CafeChatNoir

And yet, not 100% because I am quite shallow.

This afternoon I spied a cell phone in the grass between the sidewalk and street while I was out running.  While I did think about leaving it so the owner could backtrack to it, that was outweighed by the scattered rainstorms and the potential for kids deciding to play street hockey with it.  So, I picked it up and took it home.

Tried to call the phone to leave a voice mail for the owner, thinking they might be checking it remotely.  Great idea except that the voice mail wasn’t activated.  No “Home” or “Mom” or “ICE” in the contact list.  Put a found posting on Craigslist and a note at the bus stop where I found it.  Sent a text message to a female contact in the recent calls list.  (Dunno, just didn’t want to send a text to one of his potenially whackjob friends – mainly because I know how many whackjobs I have in my own contact list.)  And waited.

The phone rang and I answered – the owner calling from a friend’s phone!  He apparently parks his car right near the bus stop and dropped/kicked it out of the car.  Got the address for the drop off – he said, “You can drop it off at any hour, someone will be up.”  AKA, we have a house of half office workers, half restaurant industry. :)  I was on my way out, no big deal to make a 1/4 block detour to drop it off.

And this is where shallow comes in.  The voice was of a 6′2″ Tennessse farm boy between the ages of 22 to 35.  When I dropped off the phone, I was met by a lovely Indian lady at the door (wife/girlfriend/landlady/roommate) who seemed to be aware of the situation and happily accepted the phone (or had no idea and thought, “Hey, free cell phone!”)

So the phone was returned.  (Hopefully to the right address.)  But dammit, I wanted to see the face that went with the voice!!

But the phone is back with it’s rightful owner (in theory) and that has to be good enough.  And I can live with that.

***Warning to all gentlemen who may think I am dateable – this may very well change your mind***

I don’t know about anyone else out there, but if I don’t dream, I don’t have a good night’s sleep.  When things are going even marginally well, I dream nearly every night.  (And it doesn’t matter how long I sleep, as long as I dream.  12 hours with no dreams is worse than 6 hours with dreams.)  My dreams are exceptionally vivid, and about 3/4 of the time I remember the details.  (Mainly if I happen to wake up near the end of the dream and make a mental note of it.)  Otherwise, I do at least remember the fact that I had some kind of whacked out dream.

I’ll admit it – my subconscious mind is much smarter than my conscious mind.  I lost count of how many seriously screwed up help desk tickets I figured out because my subconscious mind took over and when I woke up, I had the answer.  Or, when my subconscious mind told me it was time to move on from a job that I kept hanging on to.

Such as the dream I had about physically putting out fires around the office in one job I had.  Mind you, I did have practical experience with it when my boss set his trash can on fire, but still – it was a sign that things simply were not right.

There was the dream about picking up a neighbor’s key after the electrician had come and calling said neighbor to let him know I had the key.  I actually had to call my neighbor the next day and ask if I’d called him in the middle of the night about the key.  (This is also compounded by the fact that I have had people call me in the middle of the night and I was in such a deep sleep that I didn’t remember the conversation.)  Like I said, exceptionally vivid dreams.

So dreams = good sleep.  Unless they’re nightmares of some sort.  And for the last 6 months or so, I’ve either not dreamed at all (which is bad) or had nightmares (not ‘getting shot and killed’ nightmares but just as disturbing in their own way and resulting in no real sleep.)  They have been one of two:  Either I can’t get the damn phone to stop ringing (my grandmother calling every freaking 5 minutes) or, my Mom, Dad, and/or my Grandfather showing up (all deceased) and getting into LARGE arguments about why they aren’t here to take my grandmother onto wherever ones goes when they shuffle off this mortal coil.  Neither one is conducive to a decent night’s sleep, whether it’s 3 hours or 12.  (I stopped asking my brother if I had ignored an early phone calls after a while – I realized he’d ask why I didn’t answer if she’d actually been calling – but that’s how stupidly real they were.)

