A Black Shirt

I went to Canada three times last year. The first two trips really kicked ass, and since they were made while I still had a steady income, I ended up doing a bit of clothes shopping while I was up there during each of those trips.

(Maybe it's part of the "48% gay" component I have, according to All-Star.)

I made some odd acquisitions, in keeping with the oddness of the country. A pair of stretch-tight green pants (that I have only worn in public three times in more than a year. Giddyup.). And a couple of shirts that are different than any I'd previously purchased.

Which, I suppose, is kind of the point of shopping: to replace what you have or to expand your wardrobe.

The black shirt that is the motivation for this blog is short-sleeved. It's a slight v-neck with flattering cut and, if I have been doing my cardio, fits me pretty well. It's slightly ribbed (hehe) with subtle horizontal stripes.

The difficulty is that it is remarkably willing to absorb cat hair. I think, in fact, that it might generate cat hair. I understand (after years of experience) that black fabric often shows cat hair... but this is on another level. It's 100% cotton but I think it's been infused with some sort of magic that makes it grab light-colored cat hair.

Maybe Truman likes to snuggle it when I'm out of the house. Of course

1. I rarely leave my apartment, and
2. The shirt is usually on a hanger, and
3. Truman can barely jump up on my bed, let alone scale the walls of my closet to snuggle a single shirt.

Last night I wore the shirt after spending about 15 minutes de-hairing it. Before going out, I noticed that somehow deodorant had been smeared all over the bottom of the shirt.

It's like a really, really irrelevant episode of the Twilight Zone. Where a guy puts on a shirt and it keeps getting sullied by everyday household items. And then he blogs about it. It's like a nightmare, I know.

Maybe I should get rid of the shirt. Or shave Truman and Houdini and buy black deodorant.

Or maybe I'll just continue to wear the shirt once every couple of months and invest the 15 minutes it takes to prepare it for public viewing.

Pillow Talk

I like sleeping.

I have a deliciously comfortable bed and ridiculously high threadcount sheets. I also have a great memory foam pillow.

This is not enough, though. For whatever reason, I tend to sleep with a second pillow over my face.

About a year ago, I decided to replace my secondary pillow. I went to Bed Bath & Beyond to find a new pillow, and while I didn't know exactly what I wanted, I knew that one adjective was necessary: fluffy.

I don't like flat pillows. I don't like pillows that are stuffed with feathers or something artificial to resemble feathers. I want my pillows puffy and robust.

When I got to BB&B, it turned out that there was a sale on pillows... which was great. Since I didn't know exactly what I wanted, I knew I could look for the best value and snap that one up.

Unfortunately, I was not only generally indifferent, I was utterly ignorant. How does one find the best value? I didn't know which types of stuffing would last the longest, and I don't have allergies so I didn't need to buy hypoallergenic (in fact, if there were hyperallergenic options, I might have purchased one just as a challenge). Further, pretty much every pillow starts off pretty damn puffy.

I narrowed it down to two options. The first was a pillow that was normally like $40 and it was on sale for $25 (amounts approximate; it was a year ago). The second was a fancy-dan hypoallergenic pillow that was on sale for $40, rather than its normal $80.

Percentage-wise, the more expensive one was a better deal. But was it worth an extra $15?

I decided to do what any overeducated, gainfully employed single guy who often uses a secondary pillow and occasionally has guests that need to use a pillow: I bought both.

When I got home I popped open the wrapping on each and put on pillow cases and forgot which was which. For the first couple of months, I literally could not tell the difference. They were both fluffy, puffy, and robust.

Last week, though? I noticed that one pillow was still doing great. The other one was starting to bunch up and was overall much less fluffy, puffy, and robust. At some point, the quality difference actually showed through (big shock, huh?)

I'm not sure which is which, but I have strong suspicions that the more expensive one has lasted longer. I currently plan on kidnapping a homeless person with terrible allergies and forcing them to sleep with one pillow... if the allergies clear up, then it's the expensive one. There's nothing wrong with that plan, right?

Interestingly, at least to me, this morning I was thinking about my pillows and I was thinking about how latent deficiencies can lie dormant for months and even years before they come to light. As is my want, I considered how this might apply to friendships and other relationships.

I haven't had many "best friends" in my life. Through college, almost all of my best friends were from high school, and even though some people were added to the close friend list, I maintained contact with the key guys from high school that I was close to. Over time, of course, we've drifted apart and I've lost touch with some of them, and on a day-to-day basis I've grown closer to other people.

