Thursday, August 24, 2006

Onion Famine

Nobody has looked at my profile on the Onion Personals for 10 days now. I'm not sure what happened. This does not bode well. I wait for somebody to show interest, then pounce.

See, I don't send out emails asking anyone out. That's never worked. It costs 200 points to send out an email, and I'm not wild about spending my points on asking out a cold and unanswering universe. It's just as useful and much cheaper to pray for a date.

"Please god, send me a girl who likes travel, fine dining, to have a good time* but also likes a chill night at home watching a movie*."


* Are there people who dislike having a good time?
** Is she implying that watching a movie at home isn't fun?

Wednesday, August 23, 2006

Car

- I washed it for the first time today. I managed to get the spot right in front of my house this weekend. But my Saturday was full of Yuba City, my Sunday took me to Pacifica, and the other days this week have been plagued by gloomy dark clouds and cold air. But since street cleaning happens on Thursday on my side of the street, tonight was my last chance to take advantage of my proximity to the hose. So my car is shiny and clean again, but I may catch my death of cold after repeated self hosings in the cold gloomy Southern edge of San Francisco weather.

- My previously neglected emails were all getting answered this evening when I got distracted by researching cold air intakes. But upon discovering that the horsepower boost is up at 5400 RPM and that they can cause vapor lock, I switched to investigating my auto loan. And holy crap does sales tax suck. It added something along the lines of $1317.50 to the price of my car. I should have bought it in Oregon. It's going to take me a little longer that I was expecting to pay it off.

- My gigantic mirror left its mark; literally. While I was washing the car I found a divot on the top edge of my bumper. I guess that's what I ran the mirror into when I broke the bottom while getting it out of the car. I kind of felt vindicated on behalf of the car that there was only a small divot in the paint and the mirror sustained far more damage. But then I realized that both of them belong to me and that in the end I've lost both ways.

Tuesday, August 22, 2006

Girlfriend

On Friday night I had a girlfriend dream. I hate girlfriend dreams. I'm happily snuggling with somebody when I wake up to find my pillow and I having a tender moment. Not to take anything away from my pillow, the soft, squishy vixen that it is. It's just that I like my significant others to be less rectangular and pillowcased.

This particular girlfriend dream was actually just an anxiety dream. I was trying to make it home from Brazil (my dream didn't bother to explain that one) and at some point I ended up at a movie theater trying to get to my seat with my girlfriend. (This girlfriend happened to be a friend's ex-girlfriend in real life.) This was not, however, your average movie theater. Imagine a 6 story office building with a great big screen in the parking lot. Now imagine that the wall facing the screen has been removed and the seats go all the way up to the edge. As in there's no walkway to get to a front row seat. You have to climb over the other seats to get into a front row seat, and when I did my feet hung over the edge into 6 stories of nothingness. Also, the seats were too close together, so as everybody moved around and tried to get comfortable, their shoulders would touch mine and they all seemed to be forcing me forward toward the drop off. But despite my eminent death by falling 6 stories, and the fact that I was still trying to escape from Brazil, it was nice to snuggle with my friend's ex.

When I woke up I was relieved to be secure in my bed, but depressed that I have nobody to cling too incase the situation comes up in real life.

Monday, August 21, 2006

Things I saw on Saturday

-Little Miss Sunshine. It was excellent.

-A guy on the street juggling 2 flaming sticks in front of a bar. He stopped to let me pass.

-People stopping on the freeway to read those big signs that let you know about accidents and road closures. Seriously people, we need to work on our freeway literacy. I was in stop and go traffic 3 times and each time was because people were slowing down to read the sign that said the Bay Bridge would be closed over Labor Day weekend. Admittedly it's a big deal, but after you've read the sign once maybe we could just cruise on by the next 2 times.

