15 posts tagged “silent bob”

What can I say about San Francisco?

I think, like Paris, it's a city that everyone needs to see before they die.   I also think that, like Paris, it's a city that people go wild for, but I merely really like.  Really, really like, but not completely madly in love with.  Which is also the sort of the same problem with Silent Bob.  But I'll get to that in a minute.

The best way to describe San Francisco is imagine if they took Chicago and put it in Europe.  Or maybe Hong Kong.  (Not that I've ever been there, mind you.)  I found that I had to repeatedly remind myself that I was still in the United States.  It's all so beautiful. And the weather is just stunningly perfect.

As for the sights, I did it all.  You name it, I saw it.  I think one would probably need a week to do it all properly, especially if you wanted a "vacation" not a "trip" like I did.  I also had day or half-day trips to Carmel, San Jose (Which did not appear in any guide book, but Silent Bob wanted to show me where he went to school - and it's very pretty), Muir Woods and Wine Country.  But if you really wanted to expend energy, you could probably hit the major attractions and neighborhoods in three days.

I don't know why I didn't love it.  I know I should, but I couldn't quite get there.

Things I would tell/ recommend to people traveling to SF area: (1) Get a muni city pass that lets you ride buses, street cars, subways (but not the BART) and trolleys as well as gives you admission to most of major attractions (2) trolleys are effing scary and I'm surprised more people don't die on them (3) Pacific time sucks, especially if you like morning cable news (4) Union Square is sort of annoying noise wise, but it's a good place to stay transportation wise (5) try to do day trips out of the city (6) Alcatraz is not as scary/depressing as I thought it would be, but there's some bad JuJu coming off the walls in the solitary confinement area (7) the hills are bigger than you think and they're EVERYWHERE (8) it's neat to try things like  In-n-out burger, which we do not have on my side of the country (9) Fisherman's Wharf is unbearably touristy (10) chinatown wasn't as exotic as I thought it would be (11) It's worth it to try and walk across the Golden Gate Bridge (12) the Haight is full of rich kids pretending to be poor (13) the real homeless people weren't nearly as aggressive as I had been warned they'd be (14) the Tenderlion (aka the "scary section") looked nicer than most parts of Cincinnati.  I never once feared for my safety the entire time. (15) if your hotel is near a BART station, take it into the airport from SFO (16) SFO is right on the bay, so when you land, you are pretty sure the plane is crashing.  It's Logan Airport bad.  FYI.

So.  Silent Bob.  He did come up for a couple days.  Which, knowing how much busy he is (full time job [which is more like two given the way they run him ragged] + taking 12 hours of graduate work towards his Masters), just was unbelievably wonderful of him.  I was really honored by it.  Also, it was hard to not feel guilty.  

Here's the thing about Silent Bob: he's really insecure.  So much so, that he constantly catalogs (no pun intended) all of his faults.  And while that's not a turn-off per se, it does have the effect of turning one's ardor into pity.  I found myself almost starting to have maternal feelings for the man and wanting to hold him and stroke his head.  Instead of, you know, other things.  Further, I have a bad habit of being the female version of a "Captain Save-a-Ho" as evidenced by my 16 year whatever with Tiger.  I don't really want to go down that path again.  It wouldn't be fair to either of us. And there's also the nagging thought of "are you just here because you don't think that you can do any better?"
 
I think if I lived in the same town as him and got to see him more than a few days a year, he would calm down and not be so insecure, and I would be able to maintain the romantic/lustful feelings for him.  But were we to live in the same town, even then it's entirely possible that I would be more doing it because I think I should  (he's cute [disregard his FB picture which makes him look like some sort of extra from Deadwood] and smart [like scary smart] and actually hits most of the points on my "list of ideal traits" in a mate) rather than as a result of some sort of fiery passion. 