After this last trip to Phoenix, I knew I’d be seriously wound up for a while (which I was) and adding Mother’s Day and then my parent’s birthdays into the mix (yes, same day, same year, and yes, May is slightly rough, why do you ask?) my poor little brain apparently couldn’t even begin to come up with some good action-adventure stories for me.  So I haven’t even been dreaming at all.  Which sucks.

It sucks on levels beyond just the fact that no dreams = crappy sleep.  When my mind is allowed to really wander, I have some seriously whacked out dreams.  Not scary, just off the wall and entertaining as hell.  Some folks do dinner and a movie – I do sleep and a movie.  I love my whacked out dreams – especially because I also tend to have lucid dreams, which makes it even more fun.  You *know* you’re dreaming, so you’re ten feet tall and bulletproof and can fly and breathe underwater and any number of cool-assed things can happen.

And as I said, it’s been a good 6 months plus since I had that kind of fun at night all by myself.  (And drinks/no drinks doesn’t matter.  I do know if I take anything stronger than Advil before bed to kill a sleep-preventing headache/backache/whatever, I will not dream.  So, I don’t self-medicate to sleep.  I will just stay awake until I think I can sleep.)

When I went to Phoenix, Sharyn* assured me many times over that things weren’t as bad as I thought (I only get the bitchy negative calls from my grandmother, so I know I don’t get the whole picture) and I did get to see how my grandmother instantaneously became calmer (and nicer!) when Sharyn was around.  It just didn’t really sink into the recesses of my mind until the past few days – and I *know* it has sunk in.  Not only am I dreaming again, they are the really fun, cool, whacked out dreams that have nothing to do with family.  (Unless someone randomly enters stage left for no reason – and if they get killed by a ninja, it’s their own damn fault for showing up.)

A quick sample from the past couple nights where it’s back to “sleep and a movie” rather than “sleep at your own risk”:

– I’m in Miami and protecting a 5 year old from a hail of gunfire and explosions.  Sounds like a nightmare, but no – I had kickass ninja skills and we both emerged unscathed.  (I probably should stop watching CSI: Miami, but hey, we escaped the bad guys!  That and a lot of my dreams key off what I’ve seen on TV.  3 seasons of The West Wing in 4 days – I had dreams about working in the White House for 3 weeks.)

– I’m working at my old help desk job and they are cutting people left and right.  Suddenly, Gabriel Byrne shows up as the employee advocate!  (Oh if we’d only had a union and him as our rep back when I actually did tha for a living.)  Telling management that if they force us to stay as pitifully understaffed as we were, we still needed more support and that we needed to have at LEAST one “wizard” on staff for us to all consult.  (Not like a Harry Potter wizard, more like Apple’s “geniuses” – I’m not *that* much of a geek.)  Of course, also a sad note on how my mind works, when I should have been seriously hitting on Mr. Byrne, I was back at the tech manager’s desk offering him a dollar for the soda machine in exchange for my being allowed to punch him.  (Which we actually did when I worked there.)  But, damn, GABRIEL BYRNE advocating for us help desk punks!!  If that’s not a dream, I’m not sure what is.

– I’m sitting in front of a stack of papers, not sure if it’s work or classwork, but get a call from someone I am quite interested in.
“Hey, would you like to do something tonight?”
*Looking at random papers in front of me*
“I’d love to, but I have all this work I need to take care of.”
“Oh, OK.”
Hang up the phone, pause a moment.  I DID NOT JUST DO THAT, DID I????  (I actually double checked my phone in the morning.  I have had phone conversations that I did not remember because they were in the middle of a deep sleep.  Apparently I did NOT turn anyone down by accident at 3AM.)

– I am the stunt double or some close extra for Emily Deschanel in Bones.  I spent the whole time running around shooting things with David Borneaz, and he wanted to go for drinks after the shoot.  Not so bad!  If I can figure out how to get a repeat on that one – I may never wake up again.

So, haven taken a few minutes to analyze my subconscious for the past couple days, I see why I’m far and away more relaxed and less strung out than I was even this time last week.

Let’s all go have some fun and whacked out dreams.

*The freaking angel sent from heaven or Minnesota who looks in on my grandmother every day and keeps her on an even keel.  Something I could never manage in my entire life.

