Into the deep end with Twitter

I don't know much about Twitter. I know it's a pretty popular service that lets you update your status via the Web or cell phone and to "follow" others who do the same. I know it's pretty popular. I know I signed up for it over 8 months ago.

And I know I've only "twittered" (lower-case "t" to indicate ubiquity of the term) four time, including this afternoon.

However, starting in less than 3.5 hours, I am going to try to twitter for a whole day. After midnight, I will endeavor to twitter every 10 minutes. Just posting a status, or a running joke, or what I see. Whatever. Unless, of course, I'm asleep (there is no dream-based twitter input that I am aware of, and my phone doesn't have service there). Or, I suppose, really busy at work. Or, lastly, really really drunk.

Fuck it. I'll twitter even if I'm hammered. Unless I forget.

I will be revealed as a drunk, as a poor co-worker, and as a selfish sunofabitch... but I might be revealed as the best chance to give this planet a second chance.

Or something.

Memory + Apathy = Creeping Out Civilians

This is blog number 251. I have only been drinking for 6 months, so most of my blogs have been written while sober. In fact, I think this is blog number 3 or so made whilst I'm hammered.

This is also only the second blog where I've sent the involved parties a message letting them know that they are featured in the blog. Usually it's either featuring people I know read my blog or people I do NOT know and who will (probably) never read it.

As I just txted to Travelmate 2000, I just had an excellent mini-adventure.

In case people don't know, I've met a couple girls in the 2+ years I've been single. Well, more than a couple. Of these, I've taken a fair number out for drinks or whatever, and (as evidenced by my currently single status) most of these date situations have ended in one person not calling or not being interested in more than friendship.

Of course, these women don't disappear into the ether. They do not, as a mere result of my absence of a continued relationship with them, cease to be. Through some peculiar cosmis twist, they continue to exist and live their lives and (occasionally) cross paths with me.

Normally, that's cool.

I don't lie to people and I don't feel like I leave (m)any people on bad terms. When I see these people (women) I can look them in the eye... and, quite often, I'd be willing to take them out for dinner or drinks.

Tonight I saw a female person that I went out for drinks with. This was only once, and it was some time ago... maybe 8 or 9 months ago. She is an attractive and intelligent woman (one of my friends, shockingly enough, called her "marriage material") but she, after hanging out with me once, said she was seeing someone else and ... blah blah blah.

(I take her at her word that she was seeing someone else. For the record, thought, this was before I started drinking and my teetotalling ways rubbed some people the wrong way. Whatever.)

I'd exchanged emails with Marriage Material a couple of times, and I'd bumped into her at Ozzies, as well. We weren't MySpace friends, but I had checked out her page. Further, the first night I met her she was there with an attractive female friend--and I'm very good at remembering names and info of attractive women.

Anyway... tonight I'd been out and about town. Because I'd been slammed at work and because I spent a (dry) night hosting at Ozzies last night, I imbibed a little bit tonight. Travelmate 2000, Flowers (new nickname; previously Morpheus) and I went to Belltown before bouncing to Ozzies.

I had a reasonably good time singing and mingling and I was feeling well as I started to walk home. As I approached the corner of Mercer and 1st Ave W (headed home alone; obviously not TOO good of a night), I spotted a group of women who were dolled up, waiting for the walk sign to change.

Because I am me, and because I was drunk, I said hello. Then I noticed that Marriage Material was among the group. She remembered me and introduced me to the four (or so) other girls, and one of them was the person that I had met (briefly) that first night.

As another point of disclosure: I used to be on Match.com. I actually have at least two significant adventures, the nature of which I cannot blog about here, that arose as a result of my membership there. Although I canceled my membership there some 6 months ago, I still receive emails where the service recommends chicks that I might be interested in, in the hopes that I will sign up again and give them some money.

I mention this because about a month ago I saw that Marriage Material's friend was a recommendation. I never act upon these emails, but I look at them because Seattle is a small town, and I'm curious. And because I have a pretty good memory.

