I'm really exhausted. I'm tired and I'm worn. The mixture of too much work and too much working out is starting to get to me I think. I can't say that I'm not having fun either. I get a kick out of being on the water three or four times a week. I get a kick out of both paddling and running practices from the drummer's seat. Over the past week, I have been in one of the stroke seats twice. The strokes are the two people in the first row who set the pace for people to follow and synch up with. They work the hardest and longest. During practice, people can drop out and take a few strokes off, but the strokes have to paddle the whole time, because if they were to stop it could throw the whole boat's synch off. On Sunday, I had a great practice as stroke. Throughout the entire practice, I was working on my twisting snap to the catch and my stab into the water. I also worked on using more back in my stroke as well. I find that when I'm tired, I don't sit up as much with each stroke and my arms drop a little. I was really good for this practice.
In other news... My weekend was a lot of fun. I went to a barbecue on Friday night over at a Dragon Boater's place in Sommerville. There was good food and good beer. I was happy. I was doing a lot of harmless flirting with random girls, not that anything is gonna come of it. It was just fun to do. There were some interesting blackmail pictures taken with me being the instigator of something that didn't look quite kosher. You know me though. I got everyone laughing and some people freaked out. I ended up leaving the BBQ with Sassy and Paddleback at around 12:00A or so. I think that's what time it was. Sassy dropped Paddleback and I off at the T and we rode it to Kendall. She lives at a graduate student dorm at MIT and it was a nice night so I offered to walk her home. I know how that would probably look given some of my past updates, but there were no ulterior motives. It was a nice night and I thought she might want some company. So we ended up stopping off at her lab so that she could do something or another. She blew up a rubber glove and gave it to me. Strangely enough, it provided a great deal of entertainment on the walk back to her dorm. By the time we got to her place, it was a little after 1:00A and I got home around 2:00A. It started to rain a little bit, but not enough to really bother me. It was a nice temperature so the walk was great.
Saturday, after practice, I went home, showered, changed and went right back out. I was off to go to Quincy to get fitted for a tux. Me? Fitted for a tux? Wha? Yup... I had my fitting for my tails for Totoro and Glare's wedding. On my way out the door, I was absolutely starving. So right before I hit up the T, I stopped at the MIT Coop and bought a Pepsi (hell yeahz... Ten times the drink that Coke is), some peanut butter crackers and a bag of Hot & Spicy Chex Mix. I know, I know... It's not the most nutritious meal in the world, but I didn't want to spend the cash on something real. Plus Totoro said that we'd get some chow after the fitting and his haircut. Truth be told, after I chowed on the train, I was fine. So at the fitting, I discovered something that I found strange. I have grown three jacket sizes. I bought a suit a couple of years ago for interviews and such and it was a 36 short. When I went in to get sized for the tux, I was sized as a 39 short. Now we all know that I'm short and that fact will never change. But, how the hell did I grow three jacket sizes? I was talking to Glare later that evening and she said that she could tell that I had gotten broader across the shoulders over the past three or so months. I totally can't see it and I don't think my shirts are fitting any differently. This could just be because I wear most of my stuff rather baggy.
Later on that night Totoro and I met up with Glare at her parent's place and had dinner over there. Totoro and Glare bought their wedding bands the day before, so I got to see them. I'm walking Glare's mother up the aisle, so I tried to plant the seed in her head that I was gonna do something funny to her on the way up the aisle. I teased her father that we were gonna get him a white tux with tails, ruffled shirt and a top hat with little balls hanging from it. See, he didn't even want to wear a tux in the first place, but the tux place has this deal where if you get five tuxes, the groom's tux is free. So that's how Glare convinced him. After dinner, Totoro, Glare and I went to get ice cream at JC's Dairy, a local Hanover place that I remember going to as a kid when I lived there between the ages of zero and six, and then went to see Goldmember. I have to say that it was a funny movie, but it wasn't the funniest movie that I've ever seen.
Sunday, again, I went to practice. That's when I had the really good practice. Yay! While I was on the docks at the end of practice, The Violent One called me and asked me if I wanted to meet up with her to go to the Cambridgeside Galleria. So I said I would. I went home, showered and changed and layed down on the couch to wait for her to ring the doorbell. I was pretending to watch Mallrats, but really I was snoozing. When she called my cell to wake me up, I was a bit groggy and I was hungry as hell. All I had all day was 2 Quaker Chewey Granola Bars on the docks between practices. Talk about no food. So we went to the mall, bought her a phone and went to the food court for some low quality munching. Mmmm... nothing like Indian fast food. I think the only Indian fast food joint that I have found is a place called Gourmet India in Coolidge Corner. Following that, we each bought a pair of cheapo sunglasses. She bought hers because she needed a pair and I bought mine because I didn't want to wear my $350 prescription sunglasses while I was paddling. Three people in the last two weeks have lost sunglasses in the water. I didn't want to add my prescription specs to the list.
A while ago my parents called me up and asked me if I wanted to go to Disney World for Labor Day weekend. I said that I would have to convince someone to go with me and they suggested The Violent One because her grandmother put us up while we were in Japan. It mad perfect sense to me and no one else in Boston would have the cash/time/inclination/insanity to go with me. The Violent One was running around it for a long time and wasn't really giving me an answer. I think she was scared to make a committment either way, to be honest. I was giving her a great opportunity to go to Disney World, but it would just be the two of us. I have enough people making comments about the two of us being an old married couple. Maybe she was afraid of that image. Who knows? But Sunday, she said yes and yesterday, we bought airline tickets. Man two vacations together in the span of six months. Crazy, huh?
This Saturday, I'm going to see Moby, David Bowie, Busta Rhymes, Avalanches, John Digweed, DJ Tiesto, DJ Dan, Blue Man Group, Diesel Boy and Carl Cox at the Area: 2 Festival. I'm all psyched and stuff. It's gonna be myself, Carpenter, The Violent One and OMG's boyfriend. It should be a lot of fun. I'm gonna dance my ass off. It should be great.