-A nerd/punk gang from the 80s. Standing in line in front of me while trying to buy a ticket for Little Miss Sunshine were a group of 5 kids who had completely embraced their nerdatude. They ranged in age from 13 to maybe 16. And the strangest thing about this particular group was that they got their bad-ass rebellious look right out of Pretty in Pink. The youngest kid had curly blond hair hanging over his eye, a rimmed hat tipped back on his head like Duckie, one REALLY large fake diamond earring, a white undershirt, and the very sunglasses from risky business. And while they started out in front of me in line, an argument broke out about who was paying for tickets, and several of us normal people from the 2000's cut in front of them. They didn't seem to mind, or even notice.

Thursday, August 17, 2006

And may God bless me this evening as much as I would bless Him if I were He and He were Charles Dalrymple.*

In my old apartment I had a Brigadoon fly. Once in a while he would show up, fully grown, and buzz around the apartment until he died, all big and ungainly, in the track of the sliding glass door. He never appeared small and grew large. He was full size or he wasn't there at all.

In my new apartment I seem to have a Brigadoon daddy long legs. He appears every so often fully grown in my shower. If he were to appear fully grown by my front door, he might get politely ushered into the garage. But if you're a spider, and I'm naked when I discover you, you are going to die.

I have a theory on why and how the Brigadoon spiders keep appearing. I think that there is an alternate dimension ruled by Spider Command and they happen to have access to an interdimensional portal. Alas, spider world is running out of food, and their plan to combat hunger is to capture a fully grown person. The clothes would be too much trouble to get off when feeding the multitudes, so they send their biggest, best, and brightest into my shower to bag me when I'm clean, fresh, and without indigestible clothing. Unfortunately they keep losing contact with their recruits. Before they can send a message back to headquarters they've been summarily sprayed with raid and flushed down the toilet. Spider Command is baffled but keeps pushing willing daddies long legs through the portal while assuring the population that everything is going smoothly.

Hooray for raid. Some of these suckers have a leg-span which is too big to safely corral inside a wad of toilet paper. Raid makes them a lot more compact, though it does make my shower time quite a bit less pleasant.



*In case you were wondering, it's a quote from Brigadoon.

Wednesday, August 16, 2006

The Fastest Way to Lose a Cleaning Deposit

I was looking through the 1 bedroom listings just now and stumbled upon an apartment I was in just this afternoon. It's only $300 a month and it's in Marin, so the rent is about $900 less than your average 1 bedroom in the area. However, there are a few reasons why I can't/won't live there.

-You have to be confined to a wheelchair to rent a unit.
-The whole place smells like (and is filled with) stubbed out cigarettes.
-There's a large bag of pee in the bedroom.

In all of my travels, today was the first time I had ever seen a big bag of pee not attached to the person who was filling it up. I happen to know this guy moved across the country, so he can't have been in such a big hurry that he couldn't properly dispose of his pee bag. Abandoned pee bags really give a room an extra jolt of creepy.

And that, my friends, is just the kind of story I find to be so plentiful in my life, and exactly the kind of story which I could never tell a date.

Tuesday, August 15, 2006

Fail Safe Diet Reminder

I just put an 80x42 inch mirror in my living room. And I managed to squeeze it into my xB. Go xB. (I also just managed to squeeze it into my living room with only has an 84 inch ceiling.)

It really makes my living room look bigger and brighter. Unfortunately I now have a full body reminder of my enormity as I walk around my apartment in my undies. I'm either going to have to wear more clothing at home or keep up the jogging.

Monday, August 14, 2006

In Search of The One

I've been updating my Onion Personals profile this evening. I've added a picture of the top half of me in a suit (the bottom half has a suit on too, it just isn't showing), a pumpkin wearing my sunglasses, and of me standing in front of a taqueria. Girls like pumpkins and taquerias right?

I've also tweaked the stuff I've written under the prompts. For instance:

The word or phrase that best describes my personality: Quaint

My most humbling moment:
P.E. class, the 7th grade. There was one day when we were all forced to take a shower, perhaps to promote good personal hygiene. Not being comfortable with public nudity at 13, I moved a little too quickly on my way back to my locker, slipped, fell, and landed hard enough on my elbow that I couldn't get myself back up to my feet. My P.E. teacher, Mr. Everheart, had to help me back to my towel. Wasn't middle school just the best?

