Shaw's Garden, St. Louis

Well, my first visit to St. Louis must have gone well because the next time my boyfriend went home to see his folks, I got invited to tag along. This time, on top of some great family festivities, we also went to the beautiful Shaw's Garden and got some cool photos. In addition to just being a fabulous botanical garden, Shaw's Garden (or The Missouri Botanical Gardens, officially) is exceptional because it is divided into several small gardens, all with very different atmospheres, as you can see from the photos below.







The Japanese Garden -- much larger and more open than most gardens in Japan, but still, they captured the spirit well.











The sundial's off from the watch by an hour because of DST, but otherwise, remarkably accurate.



One of about a half-dozen couples we saw either getting married or having their photos done in the gardens that day.

St. Louis "Marathon" Weekend

Here are a few more photos from my first weekend in St. Louis...



We went to the Arch, of course, and I got a history lesson on its construction as well as a few cool photos.



Touching the Arch is supposed to be good luck, so we gave it a whirl.





I also got to sample some St. Louie cuisine, including the famous Imo's pizza and toasted ravioli! Yum!



Art Hill and the museum in Forest Park on a gloriously sunny day.





This was the first time I'd been to one of Stretch's races, but I think grabbing a cup of coffee while I wait for him to get to the finish line will work nicely as my regular race day routine.

St. Louis City Museum: Recapture Your Childhood for Just $12

I was a scrawny, decidedly unathletic wisp of a child -- all sharp angles and toothpicky limbs. No matter what sport the other kids were playing, my attempts to join in typically ended quickly and unceremoniously with a nose bleed or an asthma attack. Just watching a game of dodgeball gave me bruises.

Despite my somewhat fragile constitution, I eventually discovered that I was reasonably coordinated and found a blissful sanctuary on the playground: the monkey bars.

Twenty years later, I'm still avoiding dodgeball games, but sadly, my friends and I have outgrown the monkey bars...

Until this weekend.




As part of our move from "dating" to "seriously dating," Stretch took me to St. Louis to "watch him run in the St. Louis Marathon" (read: "meet his parents and tour his hometown"). On my little tour, he took me to St. Louis City Museum, which is basically a ginormous indoor/outdoor jungle gym for grown-ups.

Here are some photos, but you really need to see this place to believe it.







Stretch squeezing through a giant slinky to get from one floor to the next. Being skinny and flexible has never been more convenient.



Slides!! Woo hoo!!!



Outside, the giant slinky madness continues as we hover three stories above the ground with only some twisted re-bar keeping us from a grisly death.











Stretch likes the chains in the castle, though it occurs to me that this might be the most dangerous part of the whole ordeal.



Luckily, neither of us fell down this staircase, and we left City Museum feeling fulling twenty years younger.

Happy St. Patty's

The weekend before St. Patty's day, the new boyfriend and I took one of those awesome relationship steps when he started dropping the "L-word." I was on Cloud 9 the next three days until actual St. Patrick's Day, Wednesday, when Stretch called me from the ER to tell me he that he was in an accident on his bike.

Now, when you're with an athlete -- and I suppose this is true of all athletes, but it is definitely true of Ironmen -- you have to expect the occasional accident or injury, but my boyfriend is strong and smart and I trust him to take care of himself. Of course, that doesn't do much good when he's cycling down the road, minding his own business, and a pickup truck hits him from behind.

Dear Guy in the Truck: Why are you trying to ruin everything?

He assured me that he was fine, despite a few flesh wounds; I think that was the Morphine talking because when I got there the next day, he was bandaged up like a mummy and in significant pain. We spent the rest of the weekend cleaning wounds and changing bandages. He's totally worth it, but it wasn't very much fun for either of us, so for my sake, please watch where you're driving.

Valentine's Day Dilemnas

The first Valentine's Day with somebody new is always a bit of a relationship minefield. First of all, since people's reactions to the whole notion of Valentine's Day are so various, you never know whether you should go casual (and risk making your pookie feel neglected and unimportant) or go big (and convince him or her that you're needy/insecure/psycho). And even once you figure out what your plans are, something's bound to go terribly wrong and ruin them anyway.

