Violence on the Dance Floor

I know I'm a bad dancer, but I don't let it get me down. It's mindless fun that I partake in occasionally.

Actually, it's less mindless than it should be because when I dance I make every effort to not touch anyone. I like my bubble, and I assume, short of quite explicit indications otherwise, that others like theirs, too. So I end up apologizing a lot for bumping people. I know it's ridiculous, but I can't help myself.

You know how you should leave two car lengths on the road in order to allow proper stopping distance? (Or something like that...) And you know how sometimes someone fills in that gap by darting in front of you, spoiling your good, safe driving?

That happens to me on the dance floor. I give a couple of body widths between myself and dancing women, and more often than not some dude jumps in front of me to grind on the girl. Making it awkward because he leaves me in a position of trying to back up or being RIGHT up against his butt.

Anyway.

In spite of various frustrations, I honestly try to be a considerate dance floor participant. Maybe I do it because I'm polite or maybe I do it to atone for my utter lack of skill.

In any case, my good nature did not help last night in a bit of a frenzied environment.

It started off normally. It was about 11:30 and the dancefloor was reasonably busy. Not terrifically so, but not much room to maneuver outside of one's bubble. I was flopping around in time to the music when I saw a guy dancing near me go flying about five feet forward. It was out of the ordinary, so I looked to see who had pushed him.

Two women were giggling and looking guilty and I locked eyes with one and said, "Wow. Really? Haha." She laughed and we talked for about 10 seconds when I (BOOM) felt an odd sensation in my groin region.

This sensation was not due to the stimulating conversation, it was due to a third woman thrusting her butt into my crotch.

BOOM

The assault repeated itself and it was clear that it was not a sexy dance move. It was not joking. She was trying to move me and trying to cause pain. And was succeeding, at least, in the latter.

Wincing from the testicular assault, I engaged her in conversation and we had this brief chat:

Me: Why? What's going on?
Her: That's my sister and my cousin.
Me: Your mom is your aunt?
Her: They're not interested in you.
Me: Uh, OK. (Looking towards the first two women, who were giggling about 4 feet away) Was I being disr--

BOOM

There comes a time when one's patience is stretched too thin. I learned last night that my personal patience is stretched too thin at an accelerated pace when my nads are being mistreated.

So... after getting hit in the balls for a third time, I put my hands on her waist and I grabbed her and... pushed.

I'm not the strongest guy in the world, and I'm not proud that I would have to push anyone (let alone a chick) but I was sick of being crushed, so I pushed.

And she went flying.

Not, like, against the wall. Not to the ground. Just... away. Away from me and away from my family jewels.

Of course, while it might have helped preserve my chances for fathering children some day, it did not go over well with the pushee. The woman came storming back, screaming and flipping out. And she was joined by a fourth woman, who was significantly bigger and decided to stick up for her friend.

As these two angry women were converging on me, I stuck my hands in the air to indicate I had no interest in fighting or otherwise interacting with them.

The pushee just yelled, but the big girl took my defenselessness as an opportunity to put me in a death grip.

Well, given that I am typing this and given that I would be totally ignorant as to how to escape any kind of death grip, I suppose it wasn't an actual, bona fide death grip. But it WAS her grabbing my throat with her right hand.

So there I was, standing on a crowded dance floor with my hands up in the air with one woman screaming at me and another on with her hand on my windpipe.

My life is awesome.

Movie Experiment IV: Bananas

Sometimes planning just doesn't work as expected. Sometimes, like last night, it does.

The fourth Movie Experiment night came off flawlessly. The movie, #4 on my top 10 list, was Bananas, a 1971 farce involving Woody Allen as a sniveling loser whose search for love takes him to foreign lands. (I don't wear glasses, so I don't relate too closely to the character.)

Travelmate 2000 was kind enough to host the event, which was not held at my place because of Viewmaster's allergies to cats... allegedly there are three level of cat irritants, ranging from no effect to, like, swell up and stop breathing, and I didn't want to take a chance that one of my feline menagerie would be of the lethal variety, so I let TM2000 host.

