’s worries. They probably spend a lot more time making sure their kids are developing into smart, healthy, well-adjusted human beings. But it’s something I think about every time I see a lone parent struggle onto the Metro, with a toddler in an overburdened stroller, an infant strapped to their chest, a backpack stuffed to the gills, and a separate diaper bag to boot. No wonder most parents pack their kids off to camp for a few weeks every summer!

Yep. We love having a dishwasher.

Now, we don’t listen to commercial FM radio very much….hardly once a month. So I’m scrolling through the stations; past the easy listening, past the talk radio, past the annoying commercials, and I land on something that sounds like standard pop fare: a dance beat, a fake horn section, and a female vocalist with a bit of edge to her voice. The Husband and I start nodding our heads in time, momentarily distracted from the grinding traffic.

“Hey, this is kind of nice,” I say, surprised to find that I’m getting into a song that sounds like a cross between Brittney Spears and Shania Twain.

“Yeah, I like her voice,” says The Husband. “She reminds me of Shannon McNally.”

We continue to tap along with the beat, enjoying the simple yet catchy tune. Then I notice the lyrics.

“Wait a second. Is she saying ‘Now that you’re Holy’?”

Husband cocks his head to one side, waiting for the line to repeat.

“Yeah, I think she is!”

Just then, the song fades to an end, and the station ID announces: “You’re listening to WGTS. The message is in the music!”

I panic and switch stations quickly. Husband and I look at each other in disbelief, then burst out laughing. That’ll teach us to listen to the radio!

Working on the vows and blessings got us thinking of the first part of the ceremony. Before anyone says a peep, you ‘ve got to get yourself, your betrothed, the minister, and your guests to the right spot and into some sort of comfortable arrangement so that the ceremony can proceed in an orderly and dignified way. Suddenly, the order of who stands where and how the hell I’m supposed to even get from point A to point B seems like a monumental task. I think: “You mean I’m going to have to walk 10 steps all by myself and remember whether to go right or left!?!”

So to ease the stress that these simple decisions were causing me, he suggested we diagram the whole thing. By the time we had the processional all figured out, we had a piece of paper that looked like a page from Vince Lombardi’s playbook. X’s, O’s, lines, arrows, but damned if we didn’t have it all figured out when we were done. Oh sure, you think I’m exaggerating the complexity of this one aspect of the ceremony planning, but I dare you to sit down and write your own. You’d be amazed at how quickly the simple act of assembling a small group can become a complex maneuver of social engineering.

However, it’s not like these cartoons are Broom Hilda or Snuffy Smith. They are certainly much more cerebral. But so many people I know open their monthly issue and proceed to flip through the pages hunting for ones with cartoons on them. To their credit, some are also perusing the magazine for articles they may be interested in reading later; but many are simply content to read a dozen or so cartoons each month.

So while I was flipping through a recent copy of the New Yorker—enjoying the cartoons and wishing I had more time to read all the articles—I found this little gem which I found apropriate for those of us who maintain weblogs or journals of some sort.