I've never been in a position, though, where I've looked at a friend and been confused by why we're friends. I've never "broken up" with a friend... with one glaring exception. I guess I've never "broken up" with a person that was just a friend.

And yet I know this happens. I talked to a person I know a couple months ago and she and another friend of mine had "broken up". They had been best friends since fifth grade and then... they decided they weren't going to hang out and that their friendship wasn't worth working on. I'm sure there are lots of details that I do not have and I'm not saying what they did was wrong.

It just must be an odd feeling to have a friendship that seemed so fluffy, puffy and robust suddenly feel flat and in need of replacement.

Advice

One thing that I say about once a day, as a joke, is that guys are assholes and women are crazy. I also say it about three times a day in earnest because as a general rule it's pretty true. Women are inconsistent and men are noncommunicative. Women latch on and guys only want one thing.

Assholedness and insanity are, in this case, subjective. Subjective from an individual's perspective but also from a gender's perspective. Guys have built-in biases because of the way we're socialized and biologically put together, and women are the same way. I don't claim to be free of bias nor do I claim to be entirely different than my fellow fellows in how I perceive females.

One thing that I read some time ago and that has (again, generally) proven to be true is the way the two genders communicate issues and problems... how they ask for advice and what they want from such a conversation.

Guys bring up a problem and they want an answer. A solution. Options to deal with the thing that has irritated them enough to have them bring it up.

Girls bring up things to air them out. They don't want a definite plan. They don't want an explanation and/or excuses. They just need to be heard.

Again, those are generalities. Sometimes a guy just wants to vent. Sometimes a chick wants help writing an email or some other specific task. But not usually.

For whatever reason (maybe it's my "safe" demeanor, maybe it's my wit, maybe it's my online omnipresence) I am entrusted with some details of my friends' lives. And details of acquaintainces' lives. Once one is so entrusted, the next logical step is to be asked for advice.

For me, personally, I appreciate that I am deemed trustworthy, and I take the things that I know pretty darn seriously. I also enjoy being posed with problems and issues to help sort through and expound upon... which is odd, given that most of the problems and issues are (as the name implies) problems.

I would love to have someone ask me the best way to spend their lottery winnings. I love it when people have two job offers and ask me which one would be better for them to take. Unfortunately, these situations are much less common than when a female friend doesn't get treated well by a guy who asked for her number or when a friend is stressed out because she just lost her job.

Maybe I can take solace in the fact that I'm helping minimize damage that life is doing... I'm helping a friend get to a place of lesser evil. Anyway, I rarely find it a burden.

It can be stressful, though, especially when it's a guy. Guys more often actually will act on advice I give them, and that puts me in a position where I could be held accountable if the plans blow up.

Chicks ask about more general things, and while the problems seem to be more severe, talking about them is easier for me. Much of the time it's like a grade school reading assignment where a student takes the provided facts and fills in an outline:

1. STATED PROBLEM
   A. Why it's bad
   ...
   B. Why it might be a good thing
2. OPTIONS
3. NEXT STEPS

That sort of thing. I don't mean to minimize the importance of what goes in there, but I think that I can often add value in times of stress just by helping my friend organize her thoughts. I am invariably more distant from the problem, which allows me to be more dispassionate. Plus I'm a robot, so that helps.

When it comes to the substance of the advice I give? I do my best. Given my... limited success at relationships, it's remarkable how often I'm asked for advice on that front. If I were asked about taking a standardized test? Or about a major professional American sporting league? I'd have some subject matter expertise. Unfortunately, most of the time I'm just winging it.

That's why I prefer to give advice to women: they soak up whatever I have to say and they chew on it until it's nearly unrecognizable as my advice. If things go wrong, they rarely blame me, but if things work out? I swoop in and take the credit.

It's a pretty good deal for me.

Second Chance

(Quick preamble: this blog violates what has been, to this point, a pretty inviolate rule of my blog: don't write about women that I'm currently (or may be soon) dating. The reasons for that are pretty obvious, and the only time I remember violating it was with the "Fuck Off Now" girl immediately after she sent that txt to me over two years ago. That post was an effort to vent and also to explain to her that I wasn't evil and she had misjudged me. It totally worked, for the record, for about another two weeks before she crazied out on me again.

