It’s a Stunningly Seinfeld World

Remember the Seinfeld episode in which the doctor tells Elaine she’s “breathtaking” and then turns around and describes a very ugly baby (remember Kramer’s reaction the first time he sees the baby?!) as also being “breathtaking.” Yeah – not sure what “breathtaking” actually means to this guy, nor am I sure what the word “stunning” means anymore either…

Friday I ordered some food from the coffee shop below my office. The server delivered the food about 15 minutes later and on his way out he stopped, looked me straight in the eye, and emphatically said, “You are stunning – you know that? Simply stunning.” Let’s be honest – bro made my day – I actually think I went and looked at myself in the mirror so as to capture this “stunning” moment.

An hour later a very nice-looking, older woman in our meeting went downstairs to grab some food and when she returned her face was glowing. It turns out the same waiter told her that she, too, is a “stunning” woman. I about fell out of my chair – should I tell her that he called me “stunning” too? (I didn’t – I thought only one of us should know “stunning” doesn’t mean what it used to.) I couldn’t help but wonder – aloud, all evening and into the early morning – who the “ugly baby” was in this scenario.

 

 

Scoring dates via the Facebook

“Thoughts on Facebooking a girl you want to ask out but never see?” – text message a guy friend of mine recently sent me.

Why yes, I do have some thoughts:

1. Really? And you want her to say yes?
2. There are 10,000 people in our town – many are married, too old, too young, or dudes – is it really necessary to hit on chicks via the Facebook?
3. Are you going to poke her, like her status, write on her wall or message her?
4. Cheesy/Creepy
5. Pick up your damn phone and call her.

Hope that helped. You know who you are.

Elks and Engagements

Conversation between my man (Alex) and some buddies at the Pub last night:

Sean: Congratulations man.

Alex: Thanks.

Bobby: Dude, did you get engaged?!

Alex: No, no, no, I shot my elk.

 

Fist Pumping, My Mother, and The Suit

Missed me? I know, weird. Luckily, I’m back. And these are some things about which I’ve been contemplating or doing part of the time. The other part I’ve been doing other things, but I think I’ll start blogging more now that it’s winter, not that there’s any correlation.

• The Southern Swoop, aka: The Reverse Mullet, is still popular. I just don’t get it. Party in the front, business in the back? Really? It’s as if Barry Melrose turned his head around and put on boat shoes.
• Question: is it okay for a bartender at an airport bar to know your name… three days after you’ve been at his establishment? I’m gonna say yes, but only because my boy Rory – a bartender at DIA – yelled my name and gave me a fist pump as I walked through the airport the Sunday following my Thursday night at his bar. What can I say, our flight was canceled and we made several friends over a few hours. Bob’s kid walked for the first time (we watched on his phone), Jim loves hockey, but doesn’t play too much anymore, and Chuck almost cried because the Yankees lost.
• When your flight gets canceled at 4pm and you’re deciding which is more fiscally prudent: staying at the airport or going to a hotel, first check to see how expensive the beers are at the bar.
• My boyfriend, my mother, and I went to a Men’s Wearhouse (nice pun) to get my man a suit. In person, these stores are as Stepford-ish as they look on TV. Suits everywhere, people watching and judging while you shop. For this particular adventure my boyfriend chose to wear flip flops with skull detailing, ripped shorts, an Obama t-shirt, and a Ted Kaczynski beard. Unfettered, the sales agent made quick work of my guy, even commenting on how fit my boyfriend is (that got a little awkward) while taking his measurements. An hour later we left with (1) black suit, (1) brown sport coat, (2) ties, and (1) Men’s Wearhouse preferred customer card. Who’s a big deal now?!
• Watching my boyfriend get fit for his suit: priceless.
• How to encourage my boyfriend to wear his suit: tell him he can sport his two-toned handlebar mustache to the wedding. I’ve never seen someone more proud of himself.
• Who do handlebar mustaches attract? Other men. It’s quite the scene to witness how impressed guys can get over facial hair.
• Urban hiking sucks. The scenery is crap, the concrete jungle is brutal on the feet, and sweating in fancy clothes is generally frowned upon.
• I am bad at determining what may constitute as an urban hike until it’s too late.
• The optimistic amount of Tebow shirts at DIA made me want to get down on one knee and tell someone how blessed I feel that Carolina took Cam.
• My mother’s dogs are named Precious Kisses and Bob. For real.
• I dressed up as the Arab Spring for Halloween. My boyfriend thought it was funny. Everyone else thought I was a ninja.

