I was at PetSmart yesterday, buying crickets and a heat bulb, ‘kay?  That place is always pretty dead, but there was this dude there, probably eighteen or nineteen, maybe even only seventeen–I dunno–and he was getting crickets too.  So I was waiting behind him in the cricket-getting line, you know?  And this guy is built, okay?  Like, he’s got huge pecs and broad shoulders and thick arms, and he’s very, very short.  And a buzzed head, ‘kay?  Basically, he’s one one of these fellas who feels so inadequate about his weight (and possibly about who he is as a person) that he spends all his free time in a gym.  His body was disproportionally (-ately or -ally?) thick compared to his head.  Looked like a complete baffoon, a douchecrotch, a modern-day Narcissus.  Now, I know what you’re thinking: Chris, Chris, that’s not very nice.  You don’t know him, he might have lice.  To which I respond:

     Looks like I finally got m’self a <a href=”http://www.xanga.com/kteejay”>girlfriend</a>!

Halloween.  Zombie.  I think I was ten or nine.  That was the first year I did my own makeup.  The reason it looks somewhat crappy is ’cause this was after a long night of trick-or-treating and it got smudgy and sweaty.

And that’s my mom.  Witch. 

That’s me and my best friend at the time.  He was my babysitter’s son.  I’d go there every day after school, and during the day in the summers.  This was one of those summer days, a big ol’ giant shaving-cream fight behind the row of townhouses.  He’s a Jew.

Here I was probably twelve.  I was so horribly gawky.  Look at my forehead; it’s disproportionately HUGE compared to the size of my face.  Luckily, my face grew into it eventually.  And those glasses–dorky.  My skinny wrists; the pale patches above my eyes where eyebrows should be.  (Actually, I’m not being fair to myself there; I did have eyebrows, but they were very blonde back then.  They’re gradually getting darker now, darker as I get older.)  This was during a summer where I went down to Smith Mountain Lake (here in Virginia) to stay with these people who are like grandparents to me.  The old woman, Sandy, had booked her husband Fred an all-day fishing trip for his birthday.  She booked it for two people, so that’s why I went along.  It was just he and I and the fishing pro.  I caught three stripers (pictured), and a large-mouth bass.  I believe those are the correct numbers.  I felt bad, though, ’cause I caught more fish, and bigger fish, than Fred. 

Oh!  Interesting note: the house in which the Halloween pictures above were taken is the house Sandy and Fred eventually sold to move to Smith Mountain Lake.  My mom used to visit them in that house when she was a kid.  She also babysat one of their younger children (who is now forty-ish).

‘Nother interesting fact: Smith Mountain Lake is the lake What About Bob? was filmed at.  Best Bill Murray comedy!

     And funny, too.  Check this out–this was my response to someone who said “I don’t give a fuck” to me:
     “Well, that’s good that you don’t give a fuck; not one single, solitary fuck.  Fucks should not be given, in my opinion, not ever.  Never a fuck.  If you tried to give a fuck, I’d insist you take it back: ‘Here, take your fuck back.  I don’t want your fuck.’”
     Hah!  Idn’t that great?  ‘Cause if you think about the phrase “I don’t give a fuck,” or “…give a darn,” it really doesn’t make sense.  How can you give an intangible thing?  How can you give to someone expressions of frustration, like darns or fucks?
     Grow up, people.  Cussing doesn’t make you sound cooler or more adult.  Makes you sound like a moron who learned your abilities of self-expression from MTV, teen comedies, and other sources of douchefaggery.