So, last night summer was officially kicked off (at least for me) by heading up into the city and meeting Plaidy and Liss and going to see Carbon Leaf at the 9:30 club.

Now, it’s been forever and a day since I’ve done a girls night out, so I was really looking forward to this.  98% of my social interactions are with guys, which is great, cause I can spit and scratch and swear around them, but we don’t really talk about a lot of girl stuff.

In short, we had a blast – can’t remember a night where I have laughed as long and hard as I did last night.  Carbon Leaf was great, Nellie’s has really good empanadas, and Duffy’s can pour a good pint.  Or three.

Some of the more memorable utterances of the evening…

“Do I go towards 11th or 15th street?  I just managed to walk in a circle.  But I know where Ben’s Chili Bowl is now.”

“How about Nellie’s?”
“Sure.”
“It’s a gay bar.”
“Switching teams may be an improvement.”

“The entire Abercrombie and Fitch catalogue is sitting at that table.”

“It’s just like the sports pub at home.  I’m not getting laid there either.”

“I’m a straight single girl sitting in a gay bar – the fact that my martini doesn’t qualify for happy hour pricing is the least of my problems.”

“The ‘nice’ filter in my brain has been switched off.”

“Twenty Two??!?!”
“I thought he was older!”

“And he was missing an arm.”

“I’m 5′11, I should be able to find guys that aren’t short.”

“I just need to find one.  The harem was too hard to deal with.”

“Grab his ass.  He’ll move.”
“Umm.”
“You’re straight, he’s not, he won’t take it the wrong way.”

“If it’s the 9:30 club, why do the hand stamps say 8:15?”

“The opening act went on early?  This is rock and roll, it’s supposed to run late!”

“See the guy in the hat?  Do you think that’s his girlfriend there?”
“I think the hat is doing very bad things for his nose.”

“I’m pretty sure the guy standing next to me is a serial killer.”
“Do you want to switch places?”
“No, it’s more an observation.  If you hear about 20 hookers being slashed in 10 days, this is the guy.”

“I’m sorry, but the kitchen is closed for the evening.”
“No problem, we’re here for the ‘and pub’ aspect.”

So, it would seem that the bar has been set extremely high for the rest of the summer.

I just saw a piece on the news about mothers that feel guilty for being “bad” (ie, not perfect) Moms.

My Mom wasn’t perfect and had no hang ups about not being perfect.  If she did, I’m quite certain we’d all have been miserable.

I cannot tell you how many time she told us “go play in the traffic”…  And some days I am sure she wasn’t kidding.

With my Dad in the Navy, she got to do a lot of parenting on her own, and did it spectacularly well – I feel like the answers to most any problem can be solved by asking, “OK, how would Mom would have handled this?”

You can’t ask for more than that from a Mom.

And to all my friends with kids who are fretting over getting it all right – it’s OK to tell them to go play in the traffic.  Or say, “I don’t want to hear the word ‘MOOOOOOOOOOOOOM’ unless someone is bleeding.”  Or just deciding that Kraft Mac & Cheese with hot dogs is going to be dinner because everyone likes it and sometimes it’s just easier to make something everyone likes that to try to be culinarily adventurous with toddlers.  They’ll be fine.

And yes, I realize most of the gents reading this are thinking, “Seriously, I got the message the first go round, and I didn’t even qualify on THAT posting!” But…some still don’t get it. (Seriously, someone throw this series to neatorama or reddit or digg, so this goes viral and spreads the word. I’d like to think it would be a public service of sorts.)

But really guys, if you have previously attempted to drop trou in front of me to show me your tattoo in the middle of a very public venue, and it went spectacularly poorly, you should probably not approach me again, oh well, let’s say – EVER. It’s one of those “cut your losses” situations. Which has no negative bearing on you – it really doesn’t – we all have those moments where we realize things aren’t going as we would have liked. That is the point where you can decide to move on, or continue to embarrass yourself. I believe the technical term is, “Fish or cut bait.”

