Holy Coincidence, Batman!

So, I've noticed something strange over the past few years about my movie-viewing habits. At times, said habits are somewhat . . . eerie. Let me explain:

On September 10, 2001, I fell asleep watching WarGames and awoke to the news of the events of September 11th. I thought I was dreaming about the movie.

The night before Hurrican Katrina hit in the US, my movie of choice was The Day After Tomorrow (also fell asleep watching). This one is definitely more of a stretch since we were all aware that a hurricane was going to make land, but the total destruction it would reek was unknown--though my knowledge of the hurricane may have affected my subconscious desire to watch a movie about extreme weather conditions.

I fell asleep watching Spider-Man on April 17th, 2006, and this happened the next day. In case this one isn't obvious, there's a scene in Spider-Man where Spider-Man (is it hyphenated like that when it refers to him? I've also just reached that point where the word "spider" looks really bizarre, and I'm unconvinced it's a real word) must choose between saving Mary Jane and saving a group of boyscouts (?) who are stuck on the suspended Roosevelt Island Tram.

Two days before Brad Renfro died, I bought Becky a copy of Sleepers as a late Christmas gift (had been waiting to find something she really wanted).

The night before Heath Ledger passed away, I watched Ten Things I Hate About You and fell asleep.

I fall asleep watching No Way Out, and this happens the next day.

Obviously these are just coincidences, but they're very strange, and it's been a little eerie when I keep hearing about something that I was just lost in on another level--like when you've never heard of a thing before and suddenly everyone's talking about it for no particular reason.

"I know that your heart is bleeding / I can see it in the way you smile."

They (the ubiquitous "they," of course) say that writing things down helps you process and deal with them. Sometimes I find that it just makes me more upset. I'm not really sure which way this is going to go this time, but I believe it might be toward the negative. [Edit: I just finished typing, and feel much better, so my prediction was wrong.]

As I previously mentioned, I've signed up for an internet dating site. At this point, I've gone out with three guys on four dates that I've met through the site. The first date was an absolute disaster. Jim and I hit it off online immediately. We used the instant messaging function of the site and could barely type fast enough to keep up with our thoughts. He asked me out for that night, and it was one of the most awkward experiences of my life. Conversation was stilted, and I felt like I had been talking to someone else online. All that passion and enthusiasm seemed to be sarcasm in retrospect.

The third guy I went out with, Jason (yes, I'm skipping #2 for now), was a total sweetheart. Conversation flowed and I really enjoyed talking to him. But there was no spark there. He's younger than I am by four years, which shouldn't seem like a lot, but coupled with the fact that he was about two inches shorter than I am made it seem like he was a lot younger. In many ways he was much more mature than I am, but . . . I don't know. I just wasn't giddy.

The number 2 guy, Will, seemed promising. He is intelligent, kind, tall, and athletic. My initial e-mails with him were sculpted to his writing style (short and a little mocking), but--while it's not my natural style of writing--it wasn't a stretch. He asked me to meet up with him for drinks, and I had a great time. At the time, I thought he did, too. We talked until 12:30 in the morning (from 9:45 on a Tuesday night), and when I walked him to the subway, he said he'd like to see me again. I asked him to let me know he got home okay (meaning sometime the next day or something), and he e-mailed me pretty much when he walked in the door. I *told* him my e-mail address once, and he remembered it. These all seemed like good signs. Midway through the week, I decided to ask him to go to a friend's concert with me on Saturday. He asked if I'd like to get food first. I said that I'd like that. We'd been e-mailing every day (quick little quips) and that continued until Thursday evening. Saturday afternoon, I sent him a text message asking when and where he'd like to meet. He called me back, and we made a plan. I met up with him at a sushi restaurant that night and we had pleasant, easy conversation. He came to the concert with me and kept sneaking glances at me and looking into my eyes.

I should probably introduce my new philosophy. My new philosphy is that I'm going into any of the dates I have acting as if the person is my oldest and best friend in the world, and I've been making an effort to touch their arms and smile with my eyes if I'm interested; my mom has told me that my shyness comes across as being rude or not interested, so I've had to push myself. So far, Will's been the only one I've been interested in, so he's the only one I've done this to. When he would look at me, I'd glance back and smile.

I had double-booked myself that evening and had forgotten about a birthday party I had committed to several weeks earlier. I turned to him and said, "I'm actually headed in your direction for a birthday party that you're welcome to come to if you'd like." He said, "Okay." And then I added the caveat that most of my closest friends would be there, and he panicked a bit and said, "I don't know if I'd feel comfortable. What do I say if they ask how we know each other. Can I let you know as we get closer?" That was fine, and I understood completely and told him so and that it was why I was letting him know in advance. I admit that I made a mistake in springing this on him this way and should have focused on him and asked if he wanted to do anything else before saying that I had alternate plans. He decided not to come to the party with me and went home to do work instead. I told him I'd like to see him again, and he said to e-mail or call him. When I got to the party, I text-messaged him saying that I was really sorry for ditching him like that. He replied, "No problem" or something along those lines.

