A couple nights ago, I was in top form. Truly, by shiz, it smelled not. Along with some new-ish friends, I went to this gender cabaret, if you will, with all different G.L.B.T.T.T.T.T.T.Q.O.4.&. folks doing whatever they do best. There was some refreshingly impassioned performances from men, women and everything in between, including a kick ASS belly dancer that performed to my girl Natacha Atlas's "I Put a Spell On You". I felt awesome and clearly, this could not be permitted to last.
When he walked by me the first time with a slight glint in his eye, I was tempted to be thrown. The 'he' in question was what turned out to be a misfired fling last June, with me thinking it was leading to a relationship and him telling me four weeks in that we were just friends. You know, cause I wake up most of my friends with morning head. In any case, the ending was uncomfortable but not altogether acrimonious, and we kept in very light touch, an msn IM or facebook message here and there.
In retrospect, I should have learned from the past that the occasion winking emoticon does not romantic intent make. Perhaps it was the fact that no one has stepped up to succeed him as my most recent, but in times of want, I still think of this pischer. In any case, I knew that there would be a moderate likelihood of seeing him and the lopsided grin was not altogether unexpected. However, on the next pass, the grin was accompanied by a playful little pinch on my side; the next was a hand-grab/tickle and the final one, when my coat was on and it was clear that I was leaving, was a full-on 5-second embrace.
God, it was nice.
It's a tad pathetic, to cling so dearly to something so insignificant, but with all apologies to rationality, it was.
Upon my return home, I wrote a simple if open-ended Facebook message:
"You looked really great tonight.
-D"
Ok, so not that open-ended. It definitely seemed to imply, "I gotta thing, you gotta thing, maybe we could have a thing..."
When the response "So did you ;-)" appeared, I won't say that I wasn't a bit excited, winking emoticon, be damned!
"So if you look really great and I look really great, why don't we ever hang out anymore?" I replied.
"i dunno," came the response.
"So, would you like to sometime?"
"It wouldn't be like before david. I'm seeing someone..."
"..."
I'm not sure what element got to me the most. Was it the use of my name, so disgustingly sympathetic in it's use, as if to say, "Oh, you poor thing...no." Was it the lack of punctuation and capitalization, reminding me of how wrongly matched we were and would ever be? Or was it the ellipses, echoing the use of my name, pathetically outlining how easy it was for someone like HIM to find someone and how someone like ME would forever remain a lapdog, begging for scraps of affection.
In the end, I responded with something polite, like, "Oh that's great. How nice for you!" but I don't think either of us believed I meant it. Despite the mountainous history that could have foreshadowed this event, I still maintain my right to be bitter. You can't treat people like they're your prize and then say shit like "I'm seeing someone dot dot dot."
I was getting so good at not doing the emo posts. Fuck you for being the cause. And for your ellipses.
Monday, October 13, 2008
Sunday, October 05, 2008
The First Day
I started a new job this week. It is a three month term at a major provincial utilities company. After a 7 week hiatus from the working world and my mother's approval, I received a call from a temp agency to whom I had sent an application. At the interview (me in a suit, her in Lulu Lemon) I was offered the job on the spot. I feel that it was my use of a day planner avec a faux-leather plastic cover that really clinched it for me. "Hire this one," it seemed to say," He is a pre-tty important guy." While I was thrilled at the prospect of no longer compulsively watching The View, I didn't really walk away with a deep sense of security. Certain details seemed to have been omitted in the staffing agent's description of my new livelihood. The job? "Oh, scanning land claims or something. You can use a scanner, right?" The location? "You know the intersection of ____ and _______? You just go there and you'll see the building that says _______!" Mmmmk. An e-mail was sent a couple days later with dress code and mandatory time off information. Still no real job description or address, but what did I care? I knew how to use a scanner! I knew where ________ and _______ is! I can read an insignia! I was...ready.
Thursday morning, dressed in a professional yet kicky outfit that just begged for an anointment as office stud, I made my way to work. Initially, the address I had pulled off Google had been in the middle of one of the _____s and another cross street; ______ prime, if you will. Fortunately, I had had the good sense to remember that, no, the verbal instruction I was given was for an intersection, NOT a location involving a _____ prime. Upon reGoogling (is that word? Is now.), I found the building I had been looking for. Phew. Dodged a bullet there. I leaped aboard my bus and arrived five minute early for my ten minutes early start time. That's right. 7:4fucking5. Generally at this hour, I would have been asleep, possibly between dreams of romantic reconciliation and rabid rabbits. My dreams are not all thrilling, but I'll be damned if their subjects aren't at least clever.
