Archive for June, 2005
SWFs Desperately Seeking SWM
16 June 2005I still piddle with a few match/personal ad sites, out of habit, and… uh, keeping my options open? Mostly just OKCupid, but occasionally Craigslist as well. Occasionally I’ll run across one of the picture ads of someone in late 20s or early 30s, and you can tell by the picture that they’re just so lonely… “desperate”, but not in a disparaging way, just longing. Just kinda sad… Bums me out to find people like that.
That is all.
92257
14 June 2005Yep, I hurt worse today. Typical. Oh well… So long as I keep at it, I shouldn’t have to worry about being this sore again (and I’d actually be making use of the $125 gym membership, oh yeah). Nothing’s symmetrical, either… Both my triceps hurt, but my right one hurts worse, and my left shoulder hurts whereas my right one does not. Hmm… Well, my groin muscles hurt about equally on both sides. (Hey, that’s not a joke! It’s from the hip adductor machine, which is… amusing to use. :-P)
Haven’t spoken to Bink in about a week or more… Then again, she hasn’t spoken to me. Meh, don’t really care that much. I’m actually wondering how I can justify a trip to Tucson, especially with this North Dakota trip on the radar. But I suppose it won’t be any more gas or driving than, say, a week of going to work… So, I oughtta be able to do that.
Oil can what?
13 June 2005“Yeeargh.” No, that wasn’t my Howard Dean impersonation. That’s me. Started doing weights again yesterday (and more or less restarted exercising in general). My triceps are sore & stiff like… Like the tin woodsman in Wizard of Oz, when he asks for the “oilcan” through tight lips. My shoulders are stiff as well, but don’t hurt yet… I’m surprised my whole upper body doesn’t hurt. Tomorrow, perhaps. Actually, it felt really good working out… Ten minutes zoomin’ on the bikes, twenty of upper body, and then ten of lower body. Perhaps I’d make time for the gym more often if I could remind myself that I do enjoy it… Mmm, and my Shuffle makes it so much more enjoyable. I’m gonna have to get an armband or something, as it got in the way at a few machines, but mostly I can listen to my tunes without any conscious knowledge that I’m wearing headphones and a music player… Seems as though the gym just happens to be playing my stuff on the speakers.
Got news from Kaleena yesterday. Hopefully I will be accompanying her and her brother & sister on their ride back home next month. Let me clarify: we’d be driving all the way to North Dakota and back. I suppose it might sound like a chore and a stupid thing to volunteer for, but I’ll love it… Four days of open road? Hell yeah. Plus I’ll surely add a few more states to the count. *looks* Five states, if we take a side trip to Mount Rushmore. That’ll make 23 states I’ve been to. (22, if you don’t count a layover in Detroit.) Hey, that’s not bad. In fact, looking at it, I can cover all 48 contiguous states in one road trip from home, two or three more after being flown in, and a trip to Mardi Gras. That’s feasible. Hmm… I’d have to invent a reason to see Kansas, Nebraska, Minnesota, and Wisconsin. Maybe we can find a way to hit NE and KS on the way down from the Dakotas. *looks* Yes… In fact, we can hit Mt. Rushmore and Deadwood, KS and only add about 100 miles to the trip (3800 total).
Four and a half days
9 June 2005…until I’m off work for a month… yay!
Well, I got together last night with Danté, of all people. He caught me online at work, told me about some of his progress made on videography, wanted an extra set of eyes to check his editing, etc. So I stopped by on my way home from work. It seems he’s been determined to get Adelaide Video going with or without my help. Which is good… I guess I might work with him a bit over the summer, shooting and editing local bands. I wanted to get some experience with that anyhow; might as well do it with something semi-interesting. But at the same time, I don’t want to feel obligated to help him. He can use my help in some respects; I can use his in others… It’s a back-scratching session, and I’m not comfortable nor do I desire for it to be anything more than that. And eh, who knows… Lots of people work with people they don’t like. At least I know I work well with him, even if I’m not feeling chummy.
