Taking a break from my reminiscing for a brief dating story from a few months ago.
"Don't forget this," I said, holding one of those froufrou band things women put in their hair. I was smiling.
And why not? It was the morning after. A great date turned into a great night. We were mentally and - now verified - physically compatible(and verified again in the morning, just in case the previous evening was a fluke). In the chaos of getting ready for the day in a strange place she had almost forgotten her cellphone on my night table. We did a spot check around the bed, just in case, and I found the hair band.
"Don't forget this," I said.
She looked at it, then at me.
"...That's not mine."
I looked at her, then at it. And this is what I actually said:
"Well...it's not mine."
It's not mine, said as If I had no idea how it got there, no memory of the woman who must have forgotten it not two days earlier. In two seconds, the only story I could come up with hung on my date believing that some woman broke into my apartment, took off her hair band, and left. Some phantom bent on ruining my dating life, spreading lies - damned lies! - that I was a man-whore about town.
Awkward. Twenty-fucking-three, and still awkward; physically, socially, and emotionally. One of my best friends was married - married, for Christ's sake - and the fact that I actually got along(at all) with a bridesmaid was cause for celebration. In the classic1 film Little Giants, the titular team of misfits and outcasts manages to finally run a play that isn't a turnover or a huge loss, prompting one parent in the stand to yell "They gained a yard!". That was me, chatting up a tipsy bridesmaid; gaining only one yard, but maybe building some momentum. Fuck, I needed it.
While still working at HSA, I had a crush on a bookstore cashier. Every week I'd drive across the street to the Hunt Valley Mall, blunder around the store for a bit before finally buying ESPN the magazine, making sure at no point to actually make small talk or ask her out. After all, what good would come from that?
I actually went on a double-date with an old co-worker from the Loews Theater. The double-date was with my brother and his girlfriend - my younger brother was giving me dating advice while the girls were in the bathroom(writing this makes me cringe). Despite my horrible lack of dating experience, dinner went pretty well. However, due to my horrible lack of dating experience(combined with insecurity and an insatiable need for outside validation), I called her many times after(despite not getting calls back), before finally going over to Loews to ask her out again, in person. Instead, I was publicly(but sweetly) rejected.
So, there I was, twenty-three, convinced I'd be girlfriendless forever. I'd been working as the web master at a small government contractor for a few months. My father had gotten me the job; he worked there installing security and fire alarm systems. It was a shitty job, but these were shitty times - for me, the economy, the country. Enron, Robert Hanssen, the fresh memory of 9/11, the DC Sniper; if Peter Jennings had announced on the evening news that the apocalypse was officially starting in ten minutes, I think most of us would have thought 'Yeah, that sounds about right'.
But ANYWAY, while working at my shitty job(in addition to web master, I was in charge of shipping and receiving in the warehouse) I managed to get a date with a friend of a friend. Up to this point in my life, getting a date was like finding a goddamn Leprechaun. We met at a party, I got her number, and we agreed to go out the next Saturday. I could hear Al Micheal's voice screaming 'Do you believe in miracles?'.
The girl bore a slight resemblance, in a fuzzy-photo kind of way, to Julianna Marguiles. So let's call her Julianna(though I guess you can refer to her however you want, call her Susan if it makes you happy). She drove to my parents house, as I had moved back in during my time in-between working at HSA and my new job2. I still remember the expression on my mother's face when she saw what I was going to be doing that afternoon: finally, praise the fucking lord, finally.
Julianna and I went to an Egyptian Art3 exhibit at the Smithsonian4. For the first time, my awkwardness faded to the background as our conversation came easily. She laughed at my jokes, we both said (seemingly)interesting things. Somehow my date was going really, really well.
The only snag came later, when we talked about music. After the museum, we'd gone to Arundel Mills Mall to wander around(a real high school thing to do, but I didn't know any better). In a music store, Julianna went through CD after CD and asked if I liked them. I'd never even heard of most of them. My HSA musical education had not included any of her bands: The Me First and The Gimme Gimmes, Ben Folds Five, the Dave Matthews Band, and Better Than Ezra. If it wasn't metal or hard rock, I didn't know it(with the Insane Clown Posse being one of the only exceptions, because my younger brothers had somehow become obsessed with them - but even I knew not to bring up ICP on a date). Her bands were college bands, the soundtrack to smoking in quads and drinking too much at Lit parties. My soundtrack was from a different generation, handed down by co-workers.
