WWJBD?

I get on the elevator this morning, and a stunningly attractive blonde gets in as the doors close. I'm going to the 9th floor; she's going to the 4th, and she's starting her morning off with a Cherry Coke. Faced with the "captive audience" that I crave so much when I make these pitches, my mind starts spinning as to what I can say, if anything. Call me optimistic, but I happen to think that given the right introduction, I can get digits here: so, I ask myself, "What would James Bond do?" Because that son of a bitch would never fuck this opportunity up. But alas, I'm not James Bond. So I say "Ahhh, Monday." And she nods. And says "have a good one" as she exits the elevator. Sometimes I feel retarded. And so, I say again . . . ahhh, Monday.

I can't fall back asleep.

Life is very long

You know the ex that I mentioned in last Friday's post about Moose, below? The last time that I had spoken to her was around Christmas last year, when she was back in town visiting her family, and we talked about maybe meeting up and catching up, but she ended up flaking. I haven't actually seen this girl since December of 2004. She left me to go to grad school September of that year. I remember when she was writing her personal statement for grad school (business), she sent me this as her first draft:

I don't like my job. I'm tired a lot, and lonely. I want to go to your school mainly because I need a change of scenery, and I'm kind of hoping to score a rich husband there. Interestingly, though, if history is any predictor, I will probably end up incurring $100k in debt and then marrying/supporting a philandering local bartender anyway. My family is strange. I love them, but they're all crazy and drunk and cry all of the time. By the way, since I'm not a minority, I'd like to state that I'm French like it's an important characteristic integral to my uniqueness...just in case. I used to be smart, but I really did a LOT of drugs in high school. But, I think that somewhere in there is still some intelligence. If I can get through the anxiety disorder, I think I can really blossom.

I liked her a lot. She made me laugh. Well last night, I was getting a beer at the Pub with my friend the Kaiser, and we were talking about old flames. As serendipity/God having a sense of humor/luck would have it, she called. She had been drinking and wanted to "drink alone, together" with me. She was pretty nostalgic about what we had back in the day, and it was good to hear from her. She told me she was getting married in Maui on the 18th. The conversation didn't fuck me up like I had thought it would. I only hope her husband treats her like she deserves to be treated. The test of love, I've found, does not come when you're together with someone. It comes when you part ways, and realize that in spite of "breaking up" the love is still there. Again, our relationship was several years ago, and time heals these things, and the call did not impact me as I feared it would, but still . . . .

This morning's playlist

How It Ends -- DeVotchKa
Born To Please -- Sound Team
Gas Tank -- Home Video
In My Head -- Psapp
No Dice -- Tipper

Special thanks to old friend Meno, who filled my prescription for "good shit that I'm not familiar with." Those five have gotten top play off the long list he sent.

Thoughts on the nature of time

People say that time is money, but that's simply not true -- there's a lot more time than money.

One of my favorite mythological moments

Circe turned Odysseus' men into swine. When Circe had used on Odysseus the magic which had up to then been successful and to her amazement saw him stand unchanged before her, she so marvelled at the man who could resist her enchantment that she loved him.

For some reason, I've always associated that story with the following qoute from Ferris Beuller's Day Off:

Cameron has never been in love - at least, nobody's ever been in love with him. If things don't change for him, he's gonna marry the first girl he lays, and she's gonna treat him like shit, because she will have given him what he has built up in his mind as the end-all, be-all of human existence. She won't respect him, 'cause you can't respect somebody who kisses your ass. It just doesn't work.

Thing is, I became aware of both Ferris Beuller and the Circe story around the same time frame in my life, and I was reading Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises where Robert Cohen refers to Lady Brett as a Circe. Man, I really liked that book.

