How (not) to pick up a woman.

In taking a break from my adventures in dog-sitting, I decided to meet up with our darling little Erika over at the Vagabond for Shake.
Being that I am the early bird that never gets the worm, I made it there like at 10:30, at which poin there are like -10 people there. I walked in with the phone to my ear (thanks, Erika) to avoid any stares or to avoid looking like a total loner who goes to clubs alone (NOT THAT THERE'S ANYTHING WRONG WITH THAT). I sat down in one of the couches (although I did consider standing in the middle of the dance floor and looking super fly)(....).
When this very dapper young man comes up to me and asks me "Not to do that."
A little bit confused and a little bit taken aback by his obvious dislike for showering or deodorants, I managed to say, "huh? do what?"
He looked at me like I was from another planet and he said, "Just don't do that."
Now, I have no idea what I was doing but obviously it was very menacing. I mean this guy looked like he was really shaken up by whatever preposterous act I was committing.
I sit back down and in order to avoid any second form of communication with this fine, not at all creepy young man (SARCASM ALERT) and I pull out my phone and start to maniacally text. Anyone that knows me knows that I don't have a plethora of people to text mostly because I'm an obnoxious pain in the ass that people can't stand. So I text Erika. I'm begging for her to be my Jesus and save me.
There's only so much I can text so I put my phone down and (lucky me) there he comes again. He points at the couch I'm sitting on (I'm guessing asking if anybody is sitting there)(the couch is completely empty except for me). I look at him like I have just spotted an animal that is supposed to be extinct. I'm confused and a little scared. He sits down next to me and his lovely odor of 5 days no shower no deodorant hits me. Nice.
He sits down next to me and right away he looks annoyed with me. Probably because I was doing whatever it was he didn't want me to do.
He asks me where I'm from.
"Miami." I'm trying my hardest not to breathe through my nose.
He rolls his eyes and looks annoyed. "Right, but your family?"
"Cuban".
He shakes his head. He looks REALLY annoyed.
"So what do you do?"
I hate explaining what i do. Hate it. Especially in a noisy club.
"Office Manager." I have perfected the two words or less answer.
He rolls his eyes. Again.
Starts moving his hands in a really weird way. I'm starting to think he's escaped a mental institution.
"Do you have a boyfriend?"
I can't even lie at this point. "No."
"Do you want a drink?"
"I don't drink." Still trying not to breathe through my nose. He looks at me like I'm a scumbag. He looks away.
I'm a little scared for my life. I have the feeling he's going to follow me home and kill me. And not in a sexy way.
In a really scary, creepy way.
He pulls out a carton of cigarettes and asks me if I want one. "No."
I'm actually thankful for the cigarette smoking hovering all over me because it kinda/sorta eliminates the stench exuding from his arm pitts.
Kinda/sorta but not really.
He starts to mumble.
"Mumble, mumble,mumble, yadda. yadda, yadda."
In an attempt to stop his pointless mumbling I ask him what he does.
He looks at me all cool and says, "I don't have a job."
Nice.
(Men, seriously, if you meet a girl at a club and you're trying to sleep with her/date her/chop her up/pimp her out/sell her body parts in order to get medicine for your momma do NOT ever tell her that you don't have a job. Freelance writer works just fine.)
I'm pretty sure at this point this guy collects SSI or SSA (i forget which is the one that the crazies get).
Excellent news.
I ask him, "How old are you?"
He says,"31, like it's none of my business and rolls his eyes. AGAIN. (I am not kidding)
He looks like he's had enough of my conversation. He says, "It was nice meeting you," shakes my hand for what seems to be an eternity and tells me his name is Craig or Greg or something that rhymes with Egg.
A couple of minutes later Erika comes in and I give her a recap of my prince charming on the white horse with B.O.
I point him out and she says, "I love that his pants are really far up his ass."

In the spirit of sadness.

“There are as many nights as days, and the one is just as long as the other in the year's course. Even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness, and the word 'happy' would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness.”
-Carl Gustav Jung

I feel comfortable being sad. Because as long as I'm sad, I'm feeling. As long as I'm sad, I know it won't take much to make me happy again. And that gets me through those periods of time when all I want to do is lay in bed and mope. And think about things I can't change.
But, still, I feel alive, and I know that, eventually, the feeling will subside and I'll want it back again.
Because sadness,no matter how lonely, how ugly, how miserable, is what keeps me going.
It's what keeps me wanting to write. It's what makes me want to do better.
So i think sometimes I inflict it on myself. On purpose.
Masochist.
Hedonist.
I need sadness.
Because you don't really miss it when it's gone,but you feel it so hard when it comes.
Because it's always there. Even when you don't think it is.
So this is my thank you note for it. Don't ever be gone for too long.
xoxoxoxo.

this gets me every time.