Some other things I'm looking forward to are my races in NYC. I'm looking forward to staying at PJ's place in Queens for the race on the 10th and 11th. I still have to figure out where I'm staying for the Liberty NYC races on the 24th and 25th. Should be a lot of fun too. I have a small chance of DJing part of the party on that Saturday. I'm trying to figure something out.
Oh well.. I have to go... I want to go home to get a haircut. Til the next time...
A lot has happened over the past four or five days and I guess I should share. I don't get much time to update these days due to the newly found duties of my job, so I guess I'll have to find other times to do this. Over the past week, I have been training a new Tokyo trainee. He'll be sticking around Boston for the next year and then will be shipping off to Tokyo to work in the State Street office there. In some ways I envy him for being able to go to Japan. Although I don't think he sees it the same way. He was born and raised there, so it's no great shakes for him. He's moving along nicely. However he does get nervous and tense. We'll have to work on that... Even if I have to bring him a six pack at work.
Thursday of this past week, I got an early morning IM from Booch. We keep saying that we're gonna get togetehr and hang out, but it hadn't worked out until that day. We made plans to have dinner that evening. So, we met around 6:30P in front of the newly remodeled Grafton Street Grill in Harvard Square. I had always wanted to eat at Grafton Street, but I had never had the occasion to do so. So, when Booch suggested it, I jumped at the chance. Well, it was more of a tackle through the phone while jumping up and down saying, "YAH YAH YAH!" I'm sure she didn't hear that in my voice, but it was there in my head. I had a great time dining with her. There's a lot of interesting convo that comes with that girl. She's got some spunk and some 'tude mixed in with class, humor and sensiblity. That day we had both had a hard day at work, so we were both jonesing for the beer. I had two pints of Harpoon UFO, a hefeweisen (unfiltered wheat beer), with dinner. For my main course, I had a North African Lamb Stew. Now if you looked at the menu, it mentioned chick peas and ginger. Anyone who really has known my eating habits knows that I only eat chick peas in falafel and I'm not wild about ginger in large flavour bursts. I enjoy a more subtle ginger taste rather than a "beat you over the head with a ginger root" kind of taste. But I saw "Lamb" and I was immediately salivating. When I got the plate, I saw the chick peas, but I didn't see the ginger. In addition, I saw that there was eggplant cooked into it as well. Eggplant is one of those things that I would rather not eat. But when I took my first bite, it was delicious. It was incredibly delicious. I ate every last bite of it as I conversed with Booch over the benefits of personal time and laundry to how stupid some people can be. Great dinner. I think everyone needs to have dinners like this at least once a month. Good food, great convo.
Friday, I worked my ass off to make sure I left on time. In fact, I worked so hard that I got to leave early. I had packed the night before so I had minimal stuff to do when I got home. I even had time to sit down and have a nice refreshing glass of ice water. So I go off to meet Paddleback and Clueless (the guy a few weeks back I told to shut the fuck up) in Kendall Square. I assumed that since we were slated to leave Boston at around 4:30P, we would be up in Montreal at around 10:00P or 10:30P. Alas I was wrong. How wrong could I have been? Very. So I meet up with Clueless at Kendall Square and we wait for Paddleback for about 20 minutes. Yup. She's about 15 minutes late. The plan was to take the commuter rail to everly, MA where Clueless' girlfriend Whine works and has their car, drive to another person's place in NH to pick someone up and then continue to Montreal. Everything took too long. Everything. We were in Beverly for the longest time and then it took forever to find this guy's place in NH. We didn't leave this guy's place until 7:30P. I was kinda pissed. I had plans to go out Friday night. Let me draw you all a picture of what riding up was like. Five people in a two door Honda Civic. The passenger side window doesn't close, so there's an inch or two spot where wind and, in this case, rain comes through. It's raining heavily. I was in the back seat on the passenger side. I was not happy. Over five hours I had to spend with these people. Paddleback was the only one in the car that I didn't really find annoying. I passed the time by making fun of Clueless in a very loud manner that he didn't pick up on. In fact, Paddleback is the only one who did pick up on it.
Upon pulling into Montreal, we passed the hotel that the team with the exception of Paddleback, who was staying at a cousin's place, were staying at. As we drove by, we saw some teammates that had arrived earlier going back into the hotel. As we pulled around the corner, they stopped us. As it turned out they were all going home to turn in, but one of them, we'll call her Dulcimer, wanted to stay out and do more stuff. I had originally told Dulcimer that I would go to a strip club with her, so I popped out of the car, grabbed my bag, checked in, changed and after convincing Hulk to come out with us we were on our way. Dulcimer and Hulk had been to a strip club earlier that night. I guess they got tired waiting for me, the true pervert of the group, to arrive. They had gone to Super Sex earlier in the night and didn't want to go back to that one so we scoured Ste-Catherine Street for another one.
If you think I'm all sick and stuff for focusing in so much about the whole strip club thing, I'm not. Up until my trip to Montreal, I had never been to a strip club. In addition to this, I had heard that strip clubs in Montreal take the smut to a level of art. When I heard about this, I thought to myself, "Umm... okay... How artful can women taking off their clothes be?" I mean, really. I have a great appreciation for the female form... I think it's a lot greater than some think, but just to sit there watching women strip? Come on. There's no real interaction between you and the dancers. How wrong I was... Here's what happened the rest of the night.