Upon arrival, I checked in at the security booth.
"Hello!" I declared "I am your new temp, here to save the day and just be generally awesome!"
After muttering something about having a girlfriend, the guard pointed me to the correct door. "Ah," I said, "The one with company's name it on it. Why, thank you!"
I marched into the building, trying to find anything that looked administrative or at least a welcome banner. Having no such luck, I popped my head into the first office and and with slightly less bravado, delivered the same rousing salutation. The two and a half women working there (mustache?) were very kind but had no idea where I was to go. They put out an ABP for a missing temp, standard stuff, really, and were finally able to ascertain that I had, in fact, been sent to the wrong building. Lovely. My agency had apparently not banked on the fact that there were two buildings and had not sent me to the correct one. You know, the one with the _______ prime.
"Well, how far down is it?" I asked the demi-man.
"It's number 1641. Oh, about a block," he-she answered.
This, in fact, was not so. After walking for about 15 minutes, I looked up and saw the address 1474. I called my staffing agency and immediately began to rip the fellow a new one for not giving me any address and demanded that he look up this 1641 building because clearly, there was some sort of Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place conspiracy between my new employer and the staffing agency as there was no 1641!
And I was right. There was no 1641. There was, however, a 1461. Evidently, the inability to give out the correct address is a growing pandemic. Tell your friends.
At 8:22, I marched through the doors of my new home for the next three months. They were lovely, in fact, with no one being cross about my (unavoidable) tardiness. My supervisor is a nice enough woman who I feel was very pretty in her younger years and while she still maintains a certain Almay beauty, it's clearly been slightly tarnished by time. And by time, I mean a pack-a-day habit. She took me on what would be my first of three rounds about the office. Everyone seemed rather pleasant and plump, occasionally in that order. The people that work in this office aren't all that different from the ones at my government jobs but somehow they're slightly...better. It's like the difference between a grade 7 French immersion class and an English equivalent. Somehow the Frenchies are just nicer. A little bit better behaved, a little bit more focused, a little bit more sanitary. There's no cursing at my new job. No 'I seen' nor 'I sez' nor "I don't know nuttin' '. The women wear nice sweaters and the men wear polo shirts, not Mickey Mouse sweatshirts and track pants. It's actually office casual. These are not fancy people, but after all, isn't it a gift to be simple and to use correct grammar?
I was then taken to my, and I use the word loosely, office. It isn't even really a cubicle. Essentially, at the front entrance there are two sets of doors, between which there's about a meter and a half; the vestibule, if you will. On either side of this glass box is empty space where one would normally put, say, a potted plant. Perhaps a ficus. This is my office. Two walls, one glass panel from the vestibule and a divider. My little slice of heaven. Of my flooring, half of it is carpet and half the tile from the entrance way, bound together by a rather mountainous ridge riiiiiiiiight about where my chair needs to go as I sit down at my desk. The twenty two year old who previously occupied my space was kind enough to leave behind a granola bar and her elastic band collection, numbering in the tens of thousands. The potted plants that did actually reside in this area have been shipped to the side of my little pied à terre, giving it a vaguely Amazonian vibe.
I then met my, dare I say it, mentor for the next week: the office receptionist. People who work in oft trivialized jobs will react to their livelihood in one of three ways. The first accepts that it's simply a stupid job that does not define them. The second feels tragically embarrassed by it and makes disparaging remarks both aloud and to themselves, likely as they huddle alone at night. The third is similar to the second except that they compensate for their menial job by attempting to make it appear as though it was biochemistry. My receptionist falls into this category. I would guess that she has, in the past, referred to herself as a firecracker. She has flamey, choppy middle-aged woman hair, purple middle-aged woman eyeliner and her desktop is of a middle-aged woman on an ATV, covered in mud. 'Cept it isn't her. She's one of those almost-sweet people that thinks of herself as the office rebel. Wears monster truck t-shirts on casual Fridays, pretends to assault coworkers with poster tubes, playfully threatens to push people off ladders. You know, the usual. She is also the self-described office techie; evidently, her toner-changing skills are legendary.
