Alive, Pearl Jam, Ten (5)

The Infamous Bowling Boy

Like all mothers, I’m assuming, my mom wanted to make sure I was happy.  And of course, in her mind, I couldn’t be happy without a man in my life.  I had told her very little about most of the guys I had dated because as soon as she and Mothra had a name to latch onto, they were ordering wedding announcements before I was even out of the room.  Often, though, there wasn’t much to tell so it didn’t matter anyway.  Sensing that this was the case, my mom decided to try her hand at matchmaking, and although I’m sure you already know how that story goes, I’ll tell it just because it is so ridiculous you won’t even believe it.

My mom catches me on a weak day when she says one of customers has a son who is also single and that they had been joking about setting us up because they know how much we "kids" would love that.  This is my mom being subtle.  She mentions it again a few minutes later so I just tell her to go ahead with it.  Everything that follows is clearly my fault, but I’m not going down alone…

Mom calls me a few days later: are you on Facebook or Myspace? 

Both. 

Mom: Well, I’ll see if he is on it too and then you can meet that way first. 

OK.

A few days later: he’s not on either of those – can I just give you his email address and you send him an email?  Sure.

So I plagerize an email from Sandy, whose mom has set her up numerous times in this manner, and email…I can’t remember his name!  Well, we’ll call him Tony for now.  My email is succinct and poses the possibility of us getting together.  He writes back with his itinerary for the next 10 days – bowling, pharmacy seminar, god-son’s birthday, hair washing.  OK.  So I write back again, we solidify a plan of sorts and we wait for the fated day to arrive.

A few days prior to date night, I’m at Burke’s chatting with Sheryl about grown up guys that live at home.  And I realize that I probably should have asked my mom that question.  So I call her the next day, and the conversation goes like this:

Me: Mom, does he live at home with his parents?

Mom: Yes.
Me: Why didn’t you tell me this?
Mom: You didn’t ask.

AS THOUGH THIS WEREN’T CRUCIAL INFORMATION!  However, since she knows these people, I agree to still go on the date.  Which I do.  And as soon as he walks into the restaurant, I know immediately that it is him and the first thought that goes through my mind is – has my mother ever met me?  We introduce ourselves and there is some confusion as to whether we are going to sit at a table or go to the bar (note to self – ALWAYS go to the bar).  We start your basic first date conversation and after about 5 minutes, if it was that long, we have run out of things to talk about.

Desperate for something to talk about, I ask what school he went to since I notice he has one of those large ugly school rings on (I would like some man to please explain why you have to keep wearing that 20, 30 years after you graduated from whatever school it was).  So he points to his right hand, and says that ring is from Rutgers (which he graduated from 20+ years ago), but then, to my astonishment/horror, he points to his left hand and says: this is for my perfect bowling game, when I bowled a 300.  OH MY LORD.  Fortunately, I didn’t have any food or drink in my mouth when he said this.

Here are some conversation highlights from the rest of the awful evening.

So, do you live near your parents?

Well, yes, I live with them.

Looooonnnnnggggg pause while I wait for the explanation. Which never comes.

Do you travel at all? I travel for work a lot, but always the same places.

I've been to Pennsylvania.

<In my brain...that's a commute, not a trip>

Oh.

And I go to AC quite a bit. I was actually there for New Year's...WITH MY PARENTS.

<In my brain...WTF?????????>

Oh.

Well, my mom really enjoys it there. We had gone for her birthday also.

Of course.

After exhausting sports, movies, music, with similarly disturbing answers, I venture back to bowling.

So, do you bowl competitively?

Yes, I am in a few different leagues, some just for fun.

Oh. I ask because I saw bowling on ESPN today while I was at the gym. There's a lot of money to be won, I guess.

Yes, I taped it. I also went to the gym and I didn't want to miss the highlights.

THE HIGHLIGHTS OF BOWLING? Dude, that's what Sportscenter is for...and why there are never bowling highlights on it...BECAUSE THERE AREN'T ANY.

The evening finally ends, and I walk him to his Monte Carlo, thank him for coming out, and speed off as fast as I can. As I am driving home, my mom calls me to see how it went. I am SO angry that I cannot answer the phone. I text Sandy: No, no and more importantly, no. When I do finally speak to my mom the next day, it goes something like this:

So, Des, how did it go?

Mom, have you ever met me?

What do you mean?

Well, I'm just wondering how you thought he would be the right guy for me.

He's very nice.

Yes, but what were you thinking?

Well, I hope you were pleasant.

Of course I was - I'm a grown up.

Then I hope he didn't like you either.

Yup - thanks mom.