     Sarah Palin and Joe Biden, sparring.  It’s awesome. 
     Take note: Joe Biden is doing a much better job than Barack Obama himself did last Thursday!  I’m surprised Obama is allowing Biden to be so good in this debate, because it just pushes the Republicans’ point that Obama has no experience, contrasted with Biden’s many years. 
     Another blow to the Democrats: even Sarah Palin is doing a better job than Obama did, and they aren’t even debating each other!  She’s more capable, more experienced, than Obama is.  Many of Obama’s answers during his debate last Thursday were “I agree,” without clarifying or adding to his answer, especially when following McCain’s speaking about Russia and Georgia.  Obama saying “I agree” was so laughable, because he had no idea what McCain was even talking about; he doesn’t know anything about foreign affairs.  He thinks the presidency is just a popularity contest, just a position of celebrity.
     The debate just ended.  I think the both of them, Palin and Biden, did a good job.  One thing’s for sure, though: Joe did better than Obama; Palin did better than Obama; McCain did better than Obama.  Obama looks like a high-schooler studying mere high-school-politics books when compared to the other three.  I’d be embarrassed if I were Obama.
     I said the following as a reply to someone’s comment, and I thought I’d say it for all to read now:
     Remember when Bush, McCain, and Obama met with the other people about
the $700 billion bailout plan?  And remember hearing and reading in the news about how it turned into a
shouting match?  Well, the media didn’t say why it turned into a shouting match.  The reason the meeting devolved in the way it did was because Obama’s team
decided to let Obama chair the committee.  And guess what–he just stood there and
didn’t know what to do, and everybody else in the room was getting very frustrated with his doing-nothingness. Obama
didn’t know how to run a simple meeting!  This is a fact.  So if he isn’t capable of handling a meeting, how on earth can we expect him to be capable of running a country?

The good thing about babies is that they can’t tell you when you have bad breath. Most people, I think, do not consciously realize this luxury they have when holding babies, the luxury of not having to be self-conscious about breathing on someone. But the moment a baby gets put into their arms, you just know their subconscious mind is going, “Hahahaaa, I’m breathing in your face and you don’t know what to make of it!” I consider myself to be one of the lucky ones who are aware of this luxury, to be one of the few people who can acknowledge and therefore relish the freedom of being able to talk to a baby five inches from his face without the little guy saying, “Dude, your breath!” (Not that I should worry about it either way; I chew gum religiously.)
And that parenthetical statement makes for a wonderful segue into why I chew gum 90% of the time. I don’t remember the exact date, but I do know it was at least eight or nine years ago when I realized you don’t have to be face-to-face with someone in order for them to smell your breath, or you theirs. There have been way too many times when someone is hovering over my shoulder (not literally hovering, of course, ’cause that would make him or her a wizard), trying to point something out to me in the book I’m reading or to help me understand a math problem I’m doing–whatever the case may be; and as they speak from over my shoulder, the hot, moist, rancid putridity that is their lung air comes slithering its way into and past my ear, across my cheek, and streaming up my nostrils (nose holes, for the laymen). And the little sensor things that connect my nose to my brain–they scream. This ain’t metaphorical garbage, I mean they literally scream. And in a way, I envy the person that he or she never had to experience being breathed upon from behind as they are doing to me now, and that they aren’t self-conscious about it; but I also pity them that they emit such foul odors and that people will write blogs about them and their shortcomings without their knowledge, and therefore can never better themselves (you can’t fix what’s broken if you don’t know that anything needs fixing).
But yeah, I really want a baby.

Yes!  I was there!  I saw him!  I saw her!  At Van Dyck Park in Fairfax, VA, just 30 minutes from where I live!  Here are photos!  Blaojidgoaijwe!

A far-away shot of the four of them.  From left to right, Todd Palin, Cindy McCain, Sarah Palin, John McCain

Close-up of the above photo.  Ah, she’s lovely.

Close-up of another shot I took.  I love how she’s always smiling.

Close-up of the four of them,  Todd, Sarah, Cindy, John.

23,000 McCain supporters showed up.  It was the biggest non-convention turnout for McCain so far.  This is a small fraction of the people leaving the rally.

Amen.