Another deviation from the original concept: the four person party morphed into a five person party. Motown and Skynet responded as a pair to my invitation to participate in the Movie Experiment, and I wasn't sure if they HAD to go to the same movie or not, so I invited them both.

We had pizza (thank you, Pizza Hut's $10 for any pizza deal) and salad (thank you, Viewmaster) and banana nut bread (thank you, me, for taking the time to make and bake it) and we watched the movie.

No one in attendance, other than me, knew anything about the movie. Well, I think TM2000 knew Woody Allen was in it, but other than that? Nothing.

The movie itself is silly and it's got some dated material. It has fun with Howard Cosell (who died in 1995) and the Wide World of Sports (which went off the air in 1998). It also has obscure references (does anyone really know what the I Ching is?)

But the silliness is timeless. "Who am I going to leave this hospital to?" is one of my favorite parental laments ever. And this is a gem:

I had a good relationship with my parents. They very rarely h-... I think they hit me once, actually, in my whole childhood. They, they, uh, started beating me on the 23rd of December in 1942, and stopped beating me in the late Spring of '44. 

There's also the occasional wince-inducing line which portends the societally unacceptable relationship Mr. Allen has had with his current wife, "Doing a sociological study on perversion. I'm up to Advanced Child Molesting."

(Yes, he probably didn't have sex with her before she was 18, but marrying your lover's adopted daughter is weird, I think we'd all agree...)

After the movie, we talked for over an hour about... stuff. About the movie a bit, but mainly just telling stories. We got into an interesting motif of telling funny hotel/sleeping situation stories.

Viewmaster told a tale of a ski trip she took with some male buddies, including one who pulled an engaged chick back to their shared king-sized bed. Motown talked about a baseball trip he took once with six dudes in a hotel room. I told the story about Vancouver (January, 2008). And about Hawaii (July, 2008) and the other story about Hawaii (July, 2008) and fleshed out the Las Vegas (April, 2009) story a bit.

It sounds like a talked a lot. Maybe I did. I didn't mean to. :)

We also touched upon how my sense of humor rubs people the wrong way, both on Facebook and in real life. All four participants last night are enthusiastic about my blog at some level, which was an ego stroke, and it was nice to talk about the people I've offended and have the gang chime in with comments like, "They just don't get you!" and "Some people need to relax!"

I mean... I think that's true, too, but it's nice to have people agree with me.

The end of the night sneaked up on us, and we dispersed. I took the leftover food (TM2000 is headed for Vegas in a couple of days, so I felt no compunction NOT leaving food behind for the host) and walked home in the pouring rain. In spite of my lack of a jacket and in spite of the fact that the rain made my leftover banana nut bread a bit soggy, I was smiling the whole way home.

It was a good night.

A Story from 2008: Japanese Chicks in Hawaii

In 2008 I went to Hawaii with a few friends: TM2000, Flowers, and Flowers' gf Ice.

We sang karaoke, we got sunburned, we hiked, and we drank.

TM2000 and I also attempted to meet women. Unless we're in Mexico, that's been known to actually work occasionally.

The last night we were in Waikiki, the four of us met for drinks and TM2000 and I peeled off from the other two, who were probably going to go bump coconuts. And thus begins the adventure.

The Pickup

We weren't sure where to go, and after hitting up a bar we'd frequented, uh, frequently during our stay we decided to go to Senor Frog's. Our expectations were tremendously low... as part of our "No Women Tour of Mexico" some months earlier, we had gone to Senor Frog's in Puerto Vallarta, and while there were some attractive young women there, for some reason the young women are significantly less appealing when their parents are hovering a couple of tables away.

(Translation: the girls were all too young. Even for me. Which is saying something.)

So TM2000 and I took the elevator up to the bar. We ordered a drink. We worked the dance floor a bit (him in a skillful and appealing-to-women sort of way, me in a "oh my God, he's horrible!/someone call the paramedics, because he's going to break something if he keeps moving that spastically and unappealingly" kind of way). TM2000 started talking to a girl, and this is where (finally) things got interesting.