So Hulk, Dulcimer and I were out on the prowl. Dulcimer had asked the concierge what were the better strip clubs around where we were staying. Let me just tell you what kind of variety they have. They have more choices in strip clubs in a three block radius than they have fast food joints. That is impressive. The three of us ended up at a place called Chez Paree. When we walked in, we were greeted by two maitres'd dressed in tuxes. They led us to a table that wasn't next to the stage, but was on a step above that level. It was $5 CAD for each of the guys and there was no charge for Dulcimer. Upon sitting down, we ordered some Kamikaze shots and some beers and watched the stage. There was a guy sitting behind me that was getting a private dance. She was a blonde girl, very attractive. She had a very pretty face and a well looked after body. However, she was situated so that I would have to crane my neck backwards to watch her, while Dulcimer and Hulk had a rather nice view. We continued to watch the stage and chat about the woman. "Those are completely fake." "I like her skirt." "I like her shirt." "Oh, she's pretty..." That continued for a few minutes. After three or four dancers, a dark haired beauty took the stage. Dulcimer and I couldn't take our eyes off of her. She was tall with long dark hair that came down to her lower back. She was wearing a long white skirt, a white bikini top and a gold belly chain. She had smooth dark skin and a tummy that wouldn't quit. I totally wanted to stick my tongue in her belly button. Dulcimer and I were slackjawed. Every half a minute or so, one of us would make a comment on her. "Wow... She's really pretty." "She's go awesome abs!" "Yeah, and a nice belly button too!" "I like her skirt a lot." "I like her tattoo even more..." Yah, she had an abstract/tribal tattoo of a scorpion on her right shoulder blade. However at that point, we thought the best part about her was that she was natural. Yup, she had no implants. She was only an A or B cup, but they were beautiful. The only thing Hulk really said was that he like the fact that she wasn't completely shaven. I concured.
After she finished dancing, Dulcimer and I immediately wanted to have her come over to our table to dance. Unfortunately, we were too slow and a person two tables over got her to dance for them. We think it was one of thier birthdays or something like that. After she was finished with them, we immediately flagged her down. She finished getting dressed and walked over with a kind of a pedestal that all of the dancers danced on for private dances. She came over and we started making small talk. Her name was Maya (though I'm not really quite sure how it was spelled). She was originally from Venezuela and moved to Canada, I believe, seven years ago. She goes back every year in addition to visiting family that she has in Miami, FL. Dulcimer asked to touch her hair and I asked her about her tattoo. Before long, we got down to business. Now being the man ignorant of strip joints that I am, I just asked her if she would dance for our table. It turned out that we needed to pick one of us for which she would be dancing. I hesitated, but was thinking it would be great if both Dulcimer and I got a dance each, but Hulk and Dulcimer automatically pointed to me. And off she went. Initially, I thought it would be just me oogling her body, but as she got into it, it changed for me. I ended up fixing my eyes on hers. It was then that I decided that her eyes were the sexiest part about her. She had these light hazel eyes that really contrasted with her hair and skin tone. They stood out like they were glowing. They were extremely seductive as well. As most people know, when in a strip club, they can touch you, but you cannot touch them. There wasn't a lot of touching by her. There was some laying back against me and some leaning on my knees. The best thing she did though was when she leaned in and trailed her nose up my cheek. I could breathe in her scent which was, as cliche as this sounds, intoxicating. She would then pull back and look into my eyes. She did this a couple of times throughout the two songs that she danced for me. I think she knew I liked it a lot. One time she pulled back and gave me this incredibly sexy coy smile. There were several occasions where she was either leaning into me or was leaning back on my knees looking up at me where I really wanted to kiss Maya. She really had me. I was enraptured. I was in love. Well, I don't know if it was love, but I was incredibly attracted to her. It was the nose thing, I think. My friends tell me that I'm a sucker for a girl with pretty eyes and a nice smile. Maya took it to the next level. *sigh* *swoon*
Anyways, it was only $16 CAD to have Maya dance at our table for two songs. I paid her $20 CAD, Dulcimer paid her $20 CAD as well not knowing that I had paid her. After she left, we figured it out, but we weren't really bothered. She was worth every penny to both of us. Dulcimer said that she would totally get down with Maya given the chance and she's straight, maybe not as an arrow, but she has a boyfriend. After Maya had gone away, we were wondering if she was going to be dancing on the following evening, because Dulcimer said that she would come back with me if Maya was dancing. Unfortunately, she had both Saturday and Sunday off, so no dice. We weren't able to catch her again. However, next trip to Montreal, I'm sure both of us will be looking for her. Shortly after we found out that we wouldn't see Maya for the rest of the trip, Hulk decided that we should get some sleep before our races the next morning.
That night, I slept for four hours, 3:30A to 7:30A. It took me a few seconds to wake up and then a while to get downstairs to meet my team. One of my roomies took a freakin long ass time in the bathroom. He was worse than a girly girl. While I was waiting, I ended up hanging out in the adjoining room where Dulcimer and three other women were staying. Together we recaped the night to them. They were amused by how impactful this girl was. I was thorough in explaining how beautiful Maya was. Dulcimer chimed in a lot too.
The Montreal Dragon Boat Races were held at the Olympic Basin from the 1968 summer Olympics. It was a really nice basin, but our start line sucked. We had to back into our start line. For both the mixed team and for the women's team we had to take several attempts to put us at the line straight, but by the second race, we had it all set. Our first race, for both teams sucked. They were downright pathetic. I was upset. I felt like no one was listening to me and I had no control over the boat. I felt really pissed after both races. I should have expected it though. For some reason the Dragon Boat Club of Boston teams always tank their first races. I should have also known that our race was going to suck when our steerer fell into the water trying to maneuver our boat to the start line. Our second races that day were much better. They still weren't on par with what I knew they could do, but I still felt like it was an improvement. However, the second race wasn't without drama. It turned out that the mixed team and women's team had races back to back. The way that the race people ran things, as one set of boats were racing, the next heat's boats were paddling up the side to get to the start line. So, we had to race the mixed race, paddle in hard to the docks, jump ship and sprint to the women's boat so that we wouldn't be disqualified. We barely made it. But both races were really good. It was really exciting going from one boat to the other. We gave M.A.D. (Metro Athletic Dragons NYC) a run for their money. That made me feel like they weren't the behemoth that I had always thought they were.
We only had two races for each team on that first day, so I spent a lot of time chillin' and shoppin' and eatin' at the race site. I bought this really cool fleece from one vendor. It was a long sleeved fleece zip-up with a really cool dragon boat paddler on the back and some nice embroidery. I only paid $45 CAD for it. I was psyched. I also did a lot of hanging out with Paddleback and Dulcimer. It was fun. Both girls are extrodinarily attractive and are a lot of fun. Both girls have a real intelligence and uniqueness too. I enjoy hangin' out with them both.