The best or worst lie I've ever told
This is the best question ever!

I'll have to wait and see whether any of that scores me a place on anybody's hot list.

In unrelated news, I seem to have a small infestation of fruit flies. This is odd because it's been quite some time since there's been any fruit in here. And while fruit flies are right up there with the most annoying creatures on earth, I do enjoy feeling like a Ninja when I reach out and snatch one out of the air. I'm thinking about practicing with some chopsticks.

Sunday, August 13, 2006

Get a Move On

I need some exercise. I've needed some for a while, but my problem with exercise is that I hate it. Moving for the sake of moving isn't fun and makes me feel terrible afterward.

This is not to say that I want to remain stationary on my couch until the end of days. If somebody wanted to go on a hike, I'd go with them. If somebody wanted to play frisbee, I'd play with them. If somebody wanted to go running, I'd remain stationary on my couch. I hate running. Running is awful.

And yet ...

Today I went running. Turns out that running is the only exercise I can get without driving someplace and/or meeting a bunch of new people. I can open my door and run down the block until my lungs threaten to fall out, then I can walk back. Doing anything else takes too long. Running takes 13 minutes of running and 17 minutes of walking back.

If I had a membership to Baly's Total Fitness, I might go there and use their various workout equipment. It's walkable. Unfortunately health club memberships cost roughly a trillion dollars a month.

So alas, the only thing I can think of that will get my out from under my genetic gut of Damocles is running. If anybody has any special techniques that avoid the burning in my chest, the faint taste of blood, shoulder cramps, and the resulting woosey feeling that I suppose is my bad-trip version of a runner's high, then please let me know. I'd love my love handles to go away, but I don't want my cardiovascular system to leave with them.

Thursday, August 10, 2006

Constellation Under My Chin

I've decided to try shaving with a razor again. For years now I've been shaving with an electric razor, and it's been fine. But the blade has been getting dull for longer than I've lived in San Francisco, and I thought I'd give manual razoring another go.

I shaved this morning, and didn't cut myself at all. However, when I got home it looked as though I was about to spout cat whiskers, and my chin had little hair oases all over it. So I reshaved just now and managed to create 19 tiny cuts under my chin and on my upper lip.

So far I'm leaning toward old buzzy.

Wednesday, August 09, 2006

MySpace

Ah MySpace. What a pain. It's annoying that's so useful.

I greatly dislike when my email lets me know I have a message and friend request waiting for me at MySpace, but when I get there it turns out to be some hip hop group who would really like me to give their songs a whirl. Carlos, of BigSexy Ent for instance. No Carlos, no matter how big or sexy you may be, I do not want to be your friend nor attend any of your promotional events.

There's also a fair bit of porn spam on MySpace. If I get a friend request from a girl who is kind of mediumly attractive, I click on it to see who she might be. If I get a friend request from a girl who's the hottest thing since building hospital beds in the sunshine, I delete it because I don't need other peoples porn foisted on me when I'm not expecting it.

All this with the added benefit of being the slowest site on the interweb, you'd think nobody would visit. But alas, it has its uses. What do you do, for instance, if you meet somebody at a party but mistakenly come away with the impression that she is a lesbian? You look her up on MySpace, that's what.

If only I wasn't such a social Olympian*, I'd see if she wanted to get some coffee or something**.

*Olympian of the special variety.

**Something being any of the fantastic Ideas in the comments of the last post. Well, fantastic apart from the Joo's.

Sunday, August 06, 2006

Ideas

OK people. I know it's been a while, and I hate to ask you for things when I've been such a bad poster, but I beseech you: I need second date ideas.

Things to keep in mind:
-I'm not overflowing with wealth. Reasonably nice meals are a go, but renting helicopters is out.
-I don't drink. So while going for drinks might work in theory, it might be creepy for me to hand her a Jack and Coke while I sip my Shirley Temple.
-A date which stimulates conversation, or requires some non-talking time would be great. I'm not so good at keeping the conversation flow going until I get to know somebody better.

And ... brainstorm!