Cyrano de BOTgerac

Finally, she stood up and said, "Well done, grasshopper! You have snatched the pebble from my hand. Now get out of here and get a good night's sleep."

She led me to the door. But before I could leave, she grabbed my face, gave me a quick, hard kiss and said, "Dude, you're ready. You're so ready that now I need to practice my own talk before I go to bed, just so you don't show me up tomorrow! Now shoo!"

Wow. I floated through the hotel to my car, and was glowing all the way home. I don't know if it was the hours of practice with Roxanne, or the kiss, or both. But, for the first time, I was actually looking forward to giving a talk in front of other people.

* * *

The next day, my talk was next to last in our session, right before Roxanne's. I stepped up to the podium and peered around the room. There were several hundred people in the audience, but I only had eyes for Roxanne, who was sitting in the front row. When she smiled up at me, I smiled too. I took a deep breath and launched into my presentation. The next thing I knew, I was giving my last concluding point, and thanked the crowd. I got a nice round of applause, followed by a few questions. After our Q and A practice the night before, it was a piece of cake.

I left the stage, and as I passed Roxanne on her way up to the podium, she leaned her head toward me and murmurred in a sing-song voice, "You're gonna buy me din-ner. You're gonna buy me din-ner." I sat down and watched her blow the roof off of our session with her talk. I clearly had a lot more to learn about public speaking, but was really happy with my own performance that day.

* * *

That night, we walked down to the Metropolitan Grill together. After we placed our orders, Roxanne said, "Awesome job, dude! You looked like you were actually enjoying yourself up there."

"Yeah, sort of. The adrenaline rush started as I walked up to the stage. My hindbrain was shrieking, 'Run away! Run away!'. Then you smiled at me, and it dropped down to a mild, annoying buzz. But after a minute or two into my talk, it stopped feeling annoying and started feeling good. How weird is that?"

"Aha! Grasshopper, you have learned a great truth here -- adrenaline is an acquired taste, like coffee or beer. Once you acquire that taste, it becomes enjoyable, and you understand why some people get addicted to performing in front of live audiences."

"I really appreciate all of your help. You definitely earned your dinner here tonight. Any karma points I earned for getting your iPad back to you have been paid back with interest."

"It was my pleasure. However, you've earned a lot more points by being my native guide to Darkest Seattle. What's next on the tour, Bwana Chris?"

I actually didn't know what was next, so I decided to buy myself some time. "It's a surprise. Just don't make any plans for tomorrow night." At that point, our appetizers arrived.

Dinner was amazing. The food was good too. We both ordered the wagyu filet mignon, which melted in our mouths like butter. The sides were excellent, and we shared a hot apple pie flambée for dessert.

As I dropped Roxanne off at the Sheraton, she leaned over to me and pulled my face down for a searing kiss. After a number of outstanding seconds, she pulled slowly away. "Good night, Chris. It's been a wonderful day."

For the second night in a row, I glided home on a pleasant tailwind of endorphins. If I kept getting this kind of positive reinforcement for public speaking, I might end up becoming one of those performance addicts.

Before going to bed, I spent some more time with the oracle of BabbleBOT, asking for more date ideas for the conversationally impaired. It gave me three suggestions:

1. Stargazing -- Hmm... Great idea for a place with a reliably clear sky, but not Seattle.

2. Meditation class -- That would take care of the conversation requirement, but that might be a bit last minute.

3. Dancing -- OK, not bad. I wondered how she'd like contradancing.

4. Organize a picnic -- Hmm... now there's a possibility.

So, there I was, using an AI program to help me simulate being a human. How pathetic was that? The irony of the situation was not lost on me.

* * *

At the meeting the next morning, we shared a workstation for a great hands-on workshop on the care and feeding of high-end GPUs. In the afternoon we attended an excellent workshop on something called 'federated AI models', which was immediately applicable to a joint research project that Roxanne and I were planning. A federated model would give us a HIPAA-compliant way of training our AI model on images from both of our respective universities, which would double the size of our training data.

"So, what is the great surprise for tonight?"

"I thought we'd start out with a light dinner of kaiten sushi, followed by an evening of contradancing to live music."

"What's kaiten sushi?"