That night there was an attempt to get everyone to go out to dinner together. It didn't happen. I did however get a small group of nine of us, including Sassy and Hardcore, to go to a French restaurant. I'll be damned if I'm in a French-Canadian city and I eat Spanish, Chinese or Pub food instead of French food. So we went to this really nice, yet affordable French restaurant called Julienne. It was right off of Ste-Catherine Street. We had a bunch of different dishes and tried each other's food. As an appetizer they had this spread (I forget what it was called) made of black olives, garlic and olive oil that we put on croutons. It was really yummy. For my entree I had ostrich. It was fantastic. It was like a cross between beef and duck. Fantastic.
That night I was supposed to take a bunch of people clubbing, but everyone scattered. I ended up going to Club Stereo. Earlier in the night, no one could contemplate how I wasn't tired. Well, it caught up with me at the club. I was doing alright for a while. Then I got a beer. I started to get really tired then. So, being the smart guy that I am, I decided to have another beer. By the end of the second beer, I was really tired. I knew that if I didn't get out of there soon I would crash right in the club. I was fading fast. So, much to my dismay, I left the club around three in the morning and made the ten minute walk back to the hotel.
When I got back, one of my roomies was just getting back from "Super Sex," a strip club that it seemed like he was always going to. I can't believe how much time that guy spent in the strip clubs this weekend. Sure, it's entertaining if you really see something you like (like Maya), but I found the majority of girls were alright. I'm not saying that I would never go back to a strip club, but given a weekend in Montreal, it's not all I would do.
That night, I got two hours of sleep. We had to be up wikkid early for the races. The women's team had the first race of the day and the mixed team had the third. Both races were crazy close. Both races I thought we edged out the second place team, but it turned out we missed it by five hundreths of a second on one and two tenths on the other. I was so proud of my teams for those races. By that time, my voice was pretty much shot and we didn't think we had another race to race. People almost started leaving to go back to Boston. But Hardcore, the captain of the team for these races, encouraged everyone to stick around for an extra hour. As it turned out, each team did have one more race in them. The women's team was first. Again, it was a good race. We had an okay start and were behind from the horn, but we picked it up to again, place third by fractions of a second. Our last mixed race was one that I think the entire team would like to forget. We were without our steerer because she wasn't feeling well and Hardcore took over as steerer. I knew something was wrong from the second we pushed off the dock to get to the start line. Something just didn't feel right. Everyone was tired, but everyone was putting in their best effort. The boat just didn't feel right. I could feel something bad was going to happen. We got up to the start line last. We weren't aligned when the horn blew. Hardcore tried to straighten us out, but he couldn't hold it. We ended up crashing into the shore. When we finally got straight again, we veered towards the shore again. Finally, we decided to just lightly paddle to the finish line. I would be lying if I said that I wasn't disappointed, but I think we just got a bad break. It was obvious that Hardcore took it hard. You could see it in his eyes. I felt bad for him. I felt bad for the team.
After the race, people started to split. Dulcimer had to leave because her ride was leaving. I didn't get to say, "Catch you laterz" to her because I was changing when she left. Originally Paddleback and I were supposed to leave with Clueless, but Paddleback switched with Mr. Super Sex and I just decided I didn't want to hear Clueless and his girlfriend bickering so I caught a ride in the van with the rest of the team. The van didn't leave until later because we had some of our paddlers on the New Jersey's Men's Team. They pulled a fantastic last coming in at 2:21:change. That is a good time. The greatest thing happened after that race. Hardcore huddled everyone who was left up. Usually our group gets in close, but this time was different. Most people were standing off a little ways with cameras in their hands. As Hardcore was speaking, two of the guys from the team grabbed the ice chest which only had melted ice water in it and dumped it over Hardcore's head. It was soooooo funny. He stood there with a really confused look on his face for a second and then started to dance around. I have pictures. It was amusing.
So, from there, we left and made the trek back to Boston. We missed a turn onto 93 and ended up running into Route 2 near Springfield. That put an extra two hours onto our trip. I think I got home at around two o'clock or so. I got a total of four hours of sleep that night, because I had to be at work at 7:30A. So, if you count up my total sleep for the weekend it comes to a whopping ten hours. I was wrecked the next day.
So I'm completely wrecked, going through the day with no voice, training a new person, struggling to stay awake and getting grumpier by the second. Late in the afternoon, The Violent One IMs me and asks me if I wanted to go to the Ted Williams Memorial at Fenway that evening. My initial reaction was, "Wha? Sleep... Must sleep..." But as I thought about it, this is a landmark kind of opportunity. So I bagged the sleep and decided to only take a half hour nap instead of the 2 hour nap I had planned. I met The Violent One at the Store 24 by Kenmore Square at 5:30P and headed off to the fantastic Fenway Park. The memorial was pretty nice. There were huge posters of him all over the walls, a large number nine made in the middle of left field made of roses and a number of good speeches. My personal favorites were made by Senator John Glenn who served with him in the Korean War and by the great documentary maker Ken Burns. Ken Burns has a way with words. He was extremely articulate and spoke with a passion. It was a very moving experience to hear all of these people talk about their dealings with Ted Williams. In his last at bat in the majors he hit a home run. What poetry...
Anyways, the night ended with dinner at The Otherside Cosmic Cafe at Newbury and Mass Ave. I seem to be getting the same thing everytime I go there. A cup of gazpatcho and a cosmic green salad (hold the onions and tomatoes, extra cucumbers) with a cucumber dill dressing. As I think about it I am really a creature of food habit unless it's a totally new place that I'm going to. If I go to a really nice restaurant, I'll branch out, but if it's an old stomping ground, I'll order the same thing everytime. That's my revelation for the day. And that's where I'll end this blog.
So I spent most of today training the new guy as shit hit the fan around me. I made mistakes in prior days and other people made mistakes I was mopping it all up. Sopping it up with a piece of bread and eating it as it left a bad taste in my mouth. Fuckin' A, I tell ya, Fuckin' A... Anyways, the new guy seems to be aiight. He takes our jokes in stride like when I tell him that since he replaced Amnesiac in the office, he has to also fulfill her role outside of the office meaning that he has to sexually satisfy Covet from time to time. He took the joke rather well. It was funny... trust me.. Covet found it funny. I have a massive headache and more work to do. Frickin' A.