Gin & Tonic Kind of Life

Back when I was in school, I lived in a high-rise dorm in Chicago for three years, and had a tight-knit group of friends that I'm thankful for to this day. Back in the spring of 2001, my friend Jacob and I went on a three-month bender, starting on New Years Eve and ending when I got back from Spring break. We got sloppy drunk every night except Valentine's Day in that span. Typically, we'd get out of class around 3:00 and go to the supermarket and buy the liquor of the day. More often than not, we'd get a fifth of Seagram's 7, since it used to sell for less than $10 back then. We could then go back to the dorm, buy Sprite at the dorm cafeteria on our meal plan and really start the day.

Why did we stop the bender, I hear you asking? Well, I came down with an upper-respiratory infection from my spring break adventures in the 3rd world and got put on some pretty heavy meds that the booze just didn't go right with. So it goes; I suppose going on the wagon for a while didn't hurt anyone.

But back to the story -- for a while we got on a gin kick. Bombay. Tanqueray. Gimlets with the Odwalla we'd buy on our meal plans were particularly tasty. So one day, we needed to get ice for our gin and tonics. I lived on the 9th floor, and there was an ice machine on the 4th floor, so we got on the elevator with an ice bucket. It was like 3:15 p.m. A girl got on the elevator on the 6th floor, and did a double take at the ice bucket.

Jack: "Gin and tonics . . ."

Girl: "Gin and tonic kind of day???"

Jacob (shrugging): "Gin and tonic kind of life."

It really was very funny. Especially since we got off on the 9th floor before she could respond. That era was my last great bender. Jacob ended up marrying my next door neighbor in that dorm, whom he met in my room. One day, I was reminiscing about it, and found the quantity of alcohol consumed to be excessive, so I suspected with age I was exaggerating it, but she verified that indeed, back then, I was a drunk.

Life is weird sometimes

I've got this friend -- Moose -- and I've known him close to six years now. We were all right friends back in like 2003, and we had even planned to go on a booze cruise to Ensenada, Mexico around that time, but then he went falling in love on me and ended up getting married, and then I changed jobs, and Moose ended up becoming more of an acquaintance than a friend, although I still thought he was a pretty cool guy. Anyway, Moose took me to dinner tonight. He can always write off my meals as biz dev, so I never say no unless I have something better to do, and for like the last two years, every time he's pulled this, he ends up dropping some big news on his front. Tonight he told me he's going to be a dad. His wife is 10 weeks into the pregnancy. I was really happy for the guy. I remember when he had a silly crush on a cocktail waitress back in 2002 and she shot him down solid, and I had to get him drunk and told him he could do better than that anyway. Who'd have guessed he'd be the one with wife/life/kid on the way, and my life would be the example of stagnation?

As an aside, I met him through one of my exes, who went to high school with him back in the day and ended up working in the same office with him after college. She left me to go to grad school in Chicago back in 2004 and Moose and I stayed in touch, while I fell out of touch with her. As it turns out, she's getting married on August 18th. Given a long enough timeline everyone you love will reject you or die. Am I in a weird mood? Very well then, I'm in a weird mood. So it goes . . .

"There is no failure, only feedback."

That's what I've learned from the "being single" game. I was reading a bit on neuro-linguistic programming earlier. I can't say that I exactly buy into it, but I have discovered a few of the basic principles on my own, which anecdotally seem to support a bunch of the NLP babble. From the article:

NLP does not view communication in terms of success and failure. Rather it sees in terms of competence or lack thereof, or learning and failure to learn. As a field which utilizes trial and error, not all actions are expected to "work", rather they are intended to explore, and the results should be utilized as a source of valuable learning and new focus, rather than cause for negativity and despair. Do not dwell unnecessarily on the failure, instead explore what you have learned for the next time.

This morning's playlist

So far:

1. Midnight Rambler -- Allman Brothers
2. Heat of the Moment -- Asia
3. Southern Cross -- CS&N
4. Our lips are sealed -- Fun Boy Three and the Specials
5. When will I be loved? -- Linda Ronstadt
6. Kiss me Deadly -- Lita Ford
7. Mad World -- Tears for Fears
8. Memo from Turner -- Rolling Stones

I need a clever name for that list so that I could save it for Wednesday mornings such as this one.