Mostly about a Squirrel

Power Move

There’s a mutual friend of my friends and me that we call The Bird. The Bird is tall and lanky and doesn’t ever walk anywhere. He doesn’t perambulate, saunter, or lope – The Bird effing. Struts. The Bird is coming you get out of the way. Bird will get up in your business and make you regret you ever got up in his nest.

The other day I was waiting for my friends to eat lunch and out of the corner of my eye, I caught a glimpse of, what I thought, was The Bird. I was on the street outside the brunch place and I see some strutting out of the corner of my eye. It wasn’t your average, run-of-the-mill, I-wish-I-were-straight gay strut, it was full blown bird strut.

I turned and looked down the street to see The Bird, but was only met with the pensive stare of an unknown homosexual. If you’re not gay, you don’t know that you can’t look at anyone for more than ½ second without it being about getting that person in the bed. So Faux Bird and I locked eyes for a second then I turned away.

Evidently, the game of our flirtation had begun.

My friends texted me so I went inside to the restaurant. The particular restaurant we were at has a bottomless mimosa deal, so during the course of the meal, staff brings around pitchers of mimosa to fill everyone up.

We had been eating for about 10 mins and were out of mimosa when Faux Bird approaches our table. Faux Bird methodically moves around to all 9 of us at the table, but skips my glass. I thought maybe it was an oversight, so as he began to walk away I waved at him:

“Excuse me, could I…”

Bird had ZERO time for my need for mimosa. He strutted off and I was left with an empty glass.

My friends started laughing.

“Dude, he totally ignored you on purpose.”

“He blew you off!”

Then I brought up how we had made eye contact outside and so my girlfriend says:

“He power moved you. He thinks you’re cute. He wanted to assert his dominance.”

“What?”

“Yeah, he was getting your attention.”

This occurred about the time they brought out the first course for our brunch. Once again the waiter (not Faux Bird) moved around the table, dropping plates down.

Except mine. I got no plate.

At this point I’m like DA FUQ! I thought it was just an oversight, until I got up to the bathroom and Faux Bird smiled at me as I got in line.

NO.

I mean… all my other friends have stories like:

“Yeah, the Starbucks barrista gives me free coffee.”

OR

“The gay at Macy’s gives me 20% off everything, just because.”

These are ways to flirt with people. You give them something extra. You treat them and make them feel special.

Why do I get the flirting where they take stuff away?  It was literally when the boy on the playground throws the ball at the face of the girl he likes.

WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT?!

“You’re so cute I want to make you suffer!”

I was so perturbed at this point that I just started slugging mimosas. Whenever Faux Bird strutted over, you can bet I was raising and shaking my glass.

“Whhhuuunn moorrree!”

I’ll show you to show me you think I’m cute by denying me alcohol.

By the end of the experience Faux Bird wasn’t even looking at me and I had put back about 7 drinks. I’d say I won that flirting match. HANDS DOWN.

Masc. 4 Masc. Into Sugar Bush.

As tends to happen, I’ve cycled through a period of not dating and into a fervent, “Imma Find a Man” Phase.

Imma Find a Man Phase lasts about 2 weeks, but I peaked pretty hard this time.

I was on a dating app and messaged a picture of a torso. To be fair, the torso had some interests in its profile– also an eight-pack of abs.

Generally, I message torsos after a Faux Bird kind of Brunch, so it doesn’t go that far.

In this particular instance I had just eaten Subway in a different neighborhood. I had about 15 mins until my bus came, so I got on the apps and literally just messaged any picture I found attractive. Is a Subway Meatball Sandwich the equivalent of drunk brunch? Yes.

My evening went on and in the morning I had a message from The Torso. Not only had Torso messaged me, but he provided a face picture. AND IT WAS THE MOST BEAUTIFUL FACE!

Also a special bonus, I knew who the guy was. I had seen him around and knew he was like the cat’s pajamas.

I couldn’t even at this point: a super hot guy had messaged me back – shared more pictures – and asked how my night was.

SHUT UP!

Turns out, Torso wasn’t much of a conversationalist. We probably exchanged 20 message, with roughly 79% of them being about a recent sports injury that Torso had had.

He’s fine.

It happened about 4 weeks ago.

Recovery was slow.

It was really riveting. I, at times, thought I was reading an excerpt of the DaVinci Code the action was so intense and the emotion so visceral.

After about 20 messages of saying absolutely nothing, I just thought I’d just go for it, so I gave him my number and said, “Hey, would love to meet up if you’re interested.”

Most guys, when they’re not interested, just don’t text you. That’s totally fine, and by the rules of dating apps, is a pretty standard rejection.

This guy chose not to reject me, but instead, suggested that we continue to communicate via the dating app because… I don’t know?

