Blog about a blog about a conversation about online dating

Have you ever had a video camera or a Web cam that you held up to the screen? It often makes a tunnel of slightly smaller screens inside screens... it winds off to infinity and the effect is pretty cool.

Relationships (in a general sense... people interacting and storing and processing and building upon those interactions; not just "significant other"-type relationship) are sort of like that. We often react not to the person that we have a relationship, but based on how we imagine they see us.

Maybe it's just me, and maybe I'm very egocentric or shallow, but I think it's exceedingly hard to know someone and how they are going to react with any certainty, so really all we can go by is how they've acted in the past and/or how we would act.

Anyway. If anyone wants to argue with me about that perspective, let me know. In the meantime, I have a blog to write.

This blog is slightly special, because it's a blog about a blog. A blog someone else wrote about a conversation with me.

I write a ton of blogs about conversations with people I know or barely know or don't know at all. I try to be pretty accurate with what they say, but I can usually only guess as to what they think. I'm sure I've distorted or misheard or misrepresented plenty of people on this blog, but it's for the greater good, right?

The greater good of making myself feel better and/or making readers laugh so they'll make me feel better.

Some background: I used to be pretty active on online dating. Match.com,Yahoo Personals, PlentyofFish.com, OKCupid.com, and the Stranger's Lovelab. (No, those links are NOT to my profiles, which may or may not be active...) I didn't know a lot of people--let alone girls--and I felt it was a good way to meet women. It actually was, but I don't have the patience to inexplicably get shot down by thirty girls for every one that responded.

I actually had the most success with women who contacted me first. These "unsoliciteds" were not commonly my cup of tea, but when they contacted me first and I found them cool and attractive? Good times, indeed. I haven't really checked my profiles regularly for over a year, and haven't gone on a date from one of the services since... hm... January 4, 2008.

But that's another blog.

In any event, I was poking around on the Web today. I got a promotional code for free Google AdWords advertising, so I was setting it up for my blog, and I was searching different keywords to see what showed up.

With "Seattle dating blog", I saw a link to the Seattle PI, and from there to a blog about Seattle dating. It was dated April 25, 2008. And it was written by a woman that looked vaguely familiar. So I read it and started to smile. It went something like this:

At a bar in my neighborhood last night, some guy kept catching my eye and eventually ended up standing next to me in the cramped, crowded popularity of Thursday night Ladies Night. It wasn't long before he made his move...

"Do I know you from somewhere?" he asked.

In a brief second, I studied his eyes and features for any ounce of recognition. Nope. I shook my head and turned back around to the attention of SMT and the inebriated crowd, swaying and jittering on the dance floor.

"Yes I do! The Stranger online...like a year ago...and you were at [insert another neighborhood bar here] last week!" he exclaimed.

Uh.

Yes and yes. Weird.

First of all: yes, I was the person that had that conversation with her.

Secondly: I wasn't "making my move". I was gonna ask her how Lovelab turned out for her, and if she didn't remember me I was looking forward to making her a bit uncomfortable. Because that's what I do.

I remember things and I make people uncomfortable.

For the record: she messaged me first. Also for the record, I think I replied semi-drunkenly and very suggestively and never heard back from her.

It makes me wonder what other blogs I'm anonymously playing the creepy dude in. Probably none, right?

Right?

"I didn't stick the landing. The landing stuck me."

Yesterday, as it turned out, was a long flashback to my college days.

In college I played a lot of basketball and I did odd things to occupy my time in between naps (I occasionally appeared in classes, too, but that was pretty uncommon).

One of the things I did was monkey around a bit with the quadratic equation. Specifically, I wanted to be able to do a square of any integer between 1 and 100. It might have been easier to just memorize all 100 possible answers, but I enjoyed doing the a² -2ab + b² math in my head, and I was reasonably good at it. No more, of course, because I've let the skill go to seed.

Another thing I enjoyed doing was kicking the ceiling. Literally trying to kick the ceiling by jumping and kicking upwards. I was able to do it, with some practice, relatively consistently in our dorm.

Yesterday demonstrated that, shockingly, physical skills can atrophy the same way arithmetic ones can.

I first got a hint at the end of my work day. I was being shot for our company's Web site and (because we're a cool place to work and they want us to share some of our personality) I was asked to bring three props. I brought a microphone (karaoke reference), a pair of books (a William Henry Harrison bio and a Talleyrand bio, to demonstrate that I can read), and a basketball.

The basketball was not to show that I played basketball... that would be too far-fetched nowadays. It was because I had written a bit about my love for the Blazers in my bio, and I thought it would be interesting to pose with the ol' Spaulding.

