Another Blind Date...

The blind date... I've always hated blind dates, the whole experience of them. Starting with the awkward set-up all the way to the bitter end of the night when both parties usually question what their friends were thinking. The only saving grace of these truly horrific evenings are the stories that become legend told over beers, various dinner parties, or even wedding speeches for the rest of your life. Not to say their isn't the occasional success story, but most go something like this...

It was just another day at work. Everything was moving steadily along when I was introduced to a very nice older couple who were visiting LA from Texas. He was an older gentleman in his late 40's, distinguished, with a tie and jacket. She was in her early 30's, and cute in a nerdy sort of way, with a nice sun dress. By the looks of them he was rich and she was riding the gravy train. Now whenever we have guests at my job, we give them the star treatment, literally! These people were no exception and as their day with us was winding down the woman turned to me and said, "Stickler, Do you have a girlfriend?" I was a little taken aback by this, I know we had all just spent the day together but are we all really that close? So I answered with a "Not at the moment..." The woman looked to the older gentleman and said, "Why, your such an adorable guy, we know the perfect girl for you." I immediately knew what was happening, I was about to be set up...

The woman reaches into her bag and grabs her cell phone as I stutter, "You know that is ok...I'm kind of getting over somebody..." basically anything to not be set up. The woman goes, "Oh don't be silly, She is a beautiful girl, she is my niece, and her name is A...She just moved to LA...Let me show you a picture." So the woman goes to A's facebook page on her iphone, got to love technology. She forces the phone into my hand and says, "See, she is beautiful!" It was a picture of A on the steps of a sorority with many other girls, I assumed she was the one with the blond streak running through her dark hair. She looked cute from what I could tell. Suddenly the phone was yanked from my hand and the woman is texting A. She turns to me and says, "Ok it is all taken care of I told her about you and she wants to meet so I'm going to give you her phone number. All you have to do is call her!" Next thing I know she is putting A's number into my phone and then they are gone saying goodbye to everyone else.

So I stood there, looking at this number. I guess it couldn't hurt to call, but I needed a plan. Questions were running through my head, What do I say? What should I ask her to do? What if she is a terrible racist? Etc... Well, before I had time to really think on it my boss was yelling at me for something and I was back in the zone of my job.

A couple days passed by and I had a plan...kind of. I was going to call A up during my lunch break and make some sort of witty joke about how crazy her Aunt was...Yeah that would be perfect and then ask her out for drinks. Something simple that I could get out of easily if things turned sour. The clock ticked by and it was my lunch break, I picked up my phone and hit the dial button. The phone rang a couple of times and I got an answering machine. It was sweet sounding voice with no Texas accent. I left a very awkward message that went like this..."Hi A, My name is Stickler and I met your Aunt and Uncle the other day at my work. This is super awkward but they said we might get along so call me back when you get a chance. Hope your having a great day!" I know, I was kind of hoping not to get an answering machine...but again what do you say to someone you know nothing about in a phone message?

Well, regardless later on that night A called me back. She did indeed laugh at what her Aunt had done. And as we talked it turned out randomly that she had gone to the same college as I in Indiana. This made things even easier so I invited her at the end of our conversation to get up super early on Saturday Morning to watch the IU game with me at the Alumni Bar. My thought was if all else fails at least their would be many other people around. Well she didn't show... it turns out she slept in... At least I was at the alumni bar with friends. She did call and we rescheduled for a Tuesday night.

Tuesday night came and I was going to meet her at this certain bar that was known for their brews from around the world. So I'm sitting at the end of the bar waiting...minutes ticking by. Enough of them for me to finish my first beer. When a girl walks in the door. She was totally out of the eighties, Big black hair swirling in all directions held up by product, black stretch pants, little black boots, and a black tight jacket. In my head I thought, I wonder where she parked her Delorian? She then approached me and introduced herself as A. Jokes and jokes and jokes were swimming through my head. I stifled my brain and said, Hi, I'm Stickler. We sat there talking and it became very clear very fast that we had nothing in common. To make matters worse she was just another actress looking for a job. We parted ways and I was even nice enough to invite her to an event my friends were putting on... I mean she did go to my college. She called me the next day and turned me down.

I hate blind dates!

A rant about Tradition...

I can't sleep... I went to the Doctor thinking it might be something wrong with me. After a few tests he informed me that I was just sleep deprived attributing to the fact that my brain won't stop turning. I guess that is why I'm writing right now. I've tried everything and maybe if I just start typing away again I'll lull myself back to sleep.