The only common ground we found were The White Stripes, and that was only because I had stumbled upon "Hotel Yorba" on MTV2 before.
Anyone who goes through a "metal" or "hard rock" phase will tell you that, in the midst of their power-chord obsession, they had convinced themselves that anything that wasn't sufficiently "hard" was pure, pussified crap(often these same people go through a phase of reading nothing but science fiction novels, only buying Marvel comics, and other nerd-elitisms that keep them virgins until college). Then they'll tell you about the song that broke them out of that muddled, constipated way of thinking. For me, that song was "Hotel Yorba."
The song was catchy, raw, and earnest(he sings about being "tired of acting tough/and I'm gonna do what I please"). It felt "real" in the same way Guns N Roses felt real, while sounding so completely different. Still, I don't know if I would have taken to the Stripes as much as I did if it wasn't for "Fell In Love With A Girl." That two-ton heavy riff and Meg White's attacking drums melted my face and flattened my eardrums. Going between the Stripes and my other CDs, a lot of my metal records started to sounded sluggish, old and tired. They were "heavier", but Jack White was out-rocking them with only one fucking guitar.
Still, I wasn't yet the kind of music consumer who bought lots of albums, even if I liked the singles - but I was the kind of pathetic, never-really-dated, virginal man-child who would gladly lay down a twenty at the Best Buy to get a CD he thought would make a girl like him. Christ, how pathetic.
I bought "White Blood Cells", listened to it, called Julianna to talk to her about it and ended up leaving a message saying I was listening to it. I paced my room wondering why she never called back. Chris, so pathetic.
Julianna disappeared. No return calls. Nothing. I hung out with our mutual friends(my best friend and his wife), and in the pretense of hanging out with them for a weekend tried to get the bottom of this sudden reversal of affection. They offered the usual niceties: she had a history of erratic behavior; she has just got out of a relationship; I may have come on too strong; universally, though, my neediness was not sexy. My friend's wife summed things up with the best advice about women I've ever received:
"Kris, sometimes, girls are just bitches."
So, I listened to "Cells" alone. Luckily for me songs like "Dead Leaves And The Dirty Ground", "Hotel Yorba", "I'm Finding It Harder To Be Gentleman", "The Union Forever" and "The Same Boy You've Always Known" are perfect listening for a broken heart. Well, in as much a heart can be broken after one date. I listened to that album all the way through every night, over and over again. A new love for music was born. I started to explore, a little, and discovered another garage-rock band, some new outfit from New York called The Strokes...
Around that same time, a couple months later, Julianna actually called me back. She wanted to apologize, explain herself.
But by then, I was dating my future first wife.
--- 1I'm using the word classic in the loosest sense. 2Explaining to potential dates why I lived at home while not going to school was a lot of fun. 3I impressed her with a bit of Egyptian history I had gleamed from a recent episode of Gargoyles. 4I'll always regret not using the Smithsonian for more dates while I lived in DC. A lost opportunity.
I've been going home a lot lately. Travelling means bringing things; which in turn means forgetting said things. I've lost some weight this year, so my jeans ride a little too low without a belt. Unfortunately, I've left belts at a friend's house in Baltimore, my parents' place, and at friends' in the city. Which left me beltless the other day at the office, my jeans threatening to fall right off my Irish ass(which is an oxymoron), and led to the following exchange:
Lady Co-worker: You should buy some belts.
Me(without thinking): Yeah, I keep leaving my belts at other people's places.
I'm visiting my parents, taking a shower when I notice that there are two variations of the same brand of men's body wash sitting next to the shampoo: Revitalizing Cool, and Invigorating Clean. Apparently my brothers have minor but important differences in their choice of body washes, and now I'm left with a choice. A big choice. The consequences could reverberate the rest of the day.
Do I want to be revitalized or invigorated? I assume both products get you clean, so does that mean one gives a bonus aura of "cool"? What do I want to say later in the day when someone asks how I am? Will I be telling a beautiful woman at a bar that I'm invigorated, maybe wishing I could be saying that I was revitalized...and cool, baby.