My first boyfriend was bonkers about any excuse for a romantic occasion -- he wanted to celebrate every week for the first several months we dated and every month for the whole two years. Obviously, he made a huge to-do about Valentine's with fancy dinners and gifts he couldn't really afford. I broke up with him on Christmas Eve one year, and I think he was more upset about me ruining his romantic plans for Christmas than he was about us breaking up.

I presumed I would be spending the following Valentine's Day alone, but in fact, I met another young man just a couple of days before, and though we weren't yet dating, he happened to be at my house on February 14th when my charming ex decided to make an appearance for one of his big, romantic gestures. He was jogging up to the front door when he spotted the other guy through the living room window and changed his plans a bit -- he reached in his pocket, pulled out a watch I'd given him, smashed it against the front door, and stormed back to his car, where he sat parked at the curb for the next twenty minutes, either composing himself or waiting for me to come out and talk to him or both. Romantic, eh?

The following year, I was in Japan and my boyfriend was in the States, so for Valentine's Day, I was expecting a phone call. Apparently, he was one of those guys who doesn't like making a big deal of Valentine's because the phone call never came. When I did finally talk to him three or four days later, he told me there was some other girl who didn't live 7,000 miles away from him whom he had feelings for. Also very romantic.



So since then, I've been a little, well, cynical about Valentine's day. This year, as the 14th of February was looming on the horizon, I was trying to pick up cues from Stretch about his take on Valentine's Day. We'd only been dating a few months, and though things were going well, he had been very low-key about both my birthday and Christmas, so I was pretty sure that Valentine's Day wasn't going to be big on his list of priorities.


Luckily, I got a little help on this one from his cousin. We were down in Chicago visiting him in January, and he mentioned something about their Valentine's Day tradition, which they then explained to me -- a trip home to St. Louis and a Blues game with the boys.

So that cleared the question up for me. No romantic Valentine's Day plans this year. Whew!



But the story doesn't end there. A week or so later we were out having dinner with my sister, and I teasingly mentioned something about how I was going to be abandoned on Valentine's Day since the boyfriend was going to St. Louis.

"No, I'm not."

"You're not?"

"No, I'm staying here so I can take you out for Valentine's Day."

"... Why?"

"Because I want to."

"O."

So we left it at that for the night. This was not, after all, the first time Stretch had done something to surprise me.

I started to think about plans for the 14th, whether we should go out to dinner and where or whether I should cook or whether he'd want to cook... and while I was doing that, he was finding a ski resort and making reservations at a hotel up north. This from the guy who claims he's not romantic.

So we spent our first Valentine's Day on the snowy side of a mountain. Not everything went smoothly, of course. I took a few hard spills when Stretch convinced me to attack a black diamond, and he tragically lost his keys on the mountain, but despite the bruises and the inconvenience, I think I may have shaken the Valentine's Day curse. We spent all day skiing and got "suited up" for a nice dinner in the evening, and the following day we drove up to the bridge to see the straights all frozen over and have a hot breakfast in the UP before our long drive home. A pretty romantic Valentine's Day after all.

The City of Angels and a Little Advice

This past weekend, I flew out west to tear up LA with MJ 2.0. Schedules being what they are, these four days were the longest uninterrupted stretch of time we've spent together since we met o so long ago. We didn't let it go to waste. MJ gave me a regular tour d' force of the local attractions, including such famous and phenomenal sites as the Griffith Observatory (by night and by day), the Getty Villa, and Sid Grauman's Chinese Theater. We indulged ourselves in an incredible, magical, mystical array of food and drinks -- Thai, vegan, and sushi; french dip sandwiches at Phillipe, hot dogs at Pink's, and tacos from a street vendor; mojitos at Ciudad and cocktails in MJ's tenth-floor downtown studio. We cruised everywhere from Skid Row to Rodeo Drive, and one night we caught The Taking of Pelham 123 in the Arclight dome.