She took me on my second tour de l'office before showing me the two most important jobs I would be doing while she was on vacation in December: answering phones and opening mail.
On answering the phone: "It's really rather basic. To pick up a call, you simply lift up the receiver."
On alphabetizing mail with an alphabetized filing stick: "I like to put Janet's under 'V' because the person that used to have Janet's job, well, her name started with a 'V'. That's just my system; you can think of your own.
I find her adorable in the most patronizing way a person can.
On flying: "You MUST get the headsets that they sell on airplanes! They're something like $5 and you can use them to watch movies and TV. And if you're really smart, you keep them for the flight home, too!"
On computers: "After you're done, you have two options: you can either take your mouse a click the OK button or you can press ENTER. It's your decision, really. Whatever works for you."
She would go on to repeat all of this training, along with a tour of the office, 4 days later as though we'd never done it. I just didn't have the heart to tell her and frankly, interrupting with the answers to the questions she hadn't even posed yet was really fun though I think it miffed her somewhat, as though it was undermining the difficulty of her job.
Later that day, I assembled my first box. This was not the kind of cardboard box that one normally sees, four sides attached with flaps on the top and bottom. No, this was a crazy-ass 2D pattern that looked like those geometrical shapes you had to assemble as part of grade 7 math or the Fine Arts faculty mathematics requirement. This had flaps and perforations and, I believe, a little bit of the Devil built into it. That said, I was a superstar. Let it be known 'cross this land that I am an assembly god. There weren't even directions; I'm that good. So you can now call me so that this doesn't happen:
I anticipate that there will be many more stories from my work, one of which will inevitably get me fired when someone from the field department discovers my blog.
Oh, in other news one of my fish disappeared. I got up one day and he was simply not there. On the plus side, it wasn't the little tetra with whom I've come to associate so strongly. The assumption was that he was eaten but there was no body, no guts, nothing. These fish are either high efficient or simply magic. Shiva will commence tomorrow.
Thursday morning, dressed in a professional yet kicky outfit that just begged for an anointment as office stud, I made my way to work. Initially, the address I had pulled off Google had been in the middle of one of the _____s and another cross street; ______ prime, if you will. Fortunately, I had had the good sense to remember that, no, the verbal instruction I was given was for an intersection, NOT a location involving a _____ prime. Upon reGoogling (is that word? Is now.), I found the building I had been looking for. Phew. Dodged a bullet there. I leaped aboard my bus and arrived five minute early for my ten minutes early start time. That's right. 7:4fucking5. Generally at this hour, I would have been asleep, possibly between dreams of romantic reconciliation and rabid rabbits. My dreams are not all thrilling, but I'll be damned if their subjects aren't at least clever.
Upon arrival, I checked in at the security booth.
"Hello!" I declared "I am your new temp, here to save the day and just be generally awesome!"
After muttering something about having a girlfriend, the guard pointed me to the correct door. "Ah," I said, "The one with company's name it on it. Why, thank you!"
I marched into the building, trying to find anything that looked administrative or at least a welcome banner. Having no such luck, I popped my head into the first office and and with slightly less bravado, delivered the same rousing salutation. The two and a half women working there (mustache?) were very kind but had no idea where I was to go. They put out an ABP for a missing temp, standard stuff, really, and were finally able to ascertain that I had, in fact, been sent to the wrong building. Lovely. My agency had apparently not banked on the fact that there were two buildings and had not sent me to the correct one. You know, the one with the _______ prime.
"Well, how far down is it?" I asked the demi-man.
"It's number 1641. Oh, about a block," he-she answered.
This, in fact, was not so. After walking for about 15 minutes, I looked up and saw the address 1474. I called my staffing agency and immediately began to rip the fellow a new one for not giving me any address and demanded that he look up this 1641 building because clearly, there was some sort of Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place conspiracy between my new employer and the staffing agency as there was no 1641!
And I was right. There was no 1641. There was, however, a 1461. Evidently, the inability to give out the correct address is a growing pandemic. Tell your friends.