And there's more. The invigorating brand says it's "50% more value", yet it's clearly only a third bigger than the other bottle at most. Can I dock points from a brand for lying? Will using it influence me to lie? Will they be invigorating lies?
The decision was impossible, so I did the only logical thing: I used both. So, I was invigoratingly revitalized clean and cool. That's four adjectives to start the day.
I now we all love our iPods/Zens/whatevers to death, and we can't imagine daily commutes - or life - without them. I count myself among the countless hordes you can identify by spotting those white earbuds, or a pair of noise canceling headphones when I'm feeling really pretentious. But you will never, ever spot me wearing those while ordering my coffee, lunch, or anything else for that matter. You won't see me doing what the prick in front of me did today: taking one bud out, and then draping it over his ear. Hole-lee FUCK, people. Look, this is not an ATM or an online order; there is an actual human being behind the counter who deserves your attention when they are trying to take your order. Especially since you will be the first person to bitch if anything is wrong. Plus - and I know this may come as a shock - your music will wait for you. It will not gleefully ignore the pause command and go on playing while wishing a fuck you at you, robbing you of your favorite song. Come one people, we are trying to have a civilization here!
We have two elevators at work. Sitting in the lobby one day, I noticed the "5" above the second elevator door was burnt out. Watching the descent, the car goes to "6", disappears for a few seconds, then goes to "4". During those few seconds, I like to pretend the car is in the Twilight Zone.
I was going to begin this with "I've been dumped many ways..." but then I realized that isn't true, and even if it was, it didn't really apply to what happened to me last week.
In reality, I've been dumped once. And by dumped I mean divorced, which is the major-league level of dumping. No, what happened yesterday files itself in line behind the many times I've gone on one or two dates, then things just fizzled out for whatever reason. Inconvenient schedules, not-so-good chemistry, uncontrolled second date projectile vomiting, whatever. It's the beer-league softball of dumping.
Anyway, I've been softballed in many ways, but never for not being Jewish. I can't blame her, though, because the dictionary entry for "not even remotely Jewish" is a picture of me, smiling back and giving a thumbs up.
When you feel ugly, every pretty girl is an insult.
Why is blue-eyed-soul the only part of black culture that - when co-opted - gets the "blue-eyed" moniker attached? Shouldn't pretty much every popular genre of music be "blue-eyed"?
Why do I always end up having at least one person at work refer to me exclusively by my last name?
Wow, I have really shitty handwriting(this loses something in translation).
I have the unfortunate affliction of caring what others think about me. Maybe you do too, it's quite common.
Boots. Long black heeled boots will be the death of me(whether this is because of women who wear them or that I'm a troubled transvestite is up to the reader to decide).
Hey a limo! Flex your muscles, maybe you'll be discovered!
The best part about working construction was the strip clubs.
My girlfriend is always mad at me for something.
I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning is definitely Bright Eye's best album.
Why is every skeevy old man(who almost always has a bag of fresh porn mags) on the subway inevitably the most courteous man on the subway?
Here are some choice quotes, heard while walking with my girlfriend, in our new neighborhood:
"Look at that! White boy hit the jackpot! You know what..we don't want you! We don't want you!"
and:
"Aww, look at this integration shit...she's thinking that all white boys ain't bad, some are good...but the Devil is the Devil!"
In all seriousness, this is not a real issue; there are always idiots. 99% of people in Harlem give less than a shit that I live here, or whom I'm dating. It's more amusing than anything else. Still...I can't helped but be bothered a little. After all, I am going to be living here for at least a year...of course, it's also understandable; it's not like white people have a great reputation to bank on when it comes to moving to new places.
You're an adult now. You can buy whatever you want. Remember how you always wanted some Chocolate Eclairs? Those delicious, chocolate ice cream treats that you could only buy from the Good Humor Man because your mother would never buy them when she went grocery shopping? As a child your freezer was empty and useless, and only the rapid chime of that blessed ice cream man's bell gave you hope during those hot summer months. That's the only time you saw an Eclair. Well, there they are Mr. Adult, behind the glass doors of the frozen food section. And your mother is not here to stop you. Go ahead, champ, ring that bell.
