Thursday, September 20, 2007
Sunday, September 16, 2007
Weekend reflections
24 hours. That’s plenty of time to study.
Unless you’re me, of course, and have been coming down with senioritis (hey, spell-check says that’s a real word!) ever since going back to school this semester. For the life of me, it is absolutely impossible to focus on my studies.
Like this one book I’m trying to read. Horrible, horrible book. Even my professor said as much. I have to be prepared to answer questions on it this Wednesday, and I’m the only person who volunteered to read the book. Now it’s only 200 or so pages, so you can bang that out over a weekend.
Unless you’re me!
It doesn’t help that the guy who wrote it blew his intellectual load after the first few chapters. I guess he felt he had to offer some “value added” after making his point. Ugh. Read some pages, have a beer, check the email, read some more pages, do some laundry, read some more pages, reread the last 20 pages because I haven’t been paying attention…
And I still need to check in to make sure I’m fully on track to graduate. I’ve been keeping track on my own, and I think everything’s okay, but I’d like to have someone at Mason check my records, just to make sure. I SO do not want to go a semester longer than I have to!
All this yelping has been paying off :) First, I go and have a pedicure at Ibiza on Saturday, and it turns out they actually checked out my yelp review! Wow! I was in shock. I mean, did they recognize my picture? Do they check out their reviews every so often and figured I was the Jason in question? At any rate, I didn’t argue… I’d much rather slip back in that comfy leather chair and have my feet rubbed.
And when I went to check out my profile today, I thought yelp was having a seizure. There were 5 or 6 compliments. I’m struggling to think what the hell I wrote that warranted all this attention all of a sudden, since my last review was a week ago. So I go to read my compliments, and it all makes sense.
I made Review of the Day today! When this happens, the review in question is profiled on their home page. I still haven’t figured out the formula for having a review made ROTD, but I’ll take any attention I can get. It was really nice to get those compliments… it’s things like this that keep me writing. That and Trivia Night :)
Dinner should be really good tonight. I say that because I’m going back to the training table come Monday. I started that Abs Diet a few weeks ago, but was only doing it half-assed. Now, I’ve been sticking with the actual diet part about 50-50, and I’ve taken some weight off. But I’ve been cheating too, and I haven’t been going to the gym as often as I should. Though it’s a scapegoat to a certain point, I’m gonna have to lay at least some of the blame on school.
So I work from about 8am to 4:30pm Monday through Friday. On Mondays and Wednesdays I have class. Unfortunately, both classes are from 7:20 to 10pm. Even though they let us out a little early, by the time I come home, I’m damn tired, and it’s tough to eat healthy. You don’t wanna cook. Even if you do, you just know your meal’s gonna sit heavy on you, adding more pounds. The alternative tends to be a cop-out… getting snacks from the grocery store when I walk home from class. And since I can’t get into a regular sleep schedule, I’m waking up later and ignoring breakfast when I get up. And between the nights I go to class and the nights I’m recovering from class, I have no desire to hit the gym.
So I’m going to try to make another go of diet and exercise. I really don’t have a whole lot to lose, and I’ve still been eating much better than this time last year, but I’d still like to make some changes. My dinner tonight, a ribeye marinated in KC Masterpiece Steakhouse marinade and washed down with either beer or wine (haven’t decided yet!) is going to be my last splurge until next weekend.
Is it Saturday yet?
Unless you’re me, of course, and have been coming down with senioritis (hey, spell-check says that’s a real word!) ever since going back to school this semester. For the life of me, it is absolutely impossible to focus on my studies.
Like this one book I’m trying to read. Horrible, horrible book. Even my professor said as much. I have to be prepared to answer questions on it this Wednesday, and I’m the only person who volunteered to read the book. Now it’s only 200 or so pages, so you can bang that out over a weekend.
Unless you’re me!
It doesn’t help that the guy who wrote it blew his intellectual load after the first few chapters. I guess he felt he had to offer some “value added” after making his point. Ugh. Read some pages, have a beer, check the email, read some more pages, do some laundry, read some more pages, reread the last 20 pages because I haven’t been paying attention…
And I still need to check in to make sure I’m fully on track to graduate. I’ve been keeping track on my own, and I think everything’s okay, but I’d like to have someone at Mason check my records, just to make sure. I SO do not want to go a semester longer than I have to!
All this yelping has been paying off :) First, I go and have a pedicure at Ibiza on Saturday, and it turns out they actually checked out my yelp review! Wow! I was in shock. I mean, did they recognize my picture? Do they check out their reviews every so often and figured I was the Jason in question? At any rate, I didn’t argue… I’d much rather slip back in that comfy leather chair and have my feet rubbed.
And when I went to check out my profile today, I thought yelp was having a seizure. There were 5 or 6 compliments. I’m struggling to think what the hell I wrote that warranted all this attention all of a sudden, since my last review was a week ago. So I go to read my compliments, and it all makes sense.
I made Review of the Day today! When this happens, the review in question is profiled on their home page. I still haven’t figured out the formula for having a review made ROTD, but I’ll take any attention I can get. It was really nice to get those compliments… it’s things like this that keep me writing. That and Trivia Night :)
Dinner should be really good tonight. I say that because I’m going back to the training table come Monday. I started that Abs Diet a few weeks ago, but was only doing it half-assed. Now, I’ve been sticking with the actual diet part about 50-50, and I’ve taken some weight off. But I’ve been cheating too, and I haven’t been going to the gym as often as I should. Though it’s a scapegoat to a certain point, I’m gonna have to lay at least some of the blame on school.
So I work from about 8am to 4:30pm Monday through Friday. On Mondays and Wednesdays I have class. Unfortunately, both classes are from 7:20 to 10pm. Even though they let us out a little early, by the time I come home, I’m damn tired, and it’s tough to eat healthy. You don’t wanna cook. Even if you do, you just know your meal’s gonna sit heavy on you, adding more pounds. The alternative tends to be a cop-out… getting snacks from the grocery store when I walk home from class. And since I can’t get into a regular sleep schedule, I’m waking up later and ignoring breakfast when I get up. And between the nights I go to class and the nights I’m recovering from class, I have no desire to hit the gym.
So I’m going to try to make another go of diet and exercise. I really don’t have a whole lot to lose, and I’ve still been eating much better than this time last year, but I’d still like to make some changes. My dinner tonight, a ribeye marinated in KC Masterpiece Steakhouse marinade and washed down with either beer or wine (haven’t decided yet!) is going to be my last splurge until next weekend.
Is it Saturday yet?
Friday, September 14, 2007
Bak 2 Skule!
God, do I ever need a break from school! Shut up. I know I’ve only just resumed classes. Fortunately, one of them is starting to get interesting. Unfortunately, I still have another 12 weeks or so of classes, and then one more semester on top of that!
I got really jaded this summer. While I didn’t get to spend it with a woman, I still had a good time and got out there and did stuff. It’s tough to get back into the daily grind. I really don’t want to start backsliding. I only have until this May (knock on wood) and I’m done.
I remember how grad school first started when I first started my program. I was sooooo nervous after being away from a classroom for almost a decade. I was trying to keep it that way too. Unfortunately, a Bachelor’s is now the new high school diploma, and I started to see the writing on the wall career-wise. But I was thisfuckingclose to dropping out, and if it wasn’t for my boss at the time (thanks!), I guarantee you that I would have quit. It didn’t help matters much that my first class was Macroeconomics.
I had Macro back at Stockton. To this day, the only thing I can tell you about it had to do with the baseball strike that was going on (this was back in 95 or 96). Professor Elmore totally sucked back then, and according to a professor review site, sucks just as hard now. In fact, all the things her students are calling her out for today were things I went through with her over a decade ago! Thank goodness for tenure, huh Prof. Elmore? So I was freaked out having my first class in something I really know nothing about. Turns out this was the easiest guy in the world to take. Take good notes, and you’ll be fine!
The other prof had a hardon for group work, and that really freaked me out. New weekly assignment, new group. A 40 page group paper! Ugh. And of course I got a dim view of this early on because one of my teammates was president of her Penn State DC alumni association and trekked up to the big game every Saturday. So our first meeting was at something like 4pm on a Sunday. Man, the point of graduating college is to get on with your life, not relive it with a bunch of current students. It must suck peaking at 21.
Well, sure enough, I was able to endure, and I’m in the home stretch of my grad school career. I can assure you there will be no dual Master’s or Ph.D. for me. Period. End of story!
I got really jaded this summer. While I didn’t get to spend it with a woman, I still had a good time and got out there and did stuff. It’s tough to get back into the daily grind. I really don’t want to start backsliding. I only have until this May (knock on wood) and I’m done.
I remember how grad school first started when I first started my program. I was sooooo nervous after being away from a classroom for almost a decade. I was trying to keep it that way too. Unfortunately, a Bachelor’s is now the new high school diploma, and I started to see the writing on the wall career-wise. But I was thisfuckingclose to dropping out, and if it wasn’t for my boss at the time (thanks!), I guarantee you that I would have quit. It didn’t help matters much that my first class was Macroeconomics.
I had Macro back at Stockton. To this day, the only thing I can tell you about it had to do with the baseball strike that was going on (this was back in 95 or 96). Professor Elmore totally sucked back then, and according to a professor review site, sucks just as hard now. In fact, all the things her students are calling her out for today were things I went through with her over a decade ago! Thank goodness for tenure, huh Prof. Elmore? So I was freaked out having my first class in something I really know nothing about. Turns out this was the easiest guy in the world to take. Take good notes, and you’ll be fine!
The other prof had a hardon for group work, and that really freaked me out. New weekly assignment, new group. A 40 page group paper! Ugh. And of course I got a dim view of this early on because one of my teammates was president of her Penn State DC alumni association and trekked up to the big game every Saturday. So our first meeting was at something like 4pm on a Sunday. Man, the point of graduating college is to get on with your life, not relive it with a bunch of current students. It must suck peaking at 21.
Well, sure enough, I was able to endure, and I’m in the home stretch of my grad school career. I can assure you there will be no dual Master’s or Ph.D. for me. Period. End of story!