Of course, the highlights of any trip are the adventures you don't plan. This worked well since both of us hate planning. Other men have accused me of fearing commitment, but MJ brings out my roll-with-the-punches spontaneity to the nth degree. In fact, we were wandering around Union Station and nearly jumped on a random train -- definitely would have if we didn't have dinner reservations with a friend. (MJ: "I hate having reservations. It's too much commitment." A man after my own heart.) The unplanned adventures we had sometimes rose from the ashes of plans that fell through, like the afternoon it was too cold to go body-boarding so we instead strolled on the beach and hunted for starfish and crabs in the rocks. Sometimes we just stumbled on things, like a fancy cocktail party in the ballroom of the Roosevelt where we were sneaking around looking for Marilyn Monroe's ghost. (Didn't find her, by the way, but did suddenly feel tragically under-dressed.)



We also got quite a thrill just cruising around one day. My esteemed tour guide's commentary went something like this: "On the right up here there's this awesome Brazili... THAT'S A BUGATTI VEYRON!!" The most expensive and (arguably) the fastest car in the world. Definitely not something you'll spot buzzing around my little Nowhereville, Michigan. Pretty amazing to see it "in the wild" like that, just chillin' like a villain outside a restaurant.

This trip, like all the best trips I've taken, started with the urge to go catch up with an old friend, and it only reinforced what I already knew -- the absolute, hands-down, best way to travel is by visiting friends. The last time I was in LA, I was with a couple deadbeats who took me to Universal Studios and Six Flags, and beyond that we saw almost nothing of the city itself. This go around couldn't have been in sharper contrast. I'm thoroughly flattered by the way MJ cleared his schedule and devoted himself to my entertainment 24 hours a day, making even the drabbest and darkest corners of LA enjoyable and adventurous. His energy, his humor, and his passion for the City of Angels made the trip for me.



I caution you, dear reader, to choose your travel companions wisely. A good rule of thumb is this: If someone bores you at home, he will have you clawing your eyes out on the road. If someone annoys you at home, you will murder him on the road. At the very least, you'll bicker like an old married couple, using that tone you swore you'd never take with each other. It may be tempting to travel with your flavor of the week/month/year -- whoever's currently making you all starry-eyed and stupid -- but you're likely to regret it. Even a relationship that works well at home can develop an ugly side under the many stresses of being out of your element.

Instead, travel with people who are tested and true, and people whose idea of a good time aligns with yours. I, for example, have to travel without an itinerary. I like a generous block of time, a diverse list of possibilities, and the freedom to move in whatever direction the moment lends itself to. For that reason, I travel with my friends who are energetic, spontaneous, and not wound too tightly. Furthermore, I travel with friends with whom I have such a firm and weighty history that any adventures or misadventures that occur couldn't possibly jeopardize our friendship (and we certainly have had some misadventures). Traveling with boyfriends, on the other hand, goes quickly sour according to how hectic the traffic was, the state and cost of the hotel, the delay of a flight, illness or sheer exhaustion, and a million other variables.

In short, your trip will be smoother, more peaceful, and more pleasant if you keep in mind what Byatt wrote: "Friendship is rarer, more idiosyncratic, more individual and in every way more durable than this [poetic] Love."

MJ 2.0

About two years ago, I got an email from a stranger on MySpace. In his message, he asked me about my interest in travel and briefly told me about his recent back-packing trip in Europe. For a few weeks, we exchanged emails almost every day, and eventually, we went out for coffee.

That was how I met MJ.



After we'd had several months of dinners, movies, fine wines, and good times, he decided to move to Los Angeles. From previous unpleasant experiences, I'd already learned that there are generally three ways these scenarios can play out: 1) You can feel abandoned, throw a fit, and break up with the person before they leave; 2) You can attempt a long-distance relationship, make lots of promises neither of you will keep, and break up after they've gone; or 3) You can quit your job, pack your things, and go with them, which is no guarantee that it'll work out once you get there anyway. Cynical? Yes, but not without reason.

Dissatisfied with all those options, I decided to invent an alternative strategy: 4) You can be unselfish and let them go. Now I'm no saint, and I don't mind admitting to you that I was pretty bummed at the thought of losing him, but I also knew how badly he needed the change and how well LA would suit him. So while he was making arrangements, I went full-tilt into supportive friend mode, and when he left, I sent him off with a hug and a smile and never expected to see him again.

And I didn't. We spoke on the phone once or twice when he was first settling in, but then we got busy with our own lives and left it at that.