I still can't wait to go to Montreal. I found out yesterday that Paddleback will be riding up to Montreal in the car I'm going in. There will be five of us in the car. I told her that we could snuggle. Heh. I thought it was amusing. She did too. We get along well together, but I think we (meaning myself, Hardcore and another person from our team) found out that she either A) has a man or B) has a fuck buddy. *shrug* So I'm gonna guess that the ZEN!!! Master isn't gettin' any from her this weekend.
In other news, another girl from my team who is 21 years old has this big plan to go to a strip club while we're there. She asked me if I wanted to go with her, and who am I to tell a good lookin' chica with multiple piercings that I won't go to a strip club with her. Another chica on my team, who is coincidentally lesbian, will be coming as well. Yay! This is gonna be thoroughly amusing. Now, I've never been to a strip club so I have no real concept of what it's like unless it's really like it is in the movies. As long as I keep my hands to myself I'll be okay. We all saw what happened to the guy in the movie Go. Or were we all too busy fast forwarding to scenes with Katie Holmes in it? Regardless this will be a new experience for me to write about. I believe the fact that I'm going to a strip club as a straight guy with a straight girl and a lesbian girl brings me closer to proving my hypothesis that everyone loves and appreciates breasts in some form or fashion. You know you love boobs. Stop lying to the world, people. It's nothing to be ashamed of.
I'm also meeting up with a friend of a friend from swing dancing. Should be interesting. She seems nice enough and seems to know the city reasonably well.
As far as the clubbing activities go, I'm having a hard time deciding between going to Armand Van Helden at club Aria and Mr.C. (of the Shamen) and Onionz at Stereo. Tough decisions. I hope all I can decide before Saturday night. If I don't, I think my head will explode.
Okay, so life kinda exploded on me. I know... I'm always saying that, but it's true. The reason that I haven't been updating as frequently is because my work has gone from a "smeep!" to a "Ba-daaaow!" I haven't had time to take a piss let alone write a life update. Work has just picking up. A guy who has the worst worth ethic in the world has been out for the last few days. I've been training someone new. And in addition to all of that, I have my new duties and Mumbles to deal with. I've barely had time to check my e-mail it is so busy.
So I have been smitten over this girl on my dragon boat team. We'll call her Paddleback. She's got the most amazing eyes and smile. Knocked my socks off. She's got a killer sarcastic sense of humor too. I'll probably try to hang out with her a bit when we go to Montreal this weekend for a race. I'm pretty psyched about going to Montreal. It's gonna be a good time. This reminds me that I have to research clubs in Montreal, because I will be going out both Friday and Saturday night! I've been researching with the limited resources that I have. I have found out that Armand Van Helden, Deep Dish, MZ, Onionz and Mr. C will all be there that weekend. I'm psyched.
*Sigh* I wish I had more time to write, but I have to get going. I hacve practice in an hour and I have to get home to change, so I'll try to update on Thursday before I leave for Montreal on Friday. YAY! Laterz
So, as I was saying... Friday, I had another long day. I was not having fun either. I had about ten minutes to write the first few paragraphs of that post and then I was busy the entire rest of the day. Since I started with these new duties, it seems as if I really do have a lot more to do. I have three more funds to do in the morning and I have reports to do every afternoon. How much does that suck? A lot. So I was at work on Friday until about six o'clock. I was not a happy camper. I was also kind of looking forward to going to see DJ Dan at Avalon. Special K could have got us on the list, but he flaked. Then he was gonna call me when he figured out what was going to happen that night, but he flaked. I called and woke him up from a nap. So we ditched the plans and I ended up catching a ride with Carpenter and Emeril to Swing City since there were some CT dancers up that specifically called me up and asked me to be there.
So, I went to Swing City begrudgingly. I really didn't want to go. I really wasn't in the mood to listen or dance to that kind of music. But I went, because people wanted to see my shining face as little as it was shining due to how late I was working, Special K flaking on me, and the fact that I would be forced to dance to music that I didn't find particularly inspiring at the time. I saw Spaz Girl which was interesting. I made the executive decision that I would never lend that girl money again or make a bet with her last time I saw her. She's still a nice girl though. She's got too much energy. The best part of the evening by far was seeing Cutesy Sister #1 and Cutesy Sister #2. I totally wasn't expecting to see either of them there. It was nice. I guess seeing Cutesy Sister #1 made going out that evening worthwhile.
There really is more than one bonus to not dancing anymore. When you come back from not dancing for a couple of months, you get mobbed by people asking you to dance. It's a bit flattering. There was one point that night where I had followers five deep waiting to dance. That was strange. It was great, but strange. One follow claimed that she was "stalking" me because she knew if she didn't we wouldn't get to dance. Another said to me, "Hey! We haven't danced yet! What's up with that! It's not like I see you every week anymore." I don't know. I still thought the music was rather drab and uniform.
Saturday, I had to be up and at the Hatch Shell docks at ten in the morning. Dragon Boat practice... The things I do... So I was on the water from ten in the morning until two in the afternoon. For the first two hours, I was paddling on the right side, my natural side, for the intermediate-advanced practice. It was a good work out. I was amazed by how much my endurance has kicked up since I started in May. The thing was that since this was not a manditory practice, there were only six of us on the boat. This meant that we were getting maximum work out. When you have more people on the boat, it's easier to pull your paddle. With only four of us, with all of our power we still weren't moving all that much. The second half of practice was a novice practice. We only had one novice paddler, so it was the one novice, myself and two of the more advanced paddlers. For this practice I was stuck on the left. It was unfortunate. My back started to tweek and my arms hurt a lot. It came to a point where I couldn't really lean forward as you're supposed to do. I was using mostly arms. Killer, I tell you, killer...