Things I learned about Denver
1. Tattoos are mandatory in Denver. I swear, pretty much everyone was sporting at least one tattoo, and there were quite a few people with tats running up and down the full length of their arms. I’m not really into body “art,” but it seems to be the norm there, regardless of age.
2. Air conditioning is inherently evil. I’ve never seen a place with such an aversion to air conditioning. Granted, since I’ve mainly lived in Houston, New Jersey, and the DC area, I’ve known the need for A/C all my life. I don’t care what people say about “dry heat.” Hot is hot! Now, it was nice to be in 90 degree weather and not sweat like a whore in church, which is what I pretty much do in DC’s summers. But man, get the A/C on just a little bit!
3. People are much nicer. Most people in DC suck. There’s no way around it. You know it. I know it. From the boot-lickingest intern to the highest corridors of douchebaggery, people in DC are petty, passive-aggressive meanies. Denver was such a change. It wasn’t like a southern/Midwestern make chitchat to death nice (and I’m not opposed to that). More like people would smile when they talk to you and make eye contact with you when you passed them down the street. I distinctly remember meeting the glances of the first few people in Denver and thought it was weird. But then I remembered that this is normal behavior, and I’m the one who’s weird!
4. Denver’s more expensive than you might think. We got a whopping $48 per diem in Denver, which is standard Federal per diem. You lose 25% of that on your first and last days (I guess they assume no one spends a full day on travel days). You could kill the bulk of this on lunch. In fact, I spent (sit down, please) $30 on BREAKFAST one day. Yeah, breakfast. At the hotel. I mean, it was good and all (crab meat, cheese and leeks), but not $30 good! I know I lost at least $100 out of my own pocket on that trip. But I had a good time, so I’m not really upset. I remember filling out my travel report and my supervisor said “Hey, Jason. You can go ahead and claim full per diem on your site visit days. It’s okay.” But I did put down my full per diem, I told him. He couldn’t believe it.
5. Denver has a trolley system (sort of). There’s a section of town called the 16th Street Mall. It must span about 20 blocks, maybe more. It’s closed off to vehicle traffic, except for buses that do one huge loop from start to finish. It’s completely free, and is really neat. Unfortunately, the 16th Street Mall is essentially a stretched-out version of Clarendon. I mean, if taking the bus from Pottery Barn to Williams Sonoma is your cup of tea, go for it, but it felt very commercialized. But they had a lot of restaurants in the area, and it looked like a happening place.
6. Beer is way cheaper outside of DC. “Man, $3 for a pint of beer? How do these yokels make their money?” It was surreal to see booze actually affordable. Nothin’ like laying down a fiver for a Bud Light to really humble a man.
2. Air conditioning is inherently evil. I’ve never seen a place with such an aversion to air conditioning. Granted, since I’ve mainly lived in Houston, New Jersey, and the DC area, I’ve known the need for A/C all my life. I don’t care what people say about “dry heat.” Hot is hot! Now, it was nice to be in 90 degree weather and not sweat like a whore in church, which is what I pretty much do in DC’s summers. But man, get the A/C on just a little bit!
3. People are much nicer. Most people in DC suck. There’s no way around it. You know it. I know it. From the boot-lickingest intern to the highest corridors of douchebaggery, people in DC are petty, passive-aggressive meanies. Denver was such a change. It wasn’t like a southern/Midwestern make chitchat to death nice (and I’m not opposed to that). More like people would smile when they talk to you and make eye contact with you when you passed them down the street. I distinctly remember meeting the glances of the first few people in Denver and thought it was weird. But then I remembered that this is normal behavior, and I’m the one who’s weird!
4. Denver’s more expensive than you might think. We got a whopping $48 per diem in Denver, which is standard Federal per diem. You lose 25% of that on your first and last days (I guess they assume no one spends a full day on travel days). You could kill the bulk of this on lunch. In fact, I spent (sit down, please) $30 on BREAKFAST one day. Yeah, breakfast. At the hotel. I mean, it was good and all (crab meat, cheese and leeks), but not $30 good! I know I lost at least $100 out of my own pocket on that trip. But I had a good time, so I’m not really upset. I remember filling out my travel report and my supervisor said “Hey, Jason. You can go ahead and claim full per diem on your site visit days. It’s okay.” But I did put down my full per diem, I told him. He couldn’t believe it.
5. Denver has a trolley system (sort of). There’s a section of town called the 16th Street Mall. It must span about 20 blocks, maybe more. It’s closed off to vehicle traffic, except for buses that do one huge loop from start to finish. It’s completely free, and is really neat. Unfortunately, the 16th Street Mall is essentially a stretched-out version of Clarendon. I mean, if taking the bus from Pottery Barn to Williams Sonoma is your cup of tea, go for it, but it felt very commercialized. But they had a lot of restaurants in the area, and it looked like a happening place.
6. Beer is way cheaper outside of DC. “Man, $3 for a pint of beer? How do these yokels make their money?” It was surreal to see booze actually affordable. Nothin’ like laying down a fiver for a Bud Light to really humble a man.
Denver, part un
I recently (okay, several weeks ago) got back from a business trip to Denver. I had never been there before, and was looking forward to going.
The trip out there was great. I was lucky enough to fly out of National (hooray short airport trip!) and was extraspecialsuperlucky to fly Frontier.
I really like Frontier. I had only flown them once before to visit my mother, but I was really impressed. For one thing, they seem to use only Airbuses. Now I don’t have any comparative data, but I can tell you anecdotally that there seems to be a l’il more legroom on an Airbus as opposed to a Boeing. The fleet looks new and clean, and the flight attendants are usually quite friendly. Nowadays, you usually get flight attendants that must've gone to the casting call of "DMV: The Motion Picture." Best of all, they don’t pull a US Airways and pour your soda in a cup, and then give the remainder to someone else. I’ve never figured that out. How does that help your bottom line? Is all your overhead really spent on in-flight refreshment? How many less sodas do you need to pack? Is it that much of a space saver?
At any rate, I've always enjoyed flying with them. For that matter, I’m willing to try most second-tier airlines since personally I’ll do whatever it takes to not give my business to American, United, Delta, etc. They’ve rode the gravy train for too long, and have gotten fat and complacent. Lousy service, uncompetitive fares, and hey, when they fuck up (and you just know they will every few years), Uncle Sugar gives ‘em a big cash bailout to reward shitty management. I should be so lucky to land a job like that.
Government: Jason, you really ran Air Suckfest into the ground. What were you thinking?
Me: Well, I had a lot of good ideas that looked nice on paper…
Government: Shag carpeted planes? Fondue service in coach? Paying staff in Canadian dollars? Man, you really screwed up. Here, here’s a big bag of money.
Okay, I kid. But I’ll never fly a major airline if I can avoid it. I’m not rewarding them with my ticket money for their lousy treatment of the flying public.
America West used to be a great airline… I’ve heard they’ve merged with US Scare, so I’m not holding out hope for continued success. Their in-flight meals were better than some sit-down meals I’ve had. Full-course meals, and hot too! I flew with them several times, and was always impressed.
But now, I think Frontier is gonna get the bulk of my travel dollars, at least as far as travel out West goes.
Now, onto part two…
The trip out there was great. I was lucky enough to fly out of National (hooray short airport trip!) and was extraspecialsuperlucky to fly Frontier.
I really like Frontier. I had only flown them once before to visit my mother, but I was really impressed. For one thing, they seem to use only Airbuses. Now I don’t have any comparative data, but I can tell you anecdotally that there seems to be a l’il more legroom on an Airbus as opposed to a Boeing. The fleet looks new and clean, and the flight attendants are usually quite friendly. Nowadays, you usually get flight attendants that must've gone to the casting call of "DMV: The Motion Picture." Best of all, they don’t pull a US Airways and pour your soda in a cup, and then give the remainder to someone else. I’ve never figured that out. How does that help your bottom line? Is all your overhead really spent on in-flight refreshment? How many less sodas do you need to pack? Is it that much of a space saver?
At any rate, I've always enjoyed flying with them. For that matter, I’m willing to try most second-tier airlines since personally I’ll do whatever it takes to not give my business to American, United, Delta, etc. They’ve rode the gravy train for too long, and have gotten fat and complacent. Lousy service, uncompetitive fares, and hey, when they fuck up (and you just know they will every few years), Uncle Sugar gives ‘em a big cash bailout to reward shitty management. I should be so lucky to land a job like that.
Government: Jason, you really ran Air Suckfest into the ground. What were you thinking?
Me: Well, I had a lot of good ideas that looked nice on paper…
Government: Shag carpeted planes? Fondue service in coach? Paying staff in Canadian dollars? Man, you really screwed up. Here, here’s a big bag of money.
Okay, I kid. But I’ll never fly a major airline if I can avoid it. I’m not rewarding them with my ticket money for their lousy treatment of the flying public.
America West used to be a great airline… I’ve heard they’ve merged with US Scare, so I’m not holding out hope for continued success. Their in-flight meals were better than some sit-down meals I’ve had. Full-course meals, and hot too! I flew with them several times, and was always impressed.
But now, I think Frontier is gonna get the bulk of my travel dollars, at least as far as travel out West goes.
Now, onto part two…
Friday, July 13, 2007
My birthdate
I came across one of those "what does your birthdate mean" websites. Normally I treat them with a very large grain of salt, because they say stuff that's applicable to just about anyone ("you like being praised, you like food, you hate it when bad stuff happens"). But I found this one surprisingly accurate.
Your Birthdate: June 7
You are an island. You don't need anyone else to make you happy.
And though you see yourself as a loner, people are drawn to you.
Deep and sensitive, you tend to impress others with your insights.
You also tend to be psychic - so listen to that inner voice!
Your strength: Your self sufficiency
Your weakness: You despise authority
Your power color: Maroon
Your power symbol: Hammer
Your power month: July
I was having a conversation with a coworker a few years ago about the fact that I really can't stand being around large groups of people, even though I'd like to be able to do so, and hey, going out usually tends to be more fun when you're in a group. And she replied that while yeah, groups are fine, my situation wasn't so bad. Specifically, she pointed out, most people are utterly incapable of doing the smallest, simplest things in their life without a group of people, and that it really spoke well of me that I was self-reliant like that. What she said really made me sit down and think, because I never noticed what she was describing until that moment. Yeah, there really are a lot of people who can't bear the thought of: living alone, getting groceries alone, going to work alone, or just going out alone once in a while. But yeah, I've always been a bit of a loner. Though I'm honestly trying to change, at least to a certain degree.