"'Kaiten' means 'rolling' in Japanese. We're going to a sushi bar that has a small conveyor belt running past all the seats. The chefs load the belt with small plates of different types of sushi. You help yourself to whatever you like off the belt, and then pay by the number of plates you eat."

"Yum! Now, what's contradancing?"

"If a line dance hooked up with a square dance, its love child would be a contradance. Each dance is a series of simple moves. If a klutz like me can learn to do it, an elegant, coordinated woman like you will have no problem."

"Don't be so sure about that. I am definitely a klutz at dancing. Remember how you dreaded giving your talk yesterday? That's how I think about dancing."

"This is no-fault folk-dancing. And, a wise woman recently asked me if I trusted her. Do you trust me?"

She smiled. "Is this one of those Jedi techniques where you use my own words against me?"

I grinned at her. "Maybe."

* * *

We lucked into two seats near where the sushi chefs loaded the conveyor belt. This meant that we got first choice on each new dish that came out. We each polished off six succulent saucers of sushi, and then headed to a nearby church hall for the Thursday night contradance.

We got to the hall in plenty of time for a short workshop for newcomers. I was pleased to see several of the people that I had danced with at the outdoor dance at Green Lake the month before. Roxanne picked up the moves fairly quickly, and we lined up for the first dance. The first dance had a partner swing, which gave me an excuse to hold Roxanne in my arms for a large fraction of the next 8 minutes. In the next dance, I got to swing not only with her, but also with over a dozen other women. Sweet!

After these two dances, Roxanne said, "Wow, I'm not used to this type of exercise! Can we sit down and rest for few minutes?"

We sat down in a line of chairs along the wall, and caught our breath. I asked, "What do you think of the live music?"

"It's wonderful. I love the way the fiddle and flute and piano work together. The melodies and harmonies are beautiful."

After a few more dances, the band took a break. We looked through the stack of CDs they had out for sale, and Roxanne chatted with the flute player. "You guys are great! Makes me want to get my flute out and play when I get back home."

"Where do you live?"

"Boston. I wish I could do this sort of dancing there."

"Are you kidding? Boston is a hotbed of contradancing. You could dance there three nights a week. We're from New Hampshire, and we play in Boston all the time."

They chatted a while longer, and I bought a few CDs from the fiddler.

After the break, Roxanne said, "I'm pretty whipped from all of that dancing. Would you mind taking me back to the hotel now?"

* * *

We drove back to the Sheraton in companionable silence. "Thanks for convincing me to go dancing. It was wonderful to move around in time with the music. And the music was so good! I didn't think about AI at all tonight."

"Yeah, it really does clear the mind after hours of sitting in a dark meeting room. You did a great job! You picked up the moves a lot quicker than I did."

"How long have you done this kind of dancing?"

"Actually, it's just my third time. I stumbled onto an outdoor contradance at Green Lake two months ago. I was hoping that you'd enjoy the dancing and the music."

"I really did. Now, what are we doing tomorrow?"

"It depends. Do you want to go to any of the AI sessions tomorrow?"

"Not really. None of them appeal to me."

"OK, let's play hooky and spend the day doing something else."

"What do you have in mind?"

"It's a surprise."

She made a face and stuck her tongue out at me. Then she giggled and said, "Just teasing -- I've loved every one of your surprises so far."

"OK, I'll pick you up at 10 am. Did you bring a bathing suit with you?"

"Nope."

"No problem. Wear something comfortable that you don't mind getting wet, and bring an extra change of clothes and a towel."

"Very mysterious, dude. I hope I can get to sleep tonight with all of the suspense."

She gave me yet another scorching kiss before hopping out of the car at her hotel. By now, I was starting to have an almost Pavlovian response to the Sheraton. But, instead of salivating like Pavlov's dog, I was starting to develop a mild boner every time I drove there.

* * *

I arrived at the Sheraton the next morning in a cheerier mood than usual. At the beginning of the week, I had been in a crisis of performance anxiety at the thought of just having to talk with Roxanne. I felt much different now. Five consecutive days around her had given me a lot of conversational practice. Talking to her was no longer a dreaded chore, but was actually fun.

As Roxanne got into my car, she asked, "What's that mysterious lump in the back seat?"

