Sitting, Waiting, Wishing

Okay, do y’all remember the guy from the Internet I met in the Walmart parking lot a few months back after he contacted me on MySpace? We haven’t talked all that much since that night, so if you don’t remember it’s not all that important. But he does call every few weeks to say hi and suggest that we get together soon, though he never follows through with his own suggestion. Last month, the last time I heard from him, he called me to see how things were, asked me about my Christmas and my New Year, and he said that I should come see his new house sometime.

Of course we never got together, and I never heard from him.

So imagine me at Walmart this evening, picking out a small photo album to carry around for those frequent times when coworkers and friends ask me about my almost-two-month old nephew, and thinking about the topic of my next post. Should I write about the inclement weather on its way to my area? American Idol? Another post on LOST? Or perhaps I should write about my coworker, who was recently in a car accident when she hit a patch of ice, being slapped today with a $116 fine for failing to keep her car in her lane at the time of the accident.

I didn’t have to think about my post for long while I’m standing there perusing the different shapes and sizes of photo albums — hey, I never said I led an interesting life — when I looked to my left to see MySpace Dude heading straight for me. He’s much cuter than I remembered. I think he’s gained some weight since I last saw him seven months ago, but he carries it well and he’s still darn adorable.

We talked small talk for awhile; he asked me once again about my Christmas and my New Year and whether I had anything new going on. We parted ways after a few minutes, but he caught up with me about twenty minutes later when I’m standing in the card aisle, picking out a St. Patrick’s Day card to send to a friend of mine on the west coast. We talked more hackneyed small talk for another fifteen minutes before I excused myself by saying that I had to get home before the weather turned really ugly. He again said that he’d call soon for us to hang out.

But really, I’m not holding my breath. As I learned from Greg Behrendt in his book “He’s Just Not That Into You”:

[Not being called when the guy says he's going to or not being called all that often] is neither affectionate or attentive. And it’s not gentle — it’s a harsh clanging bell that rings, “I’m just not that into you.” Why, then, is he nice when he calls, you ask? Because men are cowards and they would rather wait until the end of time than give you bad news. For the record, a man who likes you wants to spend time with you. And he’ll only settle for talking to you on the phone five times a day when he physically can’t … come see you.

So right. If MySpace Guy really were interested in me, I’d be hearing from him 1) more often and 2) when he said he’d call. If he were into me, I wouldn’t be only seeing him by chance at Walmart. He would’ve asked me to the movies, to dinner or for drinks in the seven months since I first met him. I asked him to the movies during our first encounter. He needs to start putting out or get out of my way so someone else can occupy my thoughts.

I’m Addic… I’m Addicted to You

Another coworker, taking my advice on all-things pop culture, watched No Country for Old Men over the weekend in time for the Academy Awards last night. She was pleasantly surprised by how good it is. When I first brought it up, she was skeptical. But people should just listen to me.

The same coworker, once again giving in to my elitist and superior tastes, rented the first season of LOST with her husband during our week off last week, and now they’re hooked. When they went to the video rental place to pick up the sixth disc of the season only to find that it was already rented and would be out until Tuesday of this week, they were let-down. I’m telling ya. It’s an addiction. An addiction I can condone!

Damn, I Wish You Were My Lover

Okay, so y’all remember the coworker of mine who frequently and almost compulsively comes to work late every day? She’s the one who stood me up the other weekend when we made plans to have dinner together and catch a movie. And she’s the one who recently got engaged to an extraordinarily cute, baby-faced and hunky Marine. Well today when she showed up for work, a reasonable 10-minutes late, she was sans engagement ring.

At the end of the week two weeks ago, she was having a personal crisis as her fiance, who recently found out that he’s a babydaddy with his ex-girlfriend, decided that he wanted to be a part of his baby’s life.

When I last spoke with my coworker, she was unsure how she felt about the whole situation. She didn’t want to spend the rest of her life having to deal with his ex, who is a paranoid, unhinged, raging biatch. While he was in Iraq, she was sleeping around so much that the paternity of the baby was in such question that taking the case to Maury Povich was briefly discussed.

I’m not sure how it all went down last week while we were on break from work, but, from the bits of overheard conversation I amassed, this is what happened.