Okay, now looking at the results in more detail: I really prefer to be self-sufficient, but since entering the working world, I've gotten a lot better about teamwork. I HATE authority figures with a passion. Anyone actively seeking out a position of leadership is someone I automatically consider to be suspect: no one seeks power for altruistic reasons--they seek power to further their own ambitions, and I'd just as soon not like to get caught on the shit end of that. That's probably why I don't care for some of the people I meet in DC. They're all buddy-buddy, but they won't hesitate to crawl over their own mother for a nickel (while doing so badly dressed, I might add...). Now, I'm not talking about cases like work or the army... you need authority figures and leadership in these situations, and I'm really not railing against those. The absolute WORST authority figures are the ones that start to emerge in amorphous group settings. Like you're stuck with some kind of group project (this seems to be the new pedagogy in grad school) and someone tries to become the de facto leader. Naturally I rise to the challenge. After all, doesn't every good leader need a good foil? You know, someone to put him through his paces... really make him earn his stripes.
To be fair, I've also had the complete opposite happen, and it sucks just as hard... the one who needs to make sure everyone's voice is heard. Again and again and again. I was working in one group assigment, and one of the women volunteered to be the point person and take our individual submissions and turn them into a finished product. Cool. But she kept on emailing the team, urging us to get together "just to make sure everyone's on board." I think someone finally emailed her and politely told her that some of us work full time, and if everything looked okay, there really wasn't a need to take time out of our busy schedules for one long group hug.
Maroon. Hmm... why couldn't it have been turquoise or teal? Hey, I'll even pick something in the same color family, like magenta. Or mauve? I just like saying mauve. But okay, I can deal.
July. That's a mixed bag. I like long summer days, but I hate DC's sucky summer humidity. I can't go for more than a block without wilting.
Hammer. Okay, that's a pretty cool symbol. I'll gladly take it :)
Your Birthdate: June 7
You are an island. You don't need anyone else to make you happy.
And though you see yourself as a loner, people are drawn to you.
Deep and sensitive, you tend to impress others with your insights.
You also tend to be psychic - so listen to that inner voice!
Your strength: Your self sufficiency
Your weakness: You despise authority
Your power color: Maroon
Your power symbol: Hammer
Your power month: July
I was having a conversation with a coworker a few years ago about the fact that I really can't stand being around large groups of people, even though I'd like to be able to do so, and hey, going out usually tends to be more fun when you're in a group. And she replied that while yeah, groups are fine, my situation wasn't so bad. Specifically, she pointed out, most people are utterly incapable of doing the smallest, simplest things in their life without a group of people, and that it really spoke well of me that I was self-reliant like that. What she said really made me sit down and think, because I never noticed what she was describing until that moment. Yeah, there really are a lot of people who can't bear the thought of: living alone, getting groceries alone, going to work alone, or just going out alone once in a while. But yeah, I've always been a bit of a loner. Though I'm honestly trying to change, at least to a certain degree.
Okay, now looking at the results in more detail: I really prefer to be self-sufficient, but since entering the working world, I've gotten a lot better about teamwork. I HATE authority figures with a passion. Anyone actively seeking out a position of leadership is someone I automatically consider to be suspect: no one seeks power for altruistic reasons--they seek power to further their own ambitions, and I'd just as soon not like to get caught on the shit end of that. That's probably why I don't care for some of the people I meet in DC. They're all buddy-buddy, but they won't hesitate to crawl over their own mother for a nickel (while doing so badly dressed, I might add...). Now, I'm not talking about cases like work or the army... you need authority figures and leadership in these situations, and I'm really not railing against those. The absolute WORST authority figures are the ones that start to emerge in amorphous group settings. Like you're stuck with some kind of group project (this seems to be the new pedagogy in grad school) and someone tries to become the de facto leader. Naturally I rise to the challenge. After all, doesn't every good leader need a good foil? You know, someone to put him through his paces... really make him earn his stripes.
To be fair, I've also had the complete opposite happen, and it sucks just as hard... the one who needs to make sure everyone's voice is heard. Again and again and again. I was working in one group assigment, and one of the women volunteered to be the point person and take our individual submissions and turn them into a finished product. Cool. But she kept on emailing the team, urging us to get together "just to make sure everyone's on board." I think someone finally emailed her and politely told her that some of us work full time, and if everything looked okay, there really wasn't a need to take time out of our busy schedules for one long group hug.
Maroon. Hmm... why couldn't it have been turquoise or teal? Hey, I'll even pick something in the same color family, like magenta. Or mauve? I just like saying mauve. But okay, I can deal.
July. That's a mixed bag. I like long summer days, but I hate DC's sucky summer humidity. I can't go for more than a block without wilting.
Hammer. Okay, that's a pretty cool symbol. I'll gladly take it :)
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
An infrequent update
You know, I swore when I set out to write this thing, I’d make it a point to update it every other day (at least!). Now, my entries seem to run about every week or so.
But I’m finding out that’s actually a good thing! It wasn’t until all that long ago that my free time consisted of me sitting on my ass, drinking beer, and berating the fact that I didn’t DO anything with my life. Yeah, do nothing and piss and moan that I did nothing, and leaving it at that. Getting up to actually go DO something required me to get off my ass, put down the beer, and go through the effort of finding someplace to actually go to. Nah, too much effort, but not like I let that fact stop me from feeling down.
But ever since the breakup, I’ve been somewhat of a man in motion. As much as I hate to say it, I’ve been thinking a lot about death lately. No, don’t worry… I’m not talking suicide. I just got to thinking an awful lot about that post-breakup stuff everyone goes through, mainly “Am I gonna die alone?” I mean, if someone gave my eulogy, what the hell would they say? Jason, yeah… well, he really liked fried chicken.
No. I’ve been getting tired of pissing my life away. Aside from the laziness, there was one other factor that’s been holding me back: I really don’t like going out to restaurants, bars, theaters, etc. by myself. And to be honest, I really don’t know many people by me. My area is fairly transient. Mostly, it’s young people who eventually get married and get a house further out in Virginia. But these past few weeks, I’ve been getting more and more restless, and have been willing to step out of my comfort zone in an effort to actually get out and participate in life. Which leads me to the next part of this entry:
Living and dying in Georgetown.
I went out on a date this past Friday. Since she was a sport and came out all the way to Clarendon (she lives in DC) before, I thought it was only fitting for me to make the trek out to see her for our second date. She wanted to go see Ratatouille, and that was cool by me. But I’ve been to the Gallery Place theater before, and I absolutely hated it: the layout, the patrons, the employees. It was a trifecta of why I hate going to the movies. She was reading my vibe and suggested the theater in Georgetown.
I don’t know how well a job I did in disguising my apprehension. You see, Georgetown and I have this silent, running agreement to disagree. I don’t like Georgetown, and Georgetown doesn’t like me. Allow me to explain.
First, it ain’t Metro accessible. I mean, you CAN walk from the closest Metro station to Georgetown, but unless you’re going during that one-week window in the Fall or Spring, you’ll enter Georgetown like a big, sweaty Legionnaire, crawling back to Fort Zinderneuf through the desert after his detachment was ambushed by natives and he was left for dead. The vultures circling overhead. The mirage on the horizon. You get the idea. And bus schedules scare the living snot out of me. Did you ever see that episode of the Simpsons where Lisa took a bus for the first time? Yeah, I was afraid of getting on the wrong bus and ending up in the boonies. I didn’t wanna get off at Airport Access Road or Crackton. I personally find the DC bus schedules confusing as all getout.
Also, I’ve heard enough stories about the preppy, yuppie types to etch a permanent aura of disapproval in my brain. You know, popped collars, trust fund tarts in high heels they can’t even walk in, Greek letters on shirts as far as the eye can see. Surplus humanity, baby!
But the desire for human companionship will lead a man to do strange things. In this case, learning how to take the damn bus. I was all set to shell out for a cab, but realized a $10 cab ride vs. a $1 bus ride was pretty stupid unless I was in some sort of a rush. And given DC’s absolutely foul July weather, walking was most definitely out of the question.
But then, I remembered the DC Circulator. It’s a bus company that runs limited routes throughout the city. I had remembered seeing an ad by them in the past, and got the impression that the bus made one giant loop from Union Station to Georgetown and back (which it did). After reviewing the world’s most simple bus schedule, I was ready to make the trek.
And I had a great time! I was really enjoying the company of the woman I was seeing, the movie was absolutely wonderful, and most of all, I knew if I could do this once, I could damn well do it again.
So yeah, I went back to see Ratatouille again on Saturday. And then I lingered. As I came out of the theater, I realized that it was only a little after 1pm. Was I really in a hurry to get home? To do what? Make the same usual lunch for myself, have a beer or two, take a nap, and then get up and do, well, nothing?
No! I was determined this Saturday would be different. As I left the theater, I noticed there was a park right across the street, and I could see the Potomac from the theater’s steps. So I crossed the street and just chilled out and watched the boats go past on the river, and even saw a catfish. I felt very, very calm, and as the sun shone down and the warm wind blew over me, I felt a certain peace I haven’t felt for some time.
I then headed back into Georgetown proper. Coming up one of the side streets, I spotted a French café that I just knew I had to check out at some point. It was very… quaint.
Let me explain. Have you ever seen pictures of Paris or Buenos Aires where, as you’re looking down a long boulevard, you see a small, tiny, out of the way bistro on one of the side streets? Who goes there? What are their stories? Yeah, that’s the goofy stuff I think about, and it all came crashing into my brain as I walked past the canal bridge and saw the restaurant for the first time. I was really tempted to go in, but I actually had decent food waiting for me at home, so I’ll just have to chalk up going here for another time.
