Maddie on Men

"There are two kinds of men," Maddie finally offered. Maddie's older brother Bernard and I had been talking about women and relationships and she had been quietly listening. Finally, inevitably, Bernard and I stopped to catch our breath and she was able to talk without interrupting.

"Two?"

"Yes," she nodded. "Men who don't have a clue about women and men who don't have a clue that they don't have a clue about women."

I wanted to respond. I was not sure what to say.

Bernard's confusion did less to silence him. "Oh c'mon, Maddie. That's a cheap shot. There are men who have a clue."

"Really," she raised an eyebrow.

"Sure. There are women happy with the guy they are with. They even say as much."

"They are with men who don't have a clue that they don't have a clue." The way she said this did not seem to allow the least questioning on our part. "Those men are sometimes easier to be with." She paused. "Sometimes."

"What do you mean?"

"Well," she paused, her finger tracing patterns in some spilt salt on the table, "men who don't have a clue tend to give up. They are like deer in the headlights. Or potatoes on the couch. They don't try anymore because they haven't a clue about what does or doesn't work or what to say or what not to say. Men who realize how little they realize might be less delusional, but they are not really better.
"Now men who haven't a clue that they don't have a clue can actually be coaxed into doing certain things. They are easier to engage. They say the wrong things but they can be coached into saying some approximation of the right thing. They do the wrong things but ... well at least they still engage with you. Handled properly, they can be enjoyable company."

Bernard and I sat quietly for the first time all evening. I had suddenly lost all confidence about what I could say.

"Is knowing that there are just these two types of men the first clue," I finally asked.

Maddie laughed. "Oh Ron," she said. "You know, there might be hope for you yet."

"You think there is hope for me to actually get a clue," I asked, my voice betraying my hope more than I had wanted.

Maddie laughed even harder. "No, silly. I'm just saying that there is a chance that you might be one of those men whose sense of delusion could be put to good use." And then she laughed again. I did not.

Maddie on Socialist Networking Sites and Bernard on Republican Drug Dealers

It had been too long since I'd met my favorite senior citizen siblings for lunch. Maddie was the closest thing I knew to an idiot savant in the social realm: she seemed profoundly insightful about love and tragically misinformed about politics. Bernard, by contrast, was a deep (if sometimes unorthodox) thinker when it came to politics but seemed perpetually baffled by relationships. And yet they were delightfully fond of each other, and I of them.

Maddie shook her head, “And now these socialist networking sites are all over the Internets.”

“What?”

“These sites like myface,” she said. “I heard Glen Beck call them socialist networking sites.”

“Um,” I began, hardly knowing where to begin. “You mean facebook and my space?”

“Whatever,” Maddie said. “I just think it’s awful. They’re indoctrinating all these young kids who spend so much time on the computer.”

Bernard scoffed. “Maddie, you have to stop watching nut jobs like Bleck.”

“You mean Beck,” Maddie corrected him.

“Yes,” Bernard said unrepentantly. “Bleck.”

“So you think that Obama is a socialist,” I asked.

“Don’t,” Bernard rose his hand at me, looking disgusted, “get her started” he finished in a whisper.

Fortunately, Maddie did not say much. She just touched my arm and leaned in to say, “Oh honey. Everybody knows that.”

“If only Joe McCarthy had known is was so easy to spot a socialist," Bernard shook his head. "The new definition of socialist is someone who wants to increase government spending on something other than aircraft carriers. You know what’s really wrong with this country,” he asked.

“Country music station in every town and not a single folk station to be found anywhere,” I asked.

“What does he mean by that,” Maddie asked, turning to Bernard with a look of confusion.

“Nothing Maddie. He’s just talking nonsense.”

I almost protested but realized that until the waiter came with his food, Bernard was going to be cantankerous. His blood sugar was low.

“What’s wrong with this country, Bernard?”

“Politics have been hijacked by the drug dealers.”

“What?”

“Nobody can raise taxes. Not Obama and certainly no Republican will do it.”

“As if Republicans want to raise taxes.”

“You’re too young to remember that under Eisenhower, a Republican president, marginal income tax rates were 91%. Republicans didn’t use to be just about lower taxes. We liked balanced budgets and social responsibility too.”

“We?” I was shocked. “You were a Republican?”

“Well, sure. Any thinking person was. But now Republicans don’t even have an ideology. They just have a mantra. And it’s worked to hypnotize the masses. Nobody even questions the inane premise behind it now.”

“Republicans are not ideological?” This threw me even more than his claim to have been a Republican.

“They don’t have an ideology. They have a chant: lower taxes! Lower taxes!” Bernard pounded the table like a soccer hooligan as he chanted.

“Finally,” Maddie said, “you are on board.”

Without missing a beat, Bernard asked, “So Maddie, what level of taxes would be ideal?”

“Well you just said it, Bernie: lower.”

“And there you have it,” Bernard announced with a flourish. “Chanting ‘lower taxes’ regardless of whether your marginal rate is 91% like it was under Eisenhower or 28% like it was under Reagan – without regard for policy needs or deficits – is not an ideology. It is political Tourette’s – a vocal tic that means nothing.”