So I'm sitting here, tweaking a design at work, while surfing the web at the same time(it's called multitasking) when I came across this story about the Beatles' part in the "first live trans-Atlantic satellite transmission". Apparently, it was widely panned in Britain at the time:
"Have we nothing better to offer? Surely this isn't the image of what we are like. What a dreadful impression they must have given the rest of the world," one comment read, the newspaper reported.
Another viewer, impressed by contributions from elsewhere, said "after all the culture ... shown by the other countries, the Beatles were the absolute dregs," the newspaper claimed.
"We did not do ourselves justice," another viewer commented.
I wonder, what would these British adults of the 1960s preferred? Shakespeare? I just wish Monty Python had existed, they could have beamed the entire world the Dead Parrot Sketch.
The best part of this is, as I was reading that the song "All You Need Is Love" was written for the performance, it starts playing on my iPod. Awesome.
I'm blatantly aping a great writer when I say, I am not qualified to live here.1
Here not being the city of New York, but rather the Upper West Side, or UWS2 for short. This is a place for blue-blooded WASPS, not a guy whose Prince George's County accent routinely comes up("I ain't got no cash, shiiit..."). The streets are lined with the upper-middle class, their stores, strollers and dogs. The nearest grocery store is more expensive than anywhere I shopped in DC, and I used to live near the Watergate Safeway. Sure, it carries frozen pizza, but only in personal size. It also carries brick oven frozen pizza, which defies explanation. The McDonald's downstairs delivers, and it has to, because no one who lives here goes in for anything other than a McFlurry, and those they eye with delight the way they might sample an exotic treat while on some far off safari sabbatical.
Finding myself here, I wonder; I ponder; I ask myself:...how did I get here?
Even at work, it seems, I find myself in another world. If I overheard a conversation at my old job, it was about babies, television, current events, and pop culture. Now, if I overhear a conversation, I don't know what it's about, because it's in French. Which is great, but still makes me feel like JoJo the idiot circus boy, who won a contest and gets to work at an ad agency and shack up in Miff and Buffy's neighborhood.
1Chuck Kolsterman.
2I only know this because my GF pointed it out when Craigslist apartment ads began to confuse me.
At my old gym, in the heart of DC's Chinatown, the facility was buried in the bowels of the complex of buildings that had sprung up around the Phone Booth(the erstwhile MCI Center, now going by Verizon). It was the official gym of the Washington Nationals, which is a lot like the Washington Generals sponsoring a basketball court(I kid, I kid...the boys in Federal Red are actually playing well lately, almost .500 ball since a 1-8 start). Being twenty feet underground brought one very appreciated blessing: cell phones were useless.
At my new gym, near Times Square in NYC, the gym floor and locker rooms are actually two stories above ground. Now no one is dumb enough (yet) to bring a cellphone onto the gym floor -- though I have seen some crackberries -- but the locker room is apparently a no-holds-barred zone. Conversations with colleagues, friends, and significant others abound.
The topic is usually mundane: business, errands, what to TiVo, etc. What's interesting, at least to me, is that no one is the least embarrassed to say where they are calling from, or what they are doing. I often hear:
"Yeah, I'm in the gym locker room...toweling off, putting on my pants...anyway..."
It's very nonchalant. Since modesty is not an issue, I think they should go a step further:
"Yeah, I'm in the gym locker room...toweling off my testicles, spread-eagle...putting on my pants, sans underwear, doing a nice tilt-a-whirl impression as I'm trying to balance the phone while getting dressed, mooning three or four people in the process..."
Far be it from me to criticize the work of others -- especially work I haven't even read -- but I find this hilarious:
"Flip" Flippen? How can I take anything the man writes seriously? I find hard to believe that a man whose first name is "Flip" -- a sitcom wacky neighbor name if I've ever heard one -- has anything pertinent to say on what's holding me back. If I wanted advice on how to handle dating problems or my arch-nemesis down the hall, then I'll call Flip.
OK, I'm done being an asshole. Maybe his book makes some important points. Next time I'm at a Borders, I'll flip through it a bit.