Went into Dean and Deluca. I yelped about this already, so I’ll just give you the capsule review. It sucked. Overpriced and underperformed. I mean, it wasn’t so bad that I’d be opposed to buying something, but none of the employees seemed willing to go over and help someone (or even ask if there was something they could do for them). Screw that. Plus, as I was leaving, I noticed someone coming up to the door and held it open for them, and the douchebag didn’t even have the common courtesy to say thanks, nod, smile, anything. Now don’t get me wrong. I don’t want some sort of medal for opening the door, and I don’t do it to stroke my own ego… it’s simply a courteous thing to do. But Sir Douchealot of the House of RayBan didn’t even acknowledge my presence—just walked right on by as if I was the bloody doorman. Probably drives a BMW!
So I thought I’d just saunter down M Street and eventually catch the bus back. Man, walking down M Street is evil! First off, the sidewalks are narrow, but that doesn’t stop people from walking three or four abreast. And it’s a mix of all the types of people who I’d just as soon not have cluttering up the street, like it’s amateur day at the local sidewalk. Fatass Midwestern tourists with bad hair, Dale Earnhardt shirts, and fanny packs intermixing with Daddy’s Little Bimbos who feel that a cobblestone/brick sidewalk is the PERFECT place to strut around in high heels they don’t even know how to freakin’ walk in, in turn intermixing with foreign tourists, the kind who have this perpetual confused look plastered on them, like they just got out of bed.
Don’t get me wrong… I’ll certainly be back here to check out some of the restaurants, and pending somewhat decent weather, may even come back this Saturday. But it won’t be a regular occurrence. I’m trying to take a more Zen-like approach to life right now, and I swear I was ready to pop a blood vessel down M Street.
Interestingly enough, while out for lunch with two of my coworkers, one of them echoed many of the same sentiments, so it’s nice to know it’s not just me.
Oh, and as I was taking the bus back, we passed a woman with a popped collar. Oh, the humanity. I hope she doesn’t vote or plan to have children. Yeah, wishful thinking!
But I’m finding out that’s actually a good thing! It wasn’t until all that long ago that my free time consisted of me sitting on my ass, drinking beer, and berating the fact that I didn’t DO anything with my life. Yeah, do nothing and piss and moan that I did nothing, and leaving it at that. Getting up to actually go DO something required me to get off my ass, put down the beer, and go through the effort of finding someplace to actually go to. Nah, too much effort, but not like I let that fact stop me from feeling down.
But ever since the breakup, I’ve been somewhat of a man in motion. As much as I hate to say it, I’ve been thinking a lot about death lately. No, don’t worry… I’m not talking suicide. I just got to thinking an awful lot about that post-breakup stuff everyone goes through, mainly “Am I gonna die alone?” I mean, if someone gave my eulogy, what the hell would they say? Jason, yeah… well, he really liked fried chicken.
No. I’ve been getting tired of pissing my life away. Aside from the laziness, there was one other factor that’s been holding me back: I really don’t like going out to restaurants, bars, theaters, etc. by myself. And to be honest, I really don’t know many people by me. My area is fairly transient. Mostly, it’s young people who eventually get married and get a house further out in Virginia. But these past few weeks, I’ve been getting more and more restless, and have been willing to step out of my comfort zone in an effort to actually get out and participate in life. Which leads me to the next part of this entry:
Living and dying in Georgetown.
I went out on a date this past Friday. Since she was a sport and came out all the way to Clarendon (she lives in DC) before, I thought it was only fitting for me to make the trek out to see her for our second date. She wanted to go see Ratatouille, and that was cool by me. But I’ve been to the Gallery Place theater before, and I absolutely hated it: the layout, the patrons, the employees. It was a trifecta of why I hate going to the movies. She was reading my vibe and suggested the theater in Georgetown.
I don’t know how well a job I did in disguising my apprehension. You see, Georgetown and I have this silent, running agreement to disagree. I don’t like Georgetown, and Georgetown doesn’t like me. Allow me to explain.
First, it ain’t Metro accessible. I mean, you CAN walk from the closest Metro station to Georgetown, but unless you’re going during that one-week window in the Fall or Spring, you’ll enter Georgetown like a big, sweaty Legionnaire, crawling back to Fort Zinderneuf through the desert after his detachment was ambushed by natives and he was left for dead. The vultures circling overhead. The mirage on the horizon. You get the idea. And bus schedules scare the living snot out of me. Did you ever see that episode of the Simpsons where Lisa took a bus for the first time? Yeah, I was afraid of getting on the wrong bus and ending up in the boonies. I didn’t wanna get off at Airport Access Road or Crackton. I personally find the DC bus schedules confusing as all getout.
Also, I’ve heard enough stories about the preppy, yuppie types to etch a permanent aura of disapproval in my brain. You know, popped collars, trust fund tarts in high heels they can’t even walk in, Greek letters on shirts as far as the eye can see. Surplus humanity, baby!
But the desire for human companionship will lead a man to do strange things. In this case, learning how to take the damn bus. I was all set to shell out for a cab, but realized a $10 cab ride vs. a $1 bus ride was pretty stupid unless I was in some sort of a rush. And given DC’s absolutely foul July weather, walking was most definitely out of the question.
But then, I remembered the DC Circulator. It’s a bus company that runs limited routes throughout the city. I had remembered seeing an ad by them in the past, and got the impression that the bus made one giant loop from Union Station to Georgetown and back (which it did). After reviewing the world’s most simple bus schedule, I was ready to make the trek.
And I had a great time! I was really enjoying the company of the woman I was seeing, the movie was absolutely wonderful, and most of all, I knew if I could do this once, I could damn well do it again.
So yeah, I went back to see Ratatouille again on Saturday. And then I lingered. As I came out of the theater, I realized that it was only a little after 1pm. Was I really in a hurry to get home? To do what? Make the same usual lunch for myself, have a beer or two, take a nap, and then get up and do, well, nothing?
No! I was determined this Saturday would be different. As I left the theater, I noticed there was a park right across the street, and I could see the Potomac from the theater’s steps. So I crossed the street and just chilled out and watched the boats go past on the river, and even saw a catfish. I felt very, very calm, and as the sun shone down and the warm wind blew over me, I felt a certain peace I haven’t felt for some time.
I then headed back into Georgetown proper. Coming up one of the side streets, I spotted a French café that I just knew I had to check out at some point. It was very… quaint.
Let me explain. Have you ever seen pictures of Paris or Buenos Aires where, as you’re looking down a long boulevard, you see a small, tiny, out of the way bistro on one of the side streets? Who goes there? What are their stories? Yeah, that’s the goofy stuff I think about, and it all came crashing into my brain as I walked past the canal bridge and saw the restaurant for the first time. I was really tempted to go in, but I actually had decent food waiting for me at home, so I’ll just have to chalk up going here for another time.
Went into Dean and Deluca. I yelped about this already, so I’ll just give you the capsule review. It sucked. Overpriced and underperformed. I mean, it wasn’t so bad that I’d be opposed to buying something, but none of the employees seemed willing to go over and help someone (or even ask if there was something they could do for them). Screw that. Plus, as I was leaving, I noticed someone coming up to the door and held it open for them, and the douchebag didn’t even have the common courtesy to say thanks, nod, smile, anything. Now don’t get me wrong. I don’t want some sort of medal for opening the door, and I don’t do it to stroke my own ego… it’s simply a courteous thing to do. But Sir Douchealot of the House of RayBan didn’t even acknowledge my presence—just walked right on by as if I was the bloody doorman. Probably drives a BMW!
So I thought I’d just saunter down M Street and eventually catch the bus back. Man, walking down M Street is evil! First off, the sidewalks are narrow, but that doesn’t stop people from walking three or four abreast. And it’s a mix of all the types of people who I’d just as soon not have cluttering up the street, like it’s amateur day at the local sidewalk. Fatass Midwestern tourists with bad hair, Dale Earnhardt shirts, and fanny packs intermixing with Daddy’s Little Bimbos who feel that a cobblestone/brick sidewalk is the PERFECT place to strut around in high heels they don’t even know how to freakin’ walk in, in turn intermixing with foreign tourists, the kind who have this perpetual confused look plastered on them, like they just got out of bed.
Don’t get me wrong… I’ll certainly be back here to check out some of the restaurants, and pending somewhat decent weather, may even come back this Saturday. But it won’t be a regular occurrence. I’m trying to take a more Zen-like approach to life right now, and I swear I was ready to pop a blood vessel down M Street.
Interestingly enough, while out for lunch with two of my coworkers, one of them echoed many of the same sentiments, so it’s nice to know it’s not just me.
Oh, and as I was taking the bus back, we passed a woman with a popped collar. Oh, the humanity. I hope she doesn’t vote or plan to have children. Yeah, wishful thinking!
Friday, June 29, 2007
Yelpin' for a livin'
No, not really...
Oh, I suppose I should tell you what yelp (http://www.yelp.com/user_details?userid=WdmtsJOIkDjrDb2yhVsmbQ) is all about. It's a website that I've become totally addicted to over the course of the last week. Yelp bills itself as:
...the ultimate city guide that taps into the community's voice and reveals honest and current insights on local businesses and services on everything from martinis to mechanics... just real people, writing real reviews... and that's the real deal.
You see, I'm perpetually reliant on recommedations for good places to spend my time (as well as recommendations on places I should stay the hell away from!). Now, I used to use the Washington Post's entertainment section, but I eventually realized something. Most of the reviews were from people who were royally pissed off at a given business. That made me think, are these just squeaky wheels, or is it endemic of a larger problem with the establishment in question, and these two or three people bitching about it just happened to be the only ones wanting to make noise over it? Plus, I noticed that a goodly amount of reviews amounted to what marketers call "roach baiting" or stealth marketing.
Have you ever read product reviews on amazon.com? Have you ever noticed that some of those reviews seemed, well, a little too enthusiastic about the product? Like you think to yourself, this woman really loves her Swiffer, maybe a little too much. And have you read a review that looked more like a corporate press release? That's stealth marketing: some corporate tool creates an account on a website like amazon.com and reviews their own damn product, essentially filling the role of cheerleader.
With regard to the Washington Post, I noticed that this seemed to happen when they were getting ready to announce their "Best Bets," or whatever it is they call their best of the city rankings. Too many near-identical reviews that get posted right before the voting cutoff.