I just feel very comfortable with him.  Like we've been married 50 years. (Now that I think about it, he's the human equivalent of jammie pants.)  But maybe that's a good thing?  I don't feel the need to be anyone but my absolute self with him, so I wasn't all animated and chatting and trying to be a clown.  I just was me.  Although I was mortified at how I geeked out about over some pelicans.  But, yeah.  It's comfortable.   Again, maybe if he didn't live on the other side of the country, that too would change and I'd feel...more passionate.  Tingly?   Fluttery?  Assuming I'm even capable of such things still.  Now that I think of it, a lot of this could also have been the result of nerves as well.  I mean, why did I think that I'd want to run into his arms and immediately stick my tongue down his throat?  That's so not me!  For me to hug someone is a big step.  You know, about an hour before he had to leave, I was finally starting to feel a slight urge that way.   Unfortunately, as he doesn't want to leave California and I'm not sure I can move across the country, I don't know that I'll ever get a satisfactory answer to this mystery. 

I'm not really torn up about it, which is another mystery all together.   I'm honestly just perplexed about my feelings.   Like, how is it that I just don't know my feelings toward someone?  Is there some sort of subconscious block going on that's preventing me from moving forward and committing to romantic feelings?  Am I trying to make more out of it than is there because I've got nothing else better to do personal life-wise?  Is this a common thing and it's just a shock to my usual "black and white feelings towards people" self?  I just do not know.  Maybe I'll try another visit (longer, and in his home turf so we're not both tourists) and see how things go at the big conference in July.

But anyway, San Francisco is awesome.  Check it out.

Check it out, Gentle Reader....

Bingo

A bingo with two triple word scores - in FRENCH, no less - for 212 points.  I may have to change my underwear.  *sigh*  Golly, I love Scrabulous.

Don't you love it when you finally figure out what it is that has been going on in your subconscious that's been making you act like a total prat the past few days?  No?  Just me then?

*sigh*

So, I have been acting like a total prat the past few days.  To the casual observer it may not seem like I was acting like the traditional definition of prat, but trust me, I was.  But just to myself.  I was still Little Miss Sunshine to everyone else.  At least I think I was....

It wasn't really a surprise. I always seem to get a little case of the holiday blues. I just hate Christmas, but it's more than that.  I think it's worse this year because it's been slowly building since I got sick last week.  The past three days have been almost unbearable. I have been acting completely irrationally and wrestling with insecurity and fighting insomnia and then having really messed up dreams once I finally do fall asleep.  These symptoms all feed each other and it's pretty much all one big cycle of crap-ness.

On my drive to the farm this afternoon, I had a bit of a lightbulb moment and figured out at least one of the reasons why this happens and why it's worse this year.  Short answer?  I'm scared people will forget about me.  Like I mentioned in my post last week about my bout with food poisoning, I was sick a lot as a kid and had to miss a lot of school.  It always seemed that when I came back to school, a whole bunch of interesting stuff had happened and people pretty much got along fine without me.  So now whenever I'm sick and out of commission, I sort of freak out that my friends and co-workers will forget about me and realize that they don't need me in their life. 

The Christmas season is similar to a sick-out in that there's a forced separation from one's social circle.  Back in the old days it was because school was out of session and everyone went home.  But these crazy modern, technologically enhanced times don't really have it any better.  All week I've been seeing my friends, co-workers and random strangers leave messages on their blogs, MySpaces and Facebooks that say that they're going on holiday leave and will be back in January. And each time I saw a message like that, I would feel my anxiety and insecurity rise just a little.  By Wednesday night I was in a total state and was manically google stalking people and re-reading everyone's blog.  It was a little sad. 

I still hate Christmas and I'm still feeling crazy and I have just about convinced myself that most people who have ever met me dislike me intensely. 

(Like, seriously, I am pretty sure Silent Bob hates my guts right now.  There's this teeny-tiny voice in the back of my head telling me that I'm being stupid, but I don't believe it.  And why you may ask?  Because he's visiting his family in Missouri right now and said, quite understandably to a rational person, that he won't be on the Internet much.  So I told him that after we finished our last scrabble game, if he wanted to wait until he was back in California to start a new one, that would be fine with me.  So our game finished last night AND HE DIDN'T START A NEW GAME WITH ME.  And even though I said that it would be fine, I have somehow taken his lack of starting a game as evidence that he's been looking for an excuse to stop playing scrabble with me EVEN THOUGH WE'VE BEEN PLAYING CONTINUOUSLY SINCE AUGUST 1 and HE STARTS AT LEAST HALF THE GAMES.  Also, I poked him and HE DIDN'T POKE ME BACK.  CLEARLY HE HATES MY GUTS!!!!!  OH MY GOD, WHY AM I SO FUCKING CRAZY?!??!?!)