Until two weeks ago, when I got another email. It took me a few minutes to sort out who it was from as the address was unfamiliar and the author signed it with his initials. Something about how it had been a long time, an apology for not keeping in touch, going to be in town for a few days, really want to catch up, lots to talk about...

So after not speaking to him in well over a year, I suddenly found myself sitting across from MJ at one of our favorite haunts, talking jobs and families and traveling as if he'd never been away.

Since then, we've spoken several times, and a few days ago, he called to ask if I want to go to Spain with him. Ah, that unbridled spontaneity! Welcome back, MJ. I've missed you.

You Just Never Know...

Last week, in a rare moment of repose, I was sitting at home thinking "Yeesh, another Saturday night in Nowhereville," when I got an instant message from a friend inviting me to a wine tasting party. That's a little chic for this hick town, and for a second I expected him to say "No, just kidding. It's actually a barn-raisin'! Yehaw!" But no, he was serious about the wine.

So of course, I went.

Now I have known this guy for ages, but I know him because I used to babysit him. Yeah, he's a little younger than I am. And naturally, so are his friends. In fact, they're all three or four years younger than I am. I can't decide if hanging out with the college crowd makes me feel cutting edge or lame beyond redemption.

I gravitated towards the only other "grown-up" in the house, who happened to be a pretty smokin' hot guy. We got into a conversation about who he is and how he spends his time, and guess what? He races sled dogs.

wtf?!?

Yeah, he's an Alaskan tundra conquering, fur-trimmed coat sporting, frostbitten appendage losing, Call-of-the-Wild answering sled dog racer.


You never really know who you're going to meet next, do you?


Rock on, sled dog guy. Rock on.

How to Date American Guys: A User's Guide

The footloose Citizen of the World faces many confounding conundrums when circumnavigating the globe and delving into other cultures. Among the most famous are the language barriers, the variances in decorum, and of course, the gender politics.

Of the many grooves I had to get back into when I returned to the States, the groove of American guys was one of the trickiest. They aren't like all the Australians I'd been bumming about with or the Brit I'd been dating, and they certainly weren't like the Japanese guys I was constantly surrounded by at work and at home.

You see, Australian guys are incredibly easy to get along with. The secret is playing along with whatever harebrained schemes they concoct. They want to go drink and smoke pot down by the river like vagabonds? Great idea! They want to spend the first half of a night watching Bruce Lee flicks and the second half kung fu-ing each other’s asses? Wonderful! They want to freak out Japanese people by jogging up the “down” escalators? Brilliant! They want to run blindly through rows of speeding cars? Well, what are we waiting for?!

All an Australian really wants to know is that you’re down with his shenanigans and that he can be himself without fear of criticism from you. As an added bonus, hanging with Aussies will release your own inhibitions as well. You’ll probably find you rather enjoy running through traffic.


Aussie D getting stabbed by one of his mates in a bar. "There's always shenanigans."

A Brit is a more complicated animal. For a British guy – especially a well-educated, cultured British guy – wit is like currency. If you don’t appreciate life's little ironies, you might as well expect him to buy you diamonds with his belly button lint. You are doomed before you've even begun. However, if you are blessed with a natural knack for the drier brand of banter, you’ll probably find that most British guys are f*cking hilarious (or "focking hilarious" if they're from the north of England). All you need do to encourage them is throw a clever quip back, and you’ll be getting on like a proverbial house on fire in no time.

The only advice I've ever gotten about dating Japanese guys is: "Don't date Japanese guys." Students used to tell me this pretty frequently, but even on this side of the pond, I still hear it. Just a few days ago, I was talking to my friend K-ko about her sarari man husband, and she shook her and said, "Never marry a Japanese man." This seems a bit harsh, but the problem with Japanese husbands is that between the long hours they put in at work and the long nights they put in at the izakaya, you never actually see them. It's sort of how I imagine dating a ninja would be, but with less stealth and more abandonment issues.



Before I moved to Japan, I'd only really dated two guys: a soldier and a musician. The Soldier was an idiot and The Musician, like most musicians, was married to The Band. Dating a musician is easy. Simply acknowledge the supremacy of The Band. All things revolve around said Band, at least in so far as The Band or its members don't infringe on the blessed sanctity of The Music, from which all hope and happiness doth spring.