This blog is also atypical in that I can't recall the same level of detail that I normally do. Even when I'm drunk, the things I blog about are pretty accurately reflected; I have a reasonably good memory. In this case, though, the first part of the narrative was sort of dumped from my memory because I thought the story was over. I am making every effort to recreate it, but please understand I might have some of the details wrong.)

There are advantages and disadvantages of going to the same bar repeatedly. At least it does for me. It's great to (cue up the Cheers theme song) feel comfortable and to know the people that work there. To bump into other regulars and semi-regulars while meeting a lot of new people who, for whatever reason, don't like to sing karaoke at the same bar multiple times a week.

The downside, of course, is when you don't get along with the same people you see so often. I've been very fortunate in that I have managed to avoid conflict with the management and staff of Ozzie's, and, for the most part, the people I've met there.

An awkward thing is when I meet a girl and I talk to a girl and things with that girl don't go well. Then I see that girl again a week or a month or a year later and I remember her. I remember her name and I remember most of the things that we talked about. And I remember that we didn't get along well. Ignore her? Act like old buddies? Challenge her to an open mic freestyle rap-off?

Awkward, I tell you.

Less common but perhaps even more awkward is when I meet a girl and I talk to a girl and things with that girl do go well. I get her number and I think that we're going to hang out and then... she doesn't get back to me. Doesn't return phone calls or txt messages or the tin can telephone line I set up between our apartments.

There's no blame here. I'm not upset that sometimes women just aren't interested or energetic enough to get back to me. It still can be awkward... because it can be me making a fool of myself over trying to win over a girl that I thought I'd already won over the first time.

I experienced one of these "second chances" recently.

I met her several weeks back at (shockingly enough) Ozzie's. There was a gaggle of attractive females surrounded by dudes and in that situation it's tough to break the ice... even once one penetrates the thick outer shell of the guy there is a sticky membrane of females that can create problems.

So although I noticed Headband, I just admired her from afar. From afar, that is, until she made a pretty hilarious (and loud) wisecrack.

There are different reasons people sing any given song. Sometimes it's for their buddies and they know the crowd will love it. Sometimes it's a special song for their significant other. Sometimes they want people to dance. Sometimes they just want to sing a particular fucking song.

That night, a random chick was singing a song that didn't really fit into any of those categories. It was a slow song that no one knew and she was about a third of the way through it when she implored the disinterested crowd with a, "Come on! Get into it!"

To which Headband replied into the near-silence, "Pick another song next time. Jesus!"

Normally I don't support heckling. I think it's rude and negativity that's just not cool.

In this case, though? I liked it. I liked it because it was totally true and I liked it because it gave me an opening to talk to a very cute chick.

So I approached her. I razzed her about her jibe, which I heard from across the room.

That was the first of a few conversations that we had throughout the night. In spite of dudes swarming her and in spite of two of her female friends attempting to cockblock me, I left the bar with her number and the feeling that we were probably going to go out.

All of that is pretty clear in my head.

What's less clear is the ways that I followed up with her.

I've received a few numbers from girls in my day, which has resulted in some experience in calling and txting to follow-up. I wouldn't say I'm an expert, by any means, but I'm over the quivering terror of asking out a woman.

The absence of that terror, though, doesn't mean that I'm casual about it, mentally. My memory seems to get messed up and what I say in a voicemail or txt to a chick gets jumbled in my head after I do it. Maybe this is how many people live their lives normally, but I'm not used to it. Heh.

I think that this was the series of communications that I left:

• Txted her the next afternoon (a Sunday), letting her know who I was and making a callback joke and telling her I'd call her later.
• I called her that night. No answer, but I was relieved that it was a legit phone number. (I actually haven't received a fake number to date... it's still a concern every time, though.) I asked her to call back.
• Waited a couple of days. Nothing from her, so I pinged her with another txt.
• A week or so later, after no answer, I threw what is a bit of a hail mary pass. I called one last time. I promised that I wouldn't keep bugging her, but I wanted to make sure she got my messages and encouraging her to check out my blog. I left the URL and everything and joked self-deprecatingly about what a geek I was.

I was zero percent surprised that she didn't get back to me. I mean... really. My blog URL? Wtf?

Fast forward several weeks. I was, once again, upstairs. Headband was back. She was there with a female friend and a couple of guys. It looked like a double date... which didn't help the potential awkwardness.

She was parked in the booth for much of the time she was there, but at one point she went to the bar and our eyes locked for a moment and I mouthed "Hello, Headband." Actually, I used her name, but she probably would have been able to figure out I was talking to her.