I don't expect that these feelings will go away until January and I'm back in my usual routine.   However, at least I know part of the reason why I'm feeling this way.  I think I'm going to pop some sleeping pills tonight and try to get at least 8 hours of sleep.  That might help with some of the crazy.

My sister-in-law felt the need to let me know this weekend that my six year old nephew drew a picture of me for school. I thought, "how nice" - until she described it to me.

Basically, he drew me as a basic stick figure type person with huge breasts. Um, okay, I know I have large breasts, but I thought they sort of just blended in. Lord knows I do not dress to draw attention to them in any way. So now I am wondering if they, like, noticable? Like are they the first thing people notice?  Am I a "holy cow check out the rack on that chick" type woman like Dolly Parton or something? Silent Bob mentioned something about them last week and now I'm a bit paranoid that people are seeing me as walking breasts. I kinda thought that they were my little secret, ya know?

I asked Tiger and Silent Bob about it (the above is pretty much a cut/paste from the e-mail).  Tiger was basically like "work 'em girl."  Which, you know, nice but unhelpful in determining how people view me.  Silent Bob was like "You're not a freak.  I'm really more of a leg man than a breast man, but you would definitely set off a breast man's radar."  Or something like that.  And I was momentarily really bummed by that because if you're not really into boobs, that's pretty much my main selling point physically.   So this is yet another reason why I think need to get over Silent Bob and accept the fact that we're never going to be more than friends....I don't want to care about what anyone thinks about me. 

And you know, there's the fact that he's apparently possibly seriously dating someone.  But I digress...

In other news, my foot detoxing pads came in the mail.  I'm going to pick them up at my parents next weekend and try them out when I house sit for them.  I'm really excited.

That motherfucker just used "vague" in scrabble.  I guess you would have to read that last e-mail from him to see why that is unintentionally hilarious.  I'd post it, but I'd like to think of myself as being too mature to post dumbass e-mails from socially retarded assholes on my blog out of vengence.

I have a tummy ache.  I think I'm going to leave work early and then sing along to The Cyrkle's Red Rubber Ball the whole way home.  And then go to bed.  Even if it is 3:30 in the afternoon.

Man, just when I thought things couldn't get any worse, the fucking Silent Bob situation has gone to hell in a handbasket. (Got the e-mail right before I had to go to dinner with a candidate, too.  That was awesome.  I'm so glad my boss approves of and encourages alcohol consumption at dinner.)   And then he challenges me to a game of scrabble on Facebook as if everything's okay?  I just....I'm done, man.  I fucking give up on everything but TV and my dog. If I didn't have to be at work in less than 12 hours, I would start drinking myself into a coma.  As it stands, I have to go back up to the parents this weekend because my sister-in-law is have surgery and I have to watch the kiddos.  After kiddos are returned to their parents, the drinking shall commence.

This sucks.

Now that I have seen Silent Bob in person again and ascertained that he is not a serial killer who was only showing interest in me (assuming I am interpreting things correctly) because he wanted my skin to make a himself a woman suit to wear around his apartment as he tended to his moth collection*, I have decided mentioning him to some people.  Very casually, of course, and only if the topic were to present itself. 

I mean, there's really not much to tell.  I met a guy.  I really like him.  He lives on the other side of the country.  The end.