So tonight. It was five girls and me, standing at a corner. Marriage Material introduced me to the girls and I mentioned something about my company in relation to her company that I probably wouldn't have said sober. Then someone asked me how I knew her and, or maybe I just blurted out it out that, I had gone out with Marriage Material but it was when I wasn't drinking, and that maybe she had been creeped out by that.

I then proceeded to make a joke about how I started using heroin, so I'm sure she would be into me, and that heroin hadn't ever hurt anyone.

My heroin joke was met with pretty much stone silence. But I don't base my own entertainment on the reactions of others. I took it up a notch.

I turned to Marriage Material's friend and I said, "You're on Match.com, aren't you?" She kinda looked a bit surprised, and it was HILARIOUS how the group of females reacted.

One of them literally put her body between me and the friend, like because I knew that I was going to try to hump her on the sidewalk.

Another said something like, "You've got a great chance now!"

I didn't laugh at them, because I don't blame them for acting like chicks do. I explained to them that I had a pretty good memory, and that I had seen her in a recommendation email.

That didn't sit too well, and it didn't assuage their fears that I am some sort of stalker. Fortunately (for me) I don't really give a shit. They honestly seem like nice women... smart and nice and definitely attractive. I am just enjoying how, when I really act like myself, it tends to freak people out.

They proceeded north on 1st Ave W, but peeled off to the west, presumably to their car, and I laughed all the way home.

I plan on sending both Marriage Material and her friend a link to this blog. I'm sure it'll be a big hit.

Not a huge Facebook fan, but...

I have a Facebook page. I’ve spent about 0.02% of the time there that I have on MySpace... I am not a big fan of installing apps and things on my page, and without doing that there’s simply not much to Facebook.

Especially since MySpace just copies ideas (tagging images, for example) that seem to be popular. It’s like Facebook is a test bed for ideas and MySpace can just pick and choose the best ones.

Anyway... the reason I’m writing this blog is because (a) I don’t have class anymore, so I have more free time, and (b) Facebook has a cool feature that appears to be new. Of course, I check my page once a week, so maybe I’ve just missed it.

The feature cross-checks the friends lists of all of your friends and looks for shared friends. A couple of people popped right out at me, and there were a couple of random people. I enjoy the random people more.

How does my company’s former intern share a Facebook friend with a woman that lived on my floor my freshman year? I have no idea. But it’s interesting to contemplate and I wish MySpace had a similar feature.

Sonorans? More like "Snore-ans". Or something.

(Note: this blog was originally hand-scrawled onto a notepad at approximately 6:45 AM, Puerto Vallarta time, on Sunday April 6, 2008. Only minor edits dealing with "tonight"/"Saturday night" and some spelling errors have been corrected.)

I’ve never been much for dancing. Meaning I never danced except under the most dire of circumstances (my wedding, my brother’s wedding, Arbor Day 2003).

As part and parcel of the, uh, new life I’ve built/fallen into in the past 2+ years, I’ve been taking to dancing. Not, though, in what might be considered a conventional sense.

First of all: I’m not good at dancing. I’m good at standardized tests, I’m a reasonably good singer, and I can stomach five star spicy foods without difficulty. But I’m not a good dancer. I don’t have particularly good rhythm, and I don’t know (m)any moves (salsa classes never really stuck, as it turns out). I’m just not good.

But I don’t care too much. I enjoy flailing around.

I’ve heard that dancing is a vertical expression of a horizontal emotion. Maybe it’s the dearth of any sexual energy on my part when I dance that is the reason I’m so lousy... I don’t know. It’s this absence, though (of emotion, not of skill), that creates the second bit of fun I get from dancing: I enjoy seeing guys get shot down.

Don’t get me wrong: guys can try to get laid. More power to them. Whether it’s on the dance floor or at a bar or in a grocery store, guys are going to work angles. Seeing the same guys doing the same thing over and over on the dance floor (e.g., standing in place, serring a new girl, bumping into her, grinding on said new girl) gets old, though... at least for me until I embraced dudes getting shot down.

The thing is, while I don’t pursue women on the dance floor, it doesn’t mean that I’m not INTERESTED in women on the dance floor. I had an odd end to Saturday night that both makes me laugh and scratch my noggin.