“I’m lost, Bernard.” And I really was lost. I was trying to make sense of the jump from drug dealers hijacking politics to the lower taxes mantra. “What does this have to do with drug dealers?”

“Well, who benefits if we underfund government to the point that it can’t be sustained? Where else do we see low taxes and weak government?”

“Well, there is Mexico just over the border.”

“Exactly!” Bernard jumped up. He always seemed so relieved when I caught up to him. “Taxes there are about 18% of GDP – about half of ours. And the government is, like Colombia’s, essentially at the mercy of drug dealers. They own the country. And the government is too weak to fight back.”

“So you think that the guys behind the anti-tax movement are the drug dealers?”

“Yes! With a weak government, the drug dealers are like Machiavellian princes. They live in luxury and without constraints.”

I paused. “That’s a crazy idea, Bernard.” He waited me out. “But I have to admit it makes sense.”

Bernard was looking more calm now, halfway through his turkey and avocado sandwich. “And really, what better example of the ideal of unregulated markets than the drug trade,” he asked.

“So you think that the Republican Party has been hijacked by drug dealers?”

“Who better to hypnotize a population past the point of thinking?” Bernard shook his head. “This is not your grandfather’s GOP.”

Bernard & Maddie on Love as a Gale of Creative Destruction

It had been a long time since I'd seen Maddie. She looked bright eyed and greeted me with a wet kiss on the cheek. She had to be closer to 80 than 60, but her eyes shone in a way that made me smile.

"I have been thinking about love," her older brother Bernard announced in his inimitable way.

Maddie giggled. "Maybe if you hadn't thought so much about love you'd have done better with your three marriages."

"Well, there is nothing like being alone after three marriages to make a man think about love. Sometimes failure teaches you things that success can't," Bernard said a little testily.

"What have you learned," I asked curiously.

"Well, I don't know that I've actually learned anything. But in doing some economics reading, I found a phrase that sounded more like love than capitalism: gales of creative destruction. Schumpeter - an economist - wrote about how capitalism creates new industries like cars that destroy old industries like horse and buggies. Capitalism creates by destroying," he said. Bernard paused dramatically. "And I think that love does as well."

"You think that love destroys a person?" I said.

"The old you. Yes. You go into a relationship and the old you gets destroyed. In its place is a new you that works with this new person."

"That makes love sound exhausting," I said. "I think love is a very different thing."

"What?"

"I think we underestimate the power of getting to be yourself in love. I think that love is finding a person who gives you a place to be you. Love is comfort as much as it is excitement."

"I don't remember love feeling all that comfortable. It wasn't really a place where I could let down," Bernard protested.

"Well no wonder your marriages didn't last," I said. "That kind of love sounds exhausting."

Maddie laughed. "If you do it right," she said, "there is no conflict."

"Conflict between what?"

"The two kinds of love you're talking about," she said. "Love as a creative destruction and love as a place where you could be you."

"How does that work?" Bernard said with what I would have sworn was a pout.

"Nothing's more transformative than getting to be you. Getting to really be you," her eyes shone. "If you suddenly find yourself with a person who lets you be you, it does destroy the old you - the you that berates yourself, that spends more energy scolding yourself than enabling yourself. You think it isn't, finally, transformative to find someone who is the place where you can be you?" Maddie laughed at us. "You think that you are two are talking about different things?"

"Ron," she looked at me, "it is not that you are comfortable getting to be you. You make it sound like something comfortable, Ron, like as if it isn't a lot of work to be the real you. Or, I guess, you aren't left comfortable with the old you. Aren't left feeling comfortable unchanged. Love has about as much regard for convenience as gravity has for grace. You'll be happier. You'll be more alive. You may or may not feel all that comfortable."

"So you agree with me," Bernard asked with naked excitement. Bernard, like all of us, had this tendency not to be able to hear anything after he'd expressed an idea, except as it related to what he said.

Maddie looked at him with a tender smile. Her eyes seemed to water a little. She touched his hand. "Sure, Bernard. I agree with you. Love creates a new you by destroying the old you. It's not afraid to call the old you retarded or dis-associate with it. It feels a little destructive sometimes, but ..." she trailed off.

"So you've known this for some time," asked Bernard, quickly turning her agreement into hurt that she knew this even before he did.

Maddie laughed again. "Bernard, Bernard, Bernard," she shook her head. "I didn't know it the way you said it. But it makes sense to me, yes."

Bernard paused and then he asked her, "Who transformed you? It wasn't Jacob, was it?"

"It was me," Maddie said. "I finally learned to love me and that changed everything." She patted his hand again. "You should try it, dear. It would do you good."

Maddie Explains Systems Thinking. And Women

I’d been traveling a lot and it’d been too long since I’d lunched with Bernard and Maddie. Maddie came to our table with a hat – a small, foppish affair that coerced a dopey grin from me. Of course, with the political sensibility of a place setting and a casual kind of emotional awareness, she was the closest thing I knew to an autistic savant and an odd foil to Bernard who had seemed to reverse this equation, as if these aged siblings were the ying and yang of emotional and social intelligence. Or maybe it was just my judgment that was skewed. In any case, I had missed our conversations. I had missed them.