"Part of the surprise."

It was a beautiful, sunny September day -- the kind we often get here in September and October. Seattleites look forward to these 'second summers' like hobbits look forward to 'second breakfasts'.

I turned into the big parking lot for Husky Stadium, and parked next to the UW Waterfront Activities Center.

Roxanne raised her eyebrows. "Are we going boating?"

"Yup."

I reached under the blanket in the back seat and pulled out a large picnic hamper. We carried it and a stack of towels down to the docks, and loaded our gear into the canoe that I had booked. We put on our flotation devices and paddled away.

The water was mildly choppy as we crossed the Montlake Cut. We were able to time things to avoid the many power boats passing through the cut between lakes. Just past their wakes lay the much quieter waters under the Highway 520 Bridge. I've always been charmed by this area, which juxtaposes one of the busiest commuter roads in the state with a lovely maze of channels and marshy islands, just north of the Washington Park Arboretum. We took our time wending our way through the waterways.

We paddled along in a comfortable silence, speaking only to point out a a cool bird or some other sight. We spotted the usual seagulls, ducks and Canada geese, along with the occasional heron and bald eagle. It felt great to stretch some new muscles on such a pretty day. BabbleBOT was right -- this was a great activity for the conversationally challenged!

We made our way to a sloping bank on Duck Bay at the north end of the Arboretum around noon. Roxanne jumped out and pulled the bow of the canoe ashore. I hopped out and pulled the canoe farther up the bank. "How about a short stroll around the grounds before we eat?"

The Arboretum is 230 acres of goodness with four thousand species of trees, vines, shrubs and plants. We ambled past the nearest hundred of them before I heard Roxanne's stomach growl.

I arched my left eyebrow. "Feeling peckish?"

"I seem to have worked up an appetite. I'm eager to see what you've got in that mysterious hamper."

As we strolled back to our canoe, we caught up to a young woman walking her golden retriever on a long leash. As we passed her, something triggered the "Squirrel!!" lobe of the dog's brain, and it suddenly darted in front of me. The leash tripped me and I started to fall forward. Without thinking, I converted my fall into a forward aikido roll, which sent me rolling smoothly across the grass and back up onto my feet.

The dog walker said, "Oh my god! I'm so sorry!! Are you OK?"

"I'm fine. No worries. Thanks for asking."

As we walked back to our canoe, Roxanne asked, "What the heck did you do back there?"

"That's an aikido forward roll. We spend a lot of time in the dojo learning how to fall down gracefully. It comes in handy when I'm suddenly attacked by the ground, like this!" I leaned forward and did a linked set of two more forward rolls in the direction of our canoe.

"Wow, so are you a ninja now?"

I laughed and shook my head.

"Come on! I've seen those web videos -- you just wave your hands and people go flying."

"I asked Sally Sensei that same question and she just laughed her ass off. She said, 'Dude, you've learned one of the first lessons of aikido -- how to fall safely. Your next lesson is learning how to get the hell out of the way when someone attacks you.'"

"That doesn't sound very profound."

"Well, it does leave out a lot of the important details. Sort of like a financial advisor telling you to 'buy low and sell high'. Good advice, but how the heck do you do that?"

"OK, I'll bite. How the heck DO you do that?"

"Umm... let me try another metaphor. How about a beginning matador? He could do his job by just diving aside into the dirt every time the bull comes by. Not very elegant, but it would work. However, with enough practice, he can skip the dives. He can simply step aside at exactly the right moment, and let the bull go flying past. With even more practice, he can give the bull a little shove at the right time, and make it stumble or even crash into the fence around the bull ring. If the bull is really persistent, he can grab its horns like a rodeo bulldogger, and use the leverage to throw the bull to the ground and pin it there."

"So, that's what you'd do if I came running at you right now?"

I grinned, and said, "Who says I would dodge?"

I unloaded the canoe and spread out a blanket under the tree. We sat down and began to investigate the contents of the hamper, which I had picked up at the Ballard Market that morning.

We started with some fresh ahi poke on a bed of seaweed. Next, we tucked into some roasted chicken with a side of German potato salad. We then lay back on the blanket with towels for pillows, and looked up through the leaves into the sky. Full tummies plus the drone of traffic and the cries of various waterfowl had a soporific effect on us, and we drifted off into a postprandial nap together.