God's Dice, Pearl Jam, Binaural (4)

The Albanians were a group of guys from Albany, NY. We went to a bar down the street, had drinks, played pool, made fun of Canadian accents, and generally had a good time. (Side note: I am sensing a pattern here...) Rick, who self nominated himself as my Albanian, and I flirted throughout the evening and then we all headed back to the hotel. And that was when things went well, went south and and went well south. As I was making out with Rick in the hotel hallway outside of my and Darr's room, the people in the room next door came out and told us to be quiet...I'm not sure what they were hearing, but...then one of the other Albanians starting yelling up to our room from the street, to our 10th floor room.

So security came. Gave us our final warning. Final warning? Yes, final warning.

HILARIOUS.

The Albanians left the next day to drive back to Albany. Rick called me on the drive home...but not from his cell phone. Which I learned when I tried to call him back and his friend answered and said it was his cell phone. Red flag? Nah...I don't believe in them. Or maybe I should say I ignore them. I don't think it really has anything to do with believing in them. For example, these weren't red flags...right?

1 - Rick did not know how to send a text from his phone.

2 - He was only able to call me on certain evenings.

3 - He couldn't give me a phone number at which to reach him, ya know, because, well, he lived with his ex-girlfriend - no, no no - they were broken up! He just hadn't moved out yet.

See? I told you. No red flags here.

Needless to say, Rick and I weren't long for this world and then I just never heard from him again.

But then there was the Candy Man! The Candy Man and I silently flirted a few times at Burke's. By silently flirted, I mean I don't know if he knew we were flirting. Basically, I told one of my bartender friends that I wanted to go out with the Candy Man, he told the Candy Man and then finally one night, he worked up the courage to come over and ask for my phone number. Of course, he had to get past Marion...yes, that Marion. Marion felt that all guys were hers to play with, and only if she felt like it would she allow one to talk to anyone else. Nevermind that she was CRAZY! So my sister totally cock-blocked her (is there a female version of that???) and Candy Man and I were able to connect.

JJ, his real name, is referred to as the Candy Man because his family owned a chocolate/homemade ice cream shop in Westwood that had been in his family for years. He was a Devils' fan, super tall, and very nice. And we went out a few times for dinner and drinks. And had a good time. And then I never heard from him again.

Hmmmm...another pattern emerging here.

Worldwide Suicide, Pearl Jam, Pearl Jam (3)

The Year of Idiocy is hard to describe - there was a lot of alcohol, many hours at Burke's, and well, just general idiocy. It was the year of the Albanian, the Candy Man and meeting Smoove. Here are some highlights.

Herm…Ahh, Smoove.  What’s interesting about Herm is the way we met, and then I guess the fact that we are still in touch.  September, 2007 – Baltimore v. Yankees in Baltimore, and neither of us lives in Baltimore.  Darr and I headed to the game that she was supposed to have gone to with her boyfriend and another couple, had she not discovered one month earlier that he had…well, that’s another story.  Anyway, we went to the game, and as this was the precursor to the Year of Idiocy (see: 2008 below), we had a few drinks before the game.  What a nice park they have there – love that whole area behind center field!  Which is where we were, when we met John (later referred to as The Serial Killer), by removing food from his tray as he walked by.

Yes, we randomly took food off a stranger's tray as he walked past us at the game. This of course prompted conversation, which prompted hanging out for the remainder of the game and then going to a bar, in Baltimore, with 5 or 6 NY guys that we didn't know (reminder: precursor to year of idiocy). Herm was the quiet one with the camera, and I gave him my email address to send me copies of the pics he had been shooting throughout the evening. And then all of a sudden, Darr decided that John was in fact a serial killer. Seriously. She was convinced that his name, John Painz, on his business card he gave us was a veiled threat of things to come if we didn't RUN to our car, looking over our shoulders, and drive back to Westwood immediately. Never saw John Painz again, but did keep up a healthy flirtation with Herm for quite a while.

And then finally decided that it was time to act upon it, so we made plans for him to come to my house. Did I mention that Herm is black? Oh, yeah, well, everything they way about black men is true. They are on CPT - that's Colored People Time for you politcally correct people. Wait - you thought I meant something else! OK, truth be told, that part is true too. (But I kinda already knew that from going to the naked beach at Sandy Hook with the Cyborg - I may not have mentioned that earlier.) Also, if you were politcally correct, we probably wouldn't be friends and you wouldn't be reading this...ok, back to the story.

So Herm took the train, from Irvington (where there are no white people) to Westwood (where there are no black people), and spent the night. And then I could not get him back on the train fast enough. I felt like I was in a Seinfeld episode and I was Elaine, when she has that guy she wants to get rid of, and she's in her nightgown, telling him to "shut up and pack!" Just under the wire, we made it to the train station, and Herm was on his way. We've stayed in touch, and although there haven't been any more sleepovers, there's plenty of flirting still going on.