(Actually, things had been interesting the previous night in an adventure I had with a batch of Australian chicks... that will have to wait until another time, though.)

The woman was Japanese and she was there with another Japanese chick. They were being ruthlessly hit upon by dudes, and they were gladly accepting the free drinks that were being thrust upon them.

From my perspective? I almost NEVER buy random chicks drinks. On a date? Sure. A friend I've known for a while? Absolutely. Some girl I just met and might be interested in talking to? No way. I've done that about five times in the 2.5 years, and I have not got a kiss nor a number nor anything but thinly veiled contempt from any of the recipients. I love women sometimes.

If and when I buy a drink, though, for a girl? I think that it'd be a bad sign if she started sharing it with another random guy.

TM2000 was that random guy in this case.

The first Japanese girl, Ichi, had been the recipient of a free drink. A big, colorful, vase-like drink that was probably filled with sugars and liqueurs and odd tropical colors. Evidently it was too much, or she was trying to ditch her patron, or she was just super-interested in TM2000. For whatever reason, she offered him a sip.

I don't even remember if he took her up on it, but I know that it gave us an ability to talk to Ichi and her friend, Ni. The dudeswarm eventually receded and we convinced them to hit up another bar with us. A bar that happened to be on the way back to our hotel room.

The Extraction

Sometimes guys notice when girls are into other guys. Sometimes they do not. This was one of those "do not" situations.

Of all the guys standing around Ichi and Ni, one persevered. The bar closed and the four of us left together, and Clinger was right behind us.

Over the course of the next 15 minutes or so, Clinger followed us. He stayed within about 30 feet of us. He waited at the bottom of an escalator for us. He ignored dirty looks and he ignored when I attempted to get rid of him with a, "Look, buddy, it looks like they're hanging out with us tonight."

Finally, Ichi talked to the guy. She was pretty traditionally Japanese and she was clearly uncomfortable with the "confrontation", but she took his phone number and he finally (FINALLY) went away.

Second Location

After the uncomfortable Clinger portion of the early morning, we made our way to the other bar. It was about 3:00 AM at this point, if I remember correctly, and it was a bar that TM2000 and I had been to several times before.

We had paired off, with Ni sitting next to me and Ichi and TM2000 together in a big booth.  I felt justified in buying Ni a drink, and TM2000 did the same for Ichi. TM2000, though, does things his own way, and his own way is sometimes the cheap way.

Ichi wanted a Redbull and vodka. Presumbaly, given the late hour, she needed energy and it didn't seem to be an unreasonable request. TM2000, however, had memories of our trip to Mexico and me getting stuck with a $16 Red Bull and vodka charge... he also knew there were house specials for the night, so he went ahead and got Ichi a mini pitcher of Bud Light. $3. Done and done.

Ichi wasn't going to say "no," I suppose, so the two of them nursed the value that was the Bud Light mini pitcher as Ni and I enjoyed whatever cocktails I had got for us.

We then decided to go back to our hotel room for after-hours. And for adventure. Although I'm not sure promising "adventure" in a hotel room would be the best move with most women...

The Hotel Room

On the walk back, TM2000 admitted that he was feeling a bit sick to his stomach. He seemed pretty sure that he was going to vomit, but we knew there was going to be a problem. Actually, two problems.

Problem #1: Our hotel room was not that big. It had a queen bed and a cot-like mobile bed, and it had a TV, and it had an attached bathroom. It worked perfectly for us and what we needed, but it didn't provide many soundproof vomiting options.

Problem #2: Women are not really very turned on by the sound of a man vomiting. At least not many women.

So TM2000 had to vomit. We had two women in our hotel room who, presumably, didn't want to her him upchuck on the other side of a very thin door. It was about 4:00, so even if we had an audio source (TV or radio) that could drown out the sound, it could have resulted in issues with our neighbors.