The conversation continued spiral into the most insipid, banal whirlpool of tedium you can imagine. I mean, I was sparkling. A dramatic recreation of our messages:

Torso: What do you do?

Me: I work in credit and risk. It’s pretty boring sometimes but I love my coworkers. How about you?

Torso: I have job X.

Me: Oh, nice! Job X sounds like it’s pretty interesting. Do you have to travel?

Torso. Yes. Sometimes.

If you’re on the edge of your seat I can totally understand why. I dragged it on as long as possible because…. If I didn’t mention it, TORSO WAS REALLY HOT.

I also blatantly lied to Torso to not appear like I was in love with him and had, I mean maybe, stalked him on Facebook once or twice.

Torso: Do you know Cody? I think I saw you at his party.

Me: Really? No… Cody? Like, I guess, maybe – I think I would have remembered you. (Me (subtext): I may or may not remember the very first moment I saw you on the beach 3 summers ago – you were shirtless and had on short green swimming trunks. Maybe. Like, it’s possible that’s a memory I had and led me to stalking you on Facebook through our mutual friend network.)

But sadly, a summer fantasy doesn’t always translate to realty. The “conversation” devolved to the point where I was bored enough for my responses to evolve into things that I found funny.

What was most funny to me the week of Torso and my torrid romance was Sugar Bush.

Sugar Bush is a pet squirrel. You have seen her featured on TLC’s My Strange Addiction. Basically, Sugar Bush’s owner has over 1,000 outfits for the squirrel and dresses her up.

Evidence here:

http://www.sugarbushsquirrel.com/

Well, Sugar Bush became our mascot at work. One of my coworkers had a squirrel invade their house, so on our chat network at work we all found pictures of squirrels to send to one another. It turns out searching “Fancy Squirrel” is basically a direct line to Sugar Bush. It got so intense during that week that whenever we had something come up that we didn’t want to do, we would reenact this classic Sugar Bush moment (PAW UP!):

http://bm.img.com.ua/berlin/storage/news/orig/5/7e/f45e3be44858a524d49d177808e7a7e5.jpg

Well, during one of Torso and my glittering conversational volleys, I sent him a picture of Sugar Bush.

Me: (of course this message was unprompted – Torso gave 0 fuqs about how my day was): Man, my day was boring. The best thing to happen was my coworker finding this:

Torso: (4 hours later) Lol

At that point I knew it wasn’t going anywhere. I mean… I should have known earlier, but if you know dating apps, you know that at some point that hot guy you’re talking to has a 25% chance of hitting a low point where he will message you and want to hang out. You live for that 25% chance.

Well, after 3 days with no response, Torso official broke up with me.  I mean, don’t worry, after 3 days of no contact I had some wine and sent him this:

Squirrel update:

He didn’t respond… which I can’t believe.

Another day later I made the adult decision to block him on the app. Not because it made me sad to see him but because I knew it would only take about 3 drinks for me to start sending him copious modeling shots of Sugar Bush.

I’m not going to say he was the one that got away, but he basically is. I’m still hoping we’ll run into each other at some point – maybe in the clothing section of a squirrel-focused retail store – and our love story will be consummated.

Sugar Bush and I think there is a chance.

Winez

When I was a wee babe at 24, I went to a friend’s party in Chicago. At this point in our lives, my friends and I found wine distasteful and disgusting. It was like offering an French Revolution era peasant a fancy wig or something – like, we didn’t want anything to do with the bourgeoisie BS that was wine. Wine was only acceptable in bag-in-a-box form, otherwise it meant you were old and used up.

At this particular party, though, someone had bought a bottle of wine to share with the group. As beer was being primarily used for beer pong and flip cup, the wine was really the only thing to drink as a sidecar, because, God forbid, as a 24 year old, you go to a party and not be drinking the entire duration of said party.

Well, after some drinks my friend and I read the bottle and discovered that this particular wine happened to be special made to be served at “creek temperature.”

At first glance, this seems to be a thing that one could describe an object as – like, by first glance, I mean being hammered off a bottle of wine and just reading the back while you wait for someone to open the second bottle.

But, really, what the hell is creek temperature? Like… what month is it? Is it close to the source? Like on a mountain? Is it one of the dirt track muddy creeks (pronounced cricks if you come from my family) that I grew up around?

Because we had a few drinks, this concept of creek temperature was turned into a victory chant for my friend and my beer pong team.

Feel the water…creek temperature…yeah!

Don’t ask.

Fast forward to present day and me and this same friend getting dinner at a restaurant. Now that we are 30, wine is a thing – wine is THE THING. You drink wine at home, at a restaurant, alone… It’s the official drink of those 30+ (if you’re gay 27+).

