fun times on the CL

some days i spend too much time at work noodling around on the internets. i like to catch up on all my Craig’s List reading in between brochures and contracts. there are a few categories i read regularly, such as musicians, musical instruments, art jobs, creative gigs... etc., including “talent gigs.” the title of this post caught my eye, but i don’t think i’ll be replying... while technically this could come under “talent,” i’m pretty sure it belongs somewhere else.


Do you have a good singing voice? (Ashburn, VA)
Date: 2009-03-31, 1:25PM EDT

I am a 24 year old grad student and I am looking for a female with a good singing voice. I am coming home the weekend of Easter and I am looking for someone to come over to my house on Thursday April 9th to sing while I play piano. I am just looking for an attractive woman to get dressed up in a dress or something nice and come over, sit on my lap while I play the piano and you sing along with me. Mostly Phantom of the Opera, and whatever other music I have lying around or any music that you have that you like to sing. So, if you are interested, send me a pic, what kind of music you are best at, and how much for this. Thanks

* Location: Ashburn, VA
* it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests
* Compensation: you tell me

it’s gonna be andre.

i just got back from the gym. if you’ve spoken to me recently you’ve likely heard me whine about the gym. i do not like it, no sir, not one bit. it’s a common story that once you start going, you start to like it, and if you skip a day, you miss it... that lasted for one week for me.

i do not like the gym.

oh, the actual place is fine, and it’s very important i exercise. but i’m not getting that post-workout endorphin rush (or i’ve become immune) and the workout is now a chore. my butt makes it over there three times a week, and i do every single exercise i plan on doing, sure... but i don’t like it.

i think that might change.

today a new gym employee, andre, started talking to me during my free weights work. he wasn’t on duty; he was just hanging out at the gym working out. he gave me a few tips, asked me if i played for Mason (i have a George Mason Basketball shirt i wear for workouts), said i looked athletic (instant points). when it came time for me to get to the hamstring/quad sets, he took me over to the ball area (neglecting his own workout) and had me do those (that is, not on the machine like i normally do). then he brought out a balance board, after i told him i’d been snowboarding.

i had fun. i had someone to talk to, he encouraged me, and he was showing me new stuff that sure, i knew about, but hadn’t bothered to try.

so i bet it’s gonna be andre. i’m pretty sure he’s a trainer there (not just a mill-about employee), so if i see him there again i’ll have to sign up for some type of session (i just wouldn’t feel right mooching his time. he’s a nice guy, he shouldn’t be punished for it). but i was probably going to shell out a little for that anyway, maybe just a couple times a month, for someone to keep me on track...

so today, i liked the gym.

true story!

this is my boss. this is his entry into the Peep contest this year.

i'm gonna be unavailable for a while.

bad news about sylvia.

in the meantime, here’s some weird news for those of us who have a certain attachment to chicago.

civil onions.

the bulb that’s always polite.

i was wondering, if Civil Unions are so equal to marriage for some of those “gays can’t marry” folks, then why don’t we change EVERYTHING to Civil Unions, hetero and homo unions alike, and then you can only get MARRIED in the religion of your choice (or not).

i mean, civil unions are just the same thing as marriage, right? right?

today, yesterday, and some days ago.

today i found a driver’s license on my way up the stairs to work. it took about a half-hour of Googling, but i located it’s owner (who works in my building) and returned it to that office. good deed for today: check. now i can be a jerk for the rest of the day. ;)

yesterday i had a gig with aubriot at the Velvet Lounge, and it went pretty well. one of the flakes from another band stepped on our bassist’s cable and broke the input to his amp head. he took responsibility, which was cool, but their bassist came up and started tuning just as we were about to start our set (???) half an hour late because of the break... they were just total flakes (with some B.O.; apparently they flake about personal hygiene as well). it was sad, cos i like to like the other bands we’re with, but it just was not destined to be with these guys (who will remain nameless unless someone asks).

and a week or so back, i cut and re-coloured my hair. the colour is mostly gone (it’s a gradient of blonde, red, and purple now), but i have pictures from the day after the self-styling.






the front is now blonde. i forget that i have freckles.

new shoes! oh, and snowboarding.

i’ve been looking for a new pair of closed-toe black work shoes. closed-toe because i’m too lazy to pedicure right now; black because, well, i wear a lot of black; and “work” because i need it to look moderately dressy and have a slight heel so my slacks don’t drag on the ground, but not too much of a heel where i employ the walk-seven-steps-pause-for-balance method of locomotion.