Anyhow. Got a call from Phil while I was over at Dante’s; Erin tried calling, but called my home number, not my cell. So while it’d looked bleak earlier in the afternoon, I wound up meeting up with Erin as well. Much more satisfying meeting. :-) Well not exactly satisfying… We caught up what’d gone on over the past year and she had a hell of a time between driving to her internship in Globe twice a week, and a friend of hers who was… in a bad place. Erin was in some ways her only guardian, as her parents and “friends” were more interested in controlling her than actually comforting/helping her.
So, wasn’t the greatest semester in the world for Erin, but I hope it was a relief to get some of that off her chest. Erin’s going to Kazakhstan this fall and looking at a grad school in DC after that, so I’d better take advantage of the fact that she’s in-state. Gotta plan a movie night, some weekend I guess I’ll be going down to Tucson. Twist my arm… I love Tucson. :-)
Not much else to report on. I oughtta text/call Bink tonight, but I’ve sorta been waiting to see if she’d call me. Meh. Stupid social games. But I guess it’s not so much a conscious decision to “play” as it is a desire to see interest reciprocated.
Oh well. Back to Yahoo games. Bejeweled 2 is addicting!
Regarding the “Oohs” and “Ahhs”
6 June 2005Well, went to Vegas Friday as planned. Almost thought against it; Thursday night I was feeling mildly craptacular (sick, some might say) and didn’t know if… sitting in a car for 15 hours would be a good idea. The feeling passed–though it gave me good stuff to draw on when I called in “sick” Friday morning–and I went. Pretty cool… We went the Grand Canyon, Hoover Dam route, so I got to see those spectacles in all their glory. (However, I think the Grand Canyon is even more impressive from 30,000 feet. Roadside, it’s simply a big, beautiful hole in the ground. From the air, it becomes your entire landscape, and its scale becomes all the more obvious.)
Didn’t actually see much of Vegas. The airport is sorta right next to the Vegas strip, frighteningly so. (Makes you wonder, why the hell did the plane in Con Air crash on the strip?) So I saw the strip from a distance, but it was little more than a silhouette. Eh, I’m not disappointed, really… We did stop into a casino on the way out of Vegas, and it was just such cheesy, touristy crap. They set the place up with so many twists and turns and very few signs, in painfully obvious attempt to disorient you and keep you wandering about. In fact, the airport was done quite the same way, and all of Vegas, in fact. It’s strange to think that the “sleaze”–as in the prostitutes and the hotels and the ample opportunities for having affairs or being otherwise lustful–is the most interesting facet of the town. (I guess the tourism board must agree, with all the implications of their “Whatever happens in Vegas…” commercials.) *sigh* But to call the place “sin city” is almost disrespectful to the concept of sin. To sin implies you’re doing something naughty, something bad, and yet… devilishly good, and to know damn well you’re doing it. Vegas is simply set up to feed off people with boring lives and addictive personalities.
But it’s not the destination; it’s the journey. :-P And I suppose I would, in fact, take a trip back there, just to soak things in a little more closely, get a better idea of it. I think it’d be an interesting place to explore if given the chance. I brought my new camcorder along & recorded here and there on the trip, mostly on the drive up. I’m editing it now and will share it with anyone who’s interested–not that it’ll be very interesting.
Anyhow, that was Friday. Saturday I met up with “Binky”–Christine Bink–as per my plans again. I’d gotten a bit hesitant about the meet up, and after the 20-hour exhaustion that was Friday, I’d considered flaking out on the meetup… But I’m glad I didn’t. I had a great time. Just went to TGI Friday’s for dinner, but we could hardly eat for all the talking. ‘Twas one of those broad, far-reaching conversations I haven’t enjoyed in, maybe, two years? Eh, I probably thought the same thing after meeting up with Jenn a few months ago, but this felt different. With Jenn the conversation was surprisingly personal–but talking politics, religion, etc. with her always felt like there were things being “held back”. Not the case with Christine… Despite our differences or preconceived notions thereof, we spoke pretty candidly about those same things and found out we had quite a bit in common in those respects. Plenty remains to be explored about our personal lives, but duh… She’s got a lot of ground to cover, between moving to Cali and back, the ups and downs, friends, exes, bad habits (which, for her sake, I was glad to hear she’s practically rid of). And my own experiences, while there may be fewer of them, require a fair amount of nuance to explain, at least to my satisfaction.
