Incite Full

I woke up this morning with a girl’s name written on my hand in green, permanent marker. “Happy birthday,” I say as a smile creeps across my face. No, it wasn’t my birthday. But i’ll use any excuse to go out and have a bit of fun, and besides, Brian’s been dealing with a lot of stuff lately so i decided to make sure he wasn’t preoccupied on his day of days. Even if this means I get bitten later. Bite it.

The past few days have been very interesting and memorable. I cannot stress the memorable part enough, whether that’s good or bad has yet to be determined, but let’s just say that in the past 4 days i’ve crossed something off my “list,” even if it was the worst thing ever, ran into the ocean in my boxers (alone), silently screamed at a douche bag, and watched a friend get destroyed by shots. I also might have “stolen” the girl who’s name appeared on my hand, but you know what? I don’t know what to say about that.

I want to discuss my silent screaming for a bit, and by all means tell me if i should have done something different. I’m having lunch the other day with a bunch of people and ask them what they did over the long weekend. The only one who answers, and he loves the sound of his voice, says “I war reading in preparation for this master’s class I’ll probably get into.”

“DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOUCHE!” races through my mind, about as loud as a formula 1 car. What the hell does that even mean? Obviously he’s bragging about his master’s class. I didn’t give him the satisfaction of asking what the class was or where it is located, because i just didn’t care by this point. But honestly, why do people do this? I’ve got a lot of shit going for me, but i don’t need to say it for people to know it. Just be yourself, fucktard, and we’ll get to you and your awesome reading skills.

This guy is married, too. I don’t understand how this man exists, let alone how there also exists a woman to (presumably) love him.

The evening was much better, with Dan and Brian. Brian, once again, beat me in foosball. But I don’t mind- it’s a team game and this one on one stuff generally is more luck than skill. After that we sat down with a group of girls that we saw from the foosball tables. It became pretty apparent that Dan and I were strong with game that night. One of the girls left with a coworker to the bar, leaving two girls, one who had a boyfriend, and the other who was here from New York. She was definitely cute, and I think Dan felt so as well, as he was “working” on her.

It’s pretty cool to see Dan work, he’s got a lot of confidence and no regret- integral to meeting new women. I feel like he’s better at it than I am, to be honest, but i’m not exactly trash here. Depsite Dan feeling it, I was a machine. I noticed her peacock feather earrings, and we talked about them for a while, then her celtic green nail polish, which she said guys never noticed, and we talked about what she does, what i do, and how we were both destined for so much more than the mundane in and out of everyday life. She’s a photographer from NY, and i was pretty smitten with the idea of that, so i went for it.

I think it was the first time i ever calmly looked at a person and asked them out, and they said yes. The only other time i tried it so directly was in high school, and the girl said “are you serious?” That’s kind of a game killer, let me tell you.

I feel pretty good right now. Hopefully that translates well in softball tonight, then cleaning the dishes and onto top Chef sans dale

“Anyone can get old, you just have to live long enough”

It recently occurred to me, when my friends and I played ‘Duck Duck Goose,’ many people picked the cute girls. I believe this is what sets me apart from other men. Even as a child, I was strategic, calculating, and competitive- so much so I would pick the slow and weak ones of the pack to ensure my victory and my dominance of the classroom. This would often backfire, as every time a girl chose me as the goose, I would fall into an endless spiral of depression, pez, and soda.

There are even stories of this competitiveness taken too far, arms broken from a violent game of ‘Red Rover,’ near death situations from ‘Marco Polo’- competitive children are dying, left and right! I’ve become more muted in my quarterlife. Not nearly as competitive; still competitive to be sure. I am the pastel of competitive- choosing my battles with which I feel my time is best invested. This has taken the form of video games, being a joker, and the most ruthless of venues: company league softball.

It’s amazing how fast some regress once on that pitiful field of dirt and grass, of course we’ll throw in the occasional sprinkler head and food wrappings. This is our coliseum. Our Waterloo. The place we’ve decided boys become men- and for what? Of the 5000 people on lab, contractors not included, maybe 120 play softball. Yet it’s taken so seriously by some people here. Granted, I want to win as well, and i’ve got the scars to prove it, but I’m not going to argue calls with the umpire (blue) with the same vigor I’ll defend my system design. If the people at these games put the same emphasis in their work which they do their softball strategy (does such a thing exist? Yes) MSL would be under budget. While my team is figuring out who plays where, other teams are yelling at one another for not turning a double play, or for not pushing the ball to right field.

Good lord. I almost play purely for the exercise now. And playing the outfield, I get quite a bit of it, but it’s funny- I never thought I would be the non-competitive one, the one driving my team to get better. Don’t get me wrong, as stated above I want to win. Everyone does, no one sets out to lose. If you think you will, why are you there in the first place? But I digress- I’m now the one saying nice try, or giving helpful advice. I now want other’s to play the hardest positions so that we get better as a team. I feel like a parent. And we all know I’m not ready for that.

A bit of going-ons, now- Birthday party for Katie (look at you, two mentions in one week- bet you’re excited) tonight and tomorrow will be me packing my life into a box. Saturday the move, Saturday night the payment in beer for the move, and Sunday will be unpacking and putting my life back in order. And dinner, too!

What you don’t understand you can make mean anything…

I haven’t written in a while, not for lack of want, but simply I’ve been too tired or lazy. Mostly because work and relationships have been going very well, and it’s sometimes hard to pull myself away from the real world. Which is a nice oddity in my life, after years, presumably, spent online devouring youtube and facebook movies and pictures until i was the master of my own social network.

I have a lot of pictures to put up here and a bunch of descriptions that i think will be fairly interesting. I baked a pie from scratch the other day, and have been excited about my upcoming birthday gift. Pictures will be taken.

I discovered a new site today, called foodpairing. It takes a scientific approach to food pairings and food substitutions. You might need to read a bit to figure out how the graphs work, and it’s a little different for pairings and substitutions, but it’s pretty intuitive once you understand just how it works.

Maybe it’s not intuitive at all, then.

In other news, i have a new ipod, and have been busy transferring all of my DVD’s to my computer so that i can put them on there. It’s nice to know when I’m at my next DMV trip, I’ll be able to watch It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.

More to talk about later.