Leaving work early last week because of her personal crisis, she went home and at some point in the following 24-hours had a sit-down conversation with her fiance about the babydaddy situation, which ultimately ended with her calling off the wedding. He left the house in a huff, drove a massive amount of time to his ex-girlfriend’s house in Maryland, where he spent the weekend. By the time my coworker cooled off and attempted to contact the Marine to talk things over, he had blocked her number, deleted her and her friend from among his MySpace friends and, in a brutal slap in the face, replaced pictures of him and her together on his MySpace profile with pictures of him, his ex-girlfriend and their baby. Suh-lap.

By the time I gathered this last bit of the story, I had lost all interest in the situation. I can’t offer my shoulder to cry on when he’s already taken up the familiar bosom of the female devil incarnate. And I think somewhere in the past few years, I’ve given up fantasizing about any guy who’s even remotely interested in women. John, Vince: who needs another repeat of that?

Round-Up of Sorts

In other news: I’m guest-blogging with Scott over at MattyDale‘s place; Scott finally gives in and writes a 100 Things post; David reflects on the virtue of another Nader run; and Steven gets romantic.

Friday Music Game

The On-Sunday Edition.

Here’s how we play our little game: Take out your iPod or other musical device. Put it in “random” mode. Hit “play.” Write down the first ten fifteen tracks that come up — and no fair putting in ones you think will make you look cool, or omitting ones that make you look like a total dork.

1. Big, Blonde & Beautiful (Queen Latifah, Hairspray soundtrack).
2. Stacy’s Mom (Fountains of Wayne, Welcome Interstate Managers).
3. No One Mourns the Wicked (Kristin Chenoweth, Wicked soundtrack).
4. Proud Mary (Creedence Clearwater Revival, Chronicle, Vol. 1).
5. Don’t Stop (Fleetwood Mac, The Dance).
6. The Tide (The Spill Canvas, Sunsets and Car Crashes).
7. Voodoo (Godsmack, Godsmack).
8. Going Mobile (The Who, Who’s Next).
9. Grand Theft Auto (Fall Out Boy, Take This to Your Grave).
10. Kathy’s Song (Simon & Garfunkel, The Essential).
11. Bubble Toes (Jack Johnson, Brushfire Fairytales).
12. La Vie Boheme (Cast, Rent soundtrack).
13. She Is (The Fray, How to Save a Life).
14. Don’t Tell Mama (Natasha Richardson, Cabaret soundtrack).
15. Buttons (Pussycat Dolls, PCD).

Widmore to the Rescue

In last season’s LOST episode Catch-22, a parachutist named Naomi Dorrit from a freighter 80-some nautical miles off of the Island’s shore jumped out of a crashing helicopter and crash-landed onto the ground, where she was found by four of the Losties. Upon having her helmet removed, she looked into the eyes of Desmond and said, “Desmun…” before the screen fades to black. In the following episode D.O.C., Naomi explains to the crowd of Losties around her that she’s part of a rescue party sent by Desmond’s girlfriend Penelope Widmore. To back up her claim, we see a picture of Desmond and Penny that we saw being taken earlier in Flashes Before Your Eyes inside a book Naomi’s carrying.

But, as we find out at the end of the season three finale Through the Looking Glass when Charlie succeeds in making contact with the outside world, Penelope not only didn’t send the freighter after Desmond, she doesn’t even know of the freighter.

Flash-forward to this season’s second episode Confirmed Dead. When four of Naomi’s fellow freighter people likewise crash-land on the Island, Jack and Kate find Daniel Faraday in the jungle with a gun. Jack asks him what the gun’s for, to which Daniel replies that it’s for “precaution.” Against what? Daniel says, “Er ok, see, erm, rescuing you and your people. Can’t really say it’s our primary objective.”

So we know the freighter people aren’t on the up and up. They have obviously come to the Island for nefarious purposes that we don’t yet know.

At the end of Confirmed Dead, another one of the freighter people, Miles, showed Jack a picture of Ben, evidently taken at some point in his adult life off of the Island, although Ben had said he’d never left the Island, and said, “You wanna know why we’re here, I’ll tell you why we’re here! We’re here for Benjamin Linus.”

So who sent the freighter, what does the freighter want and is capturing Benjamin their only objective?

Near the end of last week’s episode The Economist, Desmond and the helicopter pilot from the freighter, Frank, shared a short dialogue about the picture Naomi was carrying. Frank played dumb at the mention of Penelope Widmore’s name. But at one point during the conversation Frank looked at Daniel, who quickly turned away. So there’s something going on there. I think it’s because Penelope isn’t the Widmore who sent them.

