Yeah, I know it’s not technically a computer but given what it does for me, it’s close enough.

Yesterday, I went through the Apps Store and updated all my software and got a few more things. Now, if this thing had a keyboard, I’m not sure that I’d use my MacBook very often.

The Trinity
First is the WordPress client for the iPhone. This lets me write posts from anyplace. The client is a little buggy, but it hasn’t lost data for me and that’s good enough at the moment. I really expect it to get better, given the growing user base for both WordPress and iPhones…so I’m happy with what I got and the price (free!).

(I promise that I’m not writing these from the meeting we’re in right now…unless you are reading this on your phone.)

Next, I have Twitteriffic for checking and updating Twitter. At first, I loved Twitter but as I added more people, I started to feel the drag of it. When people post really good updates, as I think http://twitter.com/downdb does, I’m happy to have it. But when I subscribe to an acquaintance or less and get two dozen posts in a day that are responses to people I don’t follow and don’t say anything more than “LOL”…that’s when I get tired of twitter.

(I promise you that I’m not tweeting/twittering/twhatevering about your silly sweater from the meeting we’re in right now…especially if you are reading this on your phone in this very same meeting.)

Finally, I’ve got the facebook app. Ah, facebook. Time waster extraordinaire. What more can I say?

(I promise you that I’m not updating my status to say “is falling asleep at the conference table across from the guy in the goofy sweater” right now. Really!)

Bonus!
I also downloaded the new Google app for the iPhone that has voice recognition. It’s not too bad, but if you try to search for “Matthew Bakaitis” consistently heard “Matthew Crisis”.

Is there a Matthew Crisis in this country? Why didn’t anybody tell me?

…and now I know we’ll be defeated by them as they ride robotic vacuum cleaners to victory.

I’m not usually a fan of birthdays…
As the man voted “Least Sentimental on the Planet” by a panel of experts, it may surprise some of you that I’ve decided to adopt a new tradition in my life. It’s called “Birthday Week”.

Now, some of you have already heard of this concept. Those would be the more sentimental among you.

As for me, I’d never heard of it until my friend (last March) announced her birthday week was starting.

“A week long birthday?”, I thought, “Your poor mother!”

…but of birthday weeks? I can be convinced.
But no, she didn’t take a week to be born. She simply declares the entire week leading up to her birthday to be a week-long celebration.

It makes the whole thing go down easier. After all, once you pass your 21st birthday, that’s about it until you hit retirement. Everything in between is simply adding another hash-mark to the wall of our prison walls while we calculate the rate of return on our 401(k)’s and wonder if we’ll get anything from Social Security and if our children will care for us when we are destitute.

So excellent, yeah?

A week of birthday dinners, nights out, and other festivities.

If you haven’t already signed up to take me out this week, I am willing to overlook this fact and will extend birthday week into the next.

N.B.: I refuse to accept anything made from turkey as a birthday week dinner. You can’t sneak your leftovers into my celebratory rituals!

Secrets are interesting. We want to know when somebody is keeping one.

I read a few Blog Secrets today with the hope of finding a juicy secret, like something that involved a presidential candidate; a bank heist; a sex act that required a car with snow tires, a swing over the river, three tabs of acid and a radio playing “Forever Young”.

I guess nobody listens to “Forever Young” any more. Or robs banks.

Both Post Secret and Blog Secret are more confessional than exhibitionist. They aren’t about bank heists. Instead, they “reveal” the things we know happen but that we don’t talk about in public because talking about it is worse than keeping the secret. They are things we don’t even talk about in private, because it would add insult to injury. (Example: cheating on a partner is bad; telling people is worse, as it threatens further humiliation.)

Why do we post these things to Post Secret, Blog Secret, Twitter Secret (coming next!) or whatever?

I ask because I’m not sure if this is a true confessional experience. A confession implies forgiveness. I describe my transgression and somebody forgives me. These sites only give half the formula - we tell but nobody tells us that everything is OK.

I’m not criticizing these sites. I’m curious about the motivation here. I think I’ve got the reason - confession - wrong. There’s something else happening.

Why submit to these sites? If you posted to either, I’d love to hear your reason.

Some folks in Pittsburgh staged scenes for the Google camera car that takes the photographs for the Google Street View site.

Mistakes were made
Weeks ago, I wanted to write about mistakes I made in past relationships. Mistakes…not just little screw-ups. It was going to be posted after I wrote about my divorciversary, but Dave died and that wasn’t really important anymore.