I had planned on spinning the ball on my finger and palming the ball, holding it towards the camera. Both of those things are relatively easy for me to do. Or at least they were.

My hands felt small and dry and weak at first as I struggled to palm the ball, and even when I eventually got the hang of it, I knew that I lacked the fluidity with the effort that I used to have when I played ball regularly. Spinning the ball on my finger went a little better, but I still had some lingering disdain for my lack of skill.

It was almost enough for me to tell myself I needed to start playing again. Almost. I would rather not set up expectations I will not meet, so I didn't do it.

After work I got in a quick nap at Buddy One's place (he still needs a better codename, I know; sorry...) and we went out and about Capitol Hill with some other friends.

We bumped into All-Star and Dos Claves at one place, and I took to talking to Dos Claves. She is a really sweet person I've known for about seven months who recently moved into the city for grad school... and somehow, some way, we started talking about kicking stuff above our heads.

Normally, when I say something like "somehow, some way", I'm self-editing because it's embarrassing or personal or whatever. In this case? I have NO idea how it came up. For my part, it was probably because I had been drinking and she's adorable and that combination sometimes makes me talk about odd things. I'm not sure what her excuse was.

In any event, I said that I'd be able to kick the top of a standard door lintel (edited from earlier incorrect use of "jamb", which is the SIDE of a doorway)... I could, after all, kick the CEILING when I was in college, and this was going to be six or eight inches lower. No problem, right? Additionally, where were we going to find a door lintel in that bar?

Well, Dos Claves was determined to see me try and show me that SHE could do it, too, so she dragged me over to the ladies' restroom and opened the door. And told me to go for it.

Fortunately, I didn't think about it. I didn't think about the odds against me being able to succeed, because if I had thought about it, I might have chickened out. And no one likes a chicken.

I didn't think about the people in the bar who might be confused, or about the fact that I was staring right into the ladies' room. I didn't think about the fact that I was wearing rather tight jeans or that I had consumed a reasonably robust amount of alcohol. I didn't think about how freaking long it had been since I'd tried anything like that.

Fortunate, right? Hmm. Maybe.

I took my phone out of my pocket and I was ready to go. I leaped and kicked and ... didn't quite do it.

I was high enough, definitely. I saw my foot flick significantly higher than the door lintel. But my depth perception was bad, and I kicked about six inches (three inches? I dunno) in front of the target.

And then I fell.

I fell down hard on my left side. Shooting pain from my hip and my ankle (which had slightly turned). And suppressed gasps and evil cackles from my group of friends, who had evidently caught site of me biting it right in front of the (open) door to the little girls' room.

Dos Claves had to repeatedly kick the door lintel, because I was distracted by the pain in my hip and kept missing her good work. After I congratulated her, she acknowledged that I had succeeded on a spiritual level, even if technically I did not.

My hip still hurts, but it was so worth it.

Miracle Whip: Genius or Madness?

"We are Miracle Whip, and we will not tone it down."

Thus spaketh some voiceover talent into a microphone somewhere in the world. He read from a script that had been approved by someone who works (or worked, perhaps) at Kraft Foods, or some subsidiary. The approved script had been written by some guy (it's possible that it's a woman, but my gut tells me the odds are that it was a guy) who was working with a tag line that had been put forth within the advertising agency of McGarryBowen, and the tag line was may have been derived from looking at a SWOT analysis of the Miracle Whip product and brand.

Question: "What are the strengths of Miracle Whip?"
Apparent Answer: "It's not mayonnaise. It's got a zing and people love it."

Question: "What are the weaknesses of Miracle Whip?"
Apparent Answer: "Too zing-y for some people. Low adoption rate among people who haven't had it before."

Question: "What are the opportunities?"
Apparent Answer: "Young people. A new generation of people who have been informed about health but are young enough to want to rebel sometimes."

Question: "What are the threats?"
Apparent Answer: "People want us to tone it down."

Of course, that last answer makes no sense. But does THIS make sense?



Let's step away from the Miracle Whip for a second...

Humor is a hard thing to define. Laughing is considered by some a defense mechanism--a way to relieve stress and uncertainty in a healthy way. This makes sense to me because jokes often zig when our brains expect them to zag, or people get hit in the groin with a wiffle ball bat, or satire pokes fun at things that we often have other emotions for (disdain or anger or boredom).

Unintentional humor is much-loved by many. When someone writes or says something that comes out wrong, we often laugh. Sometimes someone attempts to dance or sing or give advice and the result is just... laughable. Intentional unintentional humor is more difficult to do, because it can feel contrived and artificial.