I thought that was it. I thought that I'd just managed to make a huge ass of myself and I certainly didn't want to spoil her date and/or enjoyment of the bar.

Shockingly, she approached me immediately after. Our conversation went something like this (gray voice is back, after all these months, with what I was thinking):

Her: Hi.
Me: Holy crap. You actually came over to say "hi" and aren't acting creeped out!
Me: Hey, Headband. Do you remember me?
Her: Yes... Ed, right?
Me: Wow. Yeah.
Me: Wow. Yeah.
Her: I'm sorry that I didn't get back to you.
Me: Yeah, yeah... whatever.
Me: ...
Her: I hate voicemails and I just don't get back sometimes and ... your blog's hilarious.
Me: You had me at "I hate voicemails."
Me: I hate voicemails, too... wait. You read my blog?
Her: So I'm sorry I didn't get back to you.
Me: Damn straight my blog's hilarious. You've got a good sense of humor.
Me: *shrug* So should I txt you again?
Her: *shrugging and smiling* I don't know.
Me: Oh, boy. You're totally screwing me over here. But you're so cute...
Me: OK. Let me ask you this: are you still single?
Her: Yes.
Me: OK. I'm txting you, then.
Me: OK. I'm txting you, then.
Her: *smiling* No guarantees...
Me: Are there ever?
Me: I get it. It's cool. So... you liked my blog?

And then... it was my turn to sing. I didn't talk to her the rest of the night.

I txted her the next day, though. And she txted back...

Sometimes second chances are good.

Beating Around the Bush

I studied Japanese way back in the day. I actually took two years of beginning Japanese, but very little of it stuck. I can "read" some hiragana by sounding it out... I can even write some. I have no idea what it means, though.

One thing that I walked away with remembering is that some words needed to be "softened". Sushi, for example, is "sushi" in Japanese (big shock) but when the word is used in conversation it is preceded with an "o", so it becomes "osushi". I'm not quite sure why that is... but it is.

There is a way to dance around certain words ("he's a little shit", for example) as well as entire topics in English. One example of this is trying to determine if a chick has a boyfriend.

While it is certainly possible to directly ask, "Do you have a boyfriend?" there is something that tends to be offputting about that question. Maybe it's the fact that much of the time a guy is talking to a girl hoping she's single and if/when it's revealed she's not, he will leave her alone. Maybe it's because women (whether single or not) often like the affirmation of being talked to by a guy (that they choose to talk to; note that unless a guy starts off with "Do you have a boyfriend?" straightaway, she's generally had a chance to disengage). Maybe it's because guys don't like being rejected directly, even if it's through no fault of their own.

So questions/statements like these have emerged:

• "A chick with a boyfriend shouldn't be able to smile like that in public. It's not fair for single dudes."
• "What does your boyfriend think about that?"
• "How's your date going?"
• "You're kinda short. How tall is your boyfriend?"
• "Is that your brother?"

Clearly some of them are pretty close to the actual question. None of these are really intended to fool a girl into thinking that, in essence, a guy is not asking, "Do you have a boyfriend?" But I doubt the Japanese are trying to fool anyone into thinking it's not sushi merely by putting an "o" in front of it, either.

It's just a mutually beneficial level of subtlety that helps both sides.

Or does it? I'm rarely on the "receiving" side of subtlety (or, if I am, it's lost on me (maybe that's the more likely explanation, actually...)).

Last night I was at Ozzie's. It was close to closing and I was sitting at a table with a guy I'd seen there several times before. He just semi-butchered his song (mostly due to his alcohol consumption) but I was supportive because, after all, he is my karaoke semi-buddy. I know his name, so I owe him a modicum of emotional support. I think that's how it works.

Anyway, I started telling him about something or other, and the conversation turned to Hula Hula. The conversation went from inane to insane rather quickly. The glorious "s".

Me: It's weird... they don't even have security there! I mean, while I hope
it never happens, it's just a matter of time until there's a fight there.
Him: [deadpan] Are you saying you want to fight me?
Me: Haha. No. At least not tonight!
Him: Yeah... I'll just give you my card or something.
Me: Hehe. Uh. Yeah. Uh...
Him: And we'll have breakfast.
Me: Heh. Um. What?
Him: ...
Me: So... I gotta go... over there.