Fortunately, we are creative. And, fortunately, we had a balcony.

TM2000 stepped out onto the balcony to spray the lower floors with partially digested food and beer foam, and I attempted to distract Ichi and Ni. I did so, in part, by asking them what they did for a living.

Ichi was, as it turns out, a massage therapist. After several "happy ending" jokes, which were both racially insensitive and probably lost upon Ichi altogether, I told her that was cool and that she should give TM2000 a massage when he got back in. She agreed and I told Ni that I would give HER a massage, too.

He came back in, had something to drink and/or popped some gum in his mouth. Operation: Vomit was successful, and Operation: Freak TM2000 Out was just beginning.

TM2000 was on the right side of the bed, facing the television (which was tuned to TNT or something equally semi-boring) and Ni did the same a few feet to his left. Ichi straddled TM2000's butt and I did the same on Ni.

I enjoy giving backrubs. I hesitate to use the word "massage" because it seems like that a massage might have some medicinal value and/or require some level of professional skill.

Even though I might not be able to give a proper therapeutic massage, I can perform "monkey see, monkey do".

Ichi bent TM2000's arm one way, and I mimicked her with Ni's arm. She pushed on his neck and I pushed on Ni's. Sounds OK, right? Well, again, there were two problems with this:

Problem #1: I was not sober and I had no idea what I was doing. I had no idea the amount of pressure to apply. I could not tell how far I should be stretching Ni's limbs. She was little and I probably could have really hurt her.

Problem #2: TM2000 was screaming his head off. Remember, he had been outside when it had been established that Ichi did that for a living. Remember, too, that massages can be kind of painful, even when you expect the person to know what they're doing. In his pain and ignorance, gems such as, "You're breaking my arm!" and "What are you doing to me? Aaah!" were exclaimed, although in real life they were more in bold, all caps.

After the massage session, where miraculously no one was injured and no police were called due to the yelling, Ni decided to go home. I walked her down to the taxi and she went home.

I came back up and Ichi and TM2000 were already asleep. I crashed in the little mobile bed and slept soundly.

The Next Morning

I woke up relatively early in spite of the late night, and I cracked my eyes open to ensure it was safe to be looking around. I was confronted with an odd sight.

It was Ichi, on the bed, resting on her knees. She was looking at a sleeping TM2000, and when he finally stirred himself she waited for a moment and, in an oddly pleading tone, said, "Can I go home now?"

It was one of those odd moments in life where I just don't know what I'm seeing. Was she asking for his permission? Was she asking for a ride home? I honestly don't know.

TM2000 dismissed Ichi and we packed for the trip home and it was good.

Poker Face

Like any person, there are some things in life that I enjoy (pizza, napping, karaoke, cats, porn) and some things that I do not (seafood, cars, digging ditches, guys with backwards baseball caps who travel in packs, Glee). There are also things that I enjoy the notion of (uhh... some personal stuff I won't go into here) and some things that I do not enjoy the notion of (getting a deep suntan, losing a finger in a meat grinder accident). Then there are things that I should enjoy the notion of, but do not enjoy either the notion or the actual act.

One of those things is poker.

I think, on the surface, I should enjoy poker. I enjoy doing math and it's more of a game of skill than the majority of gambling activities... and yet, I don't like it. I don't like losing money to people and I don't like taking the money of others. I'm not a competitive person, for the most part, either. All of this adds up to me not particularly enjoying the few times I've played and not being at all eager to play again any time soon.

One aspect of it that I do respect and find interesting, though? The notion of the poker face.

(I was hoping to quote some Lady Gaga here, but after reading the lyrics for "Poker Face," I have nothing.)

A poker face can extend beyond the game of poker, and that's why I love it. Compare that to, say, the lesser reach of "Super Mario Brothers hair" or the limited use of a "Yahtzee wrist" and you can see why I respect the poker face.