so after saturday snowboardy times, we stopped on our way home at the leesburg outlet stores, specifically the Kenneth Cole store, so Pants could pick up some new work shoes just like his old work shoes (if it ain’t broke...). and whilst we were there i scored this cute little pair, perfect for all my immediate shoe needs, for only $30. hurrah!



oh man, i’ll never be a foot model…

---

we also went snowboarding at Roundtop again. it was a balmy 70° at the mountain, so there was some sweating going on, because you can only take off so much. i wore a t-shirt, and decided at the last minute to also bring my jacket, just in case. i was very happy i did, because i learned that sweating is highly preferable to having your flesh mangled by the snow when you fall.

i am still a beginner, but i’m getting better, and the key part of getting better is trying things that are more difficult than what you can already do. so while i managed to falling leaf and slideslip the bejeezus out of a slope, i needed to work on toe-side turns and linking turns... and true to my demanding nature, i did. i got bruises on my knees, tender palms, a scrape to the elbow, and some seriously deep scrapes to the left arm (this is from snow???). the bad scrape came, ironically, after i had decided wearing my coat sleeves down was a good idea -- i hit the snow hard & fast enough that it pulled my sleeve up for me to expose my tender flesh to the apparently carnivorous ice & snow granules. at one point, before i swallowed my pride and took Pants’ gloves, my hands were so sore from the snow (being cold and being abraised) that i nearly cried trying to stand up. of course, if you know me, you know i cry because the traffic light changed so my lachrymosity is not much of a bellwether for how things are going.

i survived with no major injuries (“looks like a laceration.” “just rub some snow in it, you’ll be fine!”). the next day i was a bit sore, but i felt good about it. i skipped the gym on friday so i needed the workout.

so tonight, at my gig, i’m going to look a bit like i was in a brawl, but in the end i’d rather the challenge than complacency...

how’d THAT happen?

driving to work today, i saw that one bus stop shelter i pass was burned out. these are the shelters with plastic sides and domed tops on aluminum frames, and sometimes there's advertising on the sides... anyway i don’t think this one had ads or a bench. but as i pulled up i saw the plastic sides were gone, leaving ragged edges along the frame, and at first i thought the wind had blown them out. as i pulled up i saw the frame was blacker than it should be, the concrete was blackened, all the plastic was gone and the whole scene was... scorchy.

which then led me to wonder, how the hell do you burn out a structure that’s like 3' x 5' with NOTHING INSIDE IT?

pometry

i felt long overdue for the sweet powdery collection that we were granted last night/this morning. it gathered in heavy piles on everything, and i was pleased to see pine branches sagging and tips of greenery poking out randomly from drifts of white when i looked out the window this morning. even more pleased was i when i saw thick snow on my balcony, and numerous bird tracks disturbing the otherwise even surface. the tracks were varied, too, indicating more than one species had decided to check out café cate in the wee hours.

but i was disappointed, for all this visual poetry was nearly for naught. once there was a day when i would have just gone and played in the snow, my responsibilities be damned. now, along with the flicker of joy, is a heavy blanket of Ugh... the car has to be extracted, the slushy streets must be navigated, and into work i must go... only a two-hour delay was declared.

not that i don’t enjoy my job. but i lament that the time has passed where simply enjoying the wintry splendor is passed -- now i must enjoy it AND suffer it, simultaneously.

-----

speaking of poetry, i’ve been looking over quite a bit of my poetry lately. most of it was written in college; i’ve long discarded any angsty high school poems/lyrics i may have created. when you’re young, those clichés are all new to you, then you get older and more experienced and realize how god-awful your crap was.

and sadly, i feel this way about a lot of what i wrote in college. i took an actual poetry class (never been a prose writer) and felt rather proud of many of my works. one was even accepted for publication in a journal. but now i look back and think how hacked they are, how awkward and boring and predictable. the lines that i once thought were terribly clever are just marginal sentence fragments... poems i thought were meaningful now just ramble on self-indulgently.

i wonder a bit if it’s just me. i’ve lived with these ideas and words for so long they’re now familiar; they’re my picture of a snowy landscape i took that was so lovely when i first put it on the wall, but now looks like every other picture of a snowy landscape i ever saw.

i’m still keeping the work. if nothing else it’s nostalgia for emotions past. and some lines were well-written; i like to think my relationship with the english language is rather intimate, if occasionally abusive and too-familiar on my part. i regret, in a small way, having re-read the pomes (as i dub them -- i hate the word poem). how much better was that inflated memory of literary triumph! but maybe the time for that self-satisfied pride has passed, along with the time for writing pomes, and the time for appreciating a good snow day well and fully. it’s not sad, because other pleasures take their place... but i do get a bit nostalgic, and romantic, and i love the bittersweet flavour.