Bernard was fretting about his granddaughter. “She doesn’t seem capable of just deciding who she wants to be outside of a relationship,” he said. “I worry about her. It’s almost like everything is up for grabs – from career to belief system – until she finds the right guy.”

“I know what you mean,” I chimed in. “How does she even know who the right guy is until she knows who she wants to be?”

Maddie cocked her head. “You boys have no clue, do you?”

“What?” I was baffled twice. Once that she’d actually called us boys and again with her accusation of cluelessness.

“I’ve been reading that stuff about systems thinking you suggested I read, Ron.”

“You have?”

“Yes. You suggested it but you don’t really understand it, do you?” She looked at me innocently but it felt like a strong accusation.

“Well, I would hope that I do,” I said hesitantly, unsure where she was going with this.

“Those systems thinkers use lots of fancy language, but isn’t the real message behind systems thinking that you cannot understand parts until you understand what they’re a part of?”

“Yeah,” I grudgingly acknowledged. “I guess that’s it, although that seems a little simple.”

“Or you can say that context is everything, right? If you don’t know the context, you don’t know the thing.”

“So what does this have to do with Emma?” Bernard inquired, insulted that Maddie would so quickly turn the conversation from his granddaughter.

“Well, guys don’t seem to take naturally to systems thinking. But I think that it is ingrained in us women. We know things intuitively that you simply don’t and we don’t need fancy language and models to know this.”

“Such as?” Bernard asked.

“Well, you are saying that your granddaughter should define her life without regard to her most important relationship,” she looked at Bernard and then turned to me. “And relationships are the whole point of systems thinking, right?”

“Yes,” I said, wondering how she had managed to so quickly get past the verbiage of systems thinking to its essence so quickly.

“Well, your granddaughter is much smarter than you, as women are, and that’s why men dominate in culture. It’s not just their brute strength that makes this a man’s world. Men make the choices and women, who understand that without relationships the world would fall apart, accommodate. They do this not because they are weaker. They do this because they are smarter. Of course your granddaughter is trying to figure out relationships first. If everyone acted like a marble in a pinball machine, the world would fall apart. The fact that you men are unaware of this doesn’t make you better – it just means that we women have to make adjustments that you won’t, that you are not even aware need to be made. “

I was more than impressed by Maddie’s uncharacteristically long speech. “So you are saying that women are naturally, intuitively, more aware of relationships? They’re the systems thinkers?”

“Well isn’t it obvious?”

“And because of this, a young woman starts with relationships and then fills in the parts, whereas men start with the part and then work to the relationship?”

“Yes.”

“Wait!” Bernard actually hollered. “Wait,” he said more softly, self-conscious about his outburst. “You are saying that a life is just a part? A life is a whole. It’s huge. And you are saying that a life is just a part?”

“It kind of makes sense, Bernard,” I agreed. “We get created by our culture, by our society, by our families. In that sense, a life is just a part.”

“But you can rise above that. Progress – even psychological health – depends on you being defined by something more. It is a terrible thought, that we’re determined by these things, these relationships that we just wake up in.”

“You don’t have to be so extreme,” Maddie said. “Women choose how they adapt to relationships, even what relationships to adapt to. But they start with relationships.”

“Well what about you,” Bernard queried. “You start with relationships?”

Maddie beamed. “No,” she said. “Not any more. Now I’m free. I know what it’s like to be a man. And it makes life so simple.”

“What?”

“My kids are grown up. My husband is gone. I don’t have to start with relationships anymore. I have so few variables to consider that I feel like my IQ has gone up by 30 points. Life is so simple now. I see now why you men seem to get so much done even when you spend so much time on the couch apparently doing nothing.”

“Ouch,” I said.

“Systems thinking is exhausting,” Maddie said. “It wore me out for 60-some years. Having to consider relationships and other people before I could figure what to do next. I’m so glad to be done with that. Now I even have enough intellectual energy left over to read books on systems thinking.” She reached over and patted Bernard’s hand. “Don’t worry about your Emma,” she said. “She’ll think like you do. Eventually.” And then Maddie got a faraway look in her eyes. “The real pity is that you men don’t know what this is like – what It’s like to think both ways. Just think what you could do if you did.”

I would have taken offense but Maddie’s foppish hat and smile completely disarmed me. I could, stupidly, only smile back and nod. “Too bad, indeed,” I agreed. “It’s like we’re missing a whole life.”

“That’s what you have us for,” she squeezed my hand. “We’re the life you’re missing.”

I could not contain myself. I leaned in and planted a kiss on her head, stylish hat and all.

Pirates! You've Seen the Movie - Now Watch the News!

“It’s Disney’s fault,” Maddie sat down breathlessly.

“What?” Bernard didn’t have a clue what Maddie was talking about.

“The pirates. They’re Disney’s fault,” Maddie asserted with a nod.

“Disney because …? “

“Well, they’ve changed the image of pirates. With Peter Pan, pirates were evil. Nobody liked Captain Hook. Now with that Pirates of the Caribbean movie, they’ve made being a pirate so glamorous. Why wouldn’t those Samoan boys want to be pirates? They all want to be like that French-loving Johnny Depp.”