Let me preface this by saying that I can only approximate times. Mexico is an unstable plane and time flows unevenly there. And I’d had rum and tequila. And no watch. (But still the unstable plane thing is mainly the reason. Along with not having a watch.)

Anyway, I got to the clib around 11:00, paid the cover of $100 pesos (about $10 US). Went to the dance floor which was full and ringed with people. Some of the people were women and some were hot. (Actually, I wonder if I saw more beautiful women in one place than I’d ever seen in one spot in my life. Maybe.) Travelmate 2000 joined me for a few hours and we made fun of bro’s getting shot down. Mostly, though, we just danced in our own little slices of the dance floor.

He left abd at about 3:30 the demographics were shifting. People from the floor were leaving and some of the drinkers/big spenders were getting closer to the floor. One group of people included about eight very, very pretty girls and an equal number of swarthy (and often quite short) dudes. Some of the girls were dancing on the edge of the (still busy) floor, next to their tables and were kinda bumping into me.

Being the nice guy that I am, I’d turn and smile and offer a "lo siento". At one point, a girl stepped a yard onto the floor and put her heel squarely into the middle of my left foot/shoe. She stumbled and I grabbed her waist gently to make sure she didn’t fall. That she was wearing what she was (and trust me, she was not dressed nor shod with balance in mind) made my chivalrous effort easier to execute... and it raised the ire of some of the dudes in the group. They didn’t go aggro, but they kinda pulled the girls back and I knew they weren’t pleased.

One chick looked at me and I smiled and said "Hola", which she returned. I kept dancing, and I could see her still looking at me, so I looked back and she said "Hola" again, to which I scrunched up my face in a "are you kidding me"-kind of look.

And then she did the unthinkable. She took a step towards me and started talking.

On the trip I just concluded, I spent probably 20 or 25 hours of dancing. I think I talked to four girls in that time, including this last one. In other words? This was uncommon.

She spoke in English. I think. Alcohol and being surrounded by Mexicans blended the languages together a bit.

She gave me a high five and claimed that we were amigos. I replied, "Amigos siempre! Claro que si!" That last big seems like it’s a phrase only Spanish students use, but fuck it.

Back to dancing I went, but the chick was approached by what was clearly that alpha male of the group (blue eyes, less indian blood, almost my height) and said something, and then like four of the group started chanting something. Not for long, and not clearly, but I think it was "Gay boy! Gay boy!" in heavy Mexican accents.

Me being mistaken for a homosexual is nothing new or particularly uncommon. I was wearing a white shirt and tight black pants. I was clean-shaven and looking kinda pretty (heh). I’d danced with myself for hours avoiding contact from drunk and ugly people and not once initiating contact.

I guess how I can see how they’d think that.

The funny thing is that the women were attractive but not anything more appealing than some of the girls I’ve dated at home... I just to remember that a tight dress on a dance floor doesn’t need to change how I act. Dancing has come to form an interesting piece of my emotional masochism.

I didn’t have the time or energy to explain this to my new BFF from Sonora. Maybe next time.

Key numbers

Here are some key numbers from our stay thus far in Mexico:

300. The aproximate bitrate of the internet connection in the hotel.

165. Number of pesos I paid for a Redbull and vodka. At about 10 pesos to the dollar, that is... fucking ridiculous.

100. Approximate number of Mexican karaoke bar visitors who sat, stunned, as I sang "Don’t Stop Believing" last night.

50. Percentage of batched images that have failed during upload as I kill time, waiting for them to finish uploading.

22. The number of times that "That’s what she said" has been offered as a joke by the four of us combined. Metareferences are not included.

13.5. Average age of girls at Senor Frogs when we went there last night. Not really, but... man. Young. Almost too young. (That’s a joke, of course. There’s no "too young" in Mexico. I looked it up.)

6. Number of gringos present last night when I sang "Don’t Stop Believing".

5. Number of songs we’ve sung, combined, at aforementioned karaoke bar.

3. Degree of sunburn on my right forearm. Damn. Missed a spot.

3. The number of nights we have remaining.

0. Number of fights and man hours spent in jail on this trip. So far.