Life Like A Movie

Remember the "cigarette burns" scene in Fight Club, where the narrator explains that Tyler splices clips of porn into kids' movies? My life is kinda like that, except that instead it's just randomness all the time.

Have you ever seen a movie where the plotline suddenly changes or some weird freaking dialogue gets thrown in, and you pause for a second and think, “Wow, that is totally unnecessary.” That random break from script that throws the audience off? That’s my life.

Yesterday, out of no where, one of the supervisors told me to marry rich. I told him I’d rather marry poor (not that it particularly matters either way, but I just wanted to mess with him). He scoffed at me and told me I should marry rich so my husband can take me to all these amazing places I research and write about every day. Leaning over my cube, he asked me if I wanted to travel. I told him no (it’s not travel that bothers me, it’s hotel sheets and shower floors that bother me, but I’ll leave those pet peeves for another day). He said he was done with me, and with a wink, he said he was just done giving me advice, but wasn’t done with me yet…

At my second job, after validating someone’s parking stub, she gave me a big hug and with a look like I had just save her puppy’s life, she told me I was an absolutely wonderful person. I was hugged again by a father who was traveling with his family from India when I told him the museum was open daily from 9:30 to 5. I’m not sure what made him so ecstatic about our hours of operation, or what makes people think this is Disney World and I’m there to hug and take pictures with (actually, I very politely declined from having an older gentleman take a picture of me yesterday, but undoubtably some bride goes through her wedding photos and finds random pictures of the girl at the front door mixed in with the bridesmaids and flower shots). Later that night, I was chased around the top floor of a dark museum by my boss who was trying to get a picture of me for my staff badge (she was unsuccessful). On the way out, as I walked down the alley to my car, an SUV of teenage boys pulling out of a 7-11 stopped and waved. The back window rolled down and a young man leaned out the window still clutching a churro, introduced himself, and tried to get my number.

The other day I had a cute and nerdy frat boy (they exist!) go between telling me about his drunken expeditions and his highly successful job. He told me about Zelda, Thailand,  drug dealers, eating Chinese chicken soup with actual full chicks in it, singing Back Street Boys at karaoke and falling off the stage, and a talking mouse named Maurice  Smith who cooks Mexican.

And just to top off the randomness, I found about 100 arcade tickets when I went to park my car before work. That’s like 4 ring pops.

If my life were a movie, I’d fire the editor, because things are obviously not syncing up.

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Oh So Charming

10 bucks says George didn't tell Mary she had a phenomenal rack when he first met her... Picture from http://esl-bits.net

I should have taken up kick boxing instead of yoga I think to myself as Edy*, a rather intoxicated young man, tells me I have a phenomenal rack. Whether or not his statement is true is irrelevant. I imagine I could take this moment to punch him in the face, but getting kicked out of a bar for fighting just seems so classless. So I mock the boy instead. He seems unaware that he is being mocked and asks me over to the bar. Perhaps he thought his charming opening line was working. He makes a move that tells me to follow him as he walks away. Oh yeah, Ed, right behind you. He turns around, perhaps mildly surprised I’m not there. He waits a moment, and then comes back. He tells me that he’s just really attracted to me. He says this while staring directly at my chest. He goes between telling me I’m phenomenal and just

You might be a tool if: You stare directly at a girl's chest and tell her she's "perfect"... picture from http://media.digikey.com

nodding silently for a while. This is the sort of guy that gives all guys a bad reputation. He asks me if I’m pissed. With unfailing sarcasm I tell him I’m not. No, what would I have to be pissed about? I am as happy as a clam. Please, continue to infringe on my space, toolbox. It’s his friend that eventually saves me, telling him they were leaving the bar. Edy asks me to leave with him. I think of all those Cosmopolitan articles about girls getting murdered after a night at the bar and ending up stashed in a dumpster behind a 7-11…

Next up is Favre*, a man past middle-age with bad teeth. He says he saw my button (a big pink ribbon that read “Birthday Girl”; a gift from my roommate, AP) and wanted to wish me a happy birthday. I thank him. He lingers a bit longer and wishes me a good night. I wish him the same. I shrug; still better than Edy.

Favre is followed by JB*. Lanky with hair the color of beach sand, he tells me about his friend dying in a horrible fishing accident… in the bar’s fountain (during the day, kids are invited to “fish” little plastic guppies out of the water). He tells me that he’s British, although he’s lacking the accent (he was four when he moved; he says he wishes someone had told him girls dig British accents before he went to school here and took on a typical American speech pattern). He explains that his lankiness and crooked teeth are due to his British-ness.