The line we had to wait in to get into the rally was over a mile long.  We almost gave up because it wasn’t moving at all, but then suddenly everybody started walking at a steady pace (slow, but steady).  Only about 100 protesters showed up.  100 to 23,000.  Good news for McCain and Virginia.  We don’t need a president (Obama) who gets his campaign money from Middle Eastern countries that support terrorism.

Of course they should. It’s their baby just as equally, if not more so, than it is the woman’s. It is his sperm that is growing. He’s a father. But no parent in their sane mind would ever “choose” convenience over their child’s life.
   

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[I'll fix the formatting of this entry later. Safari is gay.]
So I spoke on the phone last night for the first time with someone I met on Xanga a few months ago. I think it was three-and-a-half hours. And I enjoyed it. Let’s say I’m a phone-y person. Hahaaaaa, dumb joke! But some weird coincidences occurred in our conversation (she wouldn’t have known this; only I would know them). I can’t write what they were just yet, ’cause I don’t wanna look foolish. In a few months, though–maybe five or six–I’ll write it in another entry. But only if they turn out to be more than coincidences. (Which they won’t, so don’t be expecting anything on these coincidences again, ’cause, knowing my life, they were just coincidences.)
Now, some of you know me better than others, and you may know that when I have dreams, they are either inspired by a fleeting thought I had that day, or they are things that end up coming true in full detail. Well, in the conversation I had with Barbara last night–let’s just say that’s her name, Barbara–Miranda was mentioned a few times really briefly. And so, of course, last night I had dreams about her (Miranda, not Barbara. Sorry, Barbara). I don’t remember many of the details anymore–I tried to hold on to them throughout the day today so I could write them now, but some of them managed to slip away anyway–so here is what I do remember:
I don’t remember where I was–home, maybe–and the phone rang. The person calling me hung up before I could answer, but when I did pick up, I heard a voice (it was sort of like instant voicemail, I guess). And it was a very quiet voice, a half whisper, and it sounded like whoever’s voice it was had just finished crying. But I recognized it right away as Miranda. She said real soft, “I love you,” and that was the end of the voicemail. (By the way, I know “real soft” is horrible grammar, but that’s how I talk sometimes.) And when I heard Miranda say that–despite how I always claim with sincerity that I would never take her back–I called her back. And she answered the phone, and she started crying again because she was relieved I called her back (I guess she thought her attempt at calling me was a failed one), and she’s crying, and she’s saying she misses me, and she’s asking me to marry her (this happens in almost all the dreams I have of her–her asking for me back, asking for my forgiveness and love), and I just didn’t know what to think. I didn’t think, really, ’cause within five seconds, I was happy and I admitted to myself that I wanted her, and I started crying as well. She’s crying ’cause she’s sorry and she’s afraid I won’t take her back, and I’m crying because I realize I do want her back, even though I don’t want to want her back. And I was crying for my lack of self-respect, and I was crying from happiness that I will get to marry Miranda after all. And I also started thinking, “When I move to California to marry Miranda [that's where she lives], I won’t be a burden on my mom’s money anymore and she can rent out my room, and Miranda already has a real cheap apartment so that part’s taken care of, too, and thank you, God, for providing more than I could ask for.”
And I remember at one point in Miranda’s and my conversation, I asked her, “Let me make sure I’ve got this straight: you want me to move to California and marry you like we’ve always planned?”
And, as always happens in these Miranda-dreams, she started playing with my mind just to get my hopes up and hurt me again. When she spoke now, I could hear that she hadn’t been crying after all, that it was all fake, and she had a harshly sarcastic tone: “I don’t know, Chris, do I want you to come here and marry me?” And I know that’s not exactly a mean thing to say, but what crushed me at that point was knowing that this whole phone call was just a cruel joke. And I think I now remember that I could hear her friends and her boyfriend in the background, snickering to themselves about how foolish I was to believe a lick of it.
I need someone to show up.