I was under the näive impression that this was particular to my American Musician, but having recently seen the film "Once", I realize it's actually true of musicians worldwide. The scenes at the recording studio gave me particularly strong déjà vu with just a hint of nostalgia.

"Once" is my recommended film of the month, by the way. Here's a little taste:




The first date that I went on after returning from Japan was with a guy called Mike. I consider Mike an "average" American, so he makes a good case study for our purposes here. Mike is typical of many American guys in the following ways:

1. He has been out of the country a handful of times and considers himself "well-traveled," even though all the places he's been are tourist traps and he was completely hammered or a mile high 93% of the time he was there.
   
   
2. He has an unhealthy obsession with the NFL. He has long ago passed out of the realm of Team Spirit and into the kingdom of Rabid Fanaticism, where Peyton Manning reigns supreme and pisses Bud Lite down onto the fawning masses. (I don't really like football, by the way.)
   
   
3. He is NOT funny. The jokes he tells aren't funny. The movies he watches aren't funny. The only thing funny about him is the way he constantly nods like a bobble-head doll, and that is the bad kind of funny. The bobble-head thing is unique to Mike, but the un-funnyness is like a plague in American guys.
   
   
4. He speaks in The Tone. This is not a characteristic of most American guys, but it's reasonably common. The Tone is that particular voice used by people who think they are smarter than you. Now, I've never been stupid, so I don't know how it feels to be spoken to this way by someone who's actually smarter than I am. Maybe it doesn't bother stupid people. I can tell you that it bothers smart people a lot. What's more, it's normally accompanied by a quarrelsome streak a mile wide. That amounts to a guy spewing the most ignorant, close-minded rubbish you've ever heard, then insisting he's merely playing the "Devil's Advocate" and telling you that you need a better sense of humor. Ha!

In short, Mike is kind of a douchebag.



After one dinner with Mike, I was ready to pack my bags and leave the country again. Then I met MJ.

He was a different type of American guy.

MJ was a Roles-Royce of a boyfriend. He looked like a rock star all the time, he had top-shelf taste in everything from films to footwear, and there was an actual orchestra playing in my head every time he kissed me. Okay, sometimes just a string quartet, but still, impressive. He was also intelligent and interesting to talk to. When we met, he'd just returned from backpacking in Europe, and we spent our first several hours together pouring over photographs.



Of course, he was not without his quirks. He was physically incapable of showering in fewer than forty-five minutes. Most men I know shower, shave, and dress in under fifteen, so at first I was a bit put off by MJ's uncommonly involved grooming rituals. Then he stepped out of the shower, and I realized: some things are worth waiting for.

But MJ's most dominant quirk by far was his profound and unfettered love of cars. While this love manifest itself primarily in the care and keeping of his own car, it also extended into anything else with wheels and an engine. Especially anything shiny with wheels and an engine. On one occasion, he took me on a "date" to the NAIAS, and he spent about five hours explaining to me how the whole evolution of mankind has come to glorious fruition in the flawless machine that is the automobile. I'm not much of a car person myself, so I was pretty skeptical going in, but as you can see from the photos, the whole show is designed to make cars look as sexy as possible. Combine that with MJ's impassioned commentary, and it ended up being a pretty memorable day after all.



After MJ moved to LA, I spent time with several different American guys and began to pick up on certain patterns among them. Douchebags of the Mikean variety often give them a bad rap, but I've found that on the whole, American guys are pretty cool. They're fairly laid back and easy to get along with, though you may occasionally find yourself suckered into watching "Dances with Wolves" or a Nicholas Cage movie. Generally, they seem to drink less -- not less often, but in smaller quantities -- leading to the delightful change of having a date who's coherent when you get home from the bar/club/concert/auto exhibition.

The key to an American guy is finding the One Thing in his life that he cares about more than anything else. If it's something you hate (football, for example), then kiss him on the head and walk away because otherwise you'll spend the rest of your relationship arguing with him about it. He is just not the guy for you. However, if his One Thing is something you like or something you could learn to like (perhaps cars), then make his day by asking him about it. Watch in amazement as he lights up like the Hindenburg. You'll soon discover that while they may seem low-key, American guys are intense, wildly passionate, and once settled into something they care about, deeply devoted to its pursuit.