I think that "discomfort humor" is a subset of intentional unintentional humor... anyone who's seen Curb Your Enthusiasm or The Office (especially the BBC version) knows what I mean. It's the kind of humor that makes you laugh while you squirm. Or at least squirm. It's too real and it's just... painful. And painfully funny.

Back to Miracle Whip. Are they being intentionally unintentionally funny? Or at least trying to be?

At face value, it's just a horrible commercial. Hipsters dancing around on a rooftop laughing and having a great time... because of bread spread?

(This reminds me of a video I saw recently on Facebook. I rarely go on boats, but seemingly everyone else in Seattle goes out on the water regularly, and many young women have crazy "Look at us, partying in our bikinis with a few semi-to-full-blown douchebags posing with all ten of us! Woo hoo! It's so much fun. You must be so jelouse! [sic]" pics on Facebook profiles. And, to be honest, while the whole situation is a bit weird to me, the pics often DO make it look like fun. Then I saw the aforementioned video, which was, like, a "between the crazy posed bikini party chicks pics" video (i.e., real life)... the video essentially had all of these people standing around, holding a beer and talking in low voices. Their posture was, as a whole, markedly worse and it made me feel like I was missing out on less in life...)

I used to eat Miracle Whip growing up. I have no antipathy towards Miracle Whip, specifically, or spreadable condiments generally (except relish... I don't trust verbs that are edible). But I seriously doubt that parties spontaneously erupt due to its presence on hamburgers.

So what was McGarryBowen thinking? Did they think that they would position the brand as hip and fun? That's not a bad idea, and I assume that's what it is. My primary question, then, is whether they did it by making a commercial they thought people would treat as hip and fun, or by making a commercial that people would treat as one of the worst ads ever, and thereby having younger people embrace Miracle Whip, who "gets it" from a sense of humor perspective.

I honestly don't know the answer to that.

Here's another one.



It's like a train wreck. I can't stop staring at it. (Actually, I've never seen a train wreck, so maybe I could stop. I know that I purposefully do NOT rubberneck at automobile accidents, both because I might see something that cannot be unseen and because I don't want to contribute to traffic flow issues.)

Genius? Madness? I don't know. I do know that it doesn't make me want to eat Miracle Whip. I guess I just blogged about it, though, which is arguably better than me spending $8 a year on the stuff...

Chicks. Bouncer. Beer.

(Warning: There is some salty language in this blog. Sometimes I need to use salty language to capture the spirit of an event, especially an event where salty language is used.)

I've recently started a new job. It's great so far and I'm enjoying it. I'm learning a lot about the agency and my coworkers and I'm excited about the prospects of working there for the foreseeable future.

I am, to be honest, less than excited about having to get up (relatively) early in the morning every workday, and I am learning how and when I can still go out, stay out late, and be functional and pleasant at work... or at least as functional and pleasant as I ever get.

Last night was the latest experiment, and not only did my workday go just fine, but I also got a juicy story out of it.

Archangel picked me up at about 9:45 PM and we drove from my place to Capitol Hill to meet up with TM2000 and his Sister-Wives. The general plan was to hit up some bars and have some drinks and have some fun.

For those of you who are not familiar with Seattle neighborhoods, allow me to say something about Capitol Hill. I think of it as perhaps the most "alternative" area in Seattle. As I txted a friend last night, I never feel like I fit in because I am unpierced, have no tattoos, and am not attracted to people of my own sex. I also was not sporting facial hair, so I was totally out of place.

What I did do, though, was dress a bit oddly. I wore my white jeans and some new white Adidas shoes I've recently acquired... the white/white combination looked a bit silly, but (as Archangel pointed out) it was ironic, and irony works in Capitol Hill.

Capitol Hill was actually well and good, but nothing terrifically exciting happened (short of me seeing TM2000's week-old mustache for the first time). Archangel dropped me off outside of Ozzie's on his way home, though, and it wasn't long before all hell broke loose.

OK. That might be hyperbole. But check this out.

The bar was pretty empty. It was about 1:00 and I was fortunate enough to get to sing a song... I covered for StarStar as she took a short break, and I was approached by a chick.

Not approached like, "Hey. You're cute. Impregnate me." Approached like, "I wnna snng aa soong!" The woman had been drinking.

She explained that she was from South America and her father owned a company in Kirkland, and that she had known the ladies she was with (three in all) for a long time. Argentina had a nice-sized rock on her left ring finger and seemed like a nice enough woman. I even talked to one of her friends, although I don't remember what about.