Charles Widmore, CEO of the Widmore Corporation and father of Penelope, despises Desmond, saying as much to his face on more than one occasion. He would do anything to have Desmond part ways with his daughter and never turn back. I think that when Desmond went missing, and Penelope started her long-lasting search for her lost love, Charles Widmore became more and more prone to finding Desmond, killing him once and for all, bringing him home to allow his daughter to grieve, and allow Penelope to put him behind her. Charles has the means and the motivation.

And he has ties to The Hanso Foundation, scientists who inhabited the Island decades ago as a way of understanding its strange qualities, and who were ultimately killed off by the original inhabitants of the Island. So Charles has the means to find the Island, the means to pay people to get to the Island and a score to settle with the Others, as the original inhabitants are called.

On tonight’s episode Eggtown, I can only assume that Desmond arrives on the freighter with Frank and Sayid, and perhaps we’ll get some more insight into who sent the freighter and why. Maybe I’m right, maybe I’m way off. With everything else on LOST, guessing and wondering is half the fun.

The Things You Remember

Last winter about this time, I was hanging out frequently with a guy named Joseph from the neighboring town. Okay, truth be told, the same town as John, Matt and the movie theater that I enjoy so much. Joseph — not Joe — and I had gone out on a wonderful seven-hour date the summer before where we hit it off really well. We caught a movie, had drinks, set-off small fireworks both physically and emotionally, watched two sets of giant fireworks while cuddled together close, ate ice cream and overall enjoyed spending time together and holding hands. We were two lost souls colliding together in one fateful July 4.

Alas, by the time the second date rolled around two weeks later, it was as if all that was bright and shiny with my new outlook on life had quickly turned drab and rusty. The conversation over Chinese food was stale. And although during the movie we could barely keep our hands off of each other, after the movie ended and we walked through the exit, Joseph turned around, stuck out his hand and said, “I liked hanging out with you. We should do it again some time,” and left for his car.

Wha?!

It was like six p.m. The day was young! There were things to do! The last time we saw one another, we spent seven hours attached at the hip, complaining to one another in my car that the evening was getting late and that we had to part, but not after several more rounds of hot making out. And this time he couldn’t wait to get away from me. Was it my breath? Did I have a piece of broccoli from the General Tso’s stuck in between two teeth?

After that day, we didn’t talk for several months until one day out of the blue about a year ago Joseph got in touch with me and suggested that we start watching the movies nominated by the Academy for Best Picture. That was always our fall-back conversation staple: movies. But before we’d hang out, he, like a certain someone I later came to know, set some arbitrary boundaries for boundaries’ sake. We were just friends and friends is all we’d be.

Fine, whatever. I didn’t want to be with a guy who acted like he did anyway, so we met for a double-feature showing of Pursuit of Happyness and Blood Diamond at the theater I like. It was heaven being with him in a place that I love, doing something I enjoy. I really liked it. And he did too. He made several attempts to graze over my knee with his hand, or to touch our arms elbow to elbow, but I would always readjust the way I was sitting to quickly put an end to any shenanigans. If he wanted just to be friends, then he got his wish.

And with my aloofness and apparent unattainability, our friendship grew. Every weekend we would get together for dinner and a movie. Dinners got more and more intimate; movies got more and more cuddly. But before I knew it, our time was cut short. He was moving to go to law school and there was nothing I could do or say to stop him. We were friends, not lovers or partners. Sure, maybe something would’ve eventually sprouted, but at that moment in time there was nothing solid there to anchor him to where I was.

So our friendship once again faded back to nothing. Every so often I’ll hear from him and we’ll catch up on our lives, laugh a little bit over something one of us heard or saw on TV. But it’s not like anything we shared last winter.

Yesterday we spoke and he side-commented that he has a boyfriend named Darren. They were at a festival for the Chinese New Year in whatever city he’s living in now and something there made him think of me. That’s good, I guess. He thinks of me and remembers something funny I once said. I think of him and remember one of the best days of my life.

Updates Galore

RE: Moviepalooza — It turned into a bust this weekend when the amount of free time I thought I would have whittled away to a small sliver. I do still want to attempt another visit to the movie theater to see Atonement and Juno before the weekend. Whether I’ll be able to pull this off remains to be seen as my projected free time this week is also slimming in front of my eyes.