Very strange and uncomfortable. Maybe beating around the bush isn't always a good way to go from the recipient's perspective.

First Date

I grew up in a small town. My graduating class was, like, 30 people... and I'm not sure that all of those people actually received their diplomas.

Our high school limited the dating options and we weren't all that close to other schools where we shared (m)any social events and had a chance to cross-pollinate. Of course, most of my friends did have girlfriends and most did "date"... so maybe I'm blowing things out of proportion and it was just me. But I didn't really date and never had a girlfriend in high school.

I then went away to college and met my future ex-wife my freshman year. We started hanging out as sophomores and, with one brief exception, were together for many many years.

Fast forward to 2006. I'm out on my own. Our marriage is over. I have tired of World of Warcraft and I think I should, like, make myself available.

The second time I went out I met a girl and, although she hesitated to give me her number, I happily gave her my number. She was attractive and I was pleased that I hadn't scared her off. I was realistic enough to realize how uncommon it is for a woman to actually call after she declines to give her number out and then gets the guy's, but I didn't really care.

Fast forward again. Three weeks or so. It's a Sunday morning and I am bored. I decide--for the first time in my life--to go see a movie on my own. I walked some blocks to the theater to see "The DaVinci Code" and was a bit disappointed in spite of several layers of self-imposed expectation reductions.

A couple of hours after I got back, I received a call from a number I didn't recognize. I answered and it was... her. The chick from earlier in the month. (I know you never saw that coming, huh?)

We made a bit of smalltalk. She informed me that she had lost my card in her car and came across it and decided to give me a call. She asked if I had seen the DaVinci code.

I am, by my nature, an honest person. It sometimes gets me into trouble because I'd rather deal with the short-term consequences of the truth than the longer-term consequences of falsehoods.

I am also, by my nature, a guy who is interested in hot women. So I lied.

It wasn't a harmful lie, I don't think, but I easily answered, "No! I haven't. I've read the book, though. Have you seen it?"

She replied, as I knew she would, that she had not. She surprised me, though, by saying she was meeting a pair of friends on the East side to see it and wondered if I'd like to join her. That evening.

Sweet. I answered affirmatively and we made plans for her to swing by my place, park in my spot, and then us go across the water to meet her friends at the theater.

She got there on time and as we moved our cars around she explained that she had been at some sort of street fair and had a henna tattoo done. I had little idea wtf a henna tattoo was, and my confusion was compounded when she hiked up her shirt to show me the henna tatt she'd had done on her lower back.

Now... me being me now (at this time, knowing what I know and having experienced what I have), I would take the opportunity to admire her back. I might even playfully kino her a bit. Would it be pushing things a bit? Sure. But it would be fun and I would be able to apologize if I'd gone too far in response to her clear flirtation.

At the time, though? I was still trying to figure out what a henna tattoo was, and when she turned around and showed me her lower back, right there in the parking lot? Wow. I might have started blushing. I know that I stammered a bit and felt uncomfortable.

The ride to the theater went fine. We talked about where she was from and what she did for a living. We touched upon my education and career when we arrived at the movie theater.

Her friends hadn't arrived yet, and I bought our tickets (enjoying that I had bought three tickets that day for a movie I wasn't even excited to see the first time). And we stood there, waiting.

Waiting and talking. Our conversation was not ideal for either of us. It went something like this:

Me: So... do you go to the movies very often?
Her: Not really.
Me: Do
you like movies, though?
Her: Some.
Me: Ah. What kind of movies do you like?
Her: Horror movies. Scary movies.
Me: Really? Wow.
Her: Yeah.
Me: I haven't really seen that many scary movies.
Her: ...
Me: ...
Her: ...
Me: So you run? Like for fun?
Her: Yeah.
Me: Do you run marathons or anything ...?
Her: No.
Me: So you just run?
Her: Yeah.
Me: ...
Her: ...
Me: Do you read?
Her: Oh, yeah...
Me: Really? Cool. Who is your favorite author?
Her: Oh, I dunno.
Me: ...

She was a smart girl. She seemed interested in being there. She was a lot of fun to look at.

I just simply had nothng to say to her. I didn't know how to get more than four syllables at once.

Now? I'd compliment her. Make fun of her. Tell a story. Make fun of people standing around us.

Something.

Then? It was like a snowball. I had nothing else to ask. Nothing else to say. And I knew it. And I felt that she knew it. And I feared that she knew I felt that she knew it.

Oh, boy.

