Queen of Love and Beauty

I think the only good thing that came of Wednesday night besides the fact that it reinforced my dislike of these types of social situations is that it gave me plenty to write about.

The Players –

• me

• woman1 – organizer, about to turn 40, single, looking to get married and make some babies but doesn’t want to date someone who already has children, has someone that she is seeing and likes, has been dating guys in their mid-twenties
• woman2 – friend of woman1, personal trainer, divorced, 2 children, nice yet dressed to party hard, looks like she may have done some previous hard partying in the past
• woman3 – friend of woman1, single, never married, no children, never got her age, a little on the big side but she was also taller and has been working out with woman2
• woman4 – recruited (just like me) off the dating site, apparently dressed like a lawyer and was asked by some guy if any of the rest of us were lawyers too, nice suit but her shoes looked like she ripped them off a woman in a nursing home… and she wasn’t wearing the required hose with the reinforced toe
• woman5 – friend of woman4, not much to say here
• woman6 – friend of woman1, has children, sounded like she was either married or has a live-in boyfriend, there was no ring (but she had been working out) and I really couldn’t tell which

One of the things that bothered me the whole time was that we were sitting outside and away from this happy hour gathering. WTF? I thought the idea of a singles happy hour like this was to meet other singles of the opposite gender and and maybe… just maybe… meet someone that you like that also likes you. If you are looking to rid yourself of your single status you are not going to accomplish this by placing distance between you and the potential dates. I kept looking in the direction of all the happy hour action (people laughing, talking, having a good time meeting other singles… at least that is what I assume) and then I would look back at the group I was with (all female, single for one reason or another… reasons all of their own making). I could tell early on that this was going to suck.

After first arriving, I met up with woman1, and she and I proceeded to the bar to get some drinks and food. She ordered dinner and we also had chips and queso. I munched on the chips and queso, talked a little, but mostly listened to woman1 chatter on. She told me she was about to turn forty but did not like to date men with kids. By the time you are forty, if you are a single woman, you will be lucky if the men you meet have not been twice divorced and have children with more than one woman. I may not be forty yet but I am also not stupid.

She talked a lot and had a way about her that was strong and almost abrasive, yet feminine at the same time. She did not look almost forty except for around the eyes – it was begining to show there. She talked about her house in Addison. She talked about the guy that she dated (that was also the organizer of this happy hour) and how he played his not-funny, hour long, stand up comedy tape of himself, then put the moves on her… and that was the end of that. Yeah, I gues I have never liked it either when someone starts talking about their stand up routine. The one time it happened to me, it was kind of haphazard – I said just the right thing, and I had no idea he had done that before. He thought I knew and spoke accordingly. I just let him talk. I knew his days (actually in this case, it was more like hours) were numbered.

Moving forward, her friends arrive. These turn out to be people that I would not normally socialize with. Becasue of this, I am pretty quiet. I spoke occasionally but would have much rather have been at the gym or at home, talking to a cat about the plot line of “Law & Order” or whatever else happened to be on tv… or having a root canal. It was at this time that we all headed outside (because they were smokers…yuck) and got the table the was away from all the happy hour action. We sat, they yapped like a flock of magpies, and I continued to gaze in the direction of the gathering, which to me looked more fun. Woman4 and 5 arrived, sat for a bit, then made their way inside for drinks and food, but not without stopping within the happy hour crowd and mingling. I was jealous.

Now we come to the part where woman1 screws the pooch when it comes to miller lite guy. She walks buy and offers to get him another drink while she is at the bar. No wonder she is not married! He of course turns her down flat – if he was interested he would have offered her a drink. Heck, he would have done that when we first encountered him if he liked what he saw, and I would have gotten one out of good will… but he didn’t. When she returned with drink in hand she told of this horrible story, and continued to recount the detail over and over as the night went on. Yep, this was one big suck fest for me.

Woman4 was nice. We talked about the online dating thing, our profiles, church, etc. This was my only bout with decent conversation all evening. I finally grew bored enough to say goodbye and excuse myself for the night.

If I ever get invited to one of these things again I am going solo – I know I am bad in those situations but I would have more of a fighting chance if I weren’t tied to one specific group that just happened to be some little side clique. I would have been happier in the middile of all that, not talking to anyone but people watching. I could have at least maybe gained something that way.

I am going to venture out tonight for an outing involving lots of people, beverages and forced pleasant discussion. I know I will survive this with little to no injury but I would really like to either go to the gym or just relax at home. I am doing it for my own good. Well, that’s what I am telling myself… that and there are times we have to do things that we don’t want to do.