“That’s actually Somalian pirates,” I said, trying to help.

“4 third-world teenagers with guns and we send the navy after them. This is how much the threat to our way of life has degraded and how desperate the media is for a story and the politicians for a sense of purpose and reason to spend more on defense.” Bernard was disgusted.

“This is a big deal,” I said, touting my newly acquired knowledge about the boat-jacking pirates.

“It is,” Bernard raised his eyebrow skeptically.” Really?” He shook his head and said, “This is the story du jour. It’s a cheap way to sell news. And it leaves us with the question we always get with the media: does it still qualify as focused if we’re focused on distractions?”

“Du jour!” Maddie looked alarmed. “Since when did you decide to be like Johnny Depp?”

Bernard rolled his eyes. I am not sure if he did it out of exasperation or intentionally, but I could have sworn that he uttered a pirate’s ARGH.

Maddie Glosses Over the Great Depression

"Where is Maddie?" I asked Bernard as I sat down.
"She's trembling in fear," Bernard said with a roll of his eyes.
"Why?"
"Well, in her words, we have just elected a black Marxist Muslim atheist for president."
"What?" I scratched my head. "Is that even possible?"
"With Maddie anything is possible," he said with a tone of resigned disgust that only a sibling can muster.
"No," I said. "Can a person be a Muslim atheist? What is that even supposed to be? A religious extremist who doesn't believe in God?"
Bernard snorted. "Maybe it's someone who doesn't believe in Allah."
"Well then," I said, "I guess you're a Muslim atheist. I think that every president we've ever elected has been a Muslim atheist."

About ten minutes later, Maddie sat down to join us.
"How are you," I asked her.
"I am reading the most amazing book," Maddie said. "I just lost track of the time."
"What are you learning?"
"Well, this author says that you can divide people into two categories: some people are Zambonis and some people are grocery carts."
"What?" Bernard looked up from his menu with a frown.
"Grocery Carts just keep piling stuff on. These are people who just keep accumulating and aren't designed to take any bumps."
"Like shoppers at Costco or like homeless people?"
"Yes," Maddie continued on. "And Zambonis are people who just gloss over everything. They just try to smooth out everything. And they don't carry anything with them."
"How does this explain the world," Bernard shook his head.
"Well, I am a Zamboni and you are a grocery cart, Bernie."
"How do you know this?"
"They have a test in the book."
"Is this like The Secret," Bernard asked. "A book that millions of people read to transform their lives just before the economy collapses?"
"See. You are a grocery cart. You see something like that and you don't let it go. Suddenly, every book that could help you is suspect."
"And you?"
"I think I learned to gloss over things because of growing up with you," Maddie said. "You are always pointing out what is wrong or missing. I had to learn how to gloss over things just to cope."

As we were eating, I could not resist asking her, "So, Maddie, I hear that you have some trepidation about Obama."
"Oh," she giggled nervously. "Kind of. Not really." She fussed with her napkin. "I just don't know about what to expect from him."
"I'm hopeful," I said. "I like him."
"Well, his children are beautiful," Maddie Zamboni replied. "Black children are so cute."
"Except for the ones who aren't," Bernard dryly replied. "The best thing about him?" he continued. "He is not Bush."
"Oh Bernie, see? You are a grocery cart," Maddie said. "Just let go of that already."
"Let go? Bush is still president," Bernard protested.
"See," Maddie turned to me. "Just like the book said. Bernie is such a grocery cart. He can't let go."
"What about you with Obama?" Bernard asked.
"Oh, well," Maddie waved her hand. "I'm sure we'll get through this Great Depression that he's brought on. We lived through Hitler," Maddie said as she buried her face in the menu. "We'll make it."
"'Great Depression that he's brought on?'" Bernard echoed incredulously. "How did he bring it on? He's not even president yet. And how is it even a Great Depression?"
"Oh," Maddie said, "the election is over. Let's not talk politics today."
Bernard shook his head. "You are such a Zamboni," he muttered.
"See!" Maddie lit up. "I told you! This book is so amazing."

"It makes sense, really, that electing a Marxist would trigger a depression," I said as we ate.
"Yes!" Maddie said. "I am so glad to hear you say that."
"I wonder what I am according to your book," I asked her.
Bernard, disgustedly said, "Probably a vacuum cleaner."
"Why?" I asked.
"You suck," he muttered at me.
"No," Maddie said. "That's not in there. At least not in the part I've read so far. There are no vacuum cleaners."
"Oh yes there are," Bernard said staring daggers at me.

Bernie and the Bad Psychology of Republican Politics

Maddie's eyes had a twinkle as she poured the packets of sugar into her diet coke. "That Omama guy had better look out now," she said happily.

"Excuse me?" Bernard asked, looking confused as he touched his hearing aid.

"McCain has announced that he's putting on his campaign suspenders! He's getting serious now."

"Um," I offered hesitantly. "I think that you might have that wrong."