What I needed was a genuine source of information. And I found it in yelp. A few weeks ago, I decided that I'd really like to do something this summer besides spending it on my back (I mean in bed or on the couch... get your mind out of the gutter!). So I noticed I was relying more and more on yelp's reviews in constructing my list of things I should do this summer. And then I figured, if I'm relying on it so much (because it's useful), I should give something back to the service that's giving me the 411 on the local scene in the first place.
What prompted me to make my first post on yelp was that I noticed a local diner had an entry, and people were giving it really good reviews. And hey, I went to that same place a few weeks back. And you know what? It wasn't all that! I used to live in NJ for a few years, and they actually have more diners than any other state. So it's safe to say I know what passes for a diner, and this place wasn't up to snuff. I reasoned that the reason for such stellar reviews is that all the cool kids from Terre Haute and Des Moines working for Congressman Hugh Jass on the Hill don't know any better. So's I recon it's high time to school 'em in tha culinary artz.
And then, I started to get feedback. Several people tagged my post as "useful" or "cool." Now I'm hooked. I'm actually being acknowledged, and I'm actually influencing other people's opinions. So then I looked for local businesses in my zip code, found a few that I go to regularly, and started writing reviews: the grocery store, the place that used to always give me lousy haircuts, the whole nine. And I kept on getting at least one or two people flagging my posts saying it helped them.
So now, it's even encouraged me to write an entry for almost every place I visit, and it's really making me want to get out and start sampling many of the bars and restaurants that I've been compiling on my culinary "hit list," which will beget even further yelp reviews.
Now I'll admit, there still might be ways to trick out the yelp system, but I think those should be easy to pick out. You're encouraged to create your own personal profile, and I'm guessing a lot of bogus reviewers aren't going to bother with that. Also, if you scope their profile and they only wrote one or two reviews since their account was created, that's probably a good tipoff that they registered only to pitch their own business.
So my goal next week is to try O'Sullivan's (an Irish-esque pub in Arlington) and maybe Ri-Ra (ditto). I'm also planning on seeing Ratatouille over the weekend, and the only place near me that's playing it is one I absolutely cannot stand (in fact, it'd be the one place where I'd actually welcome someone to buy out the business and shit out a new condo over it). But no, I'm gonna go in with an open mind, and write an honest evaluation of that theater.
But I think I gotta premonition on how that's gonna turn out...
I can't wait!
Oh, I suppose I should tell you what yelp (http://www.yelp.com/user_details?userid=WdmtsJOIkDjrDb2yhVsmbQ) is all about. It's a website that I've become totally addicted to over the course of the last week. Yelp bills itself as:
...the ultimate city guide that taps into the community's voice and reveals honest and current insights on local businesses and services on everything from martinis to mechanics... just real people, writing real reviews... and that's the real deal.
You see, I'm perpetually reliant on recommedations for good places to spend my time (as well as recommendations on places I should stay the hell away from!). Now, I used to use the Washington Post's entertainment section, but I eventually realized something. Most of the reviews were from people who were royally pissed off at a given business. That made me think, are these just squeaky wheels, or is it endemic of a larger problem with the establishment in question, and these two or three people bitching about it just happened to be the only ones wanting to make noise over it? Plus, I noticed that a goodly amount of reviews amounted to what marketers call "roach baiting" or stealth marketing.
Have you ever read product reviews on amazon.com? Have you ever noticed that some of those reviews seemed, well, a little too enthusiastic about the product? Like you think to yourself, this woman really loves her Swiffer, maybe a little too much. And have you read a review that looked more like a corporate press release? That's stealth marketing: some corporate tool creates an account on a website like amazon.com and reviews their own damn product, essentially filling the role of cheerleader.
With regard to the Washington Post, I noticed that this seemed to happen when they were getting ready to announce their "Best Bets," or whatever it is they call their best of the city rankings. Too many near-identical reviews that get posted right before the voting cutoff.
What I needed was a genuine source of information. And I found it in yelp. A few weeks ago, I decided that I'd really like to do something this summer besides spending it on my back (I mean in bed or on the couch... get your mind out of the gutter!). So I noticed I was relying more and more on yelp's reviews in constructing my list of things I should do this summer. And then I figured, if I'm relying on it so much (because it's useful), I should give something back to the service that's giving me the 411 on the local scene in the first place.
What prompted me to make my first post on yelp was that I noticed a local diner had an entry, and people were giving it really good reviews. And hey, I went to that same place a few weeks back. And you know what? It wasn't all that! I used to live in NJ for a few years, and they actually have more diners than any other state. So it's safe to say I know what passes for a diner, and this place wasn't up to snuff. I reasoned that the reason for such stellar reviews is that all the cool kids from Terre Haute and Des Moines working for Congressman Hugh Jass on the Hill don't know any better. So's I recon it's high time to school 'em in tha culinary artz.
And then, I started to get feedback. Several people tagged my post as "useful" or "cool." Now I'm hooked. I'm actually being acknowledged, and I'm actually influencing other people's opinions. So then I looked for local businesses in my zip code, found a few that I go to regularly, and started writing reviews: the grocery store, the place that used to always give me lousy haircuts, the whole nine. And I kept on getting at least one or two people flagging my posts saying it helped them.
So now, it's even encouraged me to write an entry for almost every place I visit, and it's really making me want to get out and start sampling many of the bars and restaurants that I've been compiling on my culinary "hit list," which will beget even further yelp reviews.
Now I'll admit, there still might be ways to trick out the yelp system, but I think those should be easy to pick out. You're encouraged to create your own personal profile, and I'm guessing a lot of bogus reviewers aren't going to bother with that. Also, if you scope their profile and they only wrote one or two reviews since their account was created, that's probably a good tipoff that they registered only to pitch their own business.
So my goal next week is to try O'Sullivan's (an Irish-esque pub in Arlington) and maybe Ri-Ra (ditto). I'm also planning on seeing Ratatouille over the weekend, and the only place near me that's playing it is one I absolutely cannot stand (in fact, it'd be the one place where I'd actually welcome someone to buy out the business and shit out a new condo over it). But no, I'm gonna go in with an open mind, and write an honest evaluation of that theater.
But I think I gotta premonition on how that's gonna turn out...
I can't wait!
Thursday, June 28, 2007
Catching up!
Okay, so it's been a while since I've posted (I'm sure the two of you who read this were on the edges of your seats with anticipation of when I'd make my next post!).
I've been spending an awful lot of money on clothes and shoes lately. I do tend to be a bit of a clotheshorse. But I realized I needed some nice summertime shirts, and while I was at it, decided I could use a few pairs of designer jeans, shoes, socks, and it all kind of turned into a snowball hurling down a mountain... slow and small at first, but then gains velocity and soon spirals out of control.
I've only been a fashionista for a few years. It's not that I wasn't particularly well-dressed before then (far from it), but my wardrobe didn't have much variety outside of suits and officewear. For years, plaid lumberjack shirts and jeans were my fall/winter staples. I think two pairs of shorts and a few casual shirts were my summer "wardrobe."
All that changed when I got to grad school. For some reason, I figured I needed to dress to impress. So I slowly started to acquire casual sportcoats, jeans made from places besides the Gap, colorful casual shirts, and most of all, shoes.
You see, like most guys, I was able to get by with only a few pairs of shoes. I had a pair of dress shoes, one or two pairs of casual shoes, a pair of Timberland boots, and a pair or two of sandals. So I figure if I'm gonna spend all this money on a nice wardrobe, I really need to complement the look with decent shoes.
Now, as some of my friends know, I really, really do not like wearing shoes and socks. If I could go barefoot the rest of my life, that'd be ideal. But really, this isn't a very feasible philosophy unless you're self-employed or get to work from home. Now, if you take that into consideration, you'd probably think "okay, he's only going to get one or two semi-dressy and comfortable shoes," right?
Wrong! I think I now have over 25 pairs of shoes. Now 25 pairs of shoes for a woman might be considered self-depriving, but for a man, it reeks of excess. I can't even explain how this train started to careen out of control. I remember initially buying a pair of suede ankle boots. Years ago, I saw a nice, cognac pair of ankle boots (I think "Chelsea boots" is the formal appelation) in a Banana Republic catalogue. By the time I got to ordering them, they were completely sold out. So while I was tooling around on zappos.com a year or so ago, I found a near-identical pair. So I bought 'em. And then I noticed them in other colors. So I bought those. And then I thought to myself that suede gets dirty easily, so I should have at least one pair of nice leather shoes to go with a pair of jeans. So I bought a few pairs of Kenneth Cole Reaction shoes.
I swear, Kenneth Cole makes the nicest looking shoes that will kill your feet! I ended up getting rid of both of them because they were doing a number on my pinky toes. And I'd still try and jam my feet into them because, well, they looked really, really good! But then I found a brand called Zengara that looked like Kenneth Coles, but were half the price. Figuring I could spare $50 just to try them out, I took a chance. And they're surprisingly comfortable. So then I proceed to buy a few more in different colors and styles.
I think in this case the reason I'm driven to excess, at least as far as shoes go, is that I'm cursed with a size 14 foot (comparisons to how that translates to other parts of my body will be cheerfully entertained!). There have been a few instances where I've seen something I liked, decided I'd sleep on it for a few days, and then be completely sold out in my size. So now I figure I gotta get while the gettin's good!
On non-clothes-related notes: I stopped by Trader Joe's last Saturday for some beer. TJ's puts out a few beers under their own label that are quite good. So I'm coming back on the Metro, and when we pull into Rosslyn, several people get on, along with this hideous smell. It smelled like pure, unwashed funk. To the point where I'm actually getting queasy. The people who got on all looked like they were getting back from working out (a few had bikes), and then something captures my attention from the corner of my eye. Now to give you a point of reference, I'm sitting on one of the seats next to the doors that runs parallel to the walls of the train (it's called priority seating. Anyone can sit there, but if an elderly or handicapped person gets on, you're supposed to let them have the seat). There's a dude leaning on the plexiglass partition that separates the priority seating from the door, and it looks like he's leaning over.