Closing time. Every new beginning comes at some other beginning's end. I went outside to check my txts and relax for a moment before starting the onerous two block trek back to my cat-filled apartment. It wasn't the end of the night. It wasn't the beginning of the end. But it was the end of the beginning.

For the next hour, I watched and listened and smiled and mocked and generally had a great time as I took in more stimulation than anyone can normally be exposed to at 2:00 AM on a street corner without being exposed to some sort of social disease.

It started off innocently. Argentina and her three friends (Friendly, Drunky, and Misandrist) filed out of the bar and merrily made their way westward on Mercer. Everyone (which was them and me, basically) was in a good mood and things were happy.

Until Argentina pulled an open bottle of beer out of her purse.

Ozzie's has security guys working the door. On weekends, there are five or six guys that watch the door and work the rooms to ensure that bloodshed is minimized. (That sounds like a joke. I can assure you that it's not really.)

On Monday night, there is one person on duty. I will call the security guy from last night Bouncer because it's a shockingly original name. Bouncer is a nice guy. He's pretty laid-back and I get along with him well (of course, to be fair, I get along with most people at least reasonably well). He takes his job very seriously, of course, which is a wise thing to do in that business, but he seemed to be in a good mood.

Until Argentina pulled an open bottle of beer out of her purse.

Now, in spite of my rather extensive legal training, I am no expert on dram shop laws. I suppose I will have to take solace in simply knowing what dram shop laws are. I do know, however, that establishments that provide alcohol can be liable for what patrons do after leaving the bar or tavern or Super Bowl party at Grandma's house.

I also understand that drinking alcohol while walking down the street is not legal and that bars are not supposed to allow alcohol to leave the premises.

Something approaching this body of knowledge must have driven Bouncer to do what he did next: he quickly moved from the door to where the four women were walking. They had this little exchange:

Bouncer: Do you have a beer?

Argentina: What? (Putting the beer back into her purse.)

Bouncer: Do you have a fucking beer?

Argentina: No.

Misandrist: Don't reach into her purse!

Drunky: Don't take her beer!

Bouncer: I'll take her beer and I'll pour it on her head! I'm not gonna lose my job because you smuggled beer out of the bar!

Women: *General cries of dismay*

I don't know if he actually poured the beer on her head. He definitely poured it out in front of her face, and maybe some got on her shoes. I was too far away to see the beer stream even as I could make out the conversation very clearly.

Bouncer took the now-empty bottle and went back to his post, presumably expecting the women to continue their jaunt home. If he expected that, though, he was mistaken.

Back in April, I met a remarkable woman. Patrón and I had an adventure that involved us getting yelled at by a Hotel/Casino employee. Her response was general disdain and she asked him the legendary question of, "Do you know who I am?" Fortunately, I was there to blunt her anger and it did not escalate.

When Argentina literally asked Bouncer, "Do you know who I am?" there was no one there would could contain her. Over the next 10 minutes, she spouted several excellent lines, including:

• "You have no idea who you're messing with."
• "I make more in a day than you do in a month."
• "Sleep well tonight because you're going to be on the unemployment line tomorrow."
• "I'm calling the cops and you're going to jail."

First of all: insert as many exclamation points as you feel are necessary. They definitely were present in person.

Secondly, yes. She actually did call the cops. More on that in a moment.

As Argentina was railing against Bouncer, the other women were at various levels of activity. Specifically, Friendly was hanging back. She was a bit upset but just wanted to go home. I talked to her for a moment and encouraged her to gather her friends, go home, and call or stop by the next day if they wanted to complain to the manager. She agreed and tried, in vain, to get her friends to calm down.

Drunky was rather subdued, too. She looked angry, and she might have been spouting off, but I don't remember what she said at this point.

Misandrist was not subdued. She was not happy and she was letting Bouncer know it. Over the course of the first five minutes, she communicated the following to Bouncer:

• "You are ugly!"
• "Your mom didn't love you, did she?"
• "What's it like to be so ugly and gay?"

It was classy.

She also made what was, in my estimation, a big mistake. She got up in Bouncer's face. Literally. She wasn't as tall as he was, but she was shouting at him from about three inches away from his face. She is a lucky woman that he had good self-restraint.

After five minutes, Misandrist came over at the behest of Friendly and was, seemingly, taking a break from chastising Bouncer (who was still getting it from Argentina with both barrels). I made a mistake of giving her some friendly advice.

"I don't think you should get in his face like that. He's a good guy but if you head butt him or something he might drop you."

Oops. That didn't go over well.