If you choose the latter course and my first words to you are, “I will put my cigarette out on your eyelid” when you approach me – that is your great big freaking neon sign to MOVE ON. If you try to apologize for previous offenses and your apology is quite graciously accepted, with a very specific “Now. Go. Away.” tone of voice (it’s quite unmistakable with me) you should once again – WALK AWAY.

At this point, most rational people would step back and say, “OK, I said I was sorry, she said OK, I’m in the clear,” and it’s time to GO…. Well, you need to – yes, you guessed it – walk away. I don’t ever expect anyone to walk away with their head held low – just walk away and move on. That’s all. But you may choose to stand your ground, and I don’t fault anyone for that, but it might not turn out the way you hope.

If your next step is to talk the ear off of one of my male friends, and they are giving me the, “Save Me!!!!!!!!!” sign, I am not going to abandon my friend. I will enlist other people to suddenly need my friend’s total undivided attention over any matter, be it the fact that the bar is out of Guinness to there the presence of a young lady who is quite interested in them – so they may escape your weirdness.

Should you decide to turn your attentions back to me once they are unavailable, –attentions that have been rebuffed previously in days past as well as within the last 30 minutes – I’ll just point out to you the fact that I do have a lovely contingent of big-brother bodyguards who would happily break you into pieces on my word… You should again take the giant, billboard-sized hint. It’s not a threat – it’s a undeserved courteous warning of potential issues should you continue to be an asshat. But hey – I’m courteous that way. Again, that is your sign to quietly retreat. No fuss, no muss, no outright, messy confrontations. You still have a dignified exit, and frankly, you should take it. And I will give you multiple exit ramps to take that route.

And as I said before, my large family of adopted big brothers is great for me – but it’s better for you. My Dad taught me a dozen ways to kill someone without leaving a mark. (Best. Dad. Ever. I was more prepared for college than any other gal I knew.) Trust me, you want them in the middle of it. They will be the ones pulling me off you once I have finally had it with you and your overinflated ego.

Believe it or not, I have actually become quite the pacifist over the years. There was a time that there would be no warning whatsoever, and you’d be looking down the barrel of a sleeper hold (again, thanks Dad!) and no one would have been the wiser.

But seriously guys, take the “get the hell away from me NOW” signals, and just walk away. (Mine are fairly blatantly obvious, and I won’t say a word if you actually just walk away.) No shame in it whatsoever. Don’t even bother yourself with hurt feelings, just MOVE ON. I’m not trying to hurt your feelings or ego – I’m just trying to get across the point that you should not attempt to approach me again. When you decide to call me out as a “psycho” (which is pretty weak to start with, cause I am way beyond psycho on my mildest of days) in front of my wonderful contingent of big brothers – and especially if you are laser-directing your comments to one of my rather devoted chevaliers, you’re not going to get a ton of sympathy for your plight. You won’t even look like the even ever-so-slightly injured party. It makes you look like a jackass that didn’t know when to fish or cut bait.

So Mr. Idiot That Didn’t Know When To Walk Away… It’s not my fault you can’t follow signals that are visible from the ISS crew. Suck it up, deal, and move on. Lord knows I’ve managed it over the years in the other direction. I’m sure you’ll find your soulmate somewhere along the way – but I can tell you with no measure of uncertainty – it’s not here and not now.

And there’s nothing wrong with that.

Yes, it’s another great American drinking holiday – Cinco de Mayo, where we co-opt a historical day from another country so we can buy Coronas by the bucket.  God Bless America.

Just a tip – if you do not normally drink for 6-12 hours straight on a regular basis, the fact that today is Cinco de Mayo is not going to suddenly enable you to accomplish said feat.  Trust me, it will not end well, and the odds are good that you will wake up with a 3 day hangover on a stranger’s couch, missing a shoe and wondering when and why you thought it was a good idea to dye your hair purple.

¡Buena suerte!

Let me start this off with a disclaimer of sorts.  I have a multitude of truly spectacular men in my life and I love them all and am so happy they all stumbled into my life.  (And you spectacular sorts all know who you are.)  But some of you gentlemen are just freaking stupid.  (At which point the use of the word gentleman is very generous, and idiot might be considered an acceptable substitute.)