If all goes well, I will be out a tad late. If not, I may be home in time to catch “Law & Order” (I am guessing that there is one of the flavors on TV on Wednesday at the usual 9pm time).

Rain and a cold front are supposed to be coming through north Texas tonight. The high tomorrow is only supposed to be 82 degrees! Ok… I know… not really long undie weather, but it is nice to dream.

Four weeks from today I will be moving. Yay!!! Working out when I want… going to the grocery store when I want… Sunday movie nights no longer have to be avoided… midnight shows at the Inwood…

WOOHOO!!! I will finally be able to once again explore the nocturnal life in the outside world. I am so excited I can barely contain myself!

I figured I might regret this search, but one of those strange “what ever happened to” thoughts crept in yesterday evening. The person in question? Jovan – that guy who hosted Net Talk Live!, fronted Internet America for a while, and came up with the CueCat. He always seemed rather self absorbed, but also like a train that was going to crash but you had no idea when. Well, I got my answer – two Dallas Observer articles, a blog that is nearing a year in age but only has five posts, some rocks you can buy, and a name change from J. Jovan Philyaw to J. Hutton Pulitzer.

Hopefully, even the DMN has learned its dot-com lesson now – people don’t buy junk… even if it is in the form of a cute, plastic feline.

Unexpected news last week has led me to get a new apartment. It was not having to do with the home loan, but something else that was going to affect that. I didn’t want to be in over my head, and I think with the change in events, I might have been. Another $260 a month is getting me a garage and about the same amount of living space (I think) and a useless amount of space that is a private stair well. I guess it’s close enough to a house for now since I will have a garage.

I looked at another place but they wanted $1000 pet deposit, their rates were higher, and it wasn’t as close to things as the new place is. Worth a look-see though – their floor plans are interesting. I thought I had seen them online and that they had bad reviews, but I was wrong. This place had good reviews, but you never know how many were real and how many were planted.

I am so looking forward to being able to live my life again and not having to worry about parking. I know the whole thing might sound silly, but we by passed silly last September when this whole thing started getting bad. Last night I got the last space outside my building, and that was only because I decided to grab it and not look for a better one (it was one of the ones by the gate). All the others were taken, and as soon as I parked there, a car that had been parked in the same spot earlier in the day – that has no sticker – drove in looking to park there, or some other place they shouldn’t. They parked by the dumpster, in the fire lane. I hope the cops came through and ticketed them.

I would really like to know if there is something special about changing a flat tire on a BMW. I don’t have any personal experience with these cars on this issue but something tells me that it couldn’t be that hard. I have had some help with previous tire changes but mostly when I really needed it (last time was for the Taurus, and the spare happened to be flat too – me and the spare got a ride up to the gas station to air it up and all was good after that). The only time I have gotten total help with this and not had to do anything myself was when I had a tire lose tread while going down the freeway (I was younger and skinnier then – who wasn’t going to stop?)

This brings me to today – I am on my way home for lunch and see what appears to be two teenage kids (one male, one female… maybe late high school age or just graduated) pulled over on a side street with mommy/daddy’s BMW having a flat tire. The female was on a cell phone calling a parental for help, or the national guard or something. The male was standing around looking dopey and stupid, or maybe he was just being himself. To her I wanted to say “It is just a tire – either change it yourself or put dumb-dumb here to work on it.” To him I wanted to say “Would you please just be a man and change the damn tire?” I thought about what I would have done if I had pulled over – I would have told them how to change the tire. I would have gotten some food, sat on the grass and had lunch while telling these two to first get the spare and jack out of the trunk, loosen the lug nuts but don’t take them off while the tire is still on the ground, jack it up, get the tire off, put the spare on, replace the lugnuts and tighten them in the pattern of a star, toss the flat in the trunk along with everything else and be on your way.

I thought for sure that a high school education would give one the mental capacity to change a tire, but maybe not. Guess that is something you learn on the street (hehehehe… was that a pun?).

I think I am nearing the point of crawling under my desk to assume the fetal position, pulling my underwear over my head. If it is true that those things that do not kill us make up stronger, then I should be some form of he-woman after this week. Things are falling apart and I have to keep telling myself that maybe what I want is not the same as what God wants for me right now, and I should just deal with things. That is all I can do at this point.

Maybe I will feel better after a good workout tonight. This will be the first time this week as parking at the hole where I live is back to full-on suck. I forgot that the strong class was tonight but I think I will just go and do my regular workout and definitely make the class next week. Until then, I can pour my frustrations into packing.