I've already explained how that went with Tiger.  Today I realized that his reaction, unfortunately, is not unique.  I got an e-mail from a long distance friend that I exchange e-mails with about once a quarter.  In the course of talking about visiting NOLA, I mention Silent Bob.  She shoots back a whole litany of questions about him.  I've told this woman about job changes, moves, family issues, vacations...never has she asked follow up questions.  But I meet man I like?  Well, Jesus, she turns into Torquemada.   Granted, I generally keep my cards close to my chest when I have romantic interest in someone and very rarely ever make mention of the fact, so maybe that's why she's so surprised and intrigued.  But at the same time, damn.  I am very annoyed by this.

*After Silence of the Lambs, a zaftig girl can't be too careful about her suitors.

I am going to start out by acknowledging that I am totally petty.  And I'm okay with that.  No one's perfect.

Remember how in the spring it seemed like every Friday I was just hit by craziness?  Well, yeah, that's back. Yay. This week's episode proceeds thusly....

I was minding my own business Friday morning, sitting in my office and sorting through some paperwork.   An IM chat window pops up.  It's Tiger.  No "hello", no "how are you doing", no salutation whatsoever.  His opening line?  "Is the [Silent Bob] that dropped me to 4th place on your Facebook top friends list *the* [Silent Bob]?"  I said "yes" and apologized.  He then told me that he thought Silent Bob looked like my brother.  He asked me a couple more questions about Silent Bob (which I answered honestly e.g. Tiger: He looks pretty cool. Me: No, he's really not, but that's what I like about him.), told me to keep him updated on the situation and then said he had to go.

Then about an hour later I get an e-mail from Tiger.  Not even through Facebook this time, but through regular e-mail.  He tells me this long involved story about something that happened to him the night before, the basic version being that he saw his double and is now pretty sure that he's going to die. He was being serious, too.  You know, what am I supposed to say to that?   Besides "stop being such a drama queen."

I don't think I'm completely over-estimating when I say that I think Tiger is just a little bit jealous.  Or something.  He's definitely got a bee in his bonnet and I think it's directly traceable to the Silent Bob situation.  I really, really have no romantic interest in Tiger anymore (No, really.  Some feelings, once killed, can no longer come back.), but I have to admit that I am enjoying this more than just a little. If I had known he was going to act like this, I'd have started telling him about the guys I like years ago.  But just to keep the whiny bitch happy, I upped him to #3. Susan M. never uses Facebook anyway.  

Facebook: bringing high school drama back to the 30-something set since 2006.

Okay, Gentle Reader, I've been trying to start this post for about an hour now, but I just can't quite wrap my head around what I want to say.  Somewhere out there exists the perfect metaphor or analogy that would allow me to be able to tie the crap in my head together, but I cannot find it.  I'd even settle for a nice quote at this point.  Oh, well.  I guess it's going to be a little disjointed.  Damn shame, too.  It felt like it could have been something decent.

Shoot...I don't even know where to begin this...

I've been listening to a lot of Amy Winehouse lately.  It's truly music to be hungover by...not that I've been hungover lately.  (Well, maybe just a little bit in NOLA) The thing is...I'm not that self-destructive anymore.  I'm refreshingly mentally healthy.   But, oh, sometimes I really miss being screwed up.  I find myself looking forward to PMS.  That ain't right.  I wonder if I have any more nights of binge drinking and chain smoking left in me?

~~~~~

I went to a wedding yesterday.  It was a Catholic wedding, so that would make it the first time I'd been to mass since November of 2005. (And I only went then because I was grateful about getting a job (HA) and making it safely back from Paris.)  I guess the new pope hasn't changed too much, because I still knew all the words and dance moves and was able to fake my way through it. (The same cannot be said for me and The Electric Slide.)  I was actually a little scared going in there because, and I know this will sound silly, but I was worried that I'd get swept all up in the church and religion again.  Because, you know, God is sorta like my ex-boyfriend in a way and he gets the same sort of "I need to stay the hell away from you" treatment that I give to real life people who reject my advances.

It was a family wedding so I got to see some of my favorite cousins, including the 22 year old one that I friended on MySpace and Facebook.  We gave each other a knowing look.  It was funny, but perhaps you had to be there.   Her older brother and I always get on like a house afire and we got to do a little catching up, but he was a groomsman, so he had other obligations.  I really wish I got to see him more often.  I think I just need to head up to Cincy some weekend and we'll do a cousin club pub crawl.