The vast majority of gentlemen reading this already know all these guidelines, but sometime an occasional reminder isn’t the worst thing in the world.  And who knows, maybe this post will go viral and be of benefit to a larger audience.  And here we go:

1.  Should I take a moment to introduce myself to you at the local pub, it is because I am polite.  It does not mean that I want to have sex with you, or ever want to see you again.  It means that whether I’ve had 1 drink or 12, I still remember Roberts Rules of Parliamentary Procedure as well as every Emily Post and Miss Manners column I’ve ever read, and I am not a complete bitch on wheels.

2.  Should you have any interest in a woman, at some point the words, “So, are you involved?” really, REALLY need to come out of your mouth.  The sooner the better.  And don’t tell me I should just go about spewing out that information right off the bat – I have had many lovely conversations with people that simply wanted to have a nice conversation and there was no reason to announce my relationship status right out of the gate.  It also gives the lady in question a graceful out if needed.  And frankly, most people I know would prefer a graceful out rather than trying to create a graceful out from whole cloth.  (And dammit, I give guys the graceful out on many occasions, so there is no double standard in play.)

3.  Should you decide to buy me a drink, it does not mean that I will have sex with you.  (Especially should you choose to purchase said drink while I’m having a conversation with someone else about how buying drinks != sex.)  It’s not that I don’t appreciate the drink, but don’t read anything beyond the point where I say, “Thank you.”  Nor does it mean I will buy you a drink in return.  It doesn’t mean that I hate you, it simply means that I don’t feel the need to buy you a drink in return.  It’s not that I have not bought drinks for gentlemen in the past, because I have.  It means that if going to the pub was required to be net-zero game, I’d simply decline your offer and pay for my own drinks like I usually do, and save myself a hell of a lot of hassle.  Additionally, you are most certainly NOT allowed to be offended if you are not included in the last round that I pick up for a very few, very close, very normal, very good friends.  You already think you’re getting some for buying a Guinness, I’m certainly not going to do anything to further that delusion.

4.  If you have only known me for 20 minutes, other than a tap on the shoulder or a handshake, you are not allowed to touch me without invitation, other than accidentally bumping into me.  (I have yet to punch anyone out for inadvertently careening into me after tripping over a shoelace.  I do have a heart.)  Should you come up and decide it would be cute to flick my ear “to get my attention”, especially given that I’ve “known” you for a whopping 20 minutes, you are going to get a very cold lecture on how you do NOT touch a woman without express invitation.  Should you choose to be offended by this, once again, that is your problem, not mine, in any way, shape or form.  Frankly, you should consider yourself lucky that you still have all your teeth.

5.  I do love tattoos.  I love the artwork and meaning behind them.  I enjoy hearing the stories of why someone got a inked with a particular design.  I am always on the lookout for good tattoo artists as I really need to man up and get my MCM tat that I promised myself for not dying after 26.2 miles.  (2 years ago.)  If you have an armband and are wearing a button down shirt – I do understand that you’d have to unbutton said shirt to show it.  However, I have absolutely no desire to see any tattoo that requires that you remove your pants.  I don’t care if you’re wearing your Jockey’s – KEEP YOUR PANTS ON.  And by the by, I have several people who will instantaneously swear that the bar has a very strict pants-on rule, including the bartender.

6.  I have a very large contingent of de-facto bodyguards.  To be perfectly honest, they are as much for your protection as mine.  Over the past couple years, I have acquired several new brothers.  (Which is great, cause brothers are fun.)  They are kind, and sweet and awesome – and slightly protective of me.  But again, more for your protection than mine.  Because, if you’re seriously bothering me, do remember the fact that I am the closest person to you, and if I am really creeped out, I will gleefully (and I do mean gleefully) go on the offensive if I feel it is warranted.  Chances are my chevaliers will be preventing me from kicking out one of your kidneys rather than keeping you from bothering me any further.

So guys, just a few things to keep in mind to keep yourself from losing teeth or getting kicked in the groin by  a girl.

That all being said, do say “Hi.”  Cause if you don’t do anything ridiculously stupid, I’ll say “Hi” back.