While my standard state of being is apathy, sometimes I can be roused to reaction by my surroundings. This can have potentially dangerous effects due to me being most interested in situations that are least healthy for me to be interested in.

That's super-abstract, I know. Let me give you a quick example before I get into the main reason I wrote the blog.

The other evening I was leaving work, walking through Capitol Hill on my way to my parked car. There was an older guy (maybe even as old as me!) having a smoke outside of his apartment, and three or four skater kids were right in the middle of some sort of confrontation with him. I didn't catch the beginning of it, but it went something like this:

Cigarette Smoker: Yeah, that's right. Keep walking.
Skate Punk #1: Shut up, old man.
Skate Punk #2: Yeah!
CS: Come over here and call me "old man."
SP#1: I'll knock out your fucking teeth.
CS: I'm sitting right here. Do it.
SP#1: I'll knock your fucking teeth into the back of your skull, old man!
CS: Don't walk away! Hey! Get over here!

I kept walking this whole time, but it was interesting. There was the threat of real violence, there was a very foul-mouthed kid who seemed to be saying different versions of the same thing over and over, and there was a very loud old guy who probably started it by being angry at skaterz for riding on the sidewalkz.

As I walked, and as I considered the threshold at which I would call the cops or otherwise intervene, I had to maintain a poker face. I didn't want to acknowledge it was happening, even as it was about 20 feet from me, because I didn't want to get sucked in. I had to observe without my observation being observed.

Because, after all, one of the last things I ever want to hear is, "What are you looking at?"

Where the poker face becomes especially valuable is when I'm out and about, late at night, in a neighborhood that I don't usually frequent. I ran into this situation over the weekend.

I had gone to Frontier Room with F-Bomb on Saturday night, and he had decided to duck out early. After a rum-inspired night of dancing and general carousing, and seeing a woman that I had obliquely referenced in my previous blog (she waved to me... I have no idea if she was being friendly or mocking), I decided to walk home.

The walk is a great way for me to (a) save a bit of money by not taking a cab, (b) work off a few of the calories that I racked up at the bar, (c) sober up a bit so I don't send any embarrassing emails or Facebook messages when I get back to my apartment, and (d) practice my poker face.

There is a stretch between the bars in Belltown and my place where a poker face is 100% vital to not getting my face pounded into a fine jelly.

Why? Because the scene is... not my scene. I am not making a racial statement when I say that it is far far more urban than I'm used to; in spite of my city-livin' ways, I still am the guy who had a graduating high school class of 30 and had a barn on his property as a kid. There are big groups of people just... standing around. Waiting.

Waiting for me to make a stupid face at them so they can ask me what I'm looking at? Perhaps. More likely, though, that they're waiting for ladies to walk by so they can, uh, interact with them.

And it is these interactions where my poker face is most critical. Most of the efforts of men are clumsy and, ultimately, unsuccessful. They are, as an impartial observer, also very funny to watch... but few guys want to be laughed at after getting shot down by a woman. And so I keep the dead eyes and the blank expression on my face.

I keep that look on my face even when a guy swoops up to two women walking by, says three words, and then swoops back away (shot down? Uglier than he'd thought? Dunno).

I keep that look on my face even when a pair of guys approach a pair of women who are standing with a guy. A guy who is not pleased that his women are getting hit on.

I keep that look on my face when a person in line for hot dogs complains loudly about how she hates hot dogs.

I keep that look on my face as I keep pace behind a group of people walking in front of me, including a very drunk, very attractive woman that is draped on a sub-average-looking guy... and I hear at least a half-dozen people standing on the sidewalk and/or walking the other way wonder what she's doing with him.

I don't WANT to keep that look on my face. I want to laugh--or at least smile--at these situations. I enjoy the notion of interacting, intelligently and honestly, with my surroundings, but I do NOT enjoy the notion of pissing off the wrong guy and losing any body parts as a result.

Can't read my, can't read my
No he can't read my poker face.

(OK. So I WAS able to put some Lady Gaga lyrics in here, after all...)