~~~~~
SPEAKING OF PAST LOVES...Tiger and I e-mailed each other at the exact same time on Friday. (Him through Facebook and me through regular e-mail) I am totally weirded out by that fact.  Especially because when I asked about it, instead of saying something like "yeah, that was weird!", he responds back with something about how we've been on the same wavelength for the past 18 years or some sort of hippie bullshit that would have curled my toes a couple years ago. Now I am not sure what to make of it. 

I casually mentioned Silent Bob for the first time to him and he just as casually asked for more detail.  And then he further casually mentioned that he had just gotten a new girlfriend and that I would "probably like this one."  We are just a casual crew, Tiger and I.  But it is good to note that I didn't feel the slightest twinge of jealously upon hearing about the girlfriend, although I am pretty sure I will still hate the fucking bitch.  (Seriously, yo, he has shit taste in women.) I'm still trying to decide what to tell Tiger about Silent Bob.  I'm not going to pretend that I think SB is the greatest thing since sliced bread and that I'm madly in love with him, because he's not and I'm not.  (I'm crazy about him and want to ride him like a rodeo bull, but that's not love and I'm not going to pretend - even to myself - that it is.) But at the same time, I would like for Tiger to be consumed with jealousy and regret.  That's not terribly mature of me, I know, but it is what it is.