RE: John — No word from him since he called me two weeks ago today. I can be such a noob and he can be such a douche. Moving on…

RE: Spam — As of February 19, I have 548 spam messages, and five days until Gmail starts to automatically delete them day by day.

RE: Gym membership — I’ve made the move to the new fitness center building on the other side of town. It’s not as bad as I had feared. It’s fun, I sweat a lot, and I was totally checked out while standing at the urinal the other day. Okay, okay, that last part is super creepy, but I have to give the man credit for trying. And his perviness boosted my ego a bit. Win-Win.

Dr. Spamlove

or How I Learned to Love the Spam-Blocking Feature

The other day I got an email from a fan of this blog telling me that, being a loyal reader for quite some time, he wanted to write me an email to say hello and to ask if I lived around where he thought I lived. I am indeed a pretty damn cool blogger, if that’s the name of what I do, and the email sounded sincere enough and not all that creepy, so I replied. Friday night I heard back from him.

Hiya! Im so happy u got back to my email. I never think anyone would reply, ha ha! What a relief, lol. Oh wait… did you already email me before?? Sorry, I get mixed-up very easily! Anyways, I keep my pic’s online on my profile page on http://gaylovsearch.com/profiles/44710 — I took them with my camera phone, so sorry if they didnt come out that great. Check them out and let me know if your still interested in going any further… if not, then it’s ok, Ive been passed on before, so no hard feelings. thank you.

Curious about what he looked like, I clicked the link and took a gander. He’s not really my type — he’s so skinny I’d be afraid I would snap him like a wishbone — and his emails are a little too… is gay an appropriate word here? But he seemed nice, and if he lived around me, we could hang out at least once. I thought it would make a good post anyway. So I replied.

Hey, what’s up? Do you have AOL IM? We can chat easier there, I think. You live near me? When did you graduate high school?

Twenty minutes later, I got an email back from him.

Hi, thx… Hmmm, ok… I would love to chat with you more, but wait… I want to be safe with this, OK…? One of my friends got hurt by a guy before… I get so worried with this internet stuff sometimes, sorry!!! OK, so just go back to my profile thing there http://www.gaylovsearch.com/profiles/44710 and you can sign up for a account, just do the free trial thing, they will not make you pay. I know its weird, but I just feel safe this way… When you sign up, then just find me & you will b able to see my cell phone number in the personal version profile. If you’re still interested, then give me a call & let’s see where we end up…. – james

Hmm. This is about the time I started getting a little suspicious. Why on God’s green earth would I want to sign up with a website to talk to someone I’m already chatting with by email? That’s far too much hassle, not to mention a little fishy. So I wrote back with an ultimatum of sorts just in case.

Before we do any of that, tell me which school you graduated from and who your senior year English teacher was. It’s a little fishy that you want me to sign up with some website before we can talk. You emailed me and you sounded nice, so I replied. Let’s get some facts straight before I go jumping through hoops.

I didn’t get a reply until the next morning.

Hey, Thats OK, no problem, I understand… but thanx for writing to me again anyways. I have to b honest, I’ve been emailing with a few others and I decided to go meet up with this other friend instead. It’s nothing personal, but I just think me & him seem to have more in common and he is a better match for me. I hope you understand… please do not be hurt. sorry.

good luck on you’re search, hope you can find another gentleman for you. – james

Sometimes I can be pretty dense.

I Drink Your Milkshake

In true Friday night fashion, a female friend stood me up once again last night — a different female friend, to boot. Though she had a very good excuse and I can’t hold it against her, it’s still pretty damn annoying to have something all planned out in my head only for it to go awry. Nonetheless, I went to the movie theater alone and saw There Will Be Blood.

Holy mother of God. Daniel Day-Lewis deserves the Oscar for Best Actor, Paul Thomas Anderson deserves the award for Best Directing, and Robert Elswit should win for his cinematography work, but dammit if I don’t feel the movie is one giant dud. I got so caught up in the beauty of the scenery, the greatness of the acting and the brilliance of the directing that I would forget for short stretches of time that the story was boring me to tears. The movie is loosely based on a 1927 book by Upton Sinclair. Argh!

On a happier note, I think I have plans to see Atonement this afternoon with two women I work with — chicks dig the Jane Austen-esque love story — and then maybe Juno this evening with the friend who ditched me last night.

And for the record, I did not drive past John’s house this time. With a friend, it can be rationalized. But because I was by myself, even that’s a little too creepy for me.