No, wait, he's bending down and pressing his ASS AGAINST THE PARTITION. ON LEVEL WITH MY FACE!!! This fucker decides he needs to do a cool-down, stat, and the train would make a good a place as any. So Sir Douchealot is presenting his ass to me and stretching his hams, and I put two and two together: this is where the stank is coming from.
I ended up getting off one stop early...
I've been spending an awful lot of money on clothes and shoes lately. I do tend to be a bit of a clotheshorse. But I realized I needed some nice summertime shirts, and while I was at it, decided I could use a few pairs of designer jeans, shoes, socks, and it all kind of turned into a snowball hurling down a mountain... slow and small at first, but then gains velocity and soon spirals out of control.
I've only been a fashionista for a few years. It's not that I wasn't particularly well-dressed before then (far from it), but my wardrobe didn't have much variety outside of suits and officewear. For years, plaid lumberjack shirts and jeans were my fall/winter staples. I think two pairs of shorts and a few casual shirts were my summer "wardrobe."
All that changed when I got to grad school. For some reason, I figured I needed to dress to impress. So I slowly started to acquire casual sportcoats, jeans made from places besides the Gap, colorful casual shirts, and most of all, shoes.
You see, like most guys, I was able to get by with only a few pairs of shoes. I had a pair of dress shoes, one or two pairs of casual shoes, a pair of Timberland boots, and a pair or two of sandals. So I figure if I'm gonna spend all this money on a nice wardrobe, I really need to complement the look with decent shoes.
Now, as some of my friends know, I really, really do not like wearing shoes and socks. If I could go barefoot the rest of my life, that'd be ideal. But really, this isn't a very feasible philosophy unless you're self-employed or get to work from home. Now, if you take that into consideration, you'd probably think "okay, he's only going to get one or two semi-dressy and comfortable shoes," right?
Wrong! I think I now have over 25 pairs of shoes. Now 25 pairs of shoes for a woman might be considered self-depriving, but for a man, it reeks of excess. I can't even explain how this train started to careen out of control. I remember initially buying a pair of suede ankle boots. Years ago, I saw a nice, cognac pair of ankle boots (I think "Chelsea boots" is the formal appelation) in a Banana Republic catalogue. By the time I got to ordering them, they were completely sold out. So while I was tooling around on zappos.com a year or so ago, I found a near-identical pair. So I bought 'em. And then I noticed them in other colors. So I bought those. And then I thought to myself that suede gets dirty easily, so I should have at least one pair of nice leather shoes to go with a pair of jeans. So I bought a few pairs of Kenneth Cole Reaction shoes.
I swear, Kenneth Cole makes the nicest looking shoes that will kill your feet! I ended up getting rid of both of them because they were doing a number on my pinky toes. And I'd still try and jam my feet into them because, well, they looked really, really good! But then I found a brand called Zengara that looked like Kenneth Coles, but were half the price. Figuring I could spare $50 just to try them out, I took a chance. And they're surprisingly comfortable. So then I proceed to buy a few more in different colors and styles.
I think in this case the reason I'm driven to excess, at least as far as shoes go, is that I'm cursed with a size 14 foot (comparisons to how that translates to other parts of my body will be cheerfully entertained!). There have been a few instances where I've seen something I liked, decided I'd sleep on it for a few days, and then be completely sold out in my size. So now I figure I gotta get while the gettin's good!
On non-clothes-related notes: I stopped by Trader Joe's last Saturday for some beer. TJ's puts out a few beers under their own label that are quite good. So I'm coming back on the Metro, and when we pull into Rosslyn, several people get on, along with this hideous smell. It smelled like pure, unwashed funk. To the point where I'm actually getting queasy. The people who got on all looked like they were getting back from working out (a few had bikes), and then something captures my attention from the corner of my eye. Now to give you a point of reference, I'm sitting on one of the seats next to the doors that runs parallel to the walls of the train (it's called priority seating. Anyone can sit there, but if an elderly or handicapped person gets on, you're supposed to let them have the seat). There's a dude leaning on the plexiglass partition that separates the priority seating from the door, and it looks like he's leaning over.
No, wait, he's bending down and pressing his ASS AGAINST THE PARTITION. ON LEVEL WITH MY FACE!!! This fucker decides he needs to do a cool-down, stat, and the train would make a good a place as any. So Sir Douchealot is presenting his ass to me and stretching his hams, and I put two and two together: this is where the stank is coming from.
I ended up getting off one stop early...
Sunday, June 17, 2007
Da' weekend!
Ahh… there’s nothing like the weekend!
Actually, this weekend has been a little more productive than most. You see, I had a friend come over today to take a few pictures of me (more on that in a bit), and let’s face it: the only time I ever clean my apartment is when there’s a woman coming over. Fortunately, since I last primped my apartment for my ex about a month ago, there really wasn’t a whole lot I needed to do. But I must say that it feels good to have a nice, clean apartment. Don’t get me wrong, my place wasn’t a pigsty or anything. Nothing rotting or decomposing. But it was nice to take a vacuum to everything, clean out my bathroom, the whole nine.
I’ve also found that I’ve been sleeping more fitfully than I have in since, well, I can’t really remember. Since last Sunday, I’ve been averaging about 8-9 hours a night. Initially I attributed that to the breakup, but even today, I’ve been sleeping longer than I’ve ever been (normally, I spend about 5 hours sleeping). What sucks is that I didn’t go to the gym yesterday or today. Normally, I go early in the morning--at least on the weekends--to avoid the crowds. But I felt no reason to get out of bed early on Saturday or Sunday. I wasn’t drunk, wasn’t depressed, wasn’t, well… anything. But I decided to listen to my body and just enjoy the extra rest. I think what this means is that I need to start going to bed at an earlier hour from now on.
It used to be that if I went to bed at 10pm, I’d just wake up around 3 or 4am wide awake. My body insisted that I was getting five or six hours, and wasn’t fooled by any attempt at an earlier bedtime. But I was pretty much late for work all last week due to my body’s desire for extra sleep, and I went to bed around 11pm last night, and was still tired when I woke up.
Oh, and today I did a little photo shoot. A friend of mine (former coworker) agreed to come over and take some pictures of me. While I really needed some updated pictures of me for the dating site I’m using, I’d also like to have at least a few recent pictures of me just to have around. That’s the thing with men: we’re usually not known for picture-taking. Now while I’ll say that men are well-represented in the field of professional photography, I don’t think that ability (or desire) trickles down to the layman. It seems that every woman's place I go to, there are tons of pictures of her and her friends on the wall, and usually a photo album or two on the coffee table. Pretty much the only photos I have of me are those some woman took of me. Hell, earlier last year, I was going through some old books, and found a grammar book that I don’t recall ever using. So while I’m skimming through it, out pops a photo. It really took me back. It was a picture of me (all of 19 years old) and a close friend at the time that was, you guessed it, snapped by a woman.
I’ve also been plopping money down on some video games. I’m not a video game junkie, but my current system is a Gamecube, and they’re not making them any more. So I figure I’ll just pick up the last few games I need and then my collection’s complete!
Things could be more exciting, but they could be more tragic, too.
I’ll chose the former over the latter every single time…
Actually, this weekend has been a little more productive than most. You see, I had a friend come over today to take a few pictures of me (more on that in a bit), and let’s face it: the only time I ever clean my apartment is when there’s a woman coming over. Fortunately, since I last primped my apartment for my ex about a month ago, there really wasn’t a whole lot I needed to do. But I must say that it feels good to have a nice, clean apartment. Don’t get me wrong, my place wasn’t a pigsty or anything. Nothing rotting or decomposing. But it was nice to take a vacuum to everything, clean out my bathroom, the whole nine.
I’ve also found that I’ve been sleeping more fitfully than I have in since, well, I can’t really remember. Since last Sunday, I’ve been averaging about 8-9 hours a night. Initially I attributed that to the breakup, but even today, I’ve been sleeping longer than I’ve ever been (normally, I spend about 5 hours sleeping). What sucks is that I didn’t go to the gym yesterday or today. Normally, I go early in the morning--at least on the weekends--to avoid the crowds. But I felt no reason to get out of bed early on Saturday or Sunday. I wasn’t drunk, wasn’t depressed, wasn’t, well… anything. But I decided to listen to my body and just enjoy the extra rest. I think what this means is that I need to start going to bed at an earlier hour from now on.
It used to be that if I went to bed at 10pm, I’d just wake up around 3 or 4am wide awake. My body insisted that I was getting five or six hours, and wasn’t fooled by any attempt at an earlier bedtime. But I was pretty much late for work all last week due to my body’s desire for extra sleep, and I went to bed around 11pm last night, and was still tired when I woke up.
Oh, and today I did a little photo shoot. A friend of mine (former coworker) agreed to come over and take some pictures of me. While I really needed some updated pictures of me for the dating site I’m using, I’d also like to have at least a few recent pictures of me just to have around. That’s the thing with men: we’re usually not known for picture-taking. Now while I’ll say that men are well-represented in the field of professional photography, I don’t think that ability (or desire) trickles down to the layman. It seems that every woman's place I go to, there are tons of pictures of her and her friends on the wall, and usually a photo album or two on the coffee table. Pretty much the only photos I have of me are those some woman took of me. Hell, earlier last year, I was going through some old books, and found a grammar book that I don’t recall ever using. So while I’m skimming through it, out pops a photo. It really took me back. It was a picture of me (all of 19 years old) and a close friend at the time that was, you guessed it, snapped by a woman.
I’ve also been plopping money down on some video games. I’m not a video game junkie, but my current system is a Gamecube, and they’re not making them any more. So I figure I’ll just pick up the last few games I need and then my collection’s complete!
Things could be more exciting, but they could be more tragic, too.
I’ll chose the former over the latter every single time…
Thursday, June 14, 2007
Rehashed for your pleasure!
I'd actually started keeping a blog on myspace, but decided to become more ambitious and try blogger out. Since I'm still proud of my former myspace posts, I've combined them all here for this, my first, official blog entry. Enjoy!
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
Quite the gourmet!