Napkin Thrower Attacks

(not) Napkin Thrower

You know how in “The Holiday” Jude Law does the whole Mr. Napkin Head routine with his kids and it’s a cross between sweet and corny and makes his character all that much more adorably doable? Well, the below story also involves a napkin, but unlike Jude – the guy in our story lacks charm, manners, and is doubtfully someone with whom you’d like to have post-coital cuddle time.

So,  a friend of mine walks into the Pub to meet up with some friends. As she walks by a table of guys, one of them throws a napkin at her. She ignores this (since she has never seen this person before in her life) and sits down with her girlfriend, who has a torn ACL. They are lamenting about their river trip that just got cancelled.

Napkin Thrower comes over to the table, sits down, and turns so he’s facing my friend. He then asks her if she has a boyfriend. To this, she says she does not. He then asks her for her number. At this moment another woman walks by and says hey to Napkin Thrower. He says hey back, explains to my friend that the girl is one of his girlfriends, and then asks my friend how she feels about threesomes. Nice.

He grabs a pen – oblivious to the disgust on my friend’s face – and writes down my friend’s number (still not sure why she gave him her real number). After getting her digits, he asks her to draw a picture of her favorite animal. She says that she’d rather not and explains that she is actually at the bar to hang out with her friend, not get accosted by him. He then insists that she draw her favorite animal, so she draws a stick figure that sort of looks like a horse.

Looking at what she’s drawn, Homeboy says that he asked her to draw her favorite animal, not her favorite sexual position. At this point, my friend is pretty sure this guy is screwing with her (not literally) and is too drunk to remember this conversation the next day. She was wrong. At 7:00am the following morning the guy calls her and leaves a message. She immediately saves his number as “Do Not Answer BPG 1″ (BPG = Brew Pub Guy). A few hours later he calls her again, but from a different number. She saves this as “Do Not Answer BPG 2.” After several missed calls from these two numbers over the course of the next two weeks, BPG 1/2 quits calling.

Now, I’m not a genius – especially when it comes to picking up chicks – but I’m pretty sure the lessons learned here are obvious: 1) don’t throw trash at girls – didn’t work in 2nd grade, doesn’t work now; 2) don’t ask her if she likes threesomes (do you really think she’s going to say, “Oh baby, I’ve been dying for someone to ask me that all night long!”); and 3) don’t call her at 7:00am – even if she did want to talk to you, it just seems desperate.

 

Expiration Dating

I was out to drinks with some girlfriends a few nights ago and we were commenting on The Hatch and how they a) obviously do not drink beer, b) all wear the same oversized shirts with huge earrings and skinny jeans, and c) use the word “like” between every, like, other, like, word. What is that? Nevertheless my bro friends are pumped. These chicks wear makeup, are still intrigued by stories of winter explorations, fly-fishing conquests, and river trips, and aren’t looking for their soul mate. They also like the guys’ “flexible schedules” and equate their inability to commit to anything important with being aloof (which to girls is, like, generally, like, desired). And, let’s be honest, they’re leaving soon anyway so it doesn’t really matter. In the end, both the guys and gals are psyched because they’re Expiration Dating.

Expiration Dating is a beautiful thing and for those of you who have never done this, well, like, you, like, are, like, missing, like, out. The trick is for one person or both in the “relationship” to have to leave/move at some point in the somewhat-near future (6 months or less). You don’t want to drag the whole dating thing out longer than 6 months because you then run the risk of someone thinking that she/he is in love. You are no longer “Expiration Dating” if the other person “loves” you; you’re stuck. You can and probably should still break up, but this makes the whole thing much too messy and way less fun.

The summer Hatch is a perfect time to expiration date – one or both of the people in the relationship usually has to go back to college in 2-3 months and the cell service in Jackson is really sketchy, which makes the whole long-distance thing impossible. Wireless goes out a lot too.