I suppose I consider her within the realm of “possibility”, in the same way I place most anybody I know that’s got two X chromosomes. :-P But it’ll be cool just to hang out with her, get to know her better, then see how things feel. Hmm… I’ve got the odd desire to hang out with her, Kaleena, and Matt, just have the four of us kick it. Something tells me we’d have a good time. (Perhaps because Bink and Keena share the same fondness for Seth “Superstar” Anderson and Angelina Jolie.) Oh!!! Christine loves The Eagles. She actually saw them in ‘03, and I’m totally jealous. But hey, people who love my favorite group, they only seem to come along once every few years. Can’t take them for granted! =D
Ugh… What a headache. I wish I’d brought some Excedrin to work. Such a pain to sit at work with a headache all day.
Anyhow. Gonna get together with Erin Wednesday. I suppose my social life will never be officially dead so long as I keep some acquaintences from high school, though after Jenn and Christine, the well must be running nearly dry. Who’s left, maybe Molly? Kristen? Clarisa’s married, Crysti, Jeanette, Amanda L., all married. And of course Kaleena, though it certainly hasn’t been a dealbreaker for hanging out. Hmm… Amanda P., maybe? Odds are against me running back into any of these people… I might be stuck with making new friends in the near future. :-P
But yeah, Erin Wednesday. Anxious to catch up, to give her what I expect is a much needed opportunity to unload a bit after a breakneck-busy semester. Well, a lot of water under the bridge with her, and some probably bad moves on my part, but thinking of her makes me believe we’ll have returned to that calm, comfortable feeling we had for quite some time. I hope that’s the case.
Man, makes me think of Clear Creek. Aside from Genelle, Erin was the only one I ever shared that place with. (Not “shared”, in that sense, just in the experience of being there.) And now it’s in ruins. Sad. I’d wished to share it with more people. With Kaleena, with Christine now that I think about it, even with Jenn & Andy (for the brief instant in which there was a “Jenn & Andy”)… But most especially with someone I probably haven’t met yet. Someone who’d wind up having a long-standing, intimate presence in my life. Well, I guess I’ll have to find a new hiding spot to share with them. Better start looking. :-)
Wellllll…
1 June 2005It’s been a while, again. Seems I can only write entries in few-day spurts, and usually a month or so apart. Oh well. :P
I’d recently written, “When it rains, it pours,” and it does… But as per usual in the Arizona desert, it usually stops raining as soon as it begins. Jenn is seeming to prove my theory about me being the “setup guy”, the guy whom women will get to know for a short period of time before meeting the man of their dreams. She may hold the record time, in fact–she met a guy just a few weeks after getting back in touch with me, and already I’ve heard her mention the ‘M’ word. Jenn’s awesome, though… It’s easy to be happy for her, and I only hope we don’t fall out of contact again.
Then there’s NAU Chick Part Deux… Kim, rather. *sigh* Again, a record setter… I’ve never had a relationship get so difficult so quickly. (Maybe never so difficult, ever.) I mean, we really weren’t even in a relationship, but it felt like a break-up just the same. (And I did the official “dumping”. Hmm… until now I’ve always been the dumped, and I might prefer it to this. Less chance of feeling like an asshole.)
So let’s do a postmortem:
- Started talking. Hit it off REALLY well, found we had a lot in common.
- Kept talking for a week straight… I didn’t get anything accomplished that week at all.
- Leveled out, talking less often, and particularly less often from my end. (Hey, I’m historically a listener.)
- After a rise in begrudging and self-demeaning comments, had a little tiff, talked about there being too many expectations placed on the “thing-ship” (relationship or friendship?), seemingly worked out issues.
- Continued talking, but at even less frequency, because despite apparent “resolution”, numerous expectations remained present… quite simply weirded me out.
- Return of begrudging and demenaing comments, more intense, and moreso directed at me.
