We're sort of hard to nail down.

Bea and I have been told on more than one occasion that we lack focus. I couldn't agree more. Hey, did you guys hear that thing on MPR with Alan Rickman?

But seriously folks, one of the most difficult things for robots-posing-as-human is trying to make sense. Bea and I make none. By that I don't mean that she and I being together makes no sense. That's probably the most sense-making thing ever to happen. I mean, that really as individuals its really hard for us to make sense to anyone other than ourselves.

For example, my cousin got married 11 months ago. I am making her a quilt as a wedding present. Am making. STILL MAKING. At this point, its an anniversary present. I took a page from Bea's book and decided to punish myself for not getting my work done and watch the Vampire Diaries. And that I have to watch it while I quilt to punish myself for not getting it done earlier.  I mean, I am really starting to hate this quilt. And I always hated the Vampire Diaries, from the very first second. But somehow, I've got more productive on the quilt. Bea gets it. I think she gave me VD. I tried to explain this to Management, and now he's currently re-evaluating his role in this blog. What was I talking about again? Oh, right. How Bea and I lack focus, and why we're perfect for each other.

Usually when you humans have a conversation with someone, you follow the imperative to be relevant. This is really hard for me for multiple reasons. Usually its because I'm not paying attention. Now, it might be because I am bored, or because I'm panicked about possibly needing to contribute to a social interaction, and trying not to let you humans smell my fear. It could also be because something shiny distracted me. Either way, having a conversation with a person makes wriggle like a worm on a hook, in that I am in pain, and not really understanding what is happening to me.

Some back story: Bea and I have known each other for a long time, but it look a long time for us to be friends. I directly attribute this to the fact that neither of us is in the market for a friend, or ever want to do any thing. Granted there were some key exceptions, such as seeing Hilary Duff movies that absolutely need to be seen. But like all good friendships that are based on a mutual desire to not be hanging out and instead watching Netflix in bed, it grew into something more: a profound mutual understanding. 

It was around this point that Bea moved to Texas. This was sad. But as I had lit off for Montreal a few years earlier, I understand the need to be Somewhere Else. So now Bea is in Austin. But she and I are built for long distance relationships. When she lived in the Twin Cities, it would be sad if we watched Dexter over the phone, like we both secretly really wanted to do. But now, since she lives in TX, its slightly less sad.

At this point you all (or y'all) might be snapping your collective fingers to try to get me back on track. What does all this have to do with making sense, focusing or conversations. Well, hold your horses! I'm getting there! I was talking about having conversations. But now since Bea is far away, we can't converse in person. So we decided to do what seemed like the only natural thing to do: write each other old timey love letters. (Bea is way better at sending things to me than I am to her.) Otherwise, its more or less texting and Facebook, which is more or less a way for us to indulge in our anti-social tendencies. Ain't the digital age great? The overall effect of this is that Bea and I have about 3 conversations going at once. Usually two threads on facebook, much to the annoyance of everyone around us, and on going texts.

The conversations go something like this:
Me: Someday, I want to complie a list of recipes from famous works of literature and call it "cooking the books"
Bea: You so need to do that! My figgy pudding is never as good as Mr. Darcy's
Me: hehe. Also, what's the deal with office parties?

Somehow in the course of our friendship, we discovered that by tossing "also" in front of any statement makes it immediately applicable to the conversation. I can't imagine what its like to have to try to talk to us. Management recently described it like this: "There's too much sarcasm, exuberance and lies with you two to be able to tell."

Now at this point in the personal essay that I try to tie everything all together, and some how muddle my way to pretending I am capable of linear thought. But if I were talking to Bea I'd just let the conversation lull, slipping her ....er, I mean my phone back into my pocket until another thought popped into my head.

Its nice to not have to make sense. Or focus.

Also, why would a 165 year old vampire want to date a high school girl anyway? What's the end game there?

Show Me in the Text

Alright. ALRIGHT. Time to get serious here, before Management makes us go on a weekend retreat to get us to talk about our feelings, and have us do trust exercises. I really don't want to do trust exercises with Bea because she'd probably be too busy making deals with herself to pay attention to the fact that I was falling down, and then when I broke my wrist she'd be all "Well, if you didn't want that to happen, you should spoken up about it, but since I didn't make an accord with myself to be trusted by you, you mostly deserve it."

Bea states the point of the game is to see you can get from the beginning to the end. (Probe This, Jerk line 30, 2011).  Once I reach the end of a game,  I think to myself, in exactly these words, "Oh, looks like this particular instance of 8.06581752 × 10⁶⁷ possible card combinations just wasn't felicitous! Nutter butters! But I guess its a good thing that my self worth is not contingent on how this algorithm, whose outcome is primarily determined by statistics and probability rather than any sort of skill or observation on my part. Oh, look! This slight alteration to the order gives me yet another instance of this playing field, which will allow me to continue to execute a play."

Bea on the other hand probably thinks something like this: "Oh, looks like this particular instance of 8.06581752 × 10⁶⁷ possible card combinations just wasn't felicitous! Life just isn't worth living if I can't beat the math!" She then probably commences to read depressing or non-sense poetry. Or watch Vampire Diaries, which I assume is just some weird form of self-flagellation. Something I assume she needs to do because she needs to punish herself for all of her lost games of solitaire. 

Now, if you argue about something pointless enough long enough, two things happen: First, someone brings up Nazi Germany. Two, someone looks something up on the internet.