She took that, seemingly, as a challenge. She walked up to him again and, over the remaining five minutes or so added some spins to her classic lines:

• "Are you gay because your mama didn't love you?"
• "You are bald and ugly!"
• "Why are you so ugly and gay and hated by your mama?"

She also was putting her hand about an inch from his nose. She kicked the door closed on him twice. She kept on going on, even as Friendly politely and quietly tried to get everyone to go home.

Bouncer, though, had gone inside, not to be seen again.

Which left me with three angry women and huge potential for fun at their expense... honestly, though? I wanted them to relax and go home and be happy. Of course, I had to settle for fun at their expense.

The "fun" started off with me talking to Drunky. I think she had approached me, and the conversation went something like this:

Me: So... fun night, huh?

Drunky: What?

Me: You guys should probably just go home and sleep and complain tomorrow.

Friendly: Yeah...

Drunky: Fuck that. Fuck YOU. Who the fuck are you, anyway?

Me: What?

Drunky: Who are you? You followed us outside and now you're talking shit?

Me: Well, it was closing time. I think that I actually came out before you, so you guys followed me.

Drunky: Fuck you. Fuck you and your white pants.

She then wandered off. Argentina was on the phone, talking to someone and bemoaning that the cops had not showed up yet. Misandrist was sitting outside the door, seemingly calmed down. I asked permission to sit next to her (not RIGHT next to her, but a couple of feet away) and we started to have a reasonable discussion. She said I had white teeth and everything. Then the tide shifted.

I think she asked if I had seen what happened. I said that I saw Argentina had smuggled a beer out. Misandrist did NOT want to hear that. She would not admit that Argentina had smuggled a beer. She wanted to focus, of course, on the alleged beer bath and on the aftermath (is that the first time those words have been coupled? "Beer bath and aftermath" has a great ring to it...).

She then turned her ire towards me, forgetting about the whiteness of my teeth and focusing on the whiteness of my pants. She informed me that white pants went out about 10 years ago, which was news to me (given I didn't know they were all that popular in 1999) and told me to go home. When I politely declined, she finally wandered over to Friendly on her way home.

StarStar emerged from a side door at this point. She sat down where Misandrist had been and lit up a cigarette. Drunky came over to see how Argentina's call (her second one to the police) was going and when she saw StarStar she stopped. And then she picked up on her assault on my dignity. The leadup and bomb-dropping went something like this:

Drunky: That guy is going to get fired!

Me: I really don't think so.

Drunky: What? Argentina's on the phone now. The cops will be here and he will be GONE!

Me: It's about 2:30 AM. Do you think that the police are going to respond to a drunk girl who claimed she was covered in beer by a bouncer?

Drunky: ...

Me: In any case, do you think it's smart for her to be calling? She broke the law by drinking from an open container on the street. It reminds me of a drug dealer calling the cops because some guy didn't pay for his pot.

Drunky: Shut the fuck up. You weren't even here.

Me: Sure I was. I was right here, watching and listening. She had a beer.

Drunky: No she didn't!

Me: What? Aren't you claiming he dumped a beer on her?

Drunky: Yes.

Me: So where did the beer come from?

Drunky: I dunno.

Me: You think that he grabbed a beer, ran down the sidewalk, and dumped a beer on her for no reason? That's your story?

Drunky: Yes.

Me: ... umm... OK. I doubt the cops would believe it, but OK.

Drunky: Why are you even HERE? In your white pants...

Me: *shrug*

Drunky: Your gay white pants. Fag.

Me: Wow. Homophobia. Nice.

Drunky: I'm not a homophobe! I have gay friends.

Me: You just called me a fag.

Drunky: You're such a fag. A fucking fag.

Me: Classy. And not homophobic.

Drunky: It's OK, fag. It's OK if you like to take it up the ass...

Me: Wow. (Looking at StarStar in disbelief.)

Drunky: I like it up the ass, too. You can admit it.

Me: Classy.

She clearly had rattled me. Or not.

To me, being called gay is like being called left-handed. I'm not left-handed, but I'm not really offended if someone calls me that.

The only complication with it is when I try to explain that I'm not gay. When I explain to someone that that I am right-handed, it's pretty easy to do without offending left-handed people. I often feel like I'm being defensive (and/or offensive to homosexuals) when I state that I actually am not into dudes.

In any case, Drunky wandered off. I was there with StarStar and Argentina, who had finally got off the phone.

I tried again. I told her that it was too late at night to do much of anything about anything, and that she should, if she wanted to complain, call or come back the next day.

Fortunately, something clicked in her head. I could see a light bulb light up in her eyes as she looked over at her friends and shouted, "Hey guys! He has a good point. I should just call tomorrow!"