I'm reading something on washingtonpost.com when I see an interesting sidebar link: an article about the legacy of the MLB Wildcard. So I click on it, and I briefly gaze upon Slate's home page before the most horrifying internet ad of all time takes up the ENTIRE screen:
I don't know about you, but this isn't the face I want to see filling up my monitor on a Monday morning:
Maybe it's the mis-aligned eyes, or the pained expression - but blown up to 1024 x 742 pixels, this face is horrifying. Thanks Slate, thanks a lot.
Dumbest Thing I Did Last Weekend: I saw A Perfect Stranger.
Dumbest Thing I Said Last Weekend: (after putting on a baseball cap) "Wow, I look like Matt Damon in that movie were he wore a hat."
Dumbest Thing My Girlfriend Asked Me To Do Last Weekend: She wanted me to wait outside while she was doing some midnight shopping at the 125th St. PathMark grocery store. For anyone who doesn't now, 125th is main street Harlem, and being whiter than Woolite, I stand out. Imagine the possible conversations, had I waited outside:
Amused Passerby: Hey honky1, what are you doing here?
Me: Er, waiting.
Passerby: For what?
Me: ...Gentrification?
Dumbest Thing I Saw: The last fifteen minutes of RV, the Robin Williams comedy, also starring Larry David's fake wife -- playing William's fake wife -- JoJo, Jeff Daniels, and some forgettable people. On the bus ride home, the driver started the movie with only the aforementioned fifteen minutes left to go; surprisingly, no one asked for him to rewind it, and I had no problem following the plot.
All things considered, a pleasant weekend. The torrent of rain in NYC delayed my return a day, meaning an extra day with my girlfriend, which is always good.
Back at the office, things are...normal. For the most part. Still, job security does not exist for a government contractor. Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit sniffing glue.
1True Story: One my first DC apartments was on S street near North Capitol; I went exploring shortly after moving in, and after rounding a street corner around the Shaw/Howard University Metro stop, I heard "What up, HONKY!" shouted from a passing car. I thought that was hilarious.
I'm troubled by the film Maverick. I haven't found hidden anti-semitism(unless the James Coburn character is intended to be a Jewish stereotype, which given recent events, seems strangely plausible) which is what everyone looks for now in Mel Gibson movies(it's much easier to find latent racism in old Seinfeld episodes; Kramer "accidentally" dons blackface through overtanning in one them for Christ's sake1). In fact, what's troubling me has nothing to do with Gibson, the over-abundance of country music, or suspending the disbelief that Alfred Molina is capable of being scary without six murderous mechanical arms. No, what troubles me is Jodie Foster.
Maverick is the only movie in which I find Foster attractive. As Annabelle Bransford, she is a conniving, seducing thief. She has long curly blond hair, wears low cut dresses, and breathes hard when excited. And like most men, I do enjoy her Southern. In no other role does Foster make me enthusiastic to see her naked. Why is that?
I know Foster's Clarice Starling was supposed to be a virginal, sexual foil to Anthony Hopkins' demented Hannibal Lecter in that movie with a dead moth on the poster, but whose title mentions silent lambs. She is porcelain, pure, and her legs are probably joined at the knee2. Which is why I never went for her; kissing her would be like kissing your sister. She's practically a nun with a gun. The relationship with Lecter just screams closet goth, plus he would probably rip your face off for looking at her twice. Or once, even.
In Sommersby, she lets Richard Gere aka Arman Tanzarian hang even after she knows he is an impostor(not her real husband), and therefore innocent. Why? For that final, Oscar grubbing final scene by his grave. Another strike against the film is it's another "noble white man helps black people" movie, which I think we've all had enough of(now "noble white woman teacher helps black students"...apparently that's not played out yet).
It's impossible to think about her character in Nell in any sexual way, because you will go to hell. She plays a couple of annoying single mothers in Panic Room and Flightplan. In the former she's completely neurotic, and in the latter she's still grieving her recently deceased husband -- no real shot there. In fact, Contact is the only other movie where I find her even remotely attractive, and that's mainly because she is a)brilliant, b) passionate, and c) puts out on the first date with Matthew McConaughey. Which brings me to why I think I find her irresistible in Maverick.
Annabelle Bransford is a slutty bad girl. She uses her looks and her charms in tandem with ruthless cunning to be an exceptional thief. She won't pester you to marry, but she will fuck your dad when you're not around. She's all for hour-long trysts in hotel rooms, but then she'll rob you while you're soaking in the tub. She's the girl mom warned you about, yet still can't resist; she's the Queen of Hearts, always your best bet3. Especially if you think half the fun is in the chase, because you will be chasing her -- usually to get back your wallet.