* * *

I awoke some time later. When I opened my eyes, they were less than a foot away from Roxanne's face. We had rolled closer to each other as we slept, and were now facing each other on our sides. I could feel her breath on my face as she slept, and I felt the most profound sense of peace. I didn't want this to end. If my fairy godmother had dropped the remote control for the universe into my hand, I would have hit the pause button and savored that moment for a long, long time.

Alas, there was no remote control and no pause button. A minute or so later, Roxanne opened her eyes and smiled at me. She stretched and said, "Hey, great waking up next to you."

"Yeah. I never want to wake up anywhere else again."

Oh shit! Why did I say that? Sleep had overridden my usually cautious speech center, and I just blurted out what I felt. Shit, shit, shit!

Her smile got even broader, and she said, "Me too. I'm glad you said that -- I was too shy to say it first."

"You? Shy? Are you kidding? You're the most confident person I know. I have the self-confidence of a pig in a piranha pond. When I'm around most people, I have trouble making my mouth say words good. But you're brilliant and you're gorgeous. How can you possibly feel shy around me?"

"Dude! You are pretty oblivious as to how others see you. You don't come across as a shy and reclusive geek. You have this strong, silent vibe going for you. You don't say as much as other people, but when you do it's meaningful. You absolutely rocked your presentation on Wednesday. Why do consider yourself shy?"

I sighed, and told her about my personal path to introversion in West Texas. Then she told me her origin story. It turns out that there are many paths to becoming a shy and reclusive geek.

"I grew up in Coon Rapids, Iowa and was a late bloomer. I was a fairly plain science nerd with glasses. I was totally ignored by everyone other than a few fellow geeks. I never got asked out on a date until my junior year in high school. That's the year I got contact lenses and my figure began to fill out. That's when life got pretty freaking weird. Instead of piranhas, my pond was filled with octopi with eight hands. Suddenly every jock and pussy hound in high school was trying to grope me and get in my pants. I had no idea how to handle that. Even worse, most of my geek friends were now too intimidated to talk to me."

I reached over and took her hand. "Wow, I never considered that. I thought that life was hard for me when nobody wanted to hook up with me. I never imagined how tough it might be if everybody wanted to."

"Yeah, it was. I went on a few dates, but spent most of my time guarding second and third base and keeping guys from stealing home. The upside was that I was now one of the cool kids. The downside was that most of the cool kids were assholes. So, I dated less, concentrated on my studies, and was really glad to graduate and head off to college."

"Me too. A few of my high school tormentors went to the same university as me, but it was a big place, with a much larger gene pool. It was great to start over with a clean slate.'

"Well, it was a mixed bag for me. I really liked the variety and rigor of the coursework, but my appearance got in the way again. It's hard to get students or faculty to take you seriously when you're a blonde woman with any kind of figure. As far as they were concerned, I was just a life support system for a vagina. Same shit as high school, just with sneakier and more persistent assholes. I worked my ass off to get good grades, but still had to fight hard to earn any respect. Things were a little better once I got into medical school. Half my med school and residency classes were women."

"I'm glad to hear that. I did make a few friends in college and med school, but they were mostly guys. I dated a few women in med school and residency, but nothing serious. Most of them didn't see me as strong and silent -- more like weird and silent."

"I feel sorry for those women. I'm also really glad I left my iPad in Chicago. After a few months of texting, I feel like we became pretty good friends, even before we met face to face."

"Yeah, it was a lot easier for me to talk to you over text. I was pretty apprehensive at the beginning of the week at the thought of having to talk to you in person. However, I'm getting used to it. This week is the most fun I've ever had."

"I'm glad that I now inspire fun and no longer fear."

"Me too. We've only seen each other for less than a week, but I already feel like I've known you for years. Maybe all relationships should start out this way. Start with texting and no physical contact unless the texting works out."

She laughed. "Yeah, I like that. Start with intellectual intimacy. Then move on to emotional intimacy. If that all works out, on to physical intimacy."

I smiled. "I like the trajectory you're describing. I am really enjoying that journey."