At 8:22, I marched through the doors of my new home for the next three months. They were lovely, in fact, with no one being cross about my (unavoidable) tardiness. My supervisor is a nice enough woman who I feel was very pretty in her younger years and while she still maintains a certain Almay beauty, it's clearly been slightly tarnished by time. And by time, I mean a pack-a-day habit. She took me on what would be my first of three rounds about the office. Everyone seemed rather pleasant and plump, occasionally in that order. The people that work in this office aren't all that different from the ones at my government jobs but somehow they're slightly...better. It's like the difference between a grade 7 French immersion class and an English equivalent. Somehow the Frenchies are just nicer. A little bit better behaved, a little bit more focused, a little bit more sanitary. There's no cursing at my new job. No 'I seen' nor 'I sez' nor "I don't know nuttin' '. The women wear nice sweaters and the men wear polo shirts, not Mickey Mouse sweatshirts and track pants. It's actually office casual. These are not fancy people, but after all, isn't it a gift to be simple and to use correct grammar?
I was then taken to my, and I use the word loosely, office. It isn't even really a cubicle. Essentially, at the front entrance there are two sets of doors, between which there's about a meter and a half; the vestibule, if you will. On either side of this glass box is empty space where one would normally put, say, a potted plant. Perhaps a ficus. This is my office. Two walls, one glass panel from the vestibule and a divider. My little slice of heaven. Of my flooring, half of it is carpet and half the tile from the entrance way, bound together by a rather mountainous ridge riiiiiiiiight about where my chair needs to go as I sit down at my desk. The twenty two year old who previously occupied my space was kind enough to leave behind a granola bar and her elastic band collection, numbering in the tens of thousands. The potted plants that did actually reside in this area have been shipped to the side of my little pied à terre, giving it a vaguely Amazonian vibe.
I then met my, dare I say it, mentor for the next week: the office receptionist. People who work in oft trivialized jobs will react to their livelihood in one of three ways. The first accepts that it's simply a stupid job that does not define them. The second feels tragically embarrassed by it and makes disparaging remarks both aloud and to themselves, likely as they huddle alone at night. The third is similar to the second except that they compensate for their menial job by attempting to make it appear as though it was biochemistry. My receptionist falls into this category. I would guess that she has, in the past, referred to herself as a firecracker. She has flamey, choppy middle-aged woman hair, purple middle-aged woman eyeliner and her desktop is of a middle-aged woman on an ATV, covered in mud. 'Cept it isn't her. She's one of those almost-sweet people that thinks of herself as the office rebel. Wears monster truck t-shirts on casual Fridays, pretends to assault coworkers with poster tubes, playfully threatens to push people off ladders. You know, the usual. She is also the self-described office techie; evidently, her toner-changing skills are legendary.
She took me on my second tour de l'office before showing me the two most important jobs I would be doing while she was on vacation in December: answering phones and opening mail.
On answering the phone: "It's really rather basic. To pick up a call, you simply lift up the receiver."
On alphabetizing mail with an alphabetized filing stick: "I like to put Janet's under 'V' because the person that used to have Janet's job, well, her name started with a 'V'. That's just my system; you can think of your own.
I find her adorable in the most patronizing way a person can.
On flying: "You MUST get the headsets that they sell on airplanes! They're something like $5 and you can use them to watch movies and TV. And if you're really smart, you keep them for the flight home, too!"
On computers: "After you're done, you have two options: you can either take your mouse a click the OK button or you can press ENTER. It's your decision, really. Whatever works for you."
She would go on to repeat all of this training, along with a tour of the office, 4 days later as though we'd never done it. I just didn't have the heart to tell her and frankly, interrupting with the answers to the questions she hadn't even posed yet was really fun though I think it miffed her somewhat, as though it was undermining the difficulty of her job.
Later that day, I assembled my first box. This was not the kind of cardboard box that one normally sees, four sides attached with flaps on the top and bottom. No, this was a crazy-ass 2D pattern that looked like those geometrical shapes you had to assemble as part of grade 7 math or the Fine Arts faculty mathematics requirement. This had flaps and perforations and, I believe, a little bit of the Devil built into it. That said, I was a superstar. Let it be known 'cross this land that I am an assembly god. There weren't even directions; I'm that good. So you can now call me so that this doesn't happen:
I anticipate that there will be many more stories from my work, one of which will inevitably get me fired when someone from the field department discovers my blog.
Oh, in other news one of my fish disappeared. I got up one day and he was simply not there. On the plus side, it wasn't the little tetra with whom I've come to associate so strongly. The assumption was that he was eaten but there was no body, no guts, nothing. These fish are either high efficient or simply magic. Shiva will commence tomorrow.