Her friends arrived. They seemed nice enough, but didn't seem terribly eager to talk to me, either.

We watched the movie. We agreed it was "OK".

The drive back we talked about my divorce. It was raw for me and I was a bit emotional and it was about the worst think we could have talked about on a first date... I mean, the worst if I ever hoped to go on another date with her.

We got back to my place. A nice goodnight hug. She agreed we should hang out again.

Now? I would know that she didn't mean it. Then? I actually took her at her word, rather than just that she was being nice.

We went back and forth in txts and voicemails for a while. After a couple of weeks she informed me she was seeing someone else. It was OK. I knew that I'd blown it. I wasn't sure, at the time, what I could have done differently, but I knew that I'd blown it.

Looking back I can locate several spots where I clearly blew it. I also know, looking back, I'd probably find altogether new and exciting ways to blow it if I had it to do over again.

Disasterous Doubling Down

There are different types of interactions on can have, as a single guy in a bar, with women. It's uncommon that there's an easy opportunity to approach a woman that you've never met. It's uncommon to have that woman be interested enough in you to keep talking to you. It's uncommon to have a woman's interest build over time.

But what's even less common is to do that, simultaneously, with two women.

It's not even a simple arithmetical formula, where the two success rates are independent. If this were the case, let's say that there's a 20% chance of "succeeding" with each woman... that would put the chances at:

Success only with woman #1: 16%
Success only with woman #2: 16%
Success with both women: 4%
No success: 64%

If the odds worked this way, it would make most sense to just talk to every girl in the place...

Of course, it does not. Women, damn their mysterious ways, actually pay attention to their surroundings and for some reason don't really appreciate it when a dude is going from one woman to another right in front of them... whether they have any claim on the guy or not.

I don't have the exact equation as to how well the real success rates might be, but I'd guess it's something like this:

Success only with woman #1: 2%
Success only with woman #2: 2%
Success with both women: 2%
No success: 94%

The relatively high "double success" is based on geography (columns, lots of people, smoke machines) creating a near-independent experience.

Because I am a man of science (at least a bachelor of one), I rarely try to "double dip" this way. Because, however, I am also a man of alcohol it's not entirely unheard of for me to attempt to do so. This blog is a brief overview of one such attempt.

Study, if you will, the following chart. Enjoy the Easter-like colors and the Copperplate Gothic font. Savor the near-Tufte-like ability to capture a total plane wreck in Excel form.



A sign of a great chart is the ability to immediately tell what the chart is representing. Since that is clearly a great chart (it took me about seven minutes to make... it better be great!) you clearly could tell that I (a) interacted with two different women, and (b) went down in flames with both.

I've broken the evening down into three phases so I could flesh it out with detail.

This was a few weeks ago at Hula Hula, a Lower Queen Anne-area karaoke bar. I was there with Buddy One, and I had imbibed a little more alcohol than normal. When I saw my buddy The Waiter sitting with three women at a table, I rolled up and thought nothing of talking to the closest one.

She was blond and seemed friendly. She's plotted on the above chart as the black line. She started off at a "0" friendliness level towards me. Not because there's anything wrong with her (that I know of ) or with me (that she knew of) but because she was apathetic. Indifferent. Whatever.

We made small talk and a song was being sung that she evidently wanted to dance to. After about 2.4 seconds of, "No! I don't d--", I caved and we were dancing. This is Phase One. Note the sharp increase as she led me to the dance floor, and the slightly reduced slope as she saw that I wasn't very good at dancing.

After the song was over, we moved onto Phase Two of the graph and I moved onto the second girl.

Yep. Smart.

Anyway. Phase Two started off with us coming back to the table where the Waiter, Buddy One and the other two girls were all seated. As we sat down, I started talking to the second girl, who is the red line in the graph, above.

Note that at first it's a net gain. The first girl knows that I can talk to other girls, and the other girl is (for whatever reason) slightly interested in talking to me more. As I failed to reengage with the first chick, though, in spite of the fact that I was making little progress with the second girl, the first one was growing more upset/less friendly.

After touching base briefly with the first chick I made a decision: to focus more on the second woman. I had a pretty good line of discussion with her (about upstate New York) and as she became more and more friendly with me, whatever interest the first girl I'd interacted with was dashed upon the rocks.

Even at this point, the night could have ended just fine. I could have walked away with a number or something. At least a nice conversation with a girl I might see out and about town again.