After practice, I went home, showered, and crashed on the couch until dinner time. I really didn't even want to get up for dinner I was so tired. After dinner, I went to the mall to pick up some biking gloves to use for dragon boating. I was finding that I was gripping the paddle too hard and it was making my hands hurt and also I sometimes lost my grip on my lower hand letting the paddle slip so I would be readjusting all of the time. So I opted to buy some gloves. Other people on the boat have gloves. I figured, why not.
Since I finished Fast Food Nation, I also decided to make a stop into Borders Books. Although I really went there in search of Last Night A DJ Saved My Life, which chronicles the history of DJing from its beginnings to the art form it is now, I knew I didn't want to read another non-fiction book next. I was looking something that had the structure of a novel or something that had better flow. So I ended up picking up Jack Kerouac's On The Road as well as Last Night A DJ Saved My Life. It seemed that I have been buying books in pairs lately, so why not continue the pattern. I have decided that I am going to read On The Road before I start Last Night A DJ Saved My Life, because I need a break from the intensity of non-fiction. I'm three or so chapters into On The Road and it seems goos so far.
As for the rest of Saturday night, I spend it laying on the couch watching TV. There was a lot of the Food Network seen on my television. I want to be an Iron Chef someday. I would even settle for being a Aluminum Foil Chef. I would be Aluminum Foil Chef Chinese and my picture pose would be me looking at a cleaver in a very confused manner. Instead of a chef's hat, I would have a bandana, and my colours would be neon orange and silvery gray. I would be the badass of ghetto kitchen cooking. But anyways... I also watched She's All That and 10 Things I Hate About You. Sure do love that Julia Stiles. Somthing about her smile and her tummy... Girl's got a belly button on her. ^_^
Something that bothered me throughout most of the weekend from Friday on through Sunday was that The Violent One seemed to get really bummed regarding the Object of her Desires (who has moved to the left coast). I'm not going to go into details about what happened between them and why she was bummed because it's not really my place to tell anyone about it. However, I will tell you that she seemed really sad and depressed. Now for all of you who haven't met The Violent One, she'd generally not depressed. She can get angry (and, boy, does she!), but most of the time she's pretty up-beat. Not perky, mind you, because then she probably wouldn't be my friend. I hated seeing her like she was. I really felt kind of powerless. My friends have always told me that that is exactly how they feel when I get into my funk, but I've never really been on this end of it to the extent that it was this past weekend. It was unfortunate, if not for me, then definitely for her.
I finally got her to come out on Sunday for some dim sum action. I had gone to dragon boat practice that morning from eight in the morning until around eleven. I hate the eight o'clock practices. It's like waking up for work. If this keeps up I won't have a real day to sleep in until the end of September. Anyways, on my way home from practice, I was insanely hungry. All I could think about was food, going to get food, finding food, mugging the lady walking next to me in the hopes of finding an old stale Cheeto in her purse. So at first I thought I would run to the grocery store and buy some grub. Then, as I was in the shower I thought about a pita pocket with turkey, cucumbers, lettuce, carrots and a little salt and pepper from the Diesel Cafe. Then I thought to myself, "Hmm... I wonder if I could get [The Violent One] to abandon her seclusion in Brighton to come and have lunch..." So I promptly jumped out of the shower, did the proper toweling off, threw on a pair of one of my many pairs of plaid boxers (I totally knew you wanted to hear about that) and called The Violent One up. It turns out that I woke her up from her twelve hours of sleep that night/morning. And guess what... She was up for it. As the conversation evolved, it became apparent that I wasn't gonna get her to come out past downtown. So we met for dim sum at China Pearl. By the time we got there I was faint. I could feel my stomach eating away at itself. I was working off of my muscle and fat reserves. If I didn't eat soon I was going to be a bag of bones. Oh yeah, The Violent One was pretty hungry too. She was completely zoned out. But we got seated after a short wait and ate until our hearts (and our stomachs) were content.
Following dim sum we got some pearl tea. Well, it didn't really have pearl in it. It had lychee jello in it instead. Mint tea with lychee jello is surprisingly refreshing. Something about the fruitiness and the mintiness makes my mouth happy.
We spent the rest of the day hanging out just shit shooting. She seemed to be in better (but still not great) spirits. I wish I could have helped her more, but alas, I am only me. And that's all I can ever claim to be. We went to Newbury Comics where I bought a used copy of the Gin Blossoms' New Miserable Experience for $3.99. I used to have that on tape but my best friend in high school accidentally ruined it. Her tape player ate it. I used to hate it when stuff like that happens. Now it doesn't bother me because I don't reallu use tapes and The Violent One has found a way to copy tapes to MiniDisc. YAY!
Went home and had dinner and then sat and watched TV for a long time. It was relaxing after the workout I had had over the past few days.
I again had to work late today. This sucks. But at least I get the overtime pay. I should brush up my resume so I can start looking more like a mercenary than just talking like one. Oh well... I want to go home now.
July the Fifth today is... How's that for a little Yoda speak? Anyways for all of you expatriates out there, happy fourth, etc. So with all of that said, I'll start getting into how much of a kick ass week this was.
I guess the first thing that I have to comment on is the heat. It has been hotter than blazes here in Boston. The only place that is hotter than Boston (which is hotter than blazes) is NYC. Their heat index was up around 110 or so. I don't know what our heat index was, but it was frikkin hot. I must say that though is that I like the heat a lot more than I like the cold. When it's as hot as it has been I just think of the times during the winter when the heat doesn't seem to fill the house very well and my feet begin to ache and feel like rocks. After think about that it all feels better. It doesn't mean that the excessive heat isn't bad. It just means that I would rather deal with the heat and humidity rather than the cold and slushiness. Besides, I think I've gotten a nice tan from being out in the sun during dragon boat practice. At what seemed to be the tail end of the heat wave spanning from the first through the fourth so far, my grandparents decided to have me throw in the one air conditioning unit that they have. Too bad they try to mirco manage how I go about doing it. "Do this... Do that...." I hate to sound ungrateful, but, hell, I know how to put in a freakin' air conditioner and how to make sure there's minimal cool air leakage. Anyways, the addition of the air conditioner at least makes the TV room bearable.