Expiration Dating consists of sleepovers, parties, and the very occasional date. You don’t want to overdo the last part because that inevitably leads to real conversations and increases the risk that one person could fall in, like, love. (Group dates at China Town, Abuelito’s, and any other place where those in the party are very likely to black/brown out are okay. You generally can’t fall in “love” if you don’t, like, remember.)

To reiterate, the trick to Expiration Dating is to never fight (you don’t want to care that much) and to make sure that one or both people are in fact moving. It’s not unusual to hear stories – usually from women – where the bro with whom they were just “having fun” ends up never leaving and instead tries to, like, move in with them. This is a worst-case scenario and to be avoided at all costs.

The more ideal way to go about it is to aim to only dedicate 2-4 weeks to the other person. For example, I have a friend who still refers to one of his ED conquests as his “2-week girlfriend.” Classy. I have another friend – well, ex-boyfriend – who tried to Expiration Date me and I made him suffer through a year of long-distance phone calls. He finally wrote me a letter to break up with me. Not an email. A hand-written letter. The cell service in Jackson is, like, bad.

Panda Watch, SC-Style

Favorite thing about the Atlanta airport = Chic-Fil-A, Gate A11.

Went home last week for my grandmother’s funeral – very sad, very tough (and yes, the mood was tense). What made it slightly easier was the absolute absurdity I found myself running into each day I was in the Homeland, and the random “Anchorman” quotes that kept being appropriate. (If you’ve never seen “Anchorman” you may not think this is funny. If you have seen “Anchorman” you may not think this is funny.)

For example, on my final flight of the otherwise arduous trip to Georgia I found myself being hit on by my seat mate: a divorced man who loved to hunt and fish and was hopeful to “one day meet a woman like me, or maybe he and I would run into each other in the future one day.” I’m pretty sure he doesn’t know what my face actually looks like because he spent the entire flight looking at/for my breasts. I called my boyfriend as I deplaned and explained to him that we had gotten “married” on the flight (ie: I pretended the ring on my left hand was a wedding band – this did not deter my new friend, he wanted to be on me).

I then hurriedly walked towards my mother who had come to pick me up only to see her smile at me and notice that she was missing a tooth. You know a good way to go from “normal-looking” to “redneck”? Lose a tooth. It’s amazing really. I was actually sort of impressed. Mom had gotten a tooth pulled for some surgery she had and had forgotten to put in her retainer (that has a fake tooth) before driving to the airport.

The next morning I awoke to the scary sounds of Fox News anchors arguing over something pressing, I’m sure (“This is pathetic.” “No you’re pathetic.” “I miss your scent.” “Great story. Compelling and rich.”). After several hours of nonstop Fox News I asked if we could maybe change the TV to another news station. To this my mother scoffed and explained to me that “Fox News is the only news station that tells the truth.” Rrrrrright. She then accused me of being a crazy Liberal since I moved out west. (Side note: I am on the Executive Committee of the Teton County Republican Party.)

Later in the week I had someone (to whom I am related) ask me to help them dig a hole so that they could bury some silver in it. Wait… what? I honestly looked around for the TV cameras, assuming I’d found myself in some sort of prank show. There were no cameras. (Oh, well, when in Rome.)

Before the funeral I was asked if I was going to “do something to my face and change out of my Jesus shoes” (aka – Chaco’s) and if I wanted to get a pedicure. At the funeral I was asked why I “walked like that” in my heels (my little cousin asked that – I explained to her that it was because the shoes were tricky – she explained to me that everyone else can walk in them just fine and that I looked silly. When I told her that I was in a glass case of emotion she rolled her eyes).

To all of this I found myself laughing, being thankful for where I came from – 100% humidity, Chic-Fil-A and a blind love for Fox News included – and feeling lucky for where I now live and the path that got me here. And when I saw Alex waiting for me at the airport and asked him to take me to Pleasure Town, he did:  10 minutes later we were sitting on bar stools at the Brew Pub, saying a cheers for my Granny, and enjoying 5 straight hours of beer. (We are laughing and we are very good friends and someday we’ll look back on this with much fondness.)