As part of the Baseball Stadium Tour of 2008, which was really the summer season of the Year of Idiocy,  sis and I went for a weekend to see the Yankees play the Blue Jays in Toronto.  We drove back to northern NJ from the shore, hopped on a plane to Canada, and landed right in the middle of Canada’s largest gay neighborhood.  Not Toronto’s largest gay neighborhood, mind you – or even Ontario’s.  The whole fucking country.  What tipped us off was the rainbow flags everywhere, the YMCA-like poster of an Indian on a billboard, oh, and then there was the fact that everyone was male…and they were holding hands and having dinner with other males.  Of course, the handy map from the hotel of the area also provided us with the information where it said, “This is Canada’s largest gay neighborhood.”

So we were wondering why (again) God hates us (although I still think he only hates me and Darr is just along for the ride).  We went to dinner, and then, feeling a little weirded out, went straight back to the hotel for a drink at the hotel bar.  Various small groups of people were there, none of whom seemed to fit the neighborhood’s demographics. And that's when we met the Albanians.

Tremor Christ, Pearl Jam, Vitalogy (2)

After the divorce, I went a little over two years feeling like I had gotten hit by a truck…every morning.   I couldn’t even imagine liking some guy.  Seriously – the thought did not enter my mind once during this period.  Which is probably why I fell for the Cyborg, a.k.a. Andrew.  I wasn’t looking, and he blindsided me just like that truck that kept hitting me every morning.

Ah, Andrew.  The first time we “met”, we had just closed Burke’s.  I was there alone, chatting with my favorite bartender of all time (Sean, but that's a WHOLE other blog), and he had been across the bar with Marion’s Gang.  That’s right - Gang.  Marion was a tough leader and you were either with her or not.  Although, even if you were with her, that didn’t save you from being her favorite topic to talk about behind your back.  Marion was/is probably still one of the most miserable people I ever met.  Full disclosure: Marion and I were “friends” for a little while and shared the same birthday (more on that in a second).  Once or twice throughout the evening, I noticed this guy looking at me from across the bar. We left at the same time (did I mention we closed the bar?) and he made some smart ass comment so I was immediately in love.

February 2007 rolls around, and Marion and I decide we are going to celebrate our birthdays together by renting a party bus to take us and all of our closest friends into the city and hilarity ensues. No, OK, there was no hilarity. Marion got pissed that Andrew was talking to me, she almost got into a fight with some other girl at the bar who had the nerve to sit near her, and Darr and I were trying to calculate how much a cab ride from the Village to Westwood would cost if we decided to leave. In true union leader fashion, Darr called the bus driver, rounded up the crazy drunk people and we were thankfully on our way back to NJ.

I tracked Andrew down a few days later in amateur stalker fashion by finding him on Marion's MySpace page and sending him a message. We were together for the next 8 months. Don't misread that as he was my boyfriend...he was my non-boyfriend boyfriend. See, Andrew was really a Cyborg, right outta Detroit. He liked me, I liked him, we spent tons of time together, and yes, this was back in the times when people had sex (see 2010-2012 blogs to come) so we did that too. But call him my boyfriend? NO. Because that would mean we were together officially, which would technically mean the fact that he was on Match.com and going out on dates to meet the future mother of his children - which was not going to be me - was cheating on me, which he couldn't possibly be doing, since he wasn't my boyfriend. Andrew's heart was sealed in the ice at the Red Wings arena.

This went on until October-ish, and then I decided that maybe we should be boyfriend/girlfriend. He said no, and we broke up. I didn't hear from him for a few weeks, until one cold evening when he texted me that he and his friend were near Paramus Park and could I recommend somewhere to go to eat. I sent him to Chick-fil-a, of course. A few weeks later, Christmas Eve, at Noonan's in Pearl River with Douglas P., and I get a text from Andrew. "Merry Christmas, blah blah blah, hope all is well, oh, and can you pick me up from the airport tomorrow night?" Of course not! You think you can text me after weeks of no contact and I will pick you up because you have no one else and take you home to your house? And spend the night? Really?

OK - I said yes. And I picked him up and took him home and stayed the night and it was fun. And then 2 weeks later he got transferred to right outside Boston.

So I never heard from him again, sort of. A couple of months later, I randomly learned that he was dating a girl in my office who sat five feet away from me. They ended up getting married, and I saw him once at one of our training sessions when she brought him to the instructor lounge for a drink. (I'd like to thank Sandy B. once again for not warning me that he was there). I guess that's the hilarious part?