Impact and Impressions (Expected and Otherwise)

Last night was a Saturday night and I decided to go out solo. Drink some drinks, people-watch some people, and dance some dance. I am definitely better at the first two, but if I do the first one well enough the third one can fall into place well enough.

In many ways, Seattle is a small city. If you stay in the same neighborhood and go out to its places, you're going to bump into the same people pretty regularly... but while it's a big city, if you rarely stray from your 'hood, it's possible to go months or even years without seeing people that you met. I tend to frequent the Lower Queen Anne area of Seattle, with an occasional journey to Belltown and an even more rare excursion elsewhere. This means that I rarely have an opportunity to see people who, say, go to Capitol Hill or Pioneer Square on a regular basis.

So shelve that information for now. We'll come back to it in a bit. I wanna get a bit abstract on you here for a moment. Let's talk about impact and impressions that we have and make on people that we meet. I've made some graphs to hopefully articulate my thinking.

We all start with a blank slate:

We have an opportunity to make our mark, and after some time passes, we do so:

Of course, there aren't just binary states... you don't either know someone or not. People have impressions of you, and I think we all strive for this:

We want people to like us.

Actually... do we? I do. I would MUCH prefer people like me than not, even to the point of altering my behavior to please others. I know that sometimes people say they have to "keep it real"... and I'm not suggesting we all give away all of our identities to please others, but we DO dress a certain way, use soap, drive on the correct side of the street, etc., and not just because we have to. I believe that the monkey in us all wants a bunch of green hexagons.

But, the reality is... that's not the reality. (That sentence is incredible, I know.) Some people will like us, some won't give a damn, and some will actually dislike us:

The reason for their feelings isn't very important to this discussion... they might not like us because of our vocabulary, or because we're an asshole to them because we don't like them, or because we prefer Superman to Batman.

While I cannot hope for a realistic level of precision in these graphs, we can get a little closer than the one, above. For every person that we meet and impact, there is a ripple out. Each person that they know gets an impression of us that is generally good, neutral, or bad. These impressions can be based on their observations, your Facebook page, or what they heard about how you chew your food.

With the impact ripples, we get something that looks like this:

I left space between most of the ripples because the impact points we established earlier are often isolated, but in a small enough environment--say, a neighborhood in Seattle--there can be some overlap.

You can see that even people who really like me will have people around them that do not particularly care for me, even if there's a general trend towards green.

Let's apply this to last night, shall we? Or, rather, let's edge towards that application. First a bit more background/context.

About a year and a half ago, in the midst of my funemployment, I made an appointment to meet with a placement agency. I went into their office to meet with someone who works with employers to place people like me so I can apply my skills.

I walked into the office and the administrative person (we'll call her Secretary, although I realize that is a dramatic understatement of her role) was, to be blunt, pretty stunning. She was was wearing a very nice, professional skirt and top (or was it a dress? I remember her correcting me after, but cannot recall at the moment) that highlighted some of her, uh, skills.

She had me fill out some paperwork and I ambled into the office to meet with the guy. I was reasonably effective in the conversation, but a large percentage  of my brainwaves were spent thinking about Secretary and what--if anything--I was going to say to her on my way out. I knew I had her name and her email address, so I could do a bit of Facebook research when I got home, etc., etc. Yes, weird. But I'm a dude. I like skilled women.

After the meeting was over, she was not around, so I let myself out. Found her on Facebook later that day, but didn't send her any messages or anything... I am reasonably well skilled at hiding my oddness when I should.

Fast forward a month or two. I am still out of work and I get invited by Secretary's company to have a networking/mixer event at their office. I really don't like mixing or networking in a semi-jobby job capacity, but I knew it was a good idea to go. So I did.

She and I talked a few times. I made her smile, I thought, above and beyond her role of playing hostess/having to smile at everyone. At the end of the evening I told her we should be Facebook friends, she said she wasn't Facebook friends with people that she worked with, and I pointed out that she hadn't got me a job yet, so we were good. She laughed and said I could add her.

