Post twitching...

Well, I'm back after an interesting week. The head twitches and tourettes-like outbursts have subsided without medication. I'm not making this up, I think.*

I'm going to pick up where I left off with a story about a lunch that took place about a month ago. Why? Do you ask...because I can dammit. Also the story involves brown raincoats and rubber boots, nothing to sneeze at. I was just going into the movies (This is post-sushi lunch {just so you can catch up [I know, like you care**]})

I've been pretty much going to movies alone since I lost the nerve to lie about my age to the lady taking tickets for "Serpent and the Rainbow" (There is much more to say here about this movie and most of it is about Bill Pullman. The world needs more Bill Pullman.)

Hey, this was the Golden Age of the Mall. Those people who worked there could get away with anything. I was scared. I ended up seeing "Three O'Clock High"

And that sums up puberty. My friends, several of whom still bring the whole thing up every oh, five years or so, saw the cool movie and I did not. As a matter of fact, I still haven't seen that damn movie (I imagine if it happened now, there would be some sort of massive emotional release, some intense healing, relieving moment much like when the dentist scrapes and scrapes at a single tooth for like five minutes then suddenly announces: "Well, you're good, no fillings today." {There is a filling, he just remembered that he's got a tee time in 20 minutes})



Now, I relish my lone movie-going and have accepted the fact that I'll be that guy, that kind of creepy old guy that sits in the front row all by himself during the show (right in the fucking middle) on just about any matinee day.

This habit was kind of solidified during my years in restaurants where I'd get like a half-day on Monday off during the entire week and go see a noon flick. It'd be me and like 14 other creepy guys sitting as far away from each other as humanly possible (Not Pee-Wee Herman style, mind you)



One day I looked in the mirror and saw the old guys I used to feel sorry for when they showed up all by themselves. Now, I am a brown raincoat away from having families go into crisis mode when I sit near them. I have the rubber boots, so now you can relax and enjoy the mental imagery.

I do try to not go to children's movies. There are lines you can't cross, and everybody pretty much has a gun or taser these days. The whole not going to family movies bums me out sometimes, because, hey, I dig 'em. I'm actually debating renting kids so I can see "Ice Age 2: The Meltdown" (I just watched the trailer five times in a row. Prehistoric squirrel=funny Modern squirrel=scary. {How is it possible "Lawrence of Arabia" is one of my favorite movies of all time? [And another thing...watch Battlestar Galactica or I will show up raincoat, boots and all at a theater near you]})



Thank you, Sci-Fi channel. This show is so well written. Don't be turned off by the pretty girls. Besides, not my type...



Thank you, "V for Vendetta" Bottom line. Saw "The Matador" extremely well-acted. Phenomenal soundtrack, too. What's not to like about a grizzled Pierce Brosnan in a dark, dark comedy? Well, then, I packed up my boots, raincoat and poof...I was gone.






*Just so you know, I am an unreliable narrator.

**HBL= Had Brackets Left. You're not tangenting if you haven't done it with me, baby***

***I suspect my whole life is a tangent. Or that I am a ball on a pool table (thanks to angry young women everywhere for posting lyrics)

in the back room there's a lamp
that hangs over the pool table
and when the fan is on it swings
gently side to side
there's a changing constellation
of balls as we are playing
i see orion and say nothing

-Ani DiFranco reference. In which, searching for the song, I came across "Hazy Shade of Winter" (what a great moment in time, time, time, that was) by the Bangles. Let's have a moment of silence for the Bangles and the memories of my budding sexuality.



I was not a huge Susanna Hoffs fan. I dug the bassist (top left), whose name is MICHAEL STEELE, I've just found out. I'm really hoping she isn't a man right now. Why couldn't we have gotten cable like the other kids in the neighborhood? Figures. I should have just gone for the hot chick that everybody loved. As usual, I didn't. Now, I run the very real risk that in my adoloescence I had a crush on a guy in a skirt. Just fucking great.

From now on...I date models. Or obnoxious funny. However, in this instance there is nothing funny about a guy in a skirt playing bass and walking like an Egyptian. It was the two-tone hair that did it for me, btw.

****For fun...google "untouchable face." So young, so angry. Damn that rap music!

Pepito is a pet name for Joseph in Spanish, so you know. Now, for a little Steve Zahn, and if you've followed me this far, well...wow!

Night fallout

See, much scarier at night. Part II of a weekend ramble to follow.

My weekend (a pictorial part 1)

PART 1: Flair can be deadly

My weekend started with good intentions. Write a little, relax, definitely no nurses, goody trails,* pick-up trucks or pickles were in my plans.

I was supposed to have lunch with an old friend, but she wasn't available to pick up until later, so I bagged it for sushi at the Waterfront.

I know you're thinking "Why wouldn't you make time for the really hot girl?" but to be honest, this town doesn't have a whole lot going for it on the sushi front and I've been jonesing lately.




Besides, next week I can see the girl. I am a little over girls right now. As a wise person once told me: "Eat today, for tomorrow women are still going to be fucking crazy."

Actually, I don't think anyone ever told me that. I'm just having a moment. I have an inability to cope with rejection. That, and I have an inability to cope with waitresses that sit down with me at the table.

