The weekend wrapup

I've got a little job interview about 12 hours hence, so I'll keep this short, sweet and to-the-point.

Had a dee-light-ful weekend, starting on Thursday night with a four- or five-hour brew-filled conversation at the Buffalo Gap with YogaGirl. She is, in her own words, a kindred spirit in many ways, even though we are exceptionally different people. We covered the bases on conversation, but one of the topics centered on what it means to be genuine or authentic, both in the counseling world and in our personal lives.

Carl Rogers would say there's not a difference -- or rather, that there shouldn't be one. He believed that if we brought authenticity, empathy and an unconditional positive regard for others to our work, it would help clients make the therapeutic movement necessary to deal with whatever issue they faced. He also said these were the qualities we should bring to our personal relationships, as well, because it's an approach that benefits humanity.

Various theorists have suggested clients need a good bit more than that. Each school of thought has its ideas: CBT, DBT, ACT, EMDR, NLP. All that alphabet soup represents theories and techniques designed to make something *happen* with clients. And yet, no one suggests that Carl Rogers was off-base. These techniques are almost always in *addition* to what he suggests.

So YogaGirl and I were talking about authenticity from a lot of different angles. Late in the evening -- or early Friday morning, to be more technically correct -- her boyfriend arrived at the bar. He's a cute guy who was wearing some jazzy cityboy musician clothes and "an old man hat," as YogaGirl put it.

The three of us had another round of beer and talked for a while. A good time had by all. All except for the pup, Brogan, who was at home waiting for his dinner. (Sorry, little guy!)

On Sunday, I got an e-mail from YogaGirl in which she said that, unsolicited, her boyfriend, who had not been part of our conversation on authenticity, said that your UCM seemed "truly real."

It's music to my ears. Because that's not what I'm trying for, it's just what I am. Some people respond better to it than others. It never served me well in Corporate America. I was a total flunky there because part of the job description in my old company was to be a fake suck-up, and I never got good marks on my evaluation when it came to that category.

But YogaGirl's BF gave me a positive rating on the first encounter. So there, Corporate Scaliwags and others who do not appreciate my authenticity! Take that!

I don't know what happened to the rest of Friday. If anyone heard from me on that particular day, let me know. I must have done something other than my laundry. But I couldn't tell you what.

Saturday night, I went to dinner with another classmate, who we can just call Handsome Gay Male, or HGM for short. He came over after a class, and we shared a bottle of pinot gris while he talked to me about astrology and how the alignment of the stars and moons at the moment of our birth has some correlation to our personalities. I'm not sure he was making a case for causation, but certain correlation. He described what the moons would say about a mutual acquaintance, and I was shocked by the accuracy.

Not that I'm about to go get all Moonie on y'all or anything. I'm just saying: It was freaky how dead-on the description was, especially considering he doesn't know the person all that well. (Nor do I, for that matter, but I know what I know.)

He's promised to do my charts. I shall report back on their accuracy -- or lack thereof.

Then, we went to an oyster bar down the street and shared a platter of oysters on the half-shell. Three different varieties. We got to conduct a little taste-test. It had been years since I sucked down any raw oysters. Took me back to New Orleans and the first time I ever tried them -- and how a dirty old man told me I would presently be getting very horny and he'd be happy to relieve it.

And yet I wonder about the origin of my lesbianism....

I had a great time with HGM. We put back another bottle of wine (sauvingon blanc) and shared a few fine dishes. I had an heirloom squash soup with chanterelles and "fried sage," which was absolutely sublime.

I went home, called S2 about her Sunday soccer game (to be discussed) and got into a wide-ranging conversation with her. Getting To Yes had engaged in some particularly 6-year-oldish behavior earlier in the day, and S2 was mulling over her response to it.

I mentioned as how I had done something similar myself -- but probably considerably worse -- when I was a little older. Just as I was getting to the part where I questioned developmental norms, I encountered a man pushing a MULTIPLE BIRTH STROLLER down the sidewalk.

And then my phone went dead.

Goddamn, those Multiple Birth Stroller People! They are obviously out to get me.

I mean, it was 11:30 for christsake! Who's out walking multiple babies at 11:30 at night in the rain? Who?! ... Only those with the cell phone scrambler, battery killer device broadcasting from the freaking satellite dishes they have on those things nowadays. It's a conspiracy.