I looked at houses yesterday and Sunday. I never knew it would be so stressful before closing – so many things to consider, thoughts about how much work I would need to put in and can I do the things that need to be done, and then there is always the price. Saw a few places that need foundation work (too scary). Saw one with the master bedroom in the front of the house with double doors leading to it (weird). I want a deal but the places that need work need too much work. One of them even had a ton of decking in the back, but that meant that this portion of the house was not getting the watering that it needed. I am trying to force out the demons of doubt and push ahead.

Branwen was in town Sunday and Stacy and I met her for bowling. After not bowling for a while I am out of practice, and I had to quit before they did. My wrist started hurting, and it seemed to come and go for a while, but then it just got so bad that I couldn’t stand that thought of putting more stress on it (plus, the pain was no longer bearable).

Today? Blech. I’m tired, my head hurts and there is laundry to do. Over the weekend I also caught one of those cooking shows on channel 13 and the woman made Spaghetti Puttanesca. Looked real good so I think I am going to try my hand at it. They described it as something that had a lot of flavor, and that is just what I like.

I never wrote up the Kelly Willis concert from last Friday. Better late than never! Mike picked me up at my place and we headed downtown. Found out that Taste of Dallas was going on that weekend and was just getting under way. We went down to Poor David’s first to see where it was and see if there was any place to eat down there – there wasn’t. I called them to see if they served food – they don’t (but when we got there later for the concert they had ordered pizza and were selling that off by the slice to those that wanted some). After heading back to the West End we walked around a bit to see what the folks there had to offer, but after seeing everything I thought it would be better to just go to one of the restraunts, sit down and get something that way. I guess it is one thing if you are down there specifically for that event, and are ready to buy the coupons, do a lot of walking and what not, but we had other plans. Mike agreed and we went to Friday’s.

After dinner we headed back to Poor David’s Pub and joined the handful of other people that had also gotten there early and were waiting to get in. They opened the doors after a few minutes and we got a table right next to the stage (for a Kelly Willis concert, anything less is unacceptable for me… I even told Mike about me and my camera shoving and making room for myself right next to the stage at the Gypsy Tea Room).

We waited for the opening act to come out – this time, indoors and with A/C. Perused the Dallas Observer – found out that you can get a job at a massage parlor with no experience. I don’t want to know any more about that. The owner of Poor David’s came out and talked about their new location they are in now, and how it is right across from the new Dallas Police headquarters, and how they are really glad about that (we were too). Soon after that, Robin Ludwick came out and performed. Turns out she is the sister-in-law of Kelly Willis – sounds like an easy way to set up a tour. They happen to be family and they also happened to play with the same band. Nice way to cut down on personel and expenses!

After Robin’s set, there was a break, and I headed off to the restroom. When I got back Mike told me that some woman came over and offered him $100 for our table. I looked around, spotted four women sitting to the side of the stage and said “It was one of them, wasn’t it?” motioning in their direction. He said “yes” and told me that he informed them I would probably not be too happy about that. Ummmm… yea, you bet I wouldn’t! Maybe for $1000 I would consider it, but not for $100. If it were a group of guys they might have paid it but this was four women – telling them $1000 would have been a combination of saying “how bad do you want it?” and “go away.” I wasn’t there early for my health.

Kelly Willis soon came out and put on a great show – only sang one song that I didn’t know. I sat there like a total dork and sang along with all the others. I took tons of pictures, and even had to swap out batteries at one point. I have not added them to flickr yet but I guess I will tonight. I am hesitant because of the lighting – the picutres from Fray Cafe looked great in the preview but when I got them off the camera they were really dark. I did the best I could at the Kelly Willis show, but I would hate for these to be the same way. Fearing the unknown status of my pictures – yeah, I know I am weird… what about it?

After the show, I got some more pictures and bought the Christmas cd that Kelly put out with her husband, Bruce Robinson. Also got my picture taken with her and got the cd signed. Mike said that he enjoyed the concert as well.

All was going great… until… the waitress could not find Mike’s credit card! I wish I was kidding. Turned out that there was someone else there with a similar last name (one letter difference) and they both had the exact same type of card. She had given Mike’s card to the other guy and he had already left. Somehow (probably by calling the credit card company) they got a hold of this other guy and Mike spoke to him by phone. They arranged to do a swap the next morning and Mike left with the other guy’s card. They forgave our tab (natuarally) and kept offering us more drinks while we were waiting, but we were both just ready to leave (and it was past his bedtime). All in all, it was a great night, Poor David’s Pub new location is cool (bigger than the one that was on lower Greenville) and if you go there for something, take cash!