As someone who worked in the restaurant business, there are two things I can't stand about servers and familiarity.


1. The sit at the table with me people. What are you, my new best friend? Did I invite you to eat with me? I don't feel more comfortable with my server all cozy and across from me.

Aren't there other people you should be, like, I don't know, working to wait on? O.K., because I'm a guy, a small pass goes out to the really hot girl servers who sit with me.**

And this time, a small pass was given to mine (Lauren).


2. The squat at my table-top people. Now TGI Fridays asks their waiters to try to get their eye level below that of their customers because it gives the customer a sense of power and command in the waiter relationship and studies show it increases tip percentage and satisfaction levels in customers.

However, it makes your waiter look like a fucking squirrel begging for a nut.*** Am I wrong to ask my waiter to try and retain a shred of dignity and professionalism. It's just such a hard business, don't give anything away is what I'm saying, servers.

The job will beat it out of you soon enough.


3. Ha, I've overenumerated you. It is too, a word. Look it up.



That, my friends, is a beautiful plate. Unagi.**** Paradise roll.***** In a quirk of fate, I have discovered you can't bold asterisks.******

We will now pause for a moment of post-lunch agony. When I return, on to buying rubber boots and a tan raincoat. Strangely, I do not make up my life.

---------------

*I didn't know what this was when I first heard the term, but now, a new favorite. I honestly thought it had something to do with Halloween. In retropsect, I was partially right.

**At Hooters, yes I understand this is supposed to be part of their restaurant model. Ironically, the few times I've ever been to that place not one of the girls has done it at my table. It's probably because I put out the same vibe when I'm there as when I'm at a strip club: I just feel slightly sad and embarassed for everybody involved, including me.

***Do not try to feed them. I know they look cute when they look up at you like that. Just trust me. Flair can be deadly.

****Eel. I'll eat anything without eyeballs staring back at me, and even that's not a hard-and-fast-rule.

*****Heh, let me tell you. Things to do in life: 1. Become International Man of Mystery 2. Be Cryogencally Frozen. 3. Travel through Time, Backwards and Forwards......

******I tangent, sue me. Part of the charm.

Fallout

Please note the distinct lack of a 2-foot snow drift on this curve as I drove back to work today.

You can't really appreciate the cliff in this photo, either.

However, I insist this was indeed scary, trust me.

I felt so liberated by the whole experience I decided not to make my bed today. I'm crazy like that.

We interrupt this comedy for some real life

I'd rather not be dead, thank you

I forgot the first rule of driving tonight and nearly died. The first rule being of course:

1. Do not attempt to immerse your car completely in snow at 45 mph on the edge of a cliff.

I might be dead, seriously. Maybe this is some kind of ghost blog because I came around a corner on the edge of the mountain on the drive home and saw in front of me a 2-foot snow drift covering the entire road.

This was dangerous for three reasons:

1. The sneaky bit of road behind me had had NO snow on it.

2. I WAS ON THE EDGE OF A CLIFF.

3. It made my life flash before my eyes and I was momentarily distracted by St. Patty's Day 1992 when I should have been worried about the stretch of vast whiteness in my headlights.

What made it worse was that when I did realize what kind of trouble I was in, there was very little that I could do about. I Couldn't slam on the brakes because the road had snow on it (but not the big drift yet) so I had a couple of moments to really let it all sink in.

I really thought I was dead.

So quickly I said goodbye to everybody in my head and told them I loved them (yes, that was me, If you were wondering where that thought came from earlier, but I was a bit panicked so I might have broadcast a general signal, I didn't have time to really focus [there is a lumberjack in Montana having a strange dream from that, I'm sure])

And then I hit the drift and spun out of control, because you can't hit a 2-foot drift at that speed going around a corner and stay in control, I was disappointed to find out.

And then I was in the middle of the road. Stopped. A couple of hundred yards away from the drift. Only it wasn't a whole drift anymore, not that I looked, and I wasn't even injured, my car was fine.

And I thought for a moment about a girl I know, dying of cancer at 15-years old and I realized again what a gift it all is.

How many things do we walk away from in a life that she will never have?

I wonder at the courage it takes her to fight for every day, and I wish there was a less pain-filled version of all this in this thing called living, but I bet she would take pretty much anything it if it were offered.

And I don't know that there's a point to this writing except I remember so well the first time I met her.

It was a cool night and the air in the school was warm from the press of moving, vital bodies. She was pale and shy and laughed.

She was embarassed when the crowd cheered for her. Her eyes welled up and she hid her face behind her hand, but you could see she was happy.

Her family was happy, too, but it was the hard happy. The happy we, those who have seen life, know. It was guarded with darkness.

This girl smiled and held her friend's hand and waved to the crowd. The squeaking shoe noise of a basketball game broke the spell minutes later.

The air was still chilly when I left. Clouds scudded across the moon and I saw a young couple sneaking a kiss next to a car in the crowded parking lot.

My heart broke a little bit when I saw that.

I thought of that shy, pale little girl and all I wanted was for her to have one of those moments, In the cool night air, full of anything, possibility, life.

My weekend (promo)

My weekend started with sushi, led to a hilarious story about a pick-up truck driving nurse with a goody trail and ended with a jar of pickles (and I forgot to take the damn pickles)