Current mood: content
For the first few years after moving down to DC, I never did any cooking. My first place was, how should I put it... teeming with critters courtesy of my filthpot of a downstairs neighbor. Stuff with more than four legs freaks me out, and I basically stopped cooking for myself only a few weeks after moving into my first apartment. Also at this time, I became hooked on Popeye's Chicken. For those of you who don't know what Popeye's is, I truly pity you. Thou must go and procureth a box three spans wide and one cubit high, and feast upon the crunchy goodness and walk through the valley of the shadow of arteriosclerosis for ever and ever, so sayeth me.
But really, Popeye's tastes like your mouth threw a party and everyone you know was invited. So I'd trudge there once every Saturday to get my fix on, and follow it up on Sunday with a Meat Lover's pizza. So after a few years, my body showed what appreciation it had for all this food by making me look absolutely disgusting. I once had a dream where I was wandering about, and someone handed me a Gold's Gym membership like it was a tablet from Moses (no joke). I decided that this was probably a premonition, so I did two things: join the gym, and cut back on fatty foods.
Now, the first part is easy. Get your butt over to the gym and start sweating Crisco. But for someone who was essentially a culinary virgin, the second part was a little more tough. I started out with boneless spare ribs. A few of them are filling, nowhere near the size of a steak, and cook very easily. But I realized I couldn't subside on just that, delicious as it was. But then I thought: hey, I looove fried chicken. If I were to cook it myself, in the oven, I'd still get great-tasting food, but nowhere near the amount of grease, fat, and calories as the takeout stuff.
What I'm finally getting at is that after cutting my teeth on relatively easy to cook, good-tasting food, I found myself ready to tackle newer, harder to cook foods. I tried lamb, but that didn't come out so good, and with it being fairly expensive, it isn't the food that encourages me to try and try again until I get it right. Then, St. Patrick's Day came around, and I thought I'd try to cook up some Celtic soul food (I'm part Irish) in the form of corned beef.
Do you remember hearing about that soccer league in Massachusetts years back? The one where they had no goalies, they didn't keep score, and everyone got a trophy? Corned beef is the Massachusetts soccer league of food. If you know how to boil water, and keep it boiled for three hours, you're golden. And hey, it's not like you need to keep tabs on it once it's cooking. Go pay your taxes, do some laundry, plow your wife, whatever. You've got time.
So a few weeks ago, I finally realize that fish is the one thing I have left to master. Now, I used to hate fish. I mean HATE fish. Shrimp? Cool. Scallops? Cool. Calimari? Most cool. But fish? No way! But during the last year, my unit at work would get together once every so often and do lunch at a pub called Mackey's in DC. Eventually I decided to try the fish and chips, and really liked it. A quickie lunch buffet by my office, before it switched owners and screwed with the menu, sold fried whiting, and it wasn't bad either.
So now I knew that fish was the Final Frontier. It isn't the easiest thing to cook. I first tried it two weeks ago (catfish), and I think I undercooked it. I didn't get sick or anything, and it tasted okay, but it just didn't seem right. So I went out and bought some frozen pollack. The first time, I noticed a definite improvement, but it still wasn't firing on all cylinders. But the third time, tonight, was the charm! Got the temperature and time down pat, and it honestly tasted like something I'd get in a restaurant!
Now, at some point, I gotta make at least one more attempt at the lamb. The Trader Joe's by me sells decent cuts of lamb, so I might as well suck it up and try it one last time (but I'll keep an emergency batch of chorizo on hand as a backup). I always say you can't beat TJ's meat!
Wait a minute...
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
Summer doldrums
Current mood: listless
I can't put my finger on it, but it doesn't really feel like summer right now. Okay, some of you purists will argue that summer doesn't technically start for a few more weeks. School's over, therefore it must be summer, now shoo!
You know how sometimes when you have a Monday holiday, you feel off-kilter for the rest of the week 'cause your brain still thinks it's a day behind the work week? I feel like I'm a whole month off. Maybe it's because we've been having so much overcast, fairly cool weather in DC right now, and it just seems more like early May.
Plus, work's been kind of slow, too. The past few months were all kinds of busy here at work, but now it's easing up. I'm tentatively scheduled to go on three site visits this summer--basically, I'd be going to various police agencies and analyzing use of force data. Basically, I'll be spending my summer in a records room sifting through old police reports. But hey, it'll at least be air conditioned!
The healing process seems to be mostly complete, or at least that's how I feel right now. I managed to get out of bed only modestly late today, and I haven't been trying to replay the events of the past few weeks over and over again. Yet, for some reason, my apartment still feels "empty," even though I'm the only person living there and she wasn't over at my place for weeks. Maybe it's symbolic. But my Paul Verhoeven collection came in the mail yesterday, so I spent the last hours of the night watching "Soldier of Orange."
Things seriously need to pick up around here...
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
Onwards and upwards!
Current mood: contemplative
Ohhh, those words used to piss me off royally. Every time I'd meet with some sort of disapointment in my life, someone would inevitably say "oh well, it's onwards and upwards. Gotta get back on that horse!" I didn't always want to get back on that horse. Sometimes I wanted the horse to trample me like a demented rodeo clown. Not that I had a death wish, far from it. But I figure hey, if it tramples me, I might go into a coma. I like sleeping. They feed you through a tube. I like eating. You're totally blanked out from the world. I like not having to hear cutesy trite expressions.
Okay, so the two of you reading this know from the previous post that I've broken up with my girlfriend. But I can either sit on my butt and mope about it, which does no one any good, or I can get back on the frikken horse. So I reactivated my match.com profile yesterday (surprise, surprise, the former GF was active within 24 hours, so I guess she's trying to rinse me from her system too. Thought she was too busy for a relationship. I won't dwell on it. Whatever helps us heal). I dusted off my profile, freshened it up a bit, added a line towards the end about needing to find people who have the work/personal life thang goin' on, that kind of stuff (that's what I think doomed the former relationship). Then, I took the rest of the day off, called up a former coworker friend of mine, and she agreed to have a photo shoot this weekend. I have several pictures posted, but they're all pretty much the same picture, and at the office. So I'll try on a few different outfits, take some indoor and outdoor shoots, and get those posted.
In any event, I've actually heard back from two people in less than a day! So that was a real morale booster! Things might work out, they might not, but it was a nice little rush to come into work and have a few emails waiting for me.
The thing about falling off the horse is that (so I've been told) there's a real risk of getting gunshy the next time you get back on the horse. You know, you got thrown once, so you're so wound up about not getting thrown from the horse that the only thing you're doing is making sure you don't get thrown again. I need to make sure I'm not gunshy from here on in. Bringing up the old relationship, overly-reading into what a date tells me, paranoia when she doesn't return my phone call right this minute.
It's a learning experience...
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
My crappy birthday :(
Current mood: sad
As I get older, I find my birthdays to have less and less meaning. I mean, who didn't love birthdays as a kid? I'd get a crazy pile of loot (GI Joes RULED!), cake and ice cream, and all my friends would come over. But as I entered my teens, I made less of a fuss over my birthday, and now, it's just another day gone by. I don't get out and celebrate it. I just can't get excited over it.
I felt almost completely numb on this year's birthday. I ended up going to work (I think I've taken the day off only once), and it was just the most pointless thing ever. I wasn't very busy, and was in a really crappy mood all day, partly because I thought my girlfriend and I were through (more on that in a moment). I just kind of zonked out in front of my screen, time passing by in a haze. I finally went home and didn't even do anything special... I think I had a chicken cutlet and a salad for dinner. Nothing special at all.
And a few days after my birthday, I decided to call things off with my girlfriend. She hadn't been returning my messages for a few weeks, and when she reestablished contact, she kept on saying vague things like "needing some space" but not defining her terms clearly. After several missed attempts at communication, I get an email on Sunday saying she wanted to remain friends, but was moving on with her career and personal life (the woman was something of a workaholic), as that was what was important to her at the moment. I got upset, not because she said this (I had a suspicion this was in the works), but that she never made the effort to call me and talk about her concerns, as maybe we could have worked something out. I was also upset because after going out with someone for so long, I thought I at least deserved the courtesy of her decision in person, or at least over the phone. So I told her the reason I was using match.com (that's how we met) was to find a girlfriend. I already have regular friends. I told her I respected her decision, wasn't mad at her, but this was the point she and I needed to take our bows and say our goodbyes. I tried calling her to tell her this, but got her voicemail. And, I tried calling her one last time just to see if we were able to clear the air so there were no hard feelings. She eventually emailed me late that night and told me there was nothing left to discuss and to please not call or email her any more.
To be honest, I was getting more and more upset over these developments as the night wore on, but when she finally responded to me, as stark as the tone of her email was, I felt strangely at peace. Oh, I was still a little upset, but I was much more collected. So I sent her one, last email. Yeah, I know she told me not to, but I was in the process of drafting it before I got her last email. So I was a bit more clear, said I didn't appreciate her lack of communication, the fact that after going out for so long, she decides (all of a sudden) she wants to be "just friends" and doesn't even have the guts to tell me this in person. But I also told her that I had some great times with her, and there were several memories I had of her that I'd always remember.
And no, I never heard back from her...
Monday, May 28, 2007
Cooking with beer
Current mood: lazy
I like to cook. I also like beer. But for some reason, I've never combined the two. Well, not until this weekend. You see, I had a few extra bottles of beer (Sam Adams Black Lager and Boston Ale), and I finally decided to use them to marinate some boneless beef short ribs and some hamburger patties. If you've never cooked with beer, let me tell you...the smell is, well, bizarre to say the least. I had let the ribs soak overnight, and I had just put them in the oven. So while I'm starting to do a load of laundry, I begin to notice, this, well, odd aroma. Like burnt paste. It honestly started to take me back to kindergarten (not that I actually burned paste back then, just that the smell of paste conjured up vivid images from over 25 years ago). Since I live in an apartment, my first thought was that someone was burning some particularly nasty incense, most likely my next door neighbor who thinks he's really slick trying to mask the smell of weed, but isn't fooling anyone. At any rate, I went to check on the food, and the scent was absolutely overwhelming. So I guess the moral of the story is that if you cook with beer, make sure to crack a window :)
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
Quite the gourmet!