I'm not sure what it says about me that I find all of these things irresistible; I guess -- like many immature twenty-somethings -- I find the allure of the exciting, damaged, and sexually aggressive members of the opposite sex too strong to break free from their siren call. It would help, though, if Clarice ever let anyone get to second base.
1The episode is "The Wife"; Kramer's black girlfriend is horrified when he shows up "over-tanned" and her father/grandfather, I can't remember which, says "I thought you said you were bringing a white boy home! I don't see a white boy! I see a damn fool!"
3You may think bashing Maverick's abundance of country music while quoting Eagles' songs makes me a somewhat of a hypocrite. You're wrong, but duly noted.
In a little over a month, my co-workers and I will move from our current building. A new, shiny, and overcrowded building next to the Stadium construction site awaits. In preparation for the move, everyone has been instructed to throw out all non-essential items; old, unneeded papers and equipment have been tossed into the trash for weeks. Even the hallway bulletin board is being cleared; the once colorful array of flyers, retirement notices, and inane carpool invites has been reduced to only a few items -- some of which have been buried a long, long time:
There are things and times you don't miss until they are happening, usually because you're taking life way too seriously. That's been a problem for me lately, so Saturday afternoon I sauntered up to Paul's car at the Greenbelt Metro in the least serious way possible(short of hopping and skipping).
I brought Weird Al's "Straight Outta Lynwood" because I thought Paul would find it funny, but we talked and caught up over all the best parts. That bothered me a little. I wanted him to marvel at how funny it was, because I'm vain; it was a very foolish whim in retrospect. But I'm a fool at heart.
If there is one person in the world everyone should talk to, it's Paul; I always have animated, hilarious conversations with him. Whatever talking to Dick Cheney is like, talking with Paul would be the complete opposite. Paul and I get into trouble when talking in cars, though, and it's all the fault of The Simpsons. Once, The Simpsons made us two hours late; today, the pop-culture heavyweight nearly got us killed1.
Nine years ago, Paul was driving me and our friend Aaron to visit another friend at Washington College, which is in Maryland's Eastern Shore. It was freshman year for all four of us(Paul, me, Aaron, mutual friend attending college in the vast marshes of the Eastern Shore; yep, that's four), so this was our first visit to WC. Jamie -- the mutual friend -- had given us good directions, which we ignored while we traded Simpsons' quotes for hours and hours after crossing the Chesapeake Bay. We ended up some absurd distance(that increases with each retelling of this story) past our exit, and we've joked since then that we are forbidden to discuss the show while Paul is driving(or while Aaron is sleeping).
Today, ignoring our past experience, we traded Simpsons' lines for a mere thirty seconds before Paul almost slammed into the back of a car stopped at a red light.
"Paul, you're gonna hit that guy," I mumbled.
After coming to a screeching halt behind the oblivious near-accident-victim, Paul gave me a thoughtful look.
"I'm surprised how calmly you told me I was about to kill us, 'Paul, you're gonna hit that guy...just, putting that out there...'," he said.
I replied I was frozen with fear and it happened too fast. In reality, I was eerily calm because of all my friends, if you -- Paul -- end up getting me killed, I will be very surprised. 1Paul disputes that this was the fault of The Simpsons. He says he was distracted because he was pointing out the dental office of a friend. Paul, I know quoting The Simpsons is fun, but we can get our fix in non-vehicular settings. We shouldn't even do that shit on the Metro; we would kill dozens of people.
A musical meme courtesy of minijonb(congrats on 200 posts!). The band choice was a no brainer:
01: Pick a band and answer only using song titles: The Replacements 02: Are you male or female: Androgynous 03: Describe yourself: White And Lazy 04: Your best piece of advice: Fuck School 05: Describe your last relationship: Treatment Bound 06: Describe your last crush: Lovelines 07: Say something to someone you have a crush on: Within Your Reach 08: Say something to an ex: Seen Your Video 09: Say something to someone who hurt you severely: You Lose 10: How do you feel right now: Unsatisfied