"Huh?" Maddie frowned. And then she followed my eyes to her glass and laughed. "Oh! This?" she waved the sugar packets. "I just add the sugar because they say that the artificial sweetener in diet coke is not good for you, so I add the natural stuff."

"No," I said. "John McCain suspended his campaign. There was no mention of a wardrobe malfunction or costume change."

"Although," Bernard drew himself up, running his thumbs through his own suspenders, "there is nothing wrong with suspenders."

"If you want people to know you were born before World War II," I mumbled. "But it might be time for someone in Washington to don a cape," I added.

Bernard leaned forward. "McCain's problem has nothing to do with his wardrobe. His is a psychological problem."

"What?" I asked, my attention momentarily diverted by the arrival of my Reuben sandwich.

"It's called all or nothing thinking," Bernard said. "I read about it. It is a cognitive disorder."

"You and your books!" Maddie said with a shake of her head.

Bernard gave her a look and continued. "This really happens. Some kid gets a B on her report card and suddenly, she thinks that she'll never get into medical school and since she can never be a doctor, she'll never find any career that interests her and since she has no future now she doesn't even want to go to school. It's called all or nothing thinking," Bernard said. "It is one of the worst kinds of distortions of reality, because reality is rarely so stark - a choice between bliss or your own personal purgatory."

"What does that have to do with the way John McCain dresses?" Maddie asked.

"Nothing!" Bernard said. "I'm talking about his speeches over the last couple of weeks. And Bush's speeches. Two weeks ago, the fundamentals are sound, everyone should just stop worrying and go shopping. This week, we're in a financial crisis. We have to pay $1.3 trillion to bailout out banks and brokers! You know how much that is? Out of 170 countries, $1.3 trillion would make you the 10th largest economy on the planet! Just smaller than Canada, just larger than Brazil and tied with France! Suddenly, we go from everything is fine to teetering on the edge of disaster?"

"So, you think that McCain's problem is psychological?"

"Yes! Those Republicans have nothing but contempt for subtlety, and yet life is always shades of gray."

"So why don't they just say so?" I ask, as it turns out, stupidly.

"Because the people who vote Republican don't want nuance, complexity or subtlety. They have no patience for it. They pay for the simplification of reality. That's why they put candidates in office - to assure them that life is predictable and makes sense."

"You are talking in circles again, Bernie." Maddie reached over to pat his hand and turned towards me. "Even when he was a kid we could never follow him. He could never make things simple. For him it was always layers of complexity."

"Reality is complex!" Bernard insisted.

"So you say, Bernie," Maddie tucked her head down and took another bite. "So you say."

-----
“The neurotic person distorts reality, makes demands upon it, imposes premature conceptualizations upon it, is afraid of the unknown and of novelty, is too much determined by his interpersonal needs to be a good reporter of reality, is too easily frightened, is too eager for other people’s approval, etc. It may be expected that as a culture improves, thereby improving the health of all its citizens, truth seeking should improve.”
- Abraham Maslow

Bernard's Big Idea About Relationships

Bernard had a spark in his eye. I looked up from my morning paper and saw him looking at me with a grin.

“What?” I asked, wondering if I had crumbs on my chin.

“I’ve had an idea,” he said with a flourish of his hand, as if he were about to pull a rabbit out of his sleeve. And at that very moment, Maddie arrived, breathless and excited. Bernard seemed pleased she’d be here to witness this.

“You two already started?” she asked.

“He,” Bernard pointed at me, “never waits. In the morning it is all I can do to make him wait until we’re at a restaurant to eat. He wakes up hungry.”

“And you?” she said, “why couldn’t you wait?”

“I’m a social creature,” Bernard shrugged. “He eats and I eat with him.”

“What’s your big idea?” she asked. Bernard smiled, like he was about to lay down a royal flush after throwing in all his chips.

“It’s about universals in relationships.”

“You mean like alien abductions,” I asked. “Relationships across the universe?”

Bernard scowled. “No, you idiot. This – this I’m serious about.”

“Okay,” I folded up my paper. “Tell us.”

“Okay, it occurs to me that there are three universals across any kind of relationship – business, family, lovers.”

“Why three, Bernie?” asked Maddie who was now stirring one package each of splenda and sugar into her coffee.

“Why do you have five fingers?” Bernard gestured. “I don’t know why three. It just works out that way. Can I talk?”

“Sure, sure,” she said, looking for her waiter.

“Three universals: responsiveness, empathy, and inspiration.”

“That’s it?” Maddie said. “That’s your big idea?”

“Well let me explain,” Bernard said, drawing himself up. “The better a relationship, the more responsive two people are to each other – or a group is to each other. But it is not enough to respond. You can respond all wrong. You have to have empathy as well. Your response has to work for that person, show you know who they are. And ideally, in a relationship, someone inspires you – makes you feel more alive and more acutely aware of what great things are possible in your life. They respond to where you are now and have a sense of - and might even play a part in getting you to - where you could go with your life.”

Maddie and I chewed on this for a bit. Finally, Maddie spoke.

“Bernie, you are always abstract. What does this have to do with anything?”

“Relationships have to do with everything,” Bernard said.