Monday, September 29, 2008
So evidently unemployment does not equal greater blogging desire. However, it is fall, time of creativity, and I just found a dead-end jump at Hydro (what what!) so this should spawn multiple revelations.
Um, I got fish. Really, really bitchin' fish. Three dwarf gourami, four flame tetra and two sunrise blushing angelfish. They're awesome. The angels are named Sissy and Sonny after the childhood nicknames my father and his sister gave each other. This is mostly because, like my father and his sisters, the angels have no eyebrows. The other fish have no names because I don't like them as much. They are known simply based on their physical appearance and behavioral issues, much like I think we should characterize humans. The tetras, however, are giving me greys and here's why: They're supposed to be nice, friendly schooling fish that play well with others, but there's one that's a liiiiittle bit smaller than the other three and they keep picking on him! Anytime he swims remotely near their club, they rush him like an Alpha Beta Pi and send him careening off into some plastic plant like a little bitch. I look at this and think, "That fish...is me." Yeah. Tangible metaphor for life.
Sunday, September 07, 2008
For all you foodies out there...
I got 82; how about you?
God, I need a job...
1) Copy this list into your blog or journal, including these instructions.
2) Bold all the items you’ve eaten.
3) Cross out any items that you would never consider eating.
4) Optional extra: Post a comment at www.verygoodtaste.co.uk linking to your results.
My comments after the — dash
1. Venison
2. Nettle tea
3. Huevos rancheros
4. Steak tartare
5. Crocodile
6. Black pudding
7. Cheese fondue
8. Carp
9.Borscht
10. Baba ghanoush
11. Calamari
12. Pho
13. PB&J sandwich
14. Aloo gobi
15. Hot dog from a street cart
16. Epoisses
17. Black truffle
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes
19. Steamed pork buns
20. Pistachio ice cream
21. Heirloom tomatoes
22. Fresh wild berries
23. Foie gras
24. Rice and beans
25.Brawn or head cheese
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper
27. Dulce de leche
28. Oysters
29. Baklava
30. Bagna cauda
31. Wasabi peas
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl
33. Salted lassi
34. Sauerkraut
35. Root beer float
36. Cognac with a fat cigar
37. Clotted cream tea
38. Vodka jelly/Jell-O
39. Gumbo
40. Oxtail
41. Curried goat
42. Whole insects
43. Phaal
44. Goat’s milk
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more
46. Fugu
47. Chicken tikka masala
48. Eel
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut
50. Sea urchin
51. Prickly pear
52. Umeboshi
53. Abalone
54. Paneer
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal
56. Spaetzle
57. Dirty gin martini
58. Beer above 8% ABV
59. Poutine
60. Carob chips
61. S’mores
62. Sweetbreads
63. Kaolin
64. Currywurst
65. Durian
66. Frogs’ legs
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake
68. Haggis
69. Fried plantain
70. Chitterlings - … uh, pass
71. Gazpacho
72. Caviar and blini — yes, but not together
73. Louche absinthe
74. Gjetost
75. Roadkill
76. Baijiu
77. Hostess Fruit Pie
78. Snail
79. Lapsang souchong
80. Bellini
81. Tom yum
82. Eggs Benedict
83. Pocky
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant
85. Kobe beef
86. Hare
87. Goulash
88. Flowers
89. Horse
90. Criollo chocolate
91. Spam
92. Soft shell crab
93. Rose harissa
94. Catfish
95. Mole poblano
96. Bagel and lox
97. Lobster Thermidor
98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. Snake
God, I need a job...
1) Copy this list into your blog or journal, including these instructions.
2) Bold all the items you’ve eaten.
3) Cross out any items that you would never consider eating.
4) Optional extra: Post a comment at www.verygoodtaste.co.uk linking to your results.
My comments after the — dash
1. Venison
2. Nettle tea
3. Huevos rancheros
4. Steak tartare
5. Crocodile
6. Black pudding
7. Cheese fondue
8. Carp
9.
10. Baba ghanoush
11. Calamari
12. Pho
13. PB&J sandwich
14. Aloo gobi
15. Hot dog from a street cart
16. Epoisses
17. Black truffle
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes
19. Steamed pork buns
20. Pistachio ice cream
21. Heirloom tomatoes
22. Fresh wild berries
23. Foie gras
24. Rice and beans
25.