I got in a fight last weekend with some friends. See after living in LA for as long as I have some traditions have developed... for example once a month I make the 45 minute drive to "Portillo's" in Buena Park because I'm craving Chicago food or whenever I get out of work early and I'm in Los Feliz I stop by my old roommates place and we go out for Sushi. Well one of the biggest long lasting traditions of my time here has to do with Karaoke. When I first moved to LA one of the first bars that my friends and I came across was a place called "The Brass Monkey" it was a quaint karaoke bar in Korea Town. It was never super crowded and the DJ was fantastic.

My group of friends started going often enough that we became Once a Monthers. See in the Karaoke world; people who frequent a place receive more clout and are able to sing more frequently. Even if this person is really bad, but they show up every Tuesday and Thursday, no matter what they will get to sing and jump the line of newbies ahead of them. As Once a Monthers we developed a brand that we when our group got up to sing we pretty much dominated and made the room a buzz. My repertoire would start with "Come Sail Away," by Styx, then "Strokin" by Clarence Carter, ending with our entire group getting up and singing "Total Eclipse of the Heart" by Bonnie Tyler. Now of course I'm not the only one singing, everyone else had their own list of songs they would sing... and like I said we were all pretty good and knew how to woo the audience. We became known as Jenny's Fan Club...because we would always go on nights our favorite waitress Jenny was working. We would tip her big and get freebies in response.

Well as time went on and I moved out of Hollywood we stopped going as often as we used too. In fact the Brass Monkey has become a Bi-Annual occurrence now. We don't have the same pull as we used too, but at least they remember us when we walk in the front door. This past weekend though new people were along, new friends. And one of the girls actually had the nerve to put in her song as "Total Eclipse of the Heart." I was pissed. That was our song and because we don't get together and sing anymore... when we do it is kind of special. But she didn't care. She didn't care at all. It was infuriating. To the point she got up and sang the song to spite me and her rendition was terrible. My friends all said it wasn't a big deal...but I thought it was because like I said before it was tradition that this group of guys who don't really see that much of each other anymore would get up and sing that song, with the terrible choreography that we made up years ago. Tradition, what happened to it and how could someone be so obtuse to not see that maybe it is important?

When you're on a roll...

In a sudden spurt of creative energy I have decided yet again to begin writing...



Well it all started with what I like to call the surfing disaster. By no means am I a surfing legend or anything and this was all made perfectly clear to me 3 weeks ago. While flying down a wave with a velocity faster then usual, I had the wave break over me. Flipping my board into me, pushing me to the ocean bottom, and dragging me through the sand.

When I stood up, the pain kind of shot through my body all at once. A pain I had never felt before. So after a couple of days I went to the Docter to find out I had cracked one of my ribs. He chuckled and said, "Well, there isn't much I can do, but it will be painful for about 8 weeks." Now you may ask what is painful? Everything, it hurts to breath, move, talk, sit, lay down, eat, pretty much do anything.

So a lesson, don't crack your rib it isn't worth it.

Speaking of ribs, Whale's have large ribs, so why not go check out a new blog I'm writing with some friends about Moby Dick, and remember it isn't a book club, just a group of people reading a certain amount of chapters of a book each week and then discussing it...

How to explain what I do when I'm not writing...

A hair stylist on my current project basically put our job, without saying what it was, into a quote that explains why I get so busy and lose track of time...

"It's like the movie, Groundhog Day, in hell!"
- Anonymous

Couldn't have put it better myself!

Stories from the Weekend

It all began with a peaceful Friday night by myself watching the Cubs/Dodgers game on my enormous HD TV. It was the 8th inning and the cubs had just blown another, when I heard a loud bang outside. I ran to the window to see what had happened and saw a large gold Toyota Tundra backing out of my suddennly smashed in bumper.

I ran out the front door and jumped on the hood of the Toyota as it was pulling away. I yelled at the guy in the car, "Man, you just hit my car!" He responded with, "No I didn't!" I explained that I had seen him hit it and that I was getting off his hood till he got out and gave me all of his information. He conceded and admitted that he had inadvertently run into my parked car.

I was pissed, so my car is in the shop and it is costing about 1500 dollars to fix. Luckily his insurance company is going to pay for all of it, because clearly I had nothing to do with it.

What I cna't believe is that their are some people that actuelly believe they can hot a car and get away with not telling the person or at least leaving a note. I have come to the belief that their really is no comon decency left in the world at all, that people are pretty narcisistic and could really care less about the well being of others. Maybe this is just in LA, but schools really should be teaching children to have respect for others and to take responsibility for their actions, because it seems like US citizens are really lacking in that. What do you think?