So I did. When she accepted me, I noticed she was "In a Relationship". OK. Sure. Fine. I sent her a message and let it go.

A couple of weeks later, we chatted a bit. She was on the outs with her bf. I said we should hang out some time, and she agreed. Nothing set in stone, but promising, right?

A couple of weeks after THAT, she invited me to come out with her friends. I left where I was and met up with them, and at the end of the night we all went back to her place. I think there were two female friends and a male friend. The male friend, in the apartment, pointed out that I had sweaty armpits. I appreciated that. :|

The others went to sleep and she and I crashed on the couch. I went in to kiss her and she turned away. Fine. We sort of cuddled and I went home the next morning (actually, I walked home... it took so freaking long my feet still ache just thinking about it... ugh).

We talked about hanging out again, but it never happened. She moved out of the state, and she invited me to her going away party, but I wasn't able to make it. I actually zapped her as a Facebook friend last week because we never talk and I try to keep my Facebook friends list tidy (that's another blog entry altogether...)

Last night, then. Did I see Secretary? No. Did I see her friends, though? Yes. I'd met some of them and seen others in Facebook pictures. I expected this:

I thought that she probable had a good impression of me, and so most of her friends who knew me would be either green or yellow, too.

I was wrong.

It started off with me seeing the male friend that I'd hung out with that night so long ago. The one that had called me out for excessive sweating. I wanted to tweak him a bit, so I approached him at the bar and we had something like this as an exchange (names changed, natch):

Me: Hey George!
Him: (Does a double take, has a blank look on his face) Uh... hello?
Me: Yeah. How you been? It's been a while...
Him: Do I know you?
Me: Yeah. I met you through Secretary a while back.

At this point, he was confused and off-kilter. Cool. I had planned on shaking his hand and going back to my part of the bar, but what's that they say about the best-laid plans of mice and men?

George was not alone. He was with two other guys and, like, three women. I was reasonably sure I knew one of their names (she was a cute blond I'd seen in pictures on Facebook) and I might have met one of the others that night (I think she encouraged me to get into the cab with them) but I didn't know their names with enough confidence to say hi to them, too.

Plus, I was just trying to rattle George a little for the armpit sweat neg he'd delivered on that night.

The short woman I had no knowledge of was right next to George as the exchange happened, and she joined in the conversation:

Me: Yeah. I met you through Secretary a while back.
Her: I remember you!
Me: Oh, yeah? Cool...
Him: (Looking at her) You do?
Her: Yeah, he's the guy who...

She then turned to him, covered her mouth and LITERALLY whispered to him. Or murmured. Maybe used sotto voce. The point is that I couldn't hear what she said, and I couldn't read her lips... and she had intended that.

George's face went from blank and quizzical to... hard. Not necessarily angry, or hostile, but... hard.

And I knew that I'd made an error. Because it was not this situation:

It was this situation:

Oops.

So I tried to flee the scene, leaving them at the bar after not correcting George when he said it was "nice to meet" me (he had, after all, met me, and it was a failing on his part to not recall said meeting)... and wandered back to the edge of the dance floor to drink, people watch, and consider dancing.

George's group, though, migrated. They didn't migrate next to me on purpose, I don't think, but they DID cause me some discomfort. The short chick who'd brought George up to speed was the biggest irritant... she was staring at me from, like, four feet away, and then when I made eye contact with her, she made an exaggerated, "Why are you looking at me?" face before turning away.

Then, about three minutes later? She had her iPhone up and was taking a pic of me. From three feet away. No joke.

I called her on it and she at first tried to pretend like she was getting video of the dance floor, but then she just flat-out asked if she could take a picture of me. I said "sure", and she did. I knew it was an iPhone when there was no flash.

The room was dark, and when she tried to send the pic to Secretary (which I am 99% sure she did; I looked over her shoulder and have very sharp eyes) it was basically a black box.