So I’m at this festival at Reston Town Center (hereon referred to as RTC). It’s around 8:45 in the P.M. or somethin’, and my mom’s dancing at the bandstand with her new friend/boyfriend or whatever the heck he is. Finally I decide I’ve had my fair share of sweat and merriment for the evening; time to go. My mom tells me she’ll just get a ride home later from John, her friend/boyfriend (hereon known as John). I start to leave Reston Town Center–er, I mean, RTC–when I realize, “Agh, crap, how do I get outa here?” So I pop into a little shop I happened to be standing next to, a place called Cradle & Crayon or something (it sold cribs and bibs and all things infantile), figuring I’d ask one of the clerks for directions.
I go up to the counter. Two girls there. One was pretty cute, and the other one was foreign. They say hi. I tell them where I need to go, and how do I get there? The pretty one, thankfully, speaks up first. She starts explaining the directions and all that, then she sees the look on my [handsome] face and decides it’d be better for me if she wrote it down. While she’s writing, I’m trying to think of a good conversation starter. I figured guessing her name is as good a trick as any, right?
“Is your name Elizabeth?”
She smiles a sort of odd smile, as if I had asked a weird question. “No, my name’s Karen. Why?”
“Ah, okay, I thought you looked like a girl in my first-grade class named Elizabeth.” This was not a lie, believe it or not. She really did resemble an Elizabeth from my first-grade class.
So she goes back to writing and explaining the directions, and then I think I detect a hint of an accent. So when she’s done writing/explaining, I ask her, “Are you Australian?”
“No, British.”
“Ah, so that’s what I’m hearing.”
“Yeah, I moved here fourteen years ago.”
“Ah”–I say that a lot–”so that means…like–”
“I’m 20.” She knew what I was asking
She finishes the directions and she goes over them with me, pointing and gesticulating and smiling, constantly smiling, always smiling and being friendly and willing, and I dug that a lot.
So now that I have the directions, what else can I do? What can I say, what do I do, quick, think, quick!
So I ask if I could maybe leave a few business cards with them so that customers might notice them and decide they’d like to have some casual portraits done of them and their little’ns, you know? So I give her ten and she says she’ll put them up on a business-card holder and all that. And, remember, she’s still smiling.
Alright, so now what do I do? Have I given courage enough time to ferment?
Nope. I tell her bye and thanks for the directions. I walk outa there with nothing but metaphorical bruises on my shins from kicking myself, and with each step I took after leaving that shop, my self-respect drained faster and faster.
But I don’t leave RTC–remember, that means Reston Town Center–I don’t leave just yet. I walk back where the big ol’ fountain is, and I see this little boy, maybe 9 or 10 years old, and he’s got a dog with him that looks like a miniature Lassie. So I strike a conversation with the boy about his dog, and he’s friendly and funny and all that, but then he has to go. So now it’s time for me to come back to the real issue at hand, which is, Now that I’ve left that shop, how on Earth can I go back in there without looking weird or stupid?
And then this big, great idea smacks me in the head: WHAP!
I put the directions in my pocket, went back into the baby shop and said, “Hi. Uhh, yeah, heh, sorry about this, but–I dunno what happened, but I don’t have those directions anymore. They musta blown away or something, ’cause I can’t find ‘em.”
And being the probably-nice person that she is, she smiles and immediately offers to write them down again. I decline, though, and ask her if she can just repeat them to me again. But I had to make it realistic, you know? I had to make it seem like I honestly only came back for directions and not for anything else. So I’m like, “I make a right at the light over there, and then a left and then–” and she’d interrupt and say, “No, you make a right, another right, and THEN a left at [whatever street].” See, I’m a smart guy; I’ve got my methods.
She finishes the directions. Still, I don’t have the courage to ask her for her number. So I’m like, “Okay. Umm…alright. Well, thanks again. If I get lost on the way, I’ll just stop somewhere else and ask again.”