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper
27. Dulce de leche
28. Oysters
29. Baklava
30. Bagna cauda
31. Wasabi peas
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl
33. Salted lassi
34. Sauerkraut
35. Root beer float
36. Cognac with a fat cigar
37. Clotted cream tea
38. Vodka jelly/Jell-O
39. Gumbo
40. Oxtail
41. Curried goat
42. Whole insects
43. Phaal
44. Goat’s milk
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more
46. Fugu
47. Chicken tikka masala
48. Eel
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut
50. Sea urchin
51. Prickly pear
52. Umeboshi
53. Abalone
54. Paneer
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal
56. Spaetzle
57. Dirty gin martini
58. Beer above 8% ABV
59. Poutine
60. Carob chips
61. S’mores
62. Sweetbreads
63. Kaolin
64. Currywurst
65. Durian
66. Frogs’ legs
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake
68. Haggis
69. Fried plantain
70. Chitterlings - … uh, pass
71. Gazpacho
72. Caviar and blini — yes, but not together
73. Louche absinthe
74. Gjetost
75. Roadkill
76. Baijiu
77. Hostess Fruit Pie
78. Snail
79. Lapsang souchong
80. Bellini
81. Tom yum
82. Eggs Benedict
83. Pocky
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant
85. Kobe beef
86. Hare
87. Goulash
88. Flowers
89. Horse
90. Criollo chocolate
91. Spam
92. Soft shell crab
93. Rose harissa
94. Catfish
95. Mole poblano
96. Bagel and lox
97. Lobster Thermidor
98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. Snake
Friday, September 05, 2008
"You"
"Me"
"No problem"
Ahhhh. I thought it was sweet. I've had gentile friends in the past tell me that they feel Jewish and I totally get this because I feel French.
Anyway, Auntie just bought me a couch for my new place and it's fabulous and red and as soon as it finishes drying, I'll take a photo and post it. "Drying?" you ask. Indeed. I decided to opt for the stain guard and boy, am I glad that I did.
The couch does not come with stain guard; someone comes to your house to spray it with this aerosol canister once it's been installed. My guy came today and, shnikies, was he a good time. 50 years old, blond 80's do, 5'7" if a day and wearing a polar fleece. Pretty standard, right? SAPIWKVKKXMXAPIWHRwrong. I made the choice to tell him I was a musician and then, just as the Israelis ending their Red Sea Walk, the waters came crashing down. Would you believe that he himself was a musician? Cause he totally was. Srsly, you guys! What kind of music did he play? Oh everything from rock to jazz to blues to grunge to folk, you know, like we all do. He quoted some of his homespun song lyrics that had the same emotional depth as an Ann Murray composition as if they were a lost Gospel. So he launches into his musical life story and I think, Jebus, here I am in my own home listening to some nut job talk about his philosophy on art and life.But then I thought, Well, shit. I have no job, I have no plans other than to run to the hardware store. What else have I got to do? So I let him natter on and then, whilst discussing the reasons to be a musician, I decided to tell him about how moving I found it to perform spiritual music for other people and by doing so, released his spiritual beast, bringing this encounter to a whole new uncomfortable level of weird. Disappointingly, he wasn't a religious nut, just your average, run-of-the-mill, God-is-everywhere kinda guy. He spoke of how he had crippling disease and been away from his kids and been into drugs & alcohol and how letting everything fall into God's hands led him to this great place he was at (spraying my couch). He went on to talk about how Jews, Christians, Catholics (evidently, they deserve their own mention) and Muslims all find God in their own ways and I thought this was pretty cool.
He must have just talked for about 45 minutes straight with me grinning like a five year old at story time. It's not that I thought he was especially deep - though I know he'd disagree with me there - but it was just a random human moment that I let happen and that was sweet. As he left, he said, You know, there's no such thing as 'luck'. Take a look at the letters in the word 'luck': L-U-C-K (Hooked on Phonics had evidently worked for someone). You know what those letters stand for? Labour Under Certain Knowledge. He was essentially saying that if you work hard with pure intentions, good things will happen and, c'mon, that's really nice.
Only another hour and a half until the couch is dry! WHEEEEEEEEEEEE!
Thursday, September 04, 2008
I have often defended the concept of meeting potential romantic partners on the internet, both on this blog and to my loved ones. However, the time has come to take off the rose-tinted glasses and face the long, hard and unsatisfying fact that it simply does not work for me.