Also, Facebook is the shit even if it's giving me Tiger-induced agita.

~~~~~
It seems like in the past three weeks I've been getting back in contact with a lot of people from the past.  Either they've e-mailed me, or I've started to read their blogs again in my creepy stalker way, or I ran into them at my conference.  It's been...comforting.  The few weeks prior to my conference I'd been feeling rather lonely. It's nice to know that there are people out there, even if I don't see them everyday. So yay.

(Part one of three.  Two. Three.)

So.

I am back from six days of conferencing and then four days of "vacation" at my parents farm.   Ten days but it seems like much longer.  I've been away long enough that the comfortable little rut that I've worn for myself in my daily existence isn't so comfortable right now.  I'm sure after a few days I'll be fine again, but right now the thought of going into work tomorrow almost makes me want to cry. As did the thought of leaving my parents' farm and coming back to my apartment. 

And now I present to you some highlights of the past ten days....

Okay, so the first thing you need to know about New Orleans is that it is, as Susan M. would say, "Hot as Balls" down there. (Actually, lots of people say that, but Susan M. was the first person to say that to me, so I always associate the phrase with her.) Now that I think about it, that's not the first thing you need to know about New Orleans.  The first thing you need to know about New Orleans - only if you are flying in, that is - is that the approach to the airport is right over Lake Ponchartrain.  It's not Boston/Logan Airport bad, but it's pretty bad and I, for one, would have really liked to know that we were making a normal landing and not rocketing to a fiery death in a swamp.  So FYI.

So I landed, collected my bags and walked out of the airport into the oppressive south Louisiana heat.  I had been there before two years ago when I interviewed at Shaquille O'Neal's alma mater, but I was shocked anew at it.  My guide books tried to say that Louisiana has an enchanting Caribbean climate.  Don't believe it.  It is hot as balls. 

I had the most delightful cab driver take me to my hotel.  And by delightful, I don't mean that he was particularly nice or that he was a good driver, because he wasn't.   However, he had an interesting life story and I always enjoy hearing those.  Basically, Mr. Cab Driver was originally from Montenegro.  I got off on the wrong foot with him by responding to this piece of information with, "Oh, that was part of Yugoslavia, right?"  I thought I was showing that, unlike most Americans, I am down with European geo-political history.  Mr. Cab Driver responded gruffly with, "You know, we were a country before World War I."  Well fuck you, too, then.

Mr. Cab Driver did not grow up dreaming of becoming a New Orleanian cabbie.  He started off his career in the Navy.  (The Montenegran Navy?  No, the YUGOSLAVIAN one.  Harumph.)  He then became a general merchant marine type sailor.   This brings us to 1992.  For those of you not down with European geo-political history, this is when Yugoslavia broke up, because, as my cabbie rightly insisted, they really were several different countries glommed together into single nation.  As a result,, the United States halted trade with Yugoslavia.  Unfortunately, for Mr. Cab Driver, when this happened his boat was in the port of New Orleans and seized by the U.S. government.  No one would pay for a plane ticket so that Mr. Cab Driver could return home, so he spent seven months living on an un-airconditioned boat in New Orleans harbor, most of that time during the hot as balls summer.  He eventually jumped ship, learned English, and became a tax paying resident alien.  God Bless America.

At this point, I just want to say don't worry, I'm not going to do a day-by-day travelogue.  It pretty much all runs together after Saturday.

Anyhoo, Friday I check into my hotel around 11:30, unpack and decide to explore the city.  My first stop?  544 Camp Street, an address known to any of you as obsessed with the movie JFK as I am.   I regret to inform y'all that 544 Camp Street is no longer the building that Lee Harvey Oswald, David Ferrie and Guy Banister worked out of.  It is now a federal court house.  I was crushed.  I mean, I had planned to re-enact the scene with dialog and everything!

531 Lafayette Street. 
Remember whose office this was in '63? 
Sure. Guy Banister....  
I want to show you something. 
Take a look here. 
544 Camp Street. 
531 Lafayette Street. 
Same building, right? 
Different addresses, different entrances, both going to the same place... 
...to the office upstairs. 
Guess who used it? 
Lee Harvey Oswald. 

Since I couldn't re-enact JFK, I continued my jaunt through downtown New Orleans and headed toward the French Quarter. I stopped for an iced coffee on the way and was pleased to discover I knew exactly what they meant when they said "cold brewed" coffee. Go me.  Although it was good, the coffee was probably a mistake.  Now, I had been up since 5am.  I had nothing to drink except caffeinated beverages, and there I was walking around in the hot as balls New Orleans' heat.  Dehydration was becoming a problem.  Well, the dehydration wasn't that much of a problem.  The hallucinations I was having because of the dehydration was the actual problem.  

I was alert enough to realize that swaying and stumbling along Bourbon Street wasn't going to make me stand out too much, but if I were stopped by Johnny Law, I probably wouldn't be able to convince them that I wasn't under the influence of some possibly illegal substance.  And the smell!  The whole city smells bad, mostly like a combo of sewage and bad cheese, but Bourbon Street has a mixture of bodily fluid smells layered over the top of that.  I was already in bad shape, but that just made me woozy.  I was pretty sure that I was going to end my day by calling my boss from the NOPD drunk tank, which just would have been beyond awkward.  I actually think she would have been cool with it, but she also would have razzed me about it until the day I die. 

I also thought it was entirely possible that I was going to die and my body would never be claimed and I'd end up in a pauper's grave 800 miles from home.  That made me sad.  I started to cry.  Then I mentally slapped myself, said, "Jesus Christ, tortuga, get a grip and some water and sit in some air conditioning."  Right at that moment, a little bodega appeared before me.  So I got some water.  And then I came outside and saw the St. Louis Cathedral, so I went inside and sat down for about a half hour.  The nice thing about churches is that you can collapse on your knees from exhaustion and people leave you alone because they think you're praying.

After I left the cathedral, I decided to walk back along the Mississippi River, since I am a river rat at heart.  There's a raised walkway with this beautiful cast iron handrail along the edge.  I grabbed onto the rail in order to get myself up the stairs and - hand to God - heard my flesh sizzle.  I said words that someone who just spent the previous 1/2 hour in a church shouldn't say.  By the time I got back to my hotel to shower, get room service and go to bed, I had decided that I hated New Orleans, would never return after this trip, and actually sorta wished that I never came there in the first place.

Since this is has turned out to be a hellishly long post and I'm tired, TO BE CONTINUED...

Tune in tomorrow to find out how I came to love New Orleans, why I am re-evaluating my life (again) and maybe just a little about Silent Bob.