Seeing as how I am not the biggest fan of the Beatles, I journeyed into Across the Universe half-heartedly. I ended up falling madly in love with this film, particularly this scene.

Every time I see the dog tag drop it makes me incredibly sad. Easily the saddest part of the film (at least in my mind).

And the little boy's voice is amazing.

once i thought..

maybe i'm god's idea of a fat joke. then i remembered god and i weren't really down.

you're not as metallic as you think.

Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.
-Robert Frost

*You're not as arrogant as I'd like for you to be. You're also not as easy as I'd like for you to be. You're none of the things I'd like for you to be. But still, you never disappoint.

Fizzle, fizzle. Dull.

fuck ups that fuck up.

so you think you've got your shit together...but, not so much. you pretend you have your shit together which makes you believe you have your shit together. thats more like it. you talk to other people about things and get this sort of friendly reassurance that you've worked hard, you still work hard and you've done better than most..but that confident relief is only momentary. it feels like trying to swim with weights around your ankles. you're in that final stretch. you just want it to be over with. you want to move on, move elsewhere. be alone, start over. i'm almost fucking there. fuck friendly reassurances.

what happens when you stop giving a fuck? is that bad? i think it's pretty fuckin stellar.

no one is ever completely satisfied with anything you do. why are THEY so important?

for the most part, i do what i want and it feels just fine. but when the thoughts catch up, it becomes a downward spiral. so i drink and party and fuck and repeat. i enjoy it. i don't really feel or care. it's perfect for now.

what i really can't wait for is...for it to be over. to really, truly move the fuck on.

for now, i'm a fuck up that just keeps fucking up. fuck yea!

Alice in Fucking Hell-Land.

You don't know how this is happening, but you've agreed to help someone rob a house.
Not a house really, but a rinky dink apartment that this person assures you has tons of jewelry inside that you can sell for big bucks. You can get that damned Prada bag you can't stop thinking about. Prada bag? You have credit card bills. A new home to look for, to furnish, but fuck it.
So you agree, and you look over at this person and you realize you know them, but really, you don't. You see a face, but not so much. You have their name on the tip of your tongue, but yeah, you don't.
Why are you doing this again?
Somehow, really you don't remember how, you make it in to the apartment and you grab some junk. Expensive looking junk, but really you can't tell the difference between real and fake. Especially not now. You hear someone coming into the apartment so you make your way into a bathroom with this person.
Your natural instinct is to turn off the light, but this person says,"That's too obvious. Leave the light on."
Too obvious?
You fight of your natural instinct and go along with the person.
You hear the person that has made their way into the apartment talking. For hours and hours and hours (or maybe it just seems that way) you're in this bathroom with the light on... no conversation, just empty stares at some person that you know but you don't know. Makes no sense. And you want to turn that light off, but it's too late now to turn any light off. Too late to make any moves. Too late to even wonder why you're doing this.
You hear them leave the house so you realize that it's now your time to leave.
And you don't even care about that bag anymore. Or your bills. Or your furniture. You just want out. You want to pretend this never ever happened.
So you leave.
And as you're walking, actually speed walking, to the car, you start to notice this apartment building looks so fucking familiar. You start to drop all the crap you just took and you don't even care.
You just want to get into that car and get home. Forget about this.
So you get in the car, and suddenly there's a third person in your party.
Some guy in the backseat. You definitely don't know him.
Your thief of a friend starts to drive and doesn't say a word. You stop at a red light.
You see a man selling flowers and you know something is wrong. Something is wrong with this man selling flowers and you want to say something but you don't.
Again, you avoid your instinct.
And the man, the one selling the flowers, comes up to the car, pulls some kind of a hammer out of the flowers and blows the hammer straight at the drivers mouth. You hear teeth breaking.
You scream.
The guy in the backseat is looking at you and you're looking at him, when all of a sudden you see the hammer hit the side of his head.
You look at the guy with the flowers. He smiles. Walks away. You're safe.
You wake up.
And you wonder how you're supposed to deal with nightmares when you're alone.
And you realize it doesn't matter.
You'll deal with it. You'll get over it.
And you realize that following your instincts is always the best way to go.
Because even when they're wrong, they're yours.
And the best person to be angry at is always yourself. Because you're easier to forgive than anybody else.