I have to say that Tuesday was a rather amusing TV day. For the first time in months, I sat down and watched reruns of Gilmore Girls and Smallville. I was pleasantly surprised when I saw that the Gilmore Girls episode was the one where Jess is introduced into the story. It's a pretty good opener for a character. But what really made my night was that the Smallville episode held a really nice place in my heart. In this particular episode, Lex is captured and is threatened etc. However the song God Is A DJ by Faithless is featured at least 10 or 12 times in the episode. I remember sitting with Rebound Girl on her bed getting all excited that they were playing Faithless in a major TV show and was pretty close to pissing in my pants waiting to see them in the credits. I remember sitting with her in anticipation of seeing the greatest band that no one in America listens to. I remeber hearing the electronic pizzacato sounds and Maxi Jazz saying "God is a DJ" in his signature raspy low voice. I remember all of this and then realizing that they were stiffed in the credits. It was fun though. The anticipation. Sharing that anticipation with someone who I had recently turned onto Faithless. It was a great feeling.
Wednesday, I worked my arse off. With the departure of two superiors in my team as well as Amnesiac, plus added responsibilities due to the fact that Boo thinks I'm a rockstar as does Mumbles, I worked a ten and a half hour work day. The last two and a half hours were looking at reports trying to recon problems. I realize that to most of you, the phrase "recon problems" is pretty strange. Strange meaning you don't know exactly what it means, but, trust me... You don't want to know. It's all research on what the frick frack went wrong. Who didn't pay up? Who's trying to shaft the fund? Who made a mistake? Well, I'm in charge of these reports now.
Wednesday night, I ended up hanging out with Carpenter. We went out for some drinks and some CD shopping. I'm getting him into Faithless too. He recently acquired a copy of Faithless' debut CD Reverence and I got him to buy the special edition 2 CD set of their follow-up album Sunday 8PM/Saturday 3AM. Both of us bought the new Cirrus CD Counterfeit. I was psyched when I heard they had a new disc coming out. I have their first two CDs and really like them, so I went to Cirrus' website and heard clips of their new stuff. I was sold. When we went to Virgin, I got Carpenter to give it a listen and he was convinced too. For all of you who follow Cirrus, they have added a female vocalist on as a permanent band member. I have to say that in general, I like her styling. She's got a nice range and good tone. However, I think in one or two songs, she does this throaty thing that Shakira does. Have I mentioned to you how much I HATE Shakira? Well, I do. We'll leave it at that. In addition to the Cirrus CD, I was thoroughly psyched to find out that Faithless had released a special edition 2 CD set of their newest CD Outrospective I had to have it so I got it. I'm such a Faithless fan-boy. I met and sat and drank with Sister Bliss when she came and spun at Karma a year or so ago. *sigh* She's so dreamy....
After our little CD binge, we went out to the Rattlesnake to find us some frosty beverages. How much do I love the drinky-drink? I love it lots. I love it long time... I have to say that though I enjoy the frozen drinky-drink, I would never order it in public unless I am A) on a cruise, B) am at a tropical locale, or C) if it was free. Carpenter doesn't like beer. I can respect that. But man... He was drinking frozen drink after frozen drink. Strawberry daquiri, pina colada, margarita, mudslide...It was kind of amusing and then not at the same time. Special K ended up meeting us there. We had some drinks. As of late, my bladder really isn't holding as much as it used to. It seems like I have to piss every five frickin' minutes once I "break the seal." I HATE that. Special K and I started talking about the fact that DJ Dan was playing Avalon on Friday. I kinda wanted to go, because I haven't been out clubbing or dancing to electronica in a long time. I was psyched to have someone as my wing-man... not that I look to pick anyone up at bars or anything. So that was Wednesday night.
Yesterday was, of course, the Fourth of July. I had made plans with The Violent One to hang out, have lunch and go meet some of my compadres from the Dragon Boat Club of Boston (insert shameless plug). It was swelteringly hot out. You could feel the heat through your shoes. It was icky to say the least. The Violent One was in a bad mood because a guy was clueless and didn't get the hint that "she was tired." I have to say that we, as men, are a bit clueless. But then again, some are more clueless than others. I would have just said, "So why haven't you started the car yet? You're not getting any." But then again, I'm not The Violent One. So she was grumpy and hungry. The heat drove us to seek out some lighter fare. We were going to try to get some more Gazpatcho (mmmmmmmmmmmmmm.....) at The Otherside Cosmic Cafe, but it was closed for repairs. Instead we went to the Trident Bookseller & Cafe. We each had a Sunrise Smoothie (which was thicker than any milkshake that I have ever had and yet had no dairy) and shared an order of MoMos and an order of Challah bread french toast. We were going for the both sweet and the salty tastes. However, either our eyes were bigger than our stomachs or the smoothies really did a number on us because we were both wikkid full by the time both plates were clean. I was having issues walking because I was so full.
After brunch (as it turned out being), we decided to go and see Minority Report. I told Carpenter that I would give him a buzz if we were gonna go see it so I did. We ended up meeting in the Public Garden and then going to the Lowes on the Common. I was throughly amused by my choice of movie time snacks. I had a big blue icee and a frozen lemonade. Yeah... I was gunnin' for the brain freeze, but it didn't come. I was kind of grateful for it too. The movie was over all pretty good. I enjoyed it. It was intense as hell. I don't know if I would go see it in the theaters again, but I might watch it on TV or if a friend had it on DVD.
From there we got some sandwiches and walked to the Esplanade where a few of the people in my dragon boat were hanging out. It was Hulk, Sassy and Hardcore. The Violent One immediately showed why we're friends. Within fifteen minutes of us showing up she was already ripping on Hardcore after finding out that he was the office bitch where he works. So we hung out in the heat on the Esplanade listening to a Miss America, some Broadway singer and, the headliner of the evening, Barry Manilow. Man, the Boston budget must have been really tight this year. Yeesh! The fireworks display was rather night. It wasn't especially loud, but one firework, one that streamed up with sparkles behind it and then dipped and shot up again, it got blown by the breeze and landed about 30 feet from us. It wasn't altogether the most comforting moment when you realize that you could end up with a lapful of burning magnesium. That sounds like fun to me. How about you?