Monday morning, I sent him an e-mail apologizing again, explaining the situation, and asking if I could take him to dinner or bring him take-out (he was in crunch time with work for school at the time--getting his PhD) to make up for it.

This was his response:
"No, no - don't feel bad about saturday.. I really just had to get to studying.
but for whatever reason I don't think this is going to work out - so I'd rather stop it now rather than let things go further. sorry about that."

This caught me off-guard. Admittedly, I was a little afraid rather than excited to open his e-mail, so I think I subconsciously knew he really wasn't into it, but the e-mail still took the wind out of my sails and made me cry a bit. I truly did understand where he was coming from and--when I took a step back--agreed with him. We had very little in common, e.g., he hates TV and I work for a TV station; when I made a reference to The Karate Kid as a cultural phenomenon, he had no idea what I was talking about. I even responded (and truly meant): "No need to apologize. Thanks for being honest!"

Somehow the "upset" stuck with me all day, though, and I think I've figured out why. My friend Rachel said, "I can't believe he said, 'Sorry about that.' That's what you say when you spill mustard on someone." But that's not what bothered me. Someone else pointed out that we'd only been on two dates, so "than let things go further" sounded very drastic. Yes, that bothered me (as did his incorrect use of "further"), but it wasn't the problem. If he had simply said, "I don't think this is going to work out," I wouldn't have given it a second thought. What got me was, "For whatever reason." What does that mean? I can almost guarantee that he was trying to figure out a polite way to say that he's "just not that into" me, but he opened a can of worms with that one!

"For whatever reason" is what the Post Office says when a package arrives mangled on your doorstep. You want answers! What reason? Why? I know the answer (in my case) is something intangible or it might even have something to do with something I said or did or just the way I acted, and I know he just probably couldn't even put his finger on it himself and thought I was crazy about him and he just didn't like me the same way.

But that phrase peaked my curiousity so much that now I'm blogging about it.

Best

Driving around after a recent wedding with a married friend (her husband had left earlier in a separate car), I had this moment where I had one of the most selfish thoughts of my life: "I just want someone to like me best."

Then I thought about how selfish that was: "Wow--that was really selfish. I should want to like someone else best."

Then I thought about how I didn't care it was selfish: "I don't care if it's selfish. I really do just want someone to like me best right now."

I've been feeling a lot better about myself recently (losing 25 pounds will do that to a girl) and really feel ready to love myself and to open myself to loving someone else (and being loved in return). So, I joined a free online dating website. For the most part, it seems to be a pretty small group of people who are using the site (e.g., I was matched with one of my good friends, who is also an even better friend's ex-boyfriend; that "even better friend," in turn, was matched with another friend of all of ours--a little too "small world" for my liking).

I have to say, I have received some of the strangest messages from people. It's not nearly as bad as when I joined Match.com, and was getting requests for one-night-stands from people in other countries (yes, because that's *clearly* what I'm looking for), but I just received the following message and don't even know how to process it. I mean, it's flattering, of course, but . . . I'll let you judge:

"Babe, you are amazingly beautiful. And, for a change I am not flirting. Keep up your smile and take care! It's worth millions, rather priceless, certainly deserve a voluptuous kiss."

This person lives in Philadelphia but does not have a photograph up. I'm almost wondering if I know the person and if I'm assumed to understand who it's from. [Sidebar: should that be "who" or "whom?" The passive-voice who/whom confuses me. I *think* it's supposed to be "who," but neither sounds quite right to my ear, and I'm too lazy to recast the sentence.]

I have found a few people who sound incredibly promising--if not as romantic partners then as friends at least. (One guy talks about loving puddles and that any girl he dates would have to love to jump in them!) And, a girl can never have too many friends or shoes. I think I'm quoting someone or messing around with her quote. Greta Garbo maybe? Or maybe Imelda Marcos is more fitting.

"I never asked you for nothing like changing your name" ~Ellis Paul, "Changing Your Name"

I was thinking that if I was forced to change my name but that I could change it to anything, I'd choose Dumb Luck.

"I got out alive by Dumb Luck alone."

Ctrl+Z

I cut my own hair. It saves me time and money, and I do a fairly decent job with it. The last time I cut my hair, I snipped a little too much on one chunk and found myself thinking, "Undo. Undo. Ctrl+Z," and was actually somewhat shocked when I realized that I couldn't undo my mistake.

I've recently found myself doing the Ctrl+Z mental exercise with embarrassing frequency. When I draw and put down a line that's a little too thick, I am somewhat miffed that I have to erase and risk getting it to a different point from the base.

I wonder what effect computers and the idea/concept of the undo will have on future generations, ones who grow up on computers.