While JB is still here telling me about being British, GI* and Ben* join the group. GI was an editor on the university paper with me. Ben is a childhood friend of his. GI is a tall army guy who once showed me how to break someone’s face. I introduce him as such and demonstrate the move he showed me. JB laughs with slight discomfort and asks if it’s time for him to go. But he doesn’t leave. GI tells me that he’s moved to Newport and that we should hang out sometime. JB’s fingers are suddenly intertwined with mine. As I laugh with GI and his friend, I feel JB’s arm wrap around my waist, pulling me in closer to him while at the same time, pulling me a little further from GI. In my head, I imagine that in the animal world, this would be like the runt of the litter trying to protect his food from the stronger members of the pack. Throughout the night, JB apologizes for being a nerd and asks several times if I just want him to leave. He also talks about his

You might be a nerd if: Your pick up lines reference Harry Potter. Picture from http://www.harry-potter-movie-buzz.com

traveling to Malaysia for work, his love of cooking, and shows me pictures of his Harley Davidson on his iPhone. I wonder what lanky, nerdy guys did to impress girls before technology…

At the end of the night, JB asks to kiss me. I politely decline, explaining PDA is really not my thing, not to mention I’ve known him for approximately an hour. Perhaps slightly embarrassed, he says he wishes that he had that magic powder that could transport you from one place to another. He is talking about Floo powder; the magic powder in Harry Potter that transports wizards from one fireplace to another. He is a nerd. I think to myself that he sort of looks like how I imagined Neville Longbottom when I was younger. So when he asks for my number, I oblige (because I’m a nerd). He asks when he should call. Perhaps it was my mistake to say whenever, because when I wake up the next morning, I have a text message time stamped for 2:07 a.m. and a missed call at 6:09 a.m. Apparently he is not a follower of the three day rule.

I think of George in “It’s a Wonderful Life” telling Mary that he’ll throw a lasso around the moon and give it to her if that’s what she wants, and wonder if I was just born in the wrong generation.

*Names have been changed.

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Technology Fail

Still probably too technologically advanced for me... picture from bedrock.deadsquid.com

I like to pretend I’m only slightly below par technologically, and yet every now and then I am reminded of how deeply sub-standard I am. For the past two hours, I’ve been trying to hook up a wireless router for the internet. For the past hours, I’ve failed miserably in spite of the fact the router came with a CD that takes you through a step-by-step process. It seems I’ve grown up in the wrong generation. I’ve never played Wii or Rock Band; my gaming skills failed me after Super Nintendo. The 3-D graphics on the Nintendo 64 were too much for me and I never got the hang of the joy stick. I didn’t learn to text until my sophomore year of college, and even then, I still get the phone taken away from me for texting too slow. So here I am now, sitting in semi-darkness on the floor of my house, surrounded by a plethora of cords, and wondering if maybe I should make some friends with some of the computer nerds who hang out in the basement of the university library. 

I can build a fire and tell what berries are poisonous; maybe I was really destined to be a cave person. Plus I can totally use a dinosaur as a vacuum (if you don’t get the reference, yabba dabba do yourself off my blog).

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Butter and Cream and Clams, Oh My!

I never want to see clam chowder again. Picture from heinzsoups.com

I currently don’t have the internet in my home and the university library is closed by the time I get out of work, and you know how I feel about Starbucks (which is where my roommate sits for hours, I presume drinking a small coffee, updating her Facebook, and watching YouTube with her headphones in). So I apologize for my lack of posts.

This past weekend, I had the great honor of attending Chowder Fest. That’s right, an entire festival dedicated to New England’s most artery clogging soup. My mother decided that for her birthday, she wanted to experience one of Rhode Island’s most popular festivals (do you really wonder why the RI economy is tanking?). After eating more clam chowder than the average human being eats in a lifetime, my parents decided it was time for ice cream and liquor, the perfect combination on a hot, crowded black top where the smell of fish is clinging heavy in the air. And what’s better to follow all of this but dinner, more liquor, and birthday pie and ice cream? In fairness, birthday pie and ice cream were of my own making, but I choose to blame the chowder for the fact that I spent the rest of the night curled up on my bed wondering why my body was rebelling against me.

The next day, in order to make up for our previous lactose-palooza, we decided to go strawberry picking and then up to the nature preserve for a walk. After which it was time to eat again. Then we bought fudge, put together my new* futon, and my parents had the great pleasure of teaching me to parallel park (AP, my current roommate, unwittingly became a part of my first try when she moved her car to the street so that I could back my car out. I’m not sure if she knows this). All of this was followed by dinner, more liquor (which I think my parents needed after teaching me to parallel park), but no ice cream (ok, lies, I had pie and ice cream after watching Super Troopers with AP).

*Futon is SLJ’s; I don’t know when she had it out at her parents’ house, but one side was covered in cat hair… It’s been in our dorm room for 2 years, and we never had a cat at the dorm…

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