Then, today, three friends asked me for dating advice… (Me?)

Each discussion was about trouble they had with their current date/partner/dude/gal. The the discussions ended with the same questions: (a) Do you trust yourself? (b) What do you want?

At the end of the last discussion, I mentioned that all the conversations ended with the same questions.

Naturally, I was asked: how do you answer the questions?

Do I trust myself?
In the past, the answer has been a resounding “No.” There are plenty of reasons I stopped trusting myself. Divorce was a pretty good reason, for example. Once you get onto a roll with this kind of stuff, it’s easy to keep going and keep questioning yourself. You get into a bad-trust spiral.

How do you start to trust yourself again? Unfortunately, I think the answer is “make mistakes while trying really hard to do the right thing.”

The subject line of this post exists because I made plenty of mistakes. I trust myself again, but along the way I screwed up, got things wrong or realized I was going in the wrong direction after it was too late to do anything. Usually, I was lucky and only hurt myself. Sometimes, I wasn’t so lucky.

Call it baggage or experience; I’ll pick “experience” but I wish there was a less painful or tragic way to earn it.

What do you want?
The next question is the tricky one: what do you want?

There’s a problem with the question. It assumes that you can actually name a specific and individual quality that you want in a person you’ve never met. People try to answer this with empty phrases like “I want somebody who makes me laugh.”

Well, sure. Nobody wants a partner who makes them cry. We don’t want people who hit us. We don’t want people who steal from us, tell lies about us, cheat on us, and so on.

I’d even say that it’s difficult to say “I want somebody who shares an important belief” is a good answer. I respect deep religious conviction, political affiliation and other specific beliefs that are central to a person’s life. I don’t think this is anything more than a starting point, because the relationship isn’t going to succeed because you are both Flat Earthers or whatever.

No. It’s going to succeed for reasons that aren’t definable. You can’t begin to see if it’s going to work until you meet the person you’re going to date.

I think the second question doesn’t count. It’s a pipe dream. It’s a way to make us feel like we’re in control when, in reality, it’s luck that we meet somebody who’s a good match.

All that leaves is this:
You have to trust yourself. Pay attention to who shows up in your life. Have some hope.

Mistakes were made
In the meantime, mistakes were made. I made plenty of them. The other people I spoke with made them and their partners/dates/gals/dudes made them, too. We’re all a big pile of mistakes.

Can we honestly trust ourselves? Can we be comfortable with who we are, even when we are vulnerable or exposed to our partner? Can we understand that we’re going to make mistakes, even when we find the “right person”, because we can’t know what we “want” until we’re with that person?

I think the answer to these questions are all related to one thing: what do we do once we’ve made a mistake? Do we accumulate baggage or do we add to our experience?

I choose Experience. Not Baggage.
I think I’m done talking about this stuff for awhile. I feel like writing about this stuff makes me sound lonely or morose or depressed or something. I’m not. I’m introspective about this stuff, but only inasmuch as it pertains to something immediate…like my friends asking me for advice.

One last thing. Let me thank my friends who stuck by me and apologize once more to the people who got stuck with me as I was making mistakes. I’m lucky to have met all of you and owe you one.

However, I already know that tomorrow is going to be quiet with a coffee here, groceries there and some paperwork for the office someplace in the middle.

So! In the meantime, November has apparently arrived! I know this as I considered the walk to Dewey’s and decided that cold rain is not my friend. I hate squishy socks, so I drove. I hung out in Dewey’s, read a little and had a coffee with a friend. It was nice, talking over coffee, watching the Saturday morning traffic pass in-and-out of the place. Relaxing, in the finest bourgeoise manner.

Then? Well, Bent Crayon. Yeah. I said I shouldn’t go in there after visiting the bank machine. I now think I should lock away my cash, credit cards and anything that can be bartered before walking into a music store… I should go in with one $20 bill and nothing more. So, yeah, I’ve got some new music.

And tonight, I’m heading out to the Wing House (I think it would be better named “Der Wing Haus”) to see my friends play in their band. The downside is that this is in Mentor. So…it’s going to be a dry night in terms of alcohol, even if it’s pouring the rain outside.

Yep. Rain. Cover bands. Squishy socks.

It’s November in Cleveland!

(And for those who take notice: I’m back on a normal sleeping schedule! No more 5am Saturday morning posts!)