“Well what relationship are you talking about, Bernie? How has this helped you?”

And with that Bernie looked deflated. He crumpled into his chair. Suddenly, he looked about 15 years older. He teared up.

“Maddie,” I said, starting to rebuke her.

“No,” Bernard waved her off. “She’s right.” He stared at the table cloth.

Maddie reached forward and touched his hand gently. “Bernie, hon. Ideas about relationships are not the same as real relationships. You might want to trade in your idea for a person. You think?”

Bernard just nodded. Sometimes ideas are kinder than the truth. I kind of wish that Maddie had just let him be, but then I realized that she couldn’t. She didn’t have that kind of relationship with her brother. And maybe that was the real lesson – our relationships never transcend who we are. Relationships are not things like responsiveness or potential as something that lies in the gap between us. Relationships emerge out of who people are and that might just be why we spend so much energy trying to change the people we’re in relationships with. Bernie did seem to have a good idea. The thing was, it wasn’t obvious that Bernie or Maddie or me or anyone was ever going to exploit that insight.

Love & the Fallacy of Economics

Bernard let out a sigh as I approached the table.

“How are you doing,” I ask rhetorically.

“Maddie is explaining to me again why my marriages have failed.”

“There is no sense in it,” Maddie said disgustedly. “In his relationships, Bernie always starts out as a romantic and ends up as an accountant.”

“I don’t even know what that means,” Bernie said.

“And that’s part of the problem,” Maddie said. To my surprise, she turned to me and said, “Didn’t you get a degree in economics, Ron?”

“Yes,” I said. “Two of them.”

“You have a PhD?” she asked.

“No, just a BA and MA,” I said.

“So explain economics to Bernie,” she crisply requested as she bit into her salad.

“Uh, okay,” I stumbled. “I guess the idea behind economics is one of opportunity costs, of tradeoffs at the margin. You can spend more money on guns or spend it on butter, and depending on which way you go, you’ll either create more or less happiness.”

“Ha!” Maddie said. “See, Bernie! That’s what you try to do.”

“What?” I asked.

“You can't make choices at the margin in a relationship,” Maddie spit out. “You either choose to be in it or not. And you do that, Bernie, at the start. You choose the woman.”

“Well, yeah,” Bernie said, obviously as confused as me. “I guess. I mean, if she’s interested.”

“But after that you turn into an accountant, Bernie. You want reciprocity at every turn. It’s like you’ve turned a relationship into a series of transactions.” And then Maddie did something really remarkable. She spoke in a full paragraph, obviously inspired by our confusion on this topic.

“This economics fallacy might be why men are so good at business and economics and so bad at relationships. You have this tendency to turn relationships into a series of transactions, doing your marginal analysis at every turn, looking for some way to get the most for the least.” She leaned into Bernard’s face and said, “Bernie, relationships are not like that. Shouldn’t be like that. If you want a real relationship, you play a different game, you work out a different equation. You give as much as you can because you realize that you want your life to be as much as it can be. You are never more than your relationships, Bernie. Don’t turn into an accountant once you find yourself in love. Love is not about cost cutting.”

I couldn’t really think of a response. Apparently, neither could Bernard.

At this point, Bernard and Maddie’s grandnephew spoke up. Delbert is about 19, as near as I can tell, but that facial jewelry and body piercing make me a little squeamish. I could not be sure about his age because I’ve never looked at Delbert for long.

“Yeah, but I think that the marginal thing is right,” he said.

“You do?” Maddie said icily.

“Yeah,” he continued, deaf to her tone. “I mean, think about kissing or making love to a woman.”

“As if you do anything else with your imagination at that age,” Bernard muttered.

“You kiss her once, say, and it’s wonderful. You kiss her the tenth time and it is nice. You kiss her a hundred times and it’s almost tiresome.”

I could not help myself, staring at the bolt that went through his lip. “Some woman has kissed you a hundred times?”

“Dude,” Delbert said disgustedly. “I’m just saying. It’s a marginal thing. Love, kisses, they are a marginal thing. After awhile, you put more in but you don't get that much more out.”

I did not want to admit it aloud, but I thought the kid made a fairly decent point.

“No,” Bernard said wearily. “She’s right. Even a kiss is not a marginal thing.”

“No?” Delbert raised his eyebrows.

“A kiss might be like a meal. Sure you get full at one setting, but you get hungry again. And a favorite food is a favorite food. You long for it even more when you can recollect enjoying it in the past, when it becomes the part of layered memories. The food becomes something you love for its own sake and also for the memories it now has wrapped up in it. A kiss is like that only more so.”

“But you got tired of kissing the same woman, Uncle Bernie. Eventually it doesn’t have the same oomph, right? For a kiss to wake you up, it needs to be new woman, no? Some new technique?”

“No. The woman is everything. Technique is vastly over-rated. A new pair of lips is not the point. A kiss at its best is an expression so thick with meaning, appreciation so keen that it can never be expressed in a mere handshake or simple hug. A kiss is inevitable once you feel a particular way towards her. The mouth,” Bernard’s eyes clouded over as he stared at his drink, “the mouth is the place from which we breathe, taste the world, and express ourselves. If you’ve fallen in love with a woman, how could you not want to melt into her at that very spot, this small opening into her being? How could you not want to kiss her?”