And we say bye, and my shins are acquiring more metaphorical bruises, and I’m walkin’ towards the door, and I touch the handle, and I
STOP!
I stop.
If I leave the store a second time and come back in a third, it will look awful. So I force myself to stay in the store. And for the next two or three minutes, I look at my feet. And my notebook. And a big, fat crib. And a big, fat teddy bear. And I fiddle with some things and I faddle with others, and with some things even I fiddled and faddled. And I look outa the corner of my eye at Karen, who’s about 6 or 7 feet away from me, sweeping the floor. And I see that she’s trying to hold back a smile! And I assume that that’s a good thing, and because I saw a good thing, my confidence slowly started to come back.
But before I say anything, she pauses sweeping, looks up at me, and asks, “Are you sure you don’t want me to write it down for you?”
“Huh?”–I thought she meant her number for a second!–”Oh, the directions? No, no, I’m good. No, it’s not that….” And she’s sort of got a quizzical [good word] smile on her face, and I’m looking at her trying to figure out if she knows what I want to ask her or if she just wants me to leave. And then right when I’m finally about to ask, my courage drops again, and I change the subject to something stupid or dumb or something; I can’t remember. And then I notice her co-worker at the other side of the store, watching me. So I sort of move a few feet to my right so that a display piece is blocking her view, and Karen, still paused with her sweeping and still looking at me and still smiling, also moves so that she and I can still converse, you know? And so that little, tiny motion of hers, that tiny, little movement of rotating her body a bit to the left so that she’s still facing me after I’ve moved, that’s what gave me enough confidence to say:
“Um…I never do this”–this was a lie–”but do you have like an e-mail or something or–”
Still smiling, she interrupts me: “Yeah, sure, lemme–”
“I mean, you can even give me a fake e-mail if you want and I’d walk out happy.”
“No, it’s fine! Here, lemme write it down.”
I follow her to the counter, and I’m trying so hard not to smile too much, or even to laugh at how ridiculous I musta looked back there. So she writes it down for me, hands it over, and points out, “That’s a zero, not an O.” (That, by the way, is how I knew it was her true e-mail address, ’cause if it was fake, she wouldn’t have thought to point out a handwriting flaw, you know?)
So I say, “Alright, cool. Well, sorry about buggin’ you with this–”
“No, really, it’s cool!”
“–but thanks, too, and thanks for the directions, and I guess I shall be talkin’ to ya!”
“Yeah, e-mail me.” <—- SHE SAID THAT! SHE SAID THAT!
I leave the shop for the final time, walk to the car, and I’m literally LOL-ing, I’m laughing out loud! It wasn’t that I found anything funny, it was just the type of laughter you get at those rare occasions when you are feeling nothing but pure happiness and excitement. Nothing was on my mind when I was walking to the car except, “She gave me her e-mail, she wants me to e-mail her, golly wow!” I’ve only laughed out of happiness and excitement on one other occasion; I can’t remember what it was, though….

I e-mailed her the next day–I know, I know, I shoulda waited longer than that. Met her Saturday, e-mailed her Sunday, and I still have not heard from her, but I found out why:
Yesterday I figured it would be reasonable for me to call the store and ask if anybody had taken any of my cards yet. Problem was, I didn’t know the name of the store (I only found out it was called Cradle & Crayon yesterday). So I drove to RTC (remember what that stands for?), figuring I could also maybe just directly ask Karen if she would wanna have lunch or something on her lunch break one of these days.
I arrive at the store, but a different girl is there. I ask her about my cards, she says she’s new there, but she looks for them anyway. Neither of us can find them, so I say, “I left them with a Karen. Is she here?” You know, ’cause Karen would know where they’d be, right? And the girl says, “No, Karen’s been on vacation. She’ll be back this Friday, I think.”
Relief!
So “this Friday” means five days from now. I’m just hoping she remembers to check my e-mail, and if she does, I’m hoping she doesn’t see an e-mail from a Chris and go, “Who’s Chris?” and delete it.
‘Cause I forgot to tell her my name.