"Makes me []ge."

I love music and musicians, specifically lyricists. Clever wording (at least what I consider to be clever) gets me every time and brands me a fan for life.

Some examples:
Ben Taylor: "Or would you sit, like you do sometimes, in the kitchen and smile?"
Julian Velard: "Did you really want to be the girl sitting next to me, the one with pretty little feet, hoping I will notice her shoes?"

In other cases, the band's energy and the fun they're having on stage together is what sucks me in--a rapport that can't be manufactured, that moment when the guitar player walks over to the bassist mid-song, turns his back to the audience and says something that makes them both laugh.

In entirely other cases, though, I imagine something, make up a story about it in my head. One of the stories I've made up has to do with sabotage. I think if I were in a band, I'd try to find a way to sabotage one particular song in one particular place each time we played it. The lead singer (because in this daydream, I sing backup) would be forced to go on with the song, thinking, "Is she going to do it this time?" It would make for that rapport I was talking about earlier.

I realize this isn't all that clear. What got me off on this whole tangent is Guster's song "Grin." Throughout the song, one of the guys sings, "Watching the others struggle through makes me grin." He holds onto the "in" part of the word and just as he lets go, someone in the background says, "ch." I can't figure out the correct phoenetics, but the end result is that it sounds like "Watching the others struggle through makes me cringe"--which completely changes the meaning of the lyric. I doubt it's intentional, but it just *gets me* every time. I love it--that what is essentially a quick exhale of air through narrow lips could completely reverse the idea of grinning and make it a negative reaction.

Of course, now that I think about it, the "ch/ge" sound at the end might actually be the word "should" because the next sentence makes sense with the word should at the beginning of it: "[Should ]I tell the mindless stumbling through that I have found it[?/.]"

Eh--in my head, I'll still hear what I want to hear and will picture the guys giving each other "don't you dare" and "it's coming, so you'd better be ready" eyes.

A Month-and-a-Half of Tuesdays

A month-and-a-half of Tuesdays: that's what I've been doing, where I've been, why I've been recently.

Monday starts the work week. It brings with it new possibilities while still licking the weekend. Wednesday marks the halfway point. But Tuesday, poor Tuesday, has very little to recommend it. Tuesday is long. Tuesday is boring. Tuesday is certainly no Friday, but it's not even Monday. Tuesday wishes it was Monday.

For a period of a month and a half, my life was all Tuesdays. At one point, Becky P. said, "I keep thinking it's been months and months since this whole thing started, but it's only been three weeks [the count at the time]." "But it also feels like one long day," I responded. "One long Tuesday." By the end of the whole ordeal, it had been a month and a half, six long weeks--though little rogue days would slash off and declare themselves as that dreaded second day from time to time afterward, even now.

The story is far too long and too boring to relate here, but the key phrases are a leaky apartment, a psychopathic old man with a penchant for 180-proof liquor (given to exaggeration) with a hatchet he would use to chase people down the street, and two apartment moves within these Tuesdays.

In part, this is my excuse for not writing. Packing for the first move took all my time and since all that followed went down, my brain had felt for a period of time like what's on the screen when a scratched DVD plays. I believe "addled" is a word my mother would use to describe this feeling.

I've been composing, churning, redigesting in my head, but never spitting it out via keyboard. I've been observing the world a little more and yet a little less than usual. This doesn't make sense, I know.

It hasn't all been bad, though.

I tend to fall in love immediately, whether with a glance, a word, a sign, a cloud, or a person who has created or pointed out a glance, a word, a sign, or a cloud. Many label these behaviors "obsessions," and I suppose they are. I've been on a nostalgia kick recently, both seeking out and being sought out by things and people from my past. I've fallen in love with these memories. Someone who falls between being a loose friend and a tight acquaintance is going to be on television as of tomorrow night. I had fallen for him instantly--though, not him so much as his writing. (That's not 100% true: I must be honest and confess that I was attracted to him as a person as well.) We took a memoir-writing class together when I was a senior in college. Each week two people would read what they had written, and when he did, my heart stuttered. Something about the way he wrote instantly reminded me of a line from the movie Wonder Boys, a line which I am not going to look up and therefore will definitely quote incorrectly: "Your words were so natural, as if they had always existed, just waiting for you to pluck them down from Style Heaven." (I also feel this week about Zack Hexum's writing.)

Watching a clip from his upcoming reality show ("reality" is important because it is essentially him and not a character that will be on screen) made my heart skip again--and the clip plays every time I log in to check my e-mail. I long to know him. I want to be his friend, and my soul and heart are crying a bit for having missed the opportunity to know him. (Our lives have diverged so much at this point that getting to know him is nearly impossible because of contrivances that would have to come to be to make it possible.)

But how does one even go about saying, "I want to be your friend" to someone?

I don't have that answer.