<sup>Well, I went to the internet to see if I couldn't get this thing settled. And I forgot exactly what my point was going to be about solitaire is a futile exercise in busy work you do to keep yourself occupied, and  arbitrary rules, and how to cheat at a cigarette, but I actually found websites that have programs you can download to win digital solitaire every time. Now, I think both of us would agree that THOSE people are definitely lying to themselves, and are all sorts of trampy. 

I have a really hard time imagining what would drive someone to work that hard to do something that is so meaningless. I get why psychologically and anthropologically people cheat. It sort of makes you a dick, but if it helps you gain prestige, and therefore a mate, hey, that's your evolutionary right. But no one will have sex with you if you win at computer solitaire. Its not like they wouldn't not sleep with you either. But if you cheat at computer solitaire? You might as well just hand in your genitals</sup>

probe this, jerk

What actually happened is this: After we finished watching Dexter over the phone Honey casually proffered two questions – 1. Can a person cheat at solitaire (since the stakes don’t really matter in the first place?) And 2. When Bruce Wayne hooks up with Selina Kyle while their alter egos are also concurrently getting it on, is it cheating? I answered yes and no respectively, while Honey answered no and yes. And then four hours and some name calling later, we stopped talking about it.

If you haven’t already guessed what my response might be to Honey’s thought provoking query of “Who the hell derives a sense of a accomplishment from a game of solitaire??” My answer is obvious, “ME. DUH!!!” I also like drinking alone, what of it?

Honestly, at this point if I were the type of person who said “maybe you’re right,” I would maybe concede that cheating at solitaire is referring to the situation in a somewhat harsh manner. Honey thinks that it’s not cheating if it doesn’t affect someone else, and that there has to be some gravity to the situation in a larger sense for it to be considered cheating. I personally think that the solitaire instance speaks to how a person would react in larger circumstances because of how one holds him/herself personally accountable. Now, I realize how ridiculous that is, but my brain has an old-timey gentlemen's agreement with itself to always keep it's word. As a gentleman your word is all you've got, unless you have more than 10,000 pounds a year, in which case, go you. And for the record I should probably mention that when I play solitaire on the computer or gadget of some sort, I don’t cheat, but I do constantly reset the statistics so it doesn’t get too depressing for me. I might have forgotten to mention that in my discussion with Honey. (I am totally allowed to do this though, because as I was too busy reading Jane Eyre and studying conspiracy theories as a child to frolic about with other youngsters and attempt to punt the football past the goalie, this is my little way of giving myself a pat on the back and a participation trophy even though I am a total and complete loser). And even if the amount of mattering falls in the “none more” category, I still play solitaire better than Honey because I get the point of the game – to see if you can get from the beginning to the end! If you can’t, the game is over. I really don’t see how that is too many rules to follow. If you simply rearrange the cards until they get to a more satisfactory placement, you are playing some weird, childish obfuscation of not solitaire.

I can’t get too worked up about the Batman/Catwoman scenario because all four of them are idiots and as I was once about to say “the relationship drama of fools bores the fuck outta me.” Seriously though, it’s not cheating.

If you're probing, you're going to get probed

Bea and I had our first fight. Now, I might be willing to take the blame for starting the fight, but only if she concedes that she was making no sense at first, and that eventually I won. That victory came at a heavy price. But, here is the result of that fight:

1. One of us is being a douche. (Its me.)

2. Bea has lost all respect for my personal integrity.

3. You can't reasonably break up with someone for hitting you, if you didn't inform them previously that physical violence is a deal breaker. 
And, finally

4. Things only matter if they matter.

Now, I'm a little hazy on how we came to these conclusions, because I am entirely convinced that I am right all of the time, and everything I think about everything is a fundamental truth of the universe that can only be expressed as semantically null tautologies, i.e. "rules don't count, because they don't count!". Because of this, I am very rarely drawn into discussion or arguments, and rapidly become exhausted at so staunchly sticking to my irrational guns that usually I just shrug and say, "Maybe you're right!" This seems to sate most people enough to give them a sense of victory and let me drop the conversation. Bea probably does the same thing, and would know that's what I was doing. You can't use your robot defenses against your robot buddy, turns out.

Regardless of how we got here, the whole thing started because I asked a question. In light of my complete inability to relate to anyone on a meaningful emotional level, I have come up with a set of questions that I think give me a way to understand how people think and feel.

The particular question this time around was: "Is Bruce Wayne cheating on Selena Kyle, when he makes out with Catwoman as Batman?" Its not as though I am looking for an one particular answer, but how you answer is really revealing of your world view. I especially recommend asking it on first dates.

Bea came back with a solid "No." Now, I am not sure what happened next. But the long and the short of it, according to Bea is this: the sort of person you are is determined by whether or not you shuffle the deck completely once you run out of moves in solitaire. The natural extension of this is that because I rearrange cards when I come to the end of a game, rather than completely restarting, I derive a false sense of accomplishment, lie to myself, and am something of a tramp.

Trampiness aside, my counter point is simple: Who the hell derives a sense of a accomplishment from a game of solitaire??

I find it interesting that this whole topic dissolved to the conclusion that how you feel about something matters. And by "how you feel" I mean how we feel is what matters. Turns out, the only opinions we care about are our own. So, yes, I might be cheating at solitaire, and I absolutely refuse to be judged for it. I made a deal with myself long ago with the understanding that whether or not I've dealt myself a solvable hand of solitaire, my value as a person will remain the same. Bea apparently did not make this deal.

Either way, Bea and I came to a mutual understanding our thoughts and feelings (i.e. that they ultimately don't matter all that much), and I think we've come to a better sense of what our relationship means, and how we can move forward in our old timey love affair.  And in a certain sense, doesn't that mean we both win?

But in another, more accurate sense, I won.