So Sunday morning, I had to call S2 again about the soccer game. There has been one helluva rain system moving through these here parts in the last 48 hours, and today saw more than an inch. (Fortunately, it was a gentle inch rather than an angry inch.)

In this sloggy weather, I headed out in my finest raingear and watched S2 play some soccer. I've been wanting to do this for a few months. But today, her game started at 2:30, so I was actually able to wake up for it without difficulty. Rain, schmain.

S2 and her teammates were out there in shorts and t-shirt, running around in the mud and generally having a good time of it. They lost, but that didn't seem to phase them very much. The one goal scored by her team was set-up by a sweet downfield dribble and kick by S2, so that was a highlight. If one of their forwards had found better aim -- it was a wet, muddy ball -- S2's team might have won.

Well, it was fun. And like I always suspected, that S2 is hardcore. Even when she's not finding a lot of contact with the ball, she's running her butt off. Midfielders have the toughest job on the field. They've got to cover the whole thing but always have to be mindful not to get ahead of the forwards. All the work, and so little of the glory. S2 played the entire game and even with 15 minutes left, she could still sprint down the field.

That there is a woman keeping herself young.

*sigh* ... I do miss soccer. It's the sport I miss playing the most.

Returned home, dried off, played a little Tetris on my GameBoy. Then, I headed out into the rain again to see Frank Rick, the New York Times columnist, with S2 at the Schnitz. It was a very full house, brimming with appreciative liberals.

But you know, I was DEPRESSED. In words more eloquent than I can muster, he talked about the changes in journalism that made me feel disgusted enough to leave the biz, specifically the conglomeration of all the networks and most major media outlets under the ownership of entertainment companies.

I remember when, a few years before I left, Disney purchased Capital Cities (one of my former employers), which owned ABC. At the time, I was working for Gannett, which with USA Today had already learned how to turn newsprint into colorful chum.

I remember, too, being asked to develop marketing plans for my newspaper to attract a particular readership. Following Frank Rich's talk, I had mistakenly told S2 that I did so only for the features section, but I'm recalling now several business trips I made to one of the Gannett Mother Ships to talk with editors from newspapers all over the West about how to attract a *particular* demographic with the content of the entire paper. (I'm not going to publish just which demographic that is, but you can ask me in person if you're interested.)

In any case, the idea was to get one particular group. And yet, I had been raised and schooled to believe that a newspaper serves its community, ALL the people in its community, by reporting THE NEWS, by, as Frank Rich put it, "judiciously determining which stories mattered most, which were (supposed to be) as close as possible to the truth as it was known on that particular day."

That is not what was happening when I left the biz. That is not what I was being asked to do. That is not what was happening to the face of daily newspapers, the papers of record for their respective cities, at that point.

Since then, it has only gotten worse. And to understand it as Frank Rich describes it is a sickening thing. Something that has sickened me for many years now. It is what has made me want to stop paying attention.

The news has, in a large degree, turned into a slurry of entertainment and propaganda and meaningless drivel, packaged as something critically important. Stories are senstionalized into a brutal feeding frency that Rich calls a "mediathon," wherein the pack descends upon an often meaningless topic like so many pirhana on a bloody tampon.

As Rich noted, the TV miniseries was co-opted by news producers and turned into things like CNN's coverage of the first Persian Gulf War. Then OJ Simpson came along. (Don't get me started on Rodney King and the L.A. riots, which I covered as a rookie.) And it has been a race to the bottom ever since.

Rich's speech centered on the most recent Iraq War and how the Bushies sold this country a bill of goods, using highly calculated manipulation of the media to get what they wanted. He details all of this in his book, "The Greastest Story Ever Sold," about the path from 9/11 to Iraq and to the fallout from Hurricane Katrina.

I left the theater seething.

One humorous highlight of the night, though, was the moment when, in the silent auditorium, Frank Rich mentioned Judith Miller by name. Instantly, S2 and I emitted the same sound simultaneously and none-too-quietly: It was half hiss, half ... I don't know ... maybe you could call it a growl. It was *not* a pleasant sound. For reasons that remain a mystery to me, no one else in the place seemed to be on our wavelength.

Then we looked at each other and giggled.

There are some things you just need to hiss at, some things you need to growl at and some things that make you laugh. So rare for them all to occur in a single moment. So very pleasing when they do.

So much for being short, sweet and to the point....