He paused and took a sip. “You don’t manufacture this feeling by starting with a fresh pair of lips. If you simply kiss a woman – no matter how good your technique – there is no guarantee that you’ll feel this kind of adoration and desire, this pleasure of getting to be one with her, this realization of what it means to be a part of someone so splendid. She’s right, Delbert. It’s a whole thing, not a marginal thing. That is, if you want to feel whole.”

“Oh Bernie,” Maddie touched her brother’s shoulder. “There might be hope for you yet, honey.”

“You don’t think it’s too late,” asked Bernie, his big eyes and old face looking so vulnerable.

“No,” Maddie said kindly. “It’s never too late to learn how to love.”


-------------------


This month, I’ll celebrate my 25th wedding anniversary with Sandi. It was 26 years ago that I first kissed her in, of all places, a Denny’s parking lot.

There has never been anything marginal about a single one of your kisses, Sandi. Thank you for loving me.

Bernard & Maddie on the Limits of Stimulation

Maddie let out a sigh of exasperation. “I can’t believe this. Why does everything have to be sexual?”
“What?” Bernard looked up from his menu, obviously confused.
“Look at this Bernie. They have orgasmic fruit.”
Bernard paused. “Maddie, Maddie,” he shook his head. “That’s organic fruit.”
“Oh,” Maddie said, her outrage quickly fading. “Well in that case, I’ll just have the poached eggs.”

“Who was that guy in Popeye who would gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today?” Bernard asked
“Wimpy?” I suggested.
“Yeah! That’s our former frat boy. Making promises about how we’ll pick up the tab for whatever ails anyone who gets his sympathy. Now he’s going to bail out a couple of mortgage companies that were privatized – at least they were private until they got into trouble. Now they’re the responsibility of us taxpayers. Private when they make a profit. Public when they lose money. Now that’s a sweet business to get into.”
“You should not talk about the president that way,” Maddie rebuked her older brother.
“’Former frat boy?’ What? Did I get that wrong? He’s actually still in a fraternity? Because that would explain so much,” Bernard said, spinning one half of his bagel while patiently chewing. “You think that his entire presidency has just been a series of drunken dares? A hazing ritual gotten out of control?”
“Bernie!” Maddie said sharply. “Do you have champagne in that orange juice?”
“Maddie, when are you going to give up on your boy?”
“He is the president,” Maddie said.
“Now that’s a sad truth,” Bernard sighed.

Later, Bernard shook his head. “George’s trick of spending like a drunken sailor while putting everything on the bar tab just doesn’t stimulate any more. It’s one thing for a 25 year old woman to show a little cleavage to stimulate attention – it is quite another for a 125 year old woman to try it. After a while, some things just don’t work. All indications are that the economy is tired of his stimulation trick and just sees his trick as further proof that trouble is brewing.”
“Stimulation,” Maddie said. “Why does everything have to be sexual?”
“If only it were,” Bernard sighed, "if only it were. Then we could have impeached that frat boy.”

Maddie Defends Hollywood

Bernard, Maddie and I were sitting together quietly, waiting for our breakfast to come, reading sections of the paper. I, for one, was not quite awake and was glad for the opportunity to stare at newsprint while waiting for the cobwebs to clear. Once I got a few bites of food I’d likely feel more up to conversation.

Suddenly, Bernard punched his paper with a loud snap, making me jump, and said, “Ha! These movies are so predictable. So formulaic. Look at this list – Ironman, Indiana Jones …. These movies are pap. They offer resolution to even the most impossible of situations in just an hour or two.

Maddie did not even look up from her society page, “100 minutes.”

“What?” asked Bernard, blinking at her.

“In 100 minutes," she repeated. "Hollywood resolves issues in 100 minutes.”

“Whatever, Maddie,” Bernard said contemptuously. “The point is, they make solutions look too easy. It’s utter nonsense.”

“Well, it is the least that Hollywood can do for people,” Maddie said, looking up at him reprovingly. “Someone needs to offer resolution.”

“What do you mean?”

“People can go their whole life, Bernard, and never once get things resolved. Look at you and your love life, Bernard. You’re in your 70s and you still haven’t gotten that figured out.” She sipped her coffee and then continued as Bernard looked on in disbelief. “Life just sits there in a swirl of uncertainty, as if there is a perpetual ‘to be determined’ sign hanging over everything. The least that those folks in Hollywood can do is to distort life into some kind of plot line for us.”

“Distort?” Bernard asked.

“Yes. Distort. Life goes on for much too long for any real plot to emerge. You say that Hollywood resolves open issues in the space of 100 minutes like it is a bad thing. But what else are they going to do? If we wanted things like real life, we’d just stay in real life,” she finished her little speech and neatly folded her section of the paper.

Bernard sat there quietly for a bit. I took another sip of iced tea, intrigued with this drama between the siblings. “Maddie …” Bernard began hesitantly.