The response was prompt and predictable: "Don't listen to that fag!"

But she did. We dispersed and I giggled most of the way home.

Ed O.'s Excursion in Enumclaw

This weekend I had the pleasure of venturing forth from my apartment/cave and into the sunlight... or at least the daylight, since there wasn't a lot of sun. In addition to getting outside, I actually took a bit of a road trip.

Hiking on Mount Rainier? Whale watching in the Puget Sound? Base jumping off of the Space Needle?

No. Even better: heading to Enumclaw, Washington... a rural oasis about an hour southeast of Seattle. Five of us (TravelMate 2000, Flowers, Ice, RaftMate and me) came down to TM2000's parents' place for a day of rural oasising.

Before I get to the main event (my favorite people from the bar we spent Saturday night in Enumclaw at), I wanted to make a few other notes:

• I grew up in the country. I have had it beaten out of me to a certain extent over the past 15 years or so, but I still remember being able to see the stars at night and I still remember being awakened by farm animals (generally by the SOUND of farm animals, of course, rather than anything more direct). This weekend was a big flashback... I heard more "moo's" from cows within a 24 hour period than I have in the past decade combined. I can't decide how much I missed the rural livin'.
• We agreed a bit over a week ago to float down the Green River. That sounded like a GREAT idea when it was nearly 100 degrees outside and nearly 1000 degrees in my apartment. It seemed like a slightly less good idea when it was overcast and on the verge of rain showers and the water was cold and RaftMate (see? She earned that nickname!) was screaming about how we were going to die (in the 14 to 31 inches of water) and instinctively putting her foot up my butt (I just had assumed it was the rocky bottom of the river...). In spite of my unique talent for falling down in the water up to my chin in the aforementioned 14 to 31 inches of water, I managed to not get too cold and not, as far as I can tell, catch a cold. Minimal blood and tears were spilled, and a good time was had.

So... after the river floating and a delicious steak bbq and an inexplicably complicated card game that TM2000 and I were making up rules for as we played (much to the chagrine of everyone else around the table) we went to a bar.

The bar's name is Yella Beak. Here's a pic of the place. It didn't look like this when we arrived (it was dark, and if you substitute a ridiculously large pickup truck for each motorcycle, then you'll get the idea):

It was an ... interesting place. TM2000 had been there a few times before and he had regaled us with tales of "Old School" Sparks (you know, before they wussied out and took out the energy components) and... well, mainly just of the Old School Sparks.

We got there and got cans of Sparks (unfortunately, of the New School Energy-Neutered variety) and walked out to the back of the place, which was outside and had an interesting setup:

The key here, of course, is the "Crossfire Zone" in the lower-right of the diagram... there were four horseshoe pits that could be used by quite inebriated and altogether unskillful individuals who were tossing chunks of metal in our general direction. I didn't get hit, but one or two horseshoes came within rolling distance of my ankles. I can't believe that no one ever gets directly hit. And, as we all know, close DOES count in horseshoes.

I felt more safe when we moved inside. It was about midnight, and there was about 90 minutes before closing. A dance floor dominated inside, and there was a smörgåsbord of interesting people. I'm somewhat used to different kinds of people, but this was a different mix than I was used to. Some highlights, with at least semi-appropriate nicknames:

Married Chick: Shortly after I came inside, I sat down in a prime people-watching location near the dance floor... about a minute after I sat down, an attractive blond woman sat next to me. She was married, so I didn't really push things with her. Oddly enough, the two or three times she tried to talk to me, I literally could not hear her over the music no matter how many times I asked her to repeat herself. The last time, when I had asked her to repeat herself a couple of times and still had no idea what the heck she was talking about, I gave her a big smile and nodded in agreement. She wasn't satisfied with that response and stopped talking to me after that.

Linedancer: The DJ was spinning three main kinds of music: classic rock, rap/dance, and country. Linedancer was, as far as I could tell, on a one-woman warpath to impose a string of linedances irrespective of music genre. Linedancing to some country song? I can see trying it. Linedancing to a second song, after the first effort was a success with the rest of the dancers? Sure... why not.

But linedancing to Def Leppard after four straight songs of linedancing with no more than one other person in the room joining you? Man. That's committment. Delicious, hilarious committment.