Remember, though, I am a man of alcohol, and I had been sipping on a rather strong rum and diet. Remember that as we examine Phase Three.

Phase Three saw, in essence, things go extremely poorly with girl two while the first girl's interest remained nonexistent (or actively negative, based on body language and unwillingness to make eye contact... hehe).

So what happened? Girl two's friend was gonna sing. She took her leave of me, stepping onto the stage to watch her friend sing. I took a big swig of my drink and looked over at her and would have sworn up and down that she motioned for me to join her... that she made a "c'mere" motion with her hand. And I, obligingly, followed her.

Unfortunately, I think that the rum was playing tricks on me. Or she changed her mind very quickly. Something. Something happened.

By the time I got to her, she had already started to relocate. Ugh. I felt so stupid. Buddy One was laughing, I hope, so at least someone was getting some joy out of the bad interaction.

After the song, some time later, we made our way back to the table with the Waiter and the girls. Girl one had snagged some other random dude (although I could sense an impending dip in the interest level in that direction, too (but was that the rum, or the reality? We'll never know...)). Girl two was there and I tried to salvage things.

It was at that point that she mentioned a boyfriend. It was at that point that I knew I had bitten off more than I could chew and had consumed more rum than I could handle.

Worry-wartEdness

I've had medical coverage for as long as I can remember. There might have been a point in my childhood where I was temporarily uncovered, but I can't recall a time in my life where I couldn't simply make a doctor's appointment and pay a co-pay, or get a dental cleaning and checkup on a regular basis.

Since I am currently self-/un-/fun-employed, I do not have medical insurance. Presumably if I blow out my knee or break my nose or get a particularly bad haircut (which, in my book, mainly consists of losing a chunk of scalp and/or ear) I will have to pay for it out of pocket. Or out of credit. Or out of thin air.

Fortunately--and I know I'm jinxing it even by typing this--I haven't needed medical insurance just yet. Potter my cat has, but fortunately he's recovering nicely and has enough strength to scratch me and my couch up with renewed vigor. It makes sense that I don't need a lot of medical care at this point... I am (relatively) young and (relatively) fit and rarely stray from my apartment during the daylight hours.

In fact, from a health perspective I'm better than I've been in a while. Because I can sleep at the drop of a hat and/or whenever I feel bored or the least bit unwell, I've managed to go my entire funemployment period without a single significant bout of cold-, flu-, or Lupus-like symptoms.

Surrounded (virtually) as I am by people who have been fighting off these afflictions (not Lupus, of course; most people know that it's the "quicksand of afflictions" and is best handled by just relaxing and waiting for someone to throw you a vine) I feel a bit bad, but my advice to "quit your job!" is rarely taken.

In any case, in spite of the fact that I feel healthy and in spite of the fact that I rarely will need, statistically, a doctor, my lack of medical insurance has impacted small things in my life.

I'm more aware, now, of when I cut open a plastic-wrapped frozen pizza, for example. While I'm sure slicing my arm open with a knife is no fun whether one has medical insurance or not, I am even more careful now to cut away from myself to avoid the financial pinch that a physical slice would cause.

Another example is my right shoulder. While I'm not sure exactly when and where I first tweaked it (my suspicion is playing Tennis and Bowling on the Wii at Buddy One's place some months back), I occasionally have mini-panics about it suddenly being rendered inoperable... I don't even know why it pops and grinds when I do certain things with it, and I'm not sure how or why it would be rendered inoperable, but still I worry. It still works just fine--I can lift weights, raise the roof and motion to hookers without pain--and if I avoid sleeping on my right side all night it doesn't even cause me discomfort, but still I would hate to have to go under the knife to be able to continue to raise the roof.

Because anyone who knows me knows that without a roof being raised on a regular basis, my life is just not the same.

Other crazy flashes of concern I have include:

• Paper cuts getting infected
• Me falling down the stairs at Ozzie's
• My cell phone taking out my eyeball
• A comet hitting me while I'm showering
• Neck damage from having to kiss someone's butt to get a job

And the list goes on.

If I were always this way, I'd think there was something wrong with me. Or, rather, something wrong with me in addition to the long list that has become apparent to me and those around me in the last few years. I blame my neuroticism, though, on my lack of medical insurance.

This blog isn't a complaint, however. I'm much improved as a frozen pizza opener now due to my increased diligence and thinking about the odds of a comet striking my apartment gives me something to do to pass the time.