I was having a lovely few days chatting with a potentially intriguing fellow when we decided to meet. It was...not good. Surprisingly not good. He was funny, attractive, a tad over confident and I had nothing to say to him. We struggled for about 90 minutes until finally, in a moment of post-midnight honesty, I said, "You know, I kinda thought that this would be better. That we...would be better." He agreed and left about 15 minutes later. I told this story to my most recent failed relationship who listened with dull, possibly mentally delayed nineteen year old ears with sympathy that I imagine would amount to that of an eggplant. One day later, Mr. Excitement tells me about a weird quasi-date that he went on (Boys, a tip: when trying to woo, do not talk about other dates that you're going on). Two days later Mr. Ex tells me that he went out on a quasi-date. Can we guess the outcome of this story? Yes, well-done: they went on a quasi-date together. And it was at that exact moment that I raised the white flag.
I'm out.
I first started chatting when I was 16 and since then I estimate that I have met well (WELL) over a hundred people from the internetz to varying degrees of success, from painfully awkward half-hour coffee dates to falling madly in love. Out of this 100+ people, I have one in my life. One. Out of one hundred. One (1) percent (%). Un pour cent. The infomercial that are dating sites are selling nothing but cheap goods that break nearly as soon as you get them. None of the romantic entanglements have ever lasted more than six weeks. None of the platonic friendships lasted because they weren't romantic entanglements and who the fuck needs another friend? Oh wait, all of my friends left the city. Crap. I should probably get on that. But I digress...
I realize that there are some people for whom the internet is an amazing social tool. This, however, is just not true for me. I suppose I held on so long because, let's face it, where the fuck else are there potentials? I'm not a bar guy, I'm not a dancer and I went to university with a bunch on Mennos. The only homos there are married with 5 kids. I have no particular links to the interior design world, nor do I frequent truck stops. I don't live in ancient Greece nor am I the shaman of a lost African tribe. In short, I'm kinda screwed. But now I think I'll be screwed in a much healthier way sans le chatting. I will continue to use e-mail, Facebook and sporadically update this withering shrub of a blog, but as for the rest...I'm returning it for a full refund. Minus shipping and handling.
I was having a lovely few days chatting with a potentially intriguing fellow when we decided to meet. It was...not good. Surprisingly not good. He was funny, attractive, a tad over confident and I had nothing to say to him. We struggled for about 90 minutes until finally, in a moment of post-midnight honesty, I said, "You know, I kinda thought that this would be better. That we...would be better." He agreed and left about 15 minutes later. I told this story to my most recent failed relationship who listened with dull, possibly mentally delayed nineteen year old ears with sympathy that I imagine would amount to that of an eggplant. One day later, Mr. Excitement tells me about a weird quasi-date that he went on (Boys, a tip: when trying to woo, do not talk about other dates that you're going on). Two days later Mr. Ex tells me that he went out on a quasi-date. Can we guess the outcome of this story? Yes, well-done: they went on a quasi-date together. And it was at that exact moment that I raised the white flag.
I'm out.
I first started chatting when I was 16 and since then I estimate that I have met well (WELL) over a hundred people from the internetz to varying degrees of success, from painfully awkward half-hour coffee dates to falling madly in love. Out of this 100+ people, I have one in my life. One. Out of one hundred. One (1) percent (%). Un pour cent. The infomercial that are dating sites are selling nothing but cheap goods that break nearly as soon as you get them. None of the romantic entanglements have ever lasted more than six weeks. None of the platonic friendships lasted because they weren't romantic entanglements and who the fuck needs another friend? Oh wait, all of my friends left the city. Crap. I should probably get on that. But I digress...
I realize that there are some people for whom the internet is an amazing social tool. This, however, is just not true for me. I suppose I held on so long because, let's face it, where the fuck else are there potentials? I'm not a bar guy, I'm not a dancer and I went to university with a bunch on Mennos. The only homos there are married with 5 kids. I have no particular links to the interior design world, nor do I frequent truck stops. I don't live in ancient Greece nor am I the shaman of a lost African tribe. In short, I'm kinda screwed. But now I think I'll be screwed in a much healthier way sans le chatting. I will continue to use e-mail, Facebook and sporadically update this withering shrub of a blog, but as for the rest...I'm returning it for a full refund. Minus shipping and handling.
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