So there I was, surrounded by red hexagons, and I wasn't ABOUT to leave the bar on account of their perception of something they think I might have done over a year ago. Eventually, they had enough to drink that they lost interest in me. Or I had enough to drink that I no longer noticed their interest in me. Same difference, right?

I had a couple of other mini-adventures, too, including a brush with the chick that wrote me the pair of notes I referenced in a recent blog post (the first time I'd seen her in about two years) and another late-night trip to Neighbours, but I woke up this morning thinking about

What impression did I make on Secretary? Had I been fooling myself into thinking we actually got along reasonably well and/or did I hallucinate that she invited me to her going-away party? Or were all of those red hexagons misperceiving something?

Hmm...

Movie Experiment III: Hot Rod

Imagine you planned a picnic for your significant other. The weather forecast was great, you were getting your red checkered napkins washed, and you planned on making delicious sandwiches.

Then imagine that the washer destroyed the napkins and the weather turned out to be cloudy and a bit chilly. The sandwiches were still delicious, but the idyllic picnic just didn't come to fruition.

The third movie experiment night was something like that picnic. I made some delicious lasagna and Hot Rod was funny (especially with the red wine I consumed along with the movie)... but the napkins and weather weren't what they were supposed to be.

It was to be all that the movie experiment was about: three people that I knew reasonably well that had never met nor seen the movie. Three people from three different parts of my life. Lasagna. Andy Samberg.

Things fell apart pretty quickly, though.

Given how much time I have spent on social media sites and how many people I've become friends with (and become unfriends with) it's shocking how little e-drama I've had in the last several years. The most severe case, up until recently, went something like this:

• Chick I'm dating is in my top four MySpace friends
• I'm in her top four MySpace friends
• She puts another guy she's dating in her top friends (but below me)
• I bump her down in my top friends list
• She puts the other guy ahead of me in her top list
• I remove her from my top friends
• She removes me from her top friends
• I unfriend her (not defriend... totally different)

 We both knew it was ridiculous, that little MySpace pissing match, and while ultimately things fell apart (as they always do for me), this wasn't the reason.

In comparison to the more recent e-drama, though, that was nothing. That was light-hearted and juvenile. The more recent case was steeped in gravitas. Juvenile gravitas, but gravitas.

It went something like this:

• Guy agrees to come to the Hot Rod movie night
• Guy makes random Facebook status update (as is his right)
• Flowers comments on status
• TM2000 comments on the comment
• Flowers and TM2000 go back and forth for a comment or two
• TM2000 makes a "racially edgy" comment
• Flowers jokes back
• One of the guy's Facebook friends (who doesn't know either Flowers or TM2000) makes a crack about how they aren't funny and they need to grow up
• I read this and, while admitting that either or both of those assertions may be true, feel compelled to snipe back at the woman I don't know
• The guy rushes to her defense, and is unable or unwilling to delete the comments that had offended him
• I go back and forth with the woman and the guy a few times
• The guy deletes Flowers, TM2000 and me as Facebook friends without any warning or explanation
• I block the guy on Facebook

I haven't talked to him since, and, as a result of this, wasn't entirely comfortable having him over for homemade Italian food.

No biggie, though. The show must go on. I still had SSD, my college roomie, and a female friend with whom I hadn't spent much time recently. I looped F-Bomb in as a pinch-hitter and we were good to go. The napkins might not be available, but it was still sunny out.

Unfortunately, I got a txt from the female participant about three hours before the appointed time, begging off due to exhaustion and being kidnapped by a roc. I responded that it was considerate of the giant mythical Arabic bird of prey to allow her access to her cell phone, and that I hoped she would feel better soon.

I did a half-ass scramble, chatting with Politica (she had a previous engagement) and then TM2000 (who actually has been engaged before, but was free to hang out last night after he got in a nap).

The movie was good, catching up with SSD was fun (hearing that his daughter is going to enter kindergarten kind of freaked me out), and the lasagna turned out reasonably well.

There was no sunshine and the napkins were unavailable, but it was still a pretty decent picnic.