Mismatched Pair: Birds of a feather stick together, right? I've learned that most of time this is pretty accurate. USUALLY a hot chick is going to be hanging with other attractive women... I don't know exactly how or why this is, and it might be bad observation on my part (with me remembering >1 hot chick groups more than a group with just one hot chick), but I've found it generally to be true. Last night there was an extremely mismatched pair... one woman who was all dolled up, who was thin, and was wearing nice clothes, and her friend, who ... wasn't any of those things. Part of my drunk reflection was, "It's so great that friendship can bridge such a wide gap!", but the rest of me was more like, "WTF is happening to the natural order of things here in Enumclaw?"

Asian Duo: Say what you want about Enumclaw, but it is a very WHITE community. Not that Seattle is the most multi-cultural and robustly enthnically varied metropolitan area in the country, but we DO have a couple of non-white people in most of our bars. Of course, so does Enumclaw. And I saw them both. A pair of pretty attractive Asian chicks who looked like they were dressed for Amber in Belltown rather than Yella Beak in Enumclaw. They actually were one of the visual highlights of the evening (of course, when Shaun Alexander is one of the prime alternatives, that might be damning with faint praise) on the dance floor until they were interrupted by...

Affliction Guy: I'm on record as to not liking certain styles of clothing and headwear... not a fan of the backwards baseball cap or the monochrome shirts with a massive single assymetrical design on them. I think that I've figured out that it's a skateboarding/extreme sports-influenced sensibility I just do not dig. I've further determined that I am not at all impressed by MMA (mixed martial arts)-inspired clothing. Affliction is one brand that I associate with this fashion style. Not a fan... and I get some delicious schadenfreude when guys dressed in such a manner get shot down. So I loved Affliction Guy even as I was exasperated by his fashion choice. Affliction Guy was wearing a REALLY tight white t-shirt with art of a big angel/demon/whatever all over the front and back of it. He also was on the prowl on the dance floor, approaching several groups of women over the course of the hour or so I watched him off and on. I'm no expert on how to approch girls on the dance floor (/understatement) but this guy made me look like a fucking genious at it. His strategy appeared to be:

1. Approach group of girls.
2. Grind on hottest chick from the group.
3. After hottest chick retreats, grind on second-hottest chick.
4. After that chick retreats, grind on any remaining chicks in the group until they retreat, too.

It would have been funny if it wasn't so sad... girls having fun and doing their thing, driven off the dance floor by Affliction Guy, who was either entirely oblivious or actively misogynistic. Actually, it was pretty sad but it was still funny. He had a sort of unsuccessful dancing distant cousin in the next guy.

Shaun Alexander: No, not the former Seahawks runningback. Instead, a pudgy white guy with a bad haircut, bad glasses, and an ill-fitting #37 alternate home Seahawks jersey. He was there all night and floated from group of girls to group of girls both at the various bars and then on the dance floor. I didn't see how his night ended, but I was shocked at how sweaty his hair was when he left the dance floor. He barely seemed to be moving out there, let alone working that hard. I guess he just made it look easy.

Unrealistic Man: I appreciate that people with supportive parents tell them they can do anything. A kid not being limited by her or his parents gives them a lot of confidence and gives them a chance to be more successful than if they were put down by their family at an early age. I also can appreciate when a guy is willing to approach women that might be a bit out of his league... sometimes it might work, and then it would be worth all of the times he was shot down.

With that being said? Sometimes people need a reality check. Unrealistic Man was heavy and heavily balding and dressed poorly and seemingly exceedingly shortsighted (based on the glasses he was squinting through)... but he seemingly had no sense of reality.

After Married Chick stopped talking to me, I guess Unrealistic Man saw an opening. She was still sitting next to me, but our body language was not good and there was an opening for a guy to approach. A guy who doesn't mind hitting on married women, I guess, and a guy who presumably is at least within shouting distance of being as attractive as she was. Unrealistic Man might have been the former, but definitely was not the latter... but he wasn't about to let that stop him. He sidled up to her stool and talked to her. I had to stifle my natural face-palming instincts as she politely blew him off (or appeared to; I couldn't understand or hear a word she was saying to him)... I had no idea what he was thinking.

I might have chalked it to an outlier in his expectations or behavior, but about 20 minutes later he approached Mismatched Pair... and talked to the hot one. Bad, bad move. She blew him off in about 1.2 seconds and he fled from the dancefloor, not to return that night.

Eventually the alcohol kicked in and I danced a bit to DJ comments like, "We're gonna be partying all night!" and "Keep rocking until the sun come up!" and "The party never stops at the Yella Beak!".

By the time the club turned off the music at 1:30 AM, I wondered if people were prone to hyperbole in Enumclaw or just if the sun came up earlier there.

Missing Cat Found

I don't have a massive apartment. It's cozy and I like it, but it's not a fantastic palatial living space.