The Year of Idiocy begins...

Not For You, Pearl Jam, Vitalogy (1)

This was going to be a book, but I found that I wasn't really determined enough to write one. I like reading books, not writing them. However, some of this was/is so entertaining that I couldn't not share. If you are reading this, then there is a really good chance you are one of the people I selectively socialize with (as per a recent eCard - I'm not anti-social; I'm selectively social. There's a difference); either that or you got here by mistake. So here is the beginning, and we will see how it goes. The early backstory is a little dated, as my sister is now married to the new boyfriend, but it's still worth telling.

No, I don’t really think that anyone is interested in what I have to say.  But lately I’ve been reading a lot of memoirs, and I know my life is more interesting than what those people are writing about.  And that’s not because I think I am so excellent that I am better than them (which is a trait that runs strongly in my family, as you will see) – just more interesting and clearly having more fun.  Who wants to read about someone who was abused?  Whose father was an alcoholic?  Who grew up poor?  That’s no fun, and not for nothing, I don’t need to read about all of that – I’m depressed enough as it is.

So what prompted me to write this story was the fact that my sister just got a new boyfriend.  That’s an odd reason, I know.  I’ve been single, though, for most of the last four years – she had been single all of maybe one week.  In order to fill the time, I told her I was going to start collecting cats to get a jumpstart on my spinsterhood; I just needed to figure out how to do it without my neighbors knowing since my apartment complex doesn’t allow pets.  In fact, I thought, I’m going to write a book, and I already had the perfect name: How to Collect Cats Without Your Neighbors Knowing, or Jumpstart Your Spinsterhood Now!  I got so much positive feedback on just the title, I knew I had to come through for my few sort-of adoring fans.

The next question was how to format the story?  Chronologically?  By topic?  I’m still working that out, and we’ll see how it works itself out since I’m just going to run my fingers off like I do my mouth at times.  I’m also changing as few names as I legally can get away with since I know that no one in my stories is truly innocent and therefore they don’t need protecting. 

I think music is VERY important, and I really don’t get people who don’t like to listen to it on a regular basis.  You don’t have a favorite song?  You’ve never been to a concert?  Sorry – we are not on the same wavelength.  As Pearl Jam is my favorite band, I’m going to choose a song for each chapter to help set the mood.  I can’t actually check that you are listening to what I suggest, but if you’re bored enough to be reading this, it can’t hurt to download a few songs to get the full effect of what I’m after.  And by the way, if you don’t like Pearl Jam, don’t tell me – I don’t care.

As I said, I expect most of this to be hilarious, even if you don’t know me, but there is some serious stuff to get out of the way first.  I think where I want to begin is back in August 2004.  That was when my husband, Chris, told me that he couldn’t say with certainty that, if he were presented with a proposal from another woman, he would turn it down, and so therefore didn’t think he wanted to be married anymore.  This, of course, implies that he hadn’t already done anything, and since I could barely handle that, I believed him that there wasn’t anyone else (I have since started using my brain again and know that this could not possibly have been the case.)

Let me give you some background.  When I met Chris, he was living with his welfare mother and his mistake sister (16 years younger) in what can only be described as a house that had no business still standing in Bergen County.  He had a crap job, a crap car, and was about 100+ pounds overweight, wore silk vests from Valley Fair and could only be described as a loser (and that’s being really, really nice).  Fortunately for him, he was a loser who paid a lot of attention to me when my boyfriend/fiancé didn’t, and so I called off my wedding with 6 weeks to go, went into therapy, and then still ended up with him.  (Don’t worry about my ex-fiancé – he married one of my bridesmaids, who, it so happens, was also his best friend’s girlfriend.  OK, give him a little sympathy since she died within one year of them having a kid, but just a little bit.)

Chris and I were married for over seven years, during which time I got him to go to college, supported him as he got a real job, paid for him to get braces, taught him how to dress and act like a normal person, figured out how to afford a brand new townhouse in addition to his brand new Volvo, supported him as he lost that 100+ pounds on Weight Watchers…do I need to keep going?  I didn’t think so.  Suffice it to say, that like that character in that Neil LaBute play/movie, Chris was my art project.  I loved him when no one else would, and then, when I made him into someone normal, someone who was successful, looked good, and could actually somehow be attractive to someone else besides me, he left.

I’m not as bitter as it sounds, much to my parents’ chagrin.  My mom and I fought during that ugly divorce period more than me and my ex because she couldn’t believe I wasn’t more angry (I’m sure it wasn’t hold over bitterness from her divorce that prompted her feelings about mine…).

Next up - Albanians and Cyborgs...