- BIG long conversation about what she expected of me, and how I tend to be with friends, etc. I don’t need constant communication… I can sometimes go months without talking to my best friends without feeling that anything’s wrong or out of place. Most of my friends seem to be the same way. Kim is not. Conversation seemed to end with a greater understanding of things…
But I dunno, by that point it was just more stressful than I cared to deal with. No, perhaps even more stressful–the last few times we’d spoken, I noticed I was getting instantaneous chest pains, just as soon as her IM window would pop up. Chest pains. Now, anyone who’s ever ridden with me in my truck knows that I’m a very tempermental driver: yelling, cursing, the whole deal. But never, ever in my driving experience have I ever been so stressed as to have it manifest as a physical symptom, chest pains or otherwise. So Kim somehow managed to find a way to make me very, very, very stressed out very quickly.
I’m sure she thinks I’m simply “glad to be rid of her” or something, but I am disappointed. It did seem like we had an awful lot in common, but perhaps it was too circumstantial. At any rate there were significant differences where it counted. I’ll spare the specifics lest it seem like sour grapes. The one thing that really bothered me, though, was how little she actually knew about me, how little she asked about me. Perhaps it’s somewhat my fault for saying “we’ve got a lot in common” so early on, but she seemed to project her own habits and emotions and subtleties onto me, as if I would behave just like her. (Except when I didn’t, at which point she related me to her ex-boyfriend… ugh.) But no, it’s not just that.
I don’t really enjoy talking about myself, but I love to talk about my filmmaking plans, my script ideas, and usually when I mention filmmaking to people, they ask, “What sort of stuff?” At which point I can talk their ears off… I’m much better at expressing myself through my efforts, be it my “films” or my site or my friendships. Kim never asked about my filmmaking ventures at all. She knew about my friends and about my website, but they just seemed like points of resentment to her… Like they took up too much time and/or affection that could instead be spent towards her.
Ugh… To read my own words, I’d think I’m overrationalizing the situation myself. But I don’t think so. Certainly some reflection going on, but reflection on rather basic feelings I’d had throughout the experience. At any rate, I ought not go into it any further… I don’t think think it can help either of us at this point, so why risk causing any more hurt feelings?
Oh… I guess the metaphorical “rain” hasn’t completely let up. I have, in the meantime of all this, gotten back in touch with yet another friend from high school. We shall refer to her as Binky. Heh… She’s not exactly “the type of girl you take home” to meet the parents, and I don’t think she’d be hurt to hear me say it. (At least, not if she remembers my mother.) But she was always cool in high school, friendly, mysteriously quirky, and smarter than she let on. And I think, despite some so-called bad habits, a good person. Well, I never knew her terribly well, but I know for sure that she’ll be fun to hang around with, certainly more fun than I am. :P We’re getting together Saturday night; it’ll be good to catch up.
Ooh! Friday I am going to Vegas. I won’t be staying in Vegas for any great length of time, and I might not even see the strip, but just the same I’m going there. Kaleena’s grandparents have to pick up her younger siblings there for some reason (I dunno why they’re flying in there and not here), Kaleena’s going along and she asked me to come along for company and (particularly, I think) to supply some DVDs to watch in her grandfolk’s posh minivan. ;) Hey… Free trip, free meals, I’m in!
Ooh, ooh! Wow, I actually have a lot to write about today. I bought a camcorder… finally! It’s the Canon Elura 85, which I picked up from B&H Photo Video online for about $450. It’s not nearly as sophisticated as the Sony VX2100 that Danté had purchased, but it’s got a surprising amount of manual control for such a “low end” camera. In fact, I’d say it’s only major shortcoming is low-light performance. But it should work fine for test editing, for any possible documentary projects I can cook up, short films, etc. With good lighting it’d even be feasible to shoot a feature, but if I get that far I’d rather buckle and buy/rent/borrow a better camera. Just the same, it’ll be a nice little doodad to have over the summer. I just hope I can scrounge up enough cash to buy a decent sized hard drive, so I’ll have plenty of free space to store the raw video. (Perhaps it’s time for Danté to make good on the 250 GB hard drive he owes me. :P)
Is that all? Yeah, I think I’ve said all there is to say. Oh, as far as movies go, Revenge of the Sith was much better than the first two prequels. It’s not Empire, and it’s more flawed than A New Hope or Jedi, but possibly more enjoyable than either. The Longest Yard is pretty simple in concept but damn funny in execution… and it doesn’t have the typical motif of ”Sandler flick” written all over it. Haven’t seen Madagascar. Keep an eye out for Batman Begins, coming soon.