“Don’t you Maddie me,” Maddie cut him off. “I need my occasional dose of easy resolution, Bernard. Now if you’re done with the entertainment section, I’d like to see the movie times for Sex and the City." As she reached for the paper, a little grin played across her face. "I think that I’m a lot like Samantha.”

I had never seen Bernard looked quite so stunned. As the waitress brought our breakfast, I could only hope to hear her elaborate. It sounded like it might be a good morning for stories – the kind of stories that Hollywood overlooked for the simple reason that it as a visual medium, one that didn’t encourage the notion that septuagenarians might still be romantically inclined. A sucker for stories, I could only hope that Bernard’s apparent incredulity would cause him to prompt her for more.

The Fragility of Female Happiness

Maddie was giggling about something when I sat down.
“What’s up?” I asked.
“What’s up? It’s just a concept,” replied Bernard. “If we were in Australia, it would be a completely different direction.”
I stared at him, but he was not volunteering. “Maddie,” I asked. “Why are you laughing?”
“My brother here,” she said, touching Bernard on the shoulder, “thinks that he understands happiness.” She giggled again. “Tell him what you told me,” she said.
Bernard almost looked like he was pouting. “No.”
“Oh come on,” Maddie laughed. “Tell him.”
I could tell that Bernard was both pleased with what he was about to say and also felt more than a little inhibited because of Maddie’s reaction. His pride won out. “I was saying that happiness comes from alignment, a sense of integrity.” He began to motion, gesturing to his head and torso, “when your thoughts and feelings – your head, heart and gut – all line up, you feel happy. When you have conflict between those, you are not happy. It seems pretty simple,” he finished with a small thrust of his jaw and lower lip.
“Oh but it is,” says Maddie. “It is!”
“So why are you laughing, Maddie,” I asked.
“It makes sense to you, too, doesn’t it?” Maddie giggled again.
“Yeah,” I said hesitantly. “It does.”
“That is such a guy view of things. You consult yourself and determine if you are happy.”
“Well, yeah,” I said.
“That is so self contained, so self absorbed a view of the world. Your happiness comes from whatever is going on inside your skin.”
At this point I could begin to predict where she was going and I sat glumly, waiting for the indictment from her.
“Before a woman can be happy, she has to assess lots of people. Are the kids happy? Is my husband happy? My best friend? My sister or brother? My mom? A woman doesn’t know if she’s happy until she knows how the people she loves are doing."
“Men love too,” Bernard said, petulantly.
“Love? Really? Until your happiness is mixed up with the happiness of other people, Bernard, you don’t really love them.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, it’s possible for you to feel happy even when your wife is feeling punk?”
“Yes,” Bernard said hesitantly. “Well, my ex-wives, I mean.”
“Ex-,” Maddie said. “Of course they are.”
Bernard stared at the wall. “So this is why women hate men?
“Because we love you?” Maddie said. “Yes.”
“If that is true,” I asked, about three points behind, “then how are women ever happy? I mean, if everyone in their network has to be happy first?”
“Female happiness is a fragile thing,” Maddie said. This time she was not laughing. She looked wistful. "Happiness for a woman comes from a web. A broken strand can ruin it.”
“Well, why don’t you adopt my philosophy,” inquired Bernard, obviously pleased that he could offer a solution. “It would make things simpler, no?”
“Why don’t I think like a man?” Maddie inquired. “Sure, Bernard. I’ll do that. And why don’t you grow wings?” And with that she began to giggle again, making me wonder if female happiness was so fragile then why was she the only one of us who did not look glum.

Maddie's iPhone

I was at lunch with Maddie and Bernard when Bernard suggested to Maddie that I might be able to help her with her iPhone.

"She's having trouble loading songs," he told me.

"What kind of trouble?" I asked.

"Well, I got it to work, but it ... well I just pictured it as different."

"May I see it," I asked. I took it in my hands. It is a beautiful piece of hardware ... software ... art, whatever it is. "How many songs do you have loaded," I asked her.

"Only about 12," she said. "It takes a long time."

"Are you getting songs from iTunes or CDs?" I asked.

"Huh?" She gave me a blank look

Curious, I put in the ear buds and navigated to the songs. There were 11 and the titles included "i get kicked out of you." No artist was listed, just the song title. Wondering if it was Sinatra, I played the tune. After an uncharacteristically long silence, I heard someone clear their throat. And then I heard a humming before Maddie's warbling, but admirably clear voice began to sing acapella. "I get no kick from champagne. Mere alcohol doesn't thrill me at all," she sang.

"Maddie," I turned to her. "You do know that you don't have to load songs into this iPhone by singing, right?"

She looked sweetly at me. "Oh, I know that," she smiled. "But my turntable is broken."

"Of course," I mumbled. "Well, the quality is quite impressive," I said. "You have a nice voice."

"Yes. They were so clever to combine a phone and a microphone," she said. "I can see why everyone raves about how well engineered it is." She smiled. "Maybe you'd like to sing a song into it?" she asked.

"Maddie," I said, "I do get a kick out of you."

She beamed and punched me playfully in the arm. "Of course you do," she said. "You're not a complete idiot."