I also have three cats. Long story why I do, but I do.

Combine those tw facts and I see my cats whenever I'm in my apartment on a pretty regular basis. At least two of them tend to sleep with me nightly, and I can name the top three hangouts for each of them.

Last night I came home from a pleasant evening of drinking and hanging out with friends and, after spending some time on Facebook, went to bed. I didn't notice that only one cat was sleeping with me on the bed.

This morning I got up and checked email and chatted a bit. Made sure the kitties had food and got myself a bit to eat, then I went back to bed. I didn't notice, again, that only one cat was hanging out with me on the bed, and that I'd only seen two all morning.

I got back up and moving around this afternoon, and it clicked: I might have a missing cat.

Sometimes they hide and act atypically, primarily when they are feeling unwell. So I was a bit concerned. I started saying "Houdini" in sort of a high-pitched tone that he responds to as I walked around my apartment, looking behind my TV and under my computer desk and under my bed and beneath the thirty-seven piles of clean clothes peppered around my living quarters.

Nothing.

Then I noticed that I'd (predictably) spooked Truman with my sudden burst of activity. Truman had been sitting on the ledge outside an open window (I had had my windows open wide for about a week, as a leftover of having pretty hot weather and no air conditioning).

And then I knew what had happened. Houdini had attempted to escape the apartment. Or at least had accidentally escaped the apartment... by jumping (falling) the 12 or so feet to the ground outside one of my open windows.

I put on some sandals. I got in the elevator and walked out of the lobby, right to underneath the most likely escape route. I let a couple of people pass before I started the "Houdini" call. I assumed (hoped) that he'd lope up through the grass and greet me... but I knew that something bad might have happened, or he might have been roughed up by local raccoons.

After the second or third call, I heard a meow back. I know my cats (at least relative to one another) and I knew it was him. Surprisingly, it was coming from the bush RIGHT below the primary suspect window.

I called him again, hoping he'd wander out. He meowed again. I called and reached in and separated the foliage and I saw wet gray hair, and I knew I'd hit feline gold.

I reached in and grabbed him and he wasn't happy. I walked through the lobby with about 17 pounds of gray fluff and super-sharp claws digging into my neck. I released him back into his natural habitat and he was immediately set upon by his brothers... he smelled different, I suppose. Sort of like Stephen Baldwin.

He gave himself a brief bath to tidy up his face. He shook off his admirers and made his way over to the food dishes, acting like a cat who hadn't had a morsel in weeks, rather than hours.

He's still got some leaves in his fur, and he's got a lot of bathing to do. His right eye looks a bit goopy and he's sort of jumpy. But he has all his fingers and toes and hopefully has learned a valuable lesson.

Also, I closed the windows a bit more...

IRL

I lead a bit of a double life (well, I actually live a quintuple life, but two of them are classified and the fifth is a backup of one of the two from my double life). I am a real person and I am a Portland Trail Blazers fan.

As a real person, I tend to get along with everyone. I rarely argue politics or religion or sports or grammar or math... I believe that logic and discussion can sway people temporarily, but in almost every situation people need to figure things out for themselves in order to really believe. As a result, I am rarely willing to put in effort to try to convince anyone of anything in real life.

In real life, I am a Portland Trail Blazers fan. I watch all of the games (either live or recorded). I know some of the history of the team and I know about the present team.

This real life persona, though, is entirely different than my persona as a Blazers fan. Because the majority of my fandom occurs online. And my online Blazers fan persona is entirely different than me in real life.

I argue. I complain. I correct spelling and minor factual errors. I use rhetoric and logic as best I can to convince other Blazers fans that I am correct and that they are not. Do I think that I am actually going to convince (m)any others about anything? No. But it's all exercise and venting and sort of fun, even if it's infuriating at times.

Another difference between these two parts of my life is my need to have the last word. In real life? I can live with other people saying something and then I can (usually) just let it go. Online, it's so much more difficult to do it, and I tend to be proud of myself if I can let someone with whom I disagree take one last shot or make the same old point I disagree with one more time.

A weird combination of my real life laissez-faire attitude and fiery Blazers fandom is on Facebook. It has many of the attributes of my Blazers argumentathons (online nature, non-verbal communication, some people I don't know communicating with me, etc.) but some important ones of real life, too (people I actually know and who might want to beat me up, more than one or two females in the community). My Facebook behavior tends to be much more like my real life.

Recently, though, I had a message exchange with a person I've known for a while. I said my piece, she said hers... and I wanted to respond. But I won't. It's real life. I can let stuff go.

Right?