Current mood: content
For the first few years after moving down to DC, I never did any cooking. My first place was, how should I put it... teeming with critters courtesy of my filthpot of a downstairs neighbor. Stuff with more than four legs freaks me out, and I basically stopped cooking for myself only a few weeks after moving into my first apartment. Also at this time, I became hooked on Popeye's Chicken. For those of you who don't know what Popeye's is, I truly pity you. Thou must go and procureth a box three spans wide and one cubit high, and feast upon the crunchy goodness and walk through the valley of the shadow of arteriosclerosis for ever and ever, so sayeth me.
But really, Popeye's tastes like your mouth threw a party and everyone you know was invited. So I'd trudge there once every Saturday to get my fix on, and follow it up on Sunday with a Meat Lover's pizza. So after a few years, my body showed what appreciation it had for all this food by making me look absolutely disgusting. I once had a dream where I was wandering about, and someone handed me a Gold's Gym membership like it was a tablet from Moses (no joke). I decided that this was probably a premonition, so I did two things: join the gym, and cut back on fatty foods.
Now, the first part is easy. Get your butt over to the gym and start sweating Crisco. But for someone who was essentially a culinary virgin, the second part was a little more tough. I started out with boneless spare ribs. A few of them are filling, nowhere near the size of a steak, and cook very easily. But I realized I couldn't subside on just that, delicious as it was. But then I thought: hey, I looove fried chicken. If I were to cook it myself, in the oven, I'd still get great-tasting food, but nowhere near the amount of grease, fat, and calories as the takeout stuff.
What I'm finally getting at is that after cutting my teeth on relatively easy to cook, good-tasting food, I found myself ready to tackle newer, harder to cook foods. I tried lamb, but that didn't come out so good, and with it being fairly expensive, it isn't the food that encourages me to try and try again until I get it right. Then, St. Patrick's Day came around, and I thought I'd try to cook up some Celtic soul food (I'm part Irish) in the form of corned beef.
Do you remember hearing about that soccer league in Massachusetts years back? The one where they had no goalies, they didn't keep score, and everyone got a trophy? Corned beef is the Massachusetts soccer league of food. If you know how to boil water, and keep it boiled for three hours, you're golden. And hey, it's not like you need to keep tabs on it once it's cooking. Go pay your taxes, do some laundry, plow your wife, whatever. You've got time.
So a few weeks ago, I finally realize that fish is the one thing I have left to master. Now, I used to hate fish. I mean HATE fish. Shrimp? Cool. Scallops? Cool. Calimari? Most cool. But fish? No way! But during the last year, my unit at work would get together once every so often and do lunch at a pub called Mackey's in DC. Eventually I decided to try the fish and chips, and really liked it. A quickie lunch buffet by my office, before it switched owners and screwed with the menu, sold fried whiting, and it wasn't bad either.
So now I knew that fish was the Final Frontier. It isn't the easiest thing to cook. I first tried it two weeks ago (catfish), and I think I undercooked it. I didn't get sick or anything, and it tasted okay, but it just didn't seem right. So I went out and bought some frozen pollack. The first time, I noticed a definite improvement, but it still wasn't firing on all cylinders. But the third time, tonight, was the charm! Got the temperature and time down pat, and it honestly tasted like something I'd get in a restaurant!
Now, at some point, I gotta make at least one more attempt at the lamb. The Trader Joe's by me sells decent cuts of lamb, so I might as well suck it up and try it one last time (but I'll keep an emergency batch of chorizo on hand as a backup). I always say you can't beat TJ's meat!
Wait a minute...
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
Summer doldrums
Current mood: listless
I can't put my finger on it, but it doesn't really feel like summer right now. Okay, some of you purists will argue that summer doesn't technically start for a few more weeks. School's over, therefore it must be summer, now shoo!
You know how sometimes when you have a Monday holiday, you feel off-kilter for the rest of the week 'cause your brain still thinks it's a day behind the work week? I feel like I'm a whole month off. Maybe it's because we've been having so much overcast, fairly cool weather in DC right now, and it just seems more like early May.
Plus, work's been kind of slow, too. The past few months were all kinds of busy here at work, but now it's easing up. I'm tentatively scheduled to go on three site visits this summer--basically, I'd be going to various police agencies and analyzing use of force data. Basically, I'll be spending my summer in a records room sifting through old police reports. But hey, it'll at least be air conditioned!
The healing process seems to be mostly complete, or at least that's how I feel right now. I managed to get out of bed only modestly late today, and I haven't been trying to replay the events of the past few weeks over and over again. Yet, for some reason, my apartment still feels "empty," even though I'm the only person living there and she wasn't over at my place for weeks. Maybe it's symbolic. But my Paul Verhoeven collection came in the mail yesterday, so I spent the last hours of the night watching "Soldier of Orange."
Things seriously need to pick up around here...
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
Onwards and upwards!
Current mood: contemplative
Ohhh, those words used to piss me off royally. Every time I'd meet with some sort of disapointment in my life, someone would inevitably say "oh well, it's onwards and upwards. Gotta get back on that horse!" I didn't always want to get back on that horse. Sometimes I wanted the horse to trample me like a demented rodeo clown. Not that I had a death wish, far from it. But I figure hey, if it tramples me, I might go into a coma. I like sleeping. They feed you through a tube. I like eating. You're totally blanked out from the world. I like not having to hear cutesy trite expressions.
Okay, so the two of you reading this know from the previous post that I've broken up with my girlfriend. But I can either sit on my butt and mope about it, which does no one any good, or I can get back on the frikken horse. So I reactivated my match.com profile yesterday (surprise, surprise, the former GF was active within 24 hours, so I guess she's trying to rinse me from her system too. Thought she was too busy for a relationship. I won't dwell on it. Whatever helps us heal). I dusted off my profile, freshened it up a bit, added a line towards the end about needing to find people who have the work/personal life thang goin' on, that kind of stuff (that's what I think doomed the former relationship). Then, I took the rest of the day off, called up a former coworker friend of mine, and she agreed to have a photo shoot this weekend. I have several pictures posted, but they're all pretty much the same picture, and at the office. So I'll try on a few different outfits, take some indoor and outdoor shoots, and get those posted.
In any event, I've actually heard back from two people in less than a day! So that was a real morale booster! Things might work out, they might not, but it was a nice little rush to come into work and have a few emails waiting for me.
The thing about falling off the horse is that (so I've been told) there's a real risk of getting gunshy the next time you get back on the horse. You know, you got thrown once, so you're so wound up about not getting thrown from the horse that the only thing you're doing is making sure you don't get thrown again. I need to make sure I'm not gunshy from here on in. Bringing up the old relationship, overly-reading into what a date tells me, paranoia when she doesn't return my phone call right this minute.
It's a learning experience...
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
My crappy birthday :(
Current mood: sad
As I get older, I find my birthdays to have less and less meaning. I mean, who didn't love birthdays as a kid? I'd get a crazy pile of loot (GI Joes RULED!), cake and ice cream, and all my friends would come over. But as I entered my teens, I made less of a fuss over my birthday, and now, it's just another day gone by. I don't get out and celebrate it. I just can't get excited over it.
I felt almost completely numb on this year's birthday. I ended up going to work (I think I've taken the day off only once), and it was just the most pointless thing ever. I wasn't very busy, and was in a really crappy mood all day, partly because I thought my girlfriend and I were through (more on that in a moment). I just kind of zonked out in front of my screen, time passing by in a haze. I finally went home and didn't even do anything special... I think I had a chicken cutlet and a salad for dinner. Nothing special at all.
And a few days after my birthday, I decided to call things off with my girlfriend. She hadn't been returning my messages for a few weeks, and when she reestablished contact, she kept on saying vague things like "needing some space" but not defining her terms clearly. After several missed attempts at communication, I get an email on Sunday saying she wanted to remain friends, but was moving on with her career and personal life (the woman was something of a workaholic), as that was what was important to her at the moment. I got upset, not because she said this (I had a suspicion this was in the works), but that she never made the effort to call me and talk about her concerns, as maybe we could have worked something out. I was also upset because after going out with someone for so long, I thought I at least deserved the courtesy of her decision in person, or at least over the phone. So I told her the reason I was using match.com (that's how we met) was to find a girlfriend. I already have regular friends. I told her I respected her decision, wasn't mad at her, but this was the point she and I needed to take our bows and say our goodbyes. I tried calling her to tell her this, but got her voicemail. And, I tried calling her one last time just to see if we were able to clear the air so there were no hard feelings. She eventually emailed me late that night and told me there was nothing left to discuss and to please not call or email her any more.
To be honest, I was getting more and more upset over these developments as the night wore on, but when she finally responded to me, as stark as the tone of her email was, I felt strangely at peace. Oh, I was still a little upset, but I was much more collected. So I sent her one, last email. Yeah, I know she told me not to, but I was in the process of drafting it before I got her last email. So I was a bit more clear, said I didn't appreciate her lack of communication, the fact that after going out for so long, she decides (all of a sudden) she wants to be "just friends" and doesn't even have the guts to tell me this in person. But I also told her that I had some great times with her, and there were several memories I had of her that I'd always remember.
And no, I never heard back from her...
Monday, May 28, 2007
Cooking with beer
Current mood: lazy
I like to cook. I also like beer. But for some reason, I've never combined the two. Well, not until this weekend. You see, I had a few extra bottles of beer (Sam Adams Black Lager and Boston Ale), and I finally decided to use them to marinate some boneless beef short ribs and some hamburger patties. If you've never cooked with beer, let me tell you...the smell is, well, bizarre to say the least. I had let the ribs soak overnight, and I had just put them in the oven. So while I'm starting to do a load of laundry, I begin to notice, this, well, odd aroma. Like burnt paste. It honestly started to take me back to kindergarten (not that I actually burned paste back then, just that the smell of paste conjured up vivid images from over 25 years ago). Since I live in an apartment, my first thought was that someone was burning some particularly nasty incense, most likely my next door neighbor who thinks he's really slick trying to mask the smell of weed, but isn't fooling anyone. At any rate, I went to check on the food, and the scent was absolutely overwhelming. So I guess the moral of the story is that if you cook with beer, make sure to crack a window :)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)