After the fireworks I went home and crashed. It was a long day.
Well, it's not really the fifth anymore. I didn't have time to finish this post on Friday because I was working too hard. I worked another ten and a half hour day. I'll get into that in the next post.
Well, my weekend was fun and amusing and unfun and unamusing all in one fell swoop. It all started with a wretched day on Friday. I was pretty hung over from drinking with Amnesiac, Chimney, Falls On Pavement and Covet. It was an altogether good night. Some more people from training class came out. We didn't even expect them to come. It was a good night of copious amounts of drink and not so copious amounts of food. The fact was that I drank a lot and ate very little. I didn't drink water when I came home and just sorta went to sleep. I woke up on Friday when my celly alarm went off. The funny thing was that I couldn't find the cell in it's charging cradle. Turns out it was still in my holster attached to my pants. I didn't even have the good sense to charge my phone. Good thing my cell alarm is my first alarm. I still had 45 minutes to sleep and hence 45 minutes to charge my phone back up. Regardless I was a wreck all day long and all I wanted to do was go back to sleep. I slept for two and a half hours when I got home from work and ended up not going out that night either. The truth was that I was tired and really couldn't motivate myself to do much more than watch TV or go out to see a movie. I asked The Violent One if she wanted to go see a movie and it turned out that she wanted to catch up on sleep too.
Saturday morning I got together with Totoro and Glare for lunch and to check out some tuxes for the wedding. It actually took us longer to both find a place to eat lunch than it did to eat lunch and look at tuxes combined. But anyways... Totoro wants tails for his tuxes. I have to say I was skeptical at first, but I tried on a jacket and it looked reasonably nice on me. We were thinking black tails with a double lapel. He will wear a white tie and vest and the groomsmen will wear a silver tie and vest. There was an inkling of matching our vests and ties to the bridesmaids "celedon" coloured dresses, but I think that got nixed in the end. What is celedon anyways? Whatever happened to the simple crayola colorscheme? I've never seen "Celedon" in a box of Crayola crayons. So it will most likely be silver. The big dilemma is bow or windsor knot tie. I, personally prefer windsor over bow, but Totoro is conflicted. It's his party and he should really decide what goes down. He's the one who will have to look at pictures for the rest of his married life.
Following that Glare was off to a Bachlorette party (not hers) and Totoro and I were off to try to see The Violent One's fifth kyu testing for Aikido. Needless to say, we were a bit behind. We didn't get on the T in Quincy Center until four o' clock or so. We got to her dojo at ten til or so. We saw her kneeling on the mat with a group of other people and a guy was getting thrown about fifty times. It was amusing. Following that they did this sort of pair working thing which seemed to be like a more of an ending relaxing kind of thing. So we missed most of her testing. Turns out that she also had to get thrown fifty times. I would have liked to have seen that. Also there at the testing were Chocoholic and her family, Stringbean and Bear. The Violent One seemed really surprised that Totoro and I had also made the trip to support her.
After testing, Bear went home, Chocoholic and her family went home, The Violent One hung out in her dojo for a bit and then went home to shower while Stringbean, Totoro and I went for ice cream at JP Licks. Actually, Stringbean was the only one of us to get straight up ice cream. Totoro and I go extra thick milkshakes. I love milkshakes. They make me happy. With some time to kill before we had to deliver Stringbean to the dinner where Little would be there, we made our way to Newburt Street. We shopped around a bit and then head off to Vinnie Testa's which was where they were planning on eating dinner. When we got there, no one was there. I was planning on The Violent One, Chocoholic and her sisters being there so we could drop Stringbean off and make a getaway before OMG, her boyfriend and Little showed up, but they weren't there. At the time, my hands were feeling icky so I went to the Prudential food court to go and wash my hands. When I came back, I saw some people standing with Totoro and Stringbean. I looked closely. It wasn't The Violent One and Chocoholic. It was OMG, her boyfriend and Little. I'm like, "Mofugga!" Totoro sees me and gives me the signal to hold on and then he calls me up. He gives me the option of just meeting me over where I am. My first reaction was to take him up on the deal. But then I think to myself, "Fuck that shit... I'm not gonna hide from her like a punk. Just because I walk over there, it doesn't mean that I'm staying or that I want to hang out with her." So I walk over, say, "Hi" and nothing much else. I don't even really look at her. I focus on other things... Talking to other people... Before I know it, they're off to dinner and I tell them that "I have other plans." I neglected to mention that these plans were just to not be in the same fifty square feet as Little. So that night I played some Gauntlet: Legends in the MIT arcade and called it an early night.
The next morning, I had dragon boat practice at 8:00A. It was like getting up for work. However, this was fun and it was a nice warm day out. I had only planned to be out on the water from 8:00Ato 10:00A, but I ended up being out there until after 12:00P. That's four hours on the water. I'm aching today. It was good though. I had a good time and I got a lot of exercise.
Sunday was also my laundry day. Big excitement! I was so tired though that I passed out in a chair waiting for my laundry to get done in the dryer. Clean laundry is key. If anyone tells you different, tell them that they're a disgusting bastard.
After I had finished cleaning, drying, folding, packing and carrying my laundry home, I met up with The Violent One for dinner and then to see "Lilo & Stitch." I had a hankering for greens so I convinced her that we needed to go to The Otherside Cosmic Cafe where I had a Cosmic Green Salad, a frozen pina colada and we split a bowl of gazpatcho. I Luuuuuuuuuuv gazpatcho. Mmmmmmmm.... The movie was fantastic as well. I thought it was really funny that this was movie was really the first time that I had ever seen a beat down in a Disney movie. After the movie, we went to Boston Beerworks and had a couple of brews. It was a good Sunday.
Well, it's 5:30P now. I'm still at work. It's time for me to go. I have been here entirely too long. I wish I could do this from home. Yeah. I'm ghetto.