Since we were drinking wine, my friend and I talked about creek temperature. This led me to picking up the bottle of wine at the table.

I’m like, “Wine makes the most ridiculous claims. Let me see what this wine says.”

Yes, you read correctly: this wine claims to be as brooding and complex as a troubadour.

Wine similes are out of control. WTF does that string of words mean? It can’t be disproved. Maybe this super cheap wine does taste like a brooding and complex troubadour, but what if the troubadour is actually quite sensitive and sharing? What if this wine is actually unfairly profiling troubadours in general and they are actually super fun to hang out with? Maybe a troubadour actually tastes like Miller Lite.

Or maybe troubadours are actually obnoxious. I mean they parade around with lutes, begging to be the center of attention. What if their desire to be the center of attention, and desire to retell stories of high drama means that a troubadour actually tastes like a sixteen year old girl? So they’re more like Zima?

I really wanted to start an Instagram account called Outrageous Wine Claims because wine marketers literally string together a bunch of ridiculous words together that sound good and mean something.

General wine simile equation:

This wine tastes as FLOWERY ADJECTIVE HERE and FLOWERY ADJECTIVE HERE as a UNCOMMON NOUN HERE.

This wine tastes as free and aquatic as a Narwhal.

There is no way to empirically measure any of that previous statement. In fact, this concept doesn’t even exist. It’s literally saying something tastes like the sound of the words that have just been strung together.

As fiery and sensual as a your mistress: Adultery Wines.

My friend actually texted me the next week with this one:

Yup this wine: shares the soul and intensity of unbridled freedom.

This is a little different than the standard equation, but it’s a derivation of the main formula: NOUN + ADJECTIVE of ADJECTIVE + NOUN.

Unbridled freedom doesn’t exist – does it have a soul? Why would freedom ever be bridled? Wouldn’t it then not be freedom?

I actually believe that wine companies simply steal 10^th grade poems to make these labels. Personally, that’s when I would string cool sounding words together in the hope that the general sound conveyed some higher meaning.

The sky was full of light like a prism of morning.

That sounds cool but in no way makes any sense.

I think I may have found my calling, though: wine label descriptographer.

Velvet: the wine that tastes like a red moon overflowing with the world’s reflected love.

Wine the Wine: as adverb adjective as adjective nounish.

T-Wisdom

I recently had to lay to rest my iPhone 4S (may her spirit live on forever). I dropped her like 40 times, but the most recent was her last.

I discovered about 2 weeks ago that I couldn’t make calls anymore. The mic was completely busted. The phone may have been broken for weeks before that, but I never make phone calls, so I didn’t even notice.

The only thing that precipitated me getting a new phone was the fact that I had to call my mom. Literally the only person I ever call is my mom. Like ever. The phone was actually also a year and a half old, so it was almost time to get a new one anyway.

Being prudent and cheap, I shopped around to all the major carriers. I had been with Virgin (insert joke about me not getting any) but they only had up to a 5S and that phone costs $50 less than a 6. Like…what?

So I ended up going to T-mobile for the new phone and month-to-month plan. 

The first thing about this experience is that the T-mobile store in downtown Chicago is like the melting pot of the United States. If you want to get a taste of every culture under the sun, just go to the State Street office.  The people who worked there were African-American, Asian-American, Middle Eastern. As I checked out a Chinese lady was yelling because the guy didn’t give her the correct phone back. I was in there and super white. It was basically “We Are the World.”

But also, the woman who checked me out was the wisest of all the people. Like she may have been one of those Greek Goddeses parading around as a T-mobile store assistant.

Basically, I was going to buy the phone without a case.

She says, “I’m not letting you leave here without a case. You have to buy one. Bring back – you have 30 days – but you are not leaving with a $700 phone and no case.”

I’m like, “Pshaw.”

But I get the phone and she is harassing me. “You better buy a case. Buy it. I’m not letting you leave.”

So I eventually do the math. Yes, I pulled out my phone calculator and decided that buying the super slim, indestructible case was a good deal. If the phone lasts 2 years and I spend 80 on the case: 1. I won’t have a broken mic again. 2. It’s only like $3 a month for phone insurance.

So the lady has forced me into buying a phone case and I leave the store.

After thinking a bit, my man side (as little as there is, it’s still there) comes in and is like:

Tedd, bruh, you don’t need a case, man. Cases are for pussies who can’t handle having a sweet man-phone, bro. You want to take out your phone in front of some hot man-honnies and they see you got a bitch-ass phone case? Nah, bro. Nah.

I decided that I would ride out my 30 days with the case and then take it back for a refund. Think of all the things I could do with $80!!

Well, literally the next day I’m in the gym and I have my phone out. I’m doing these back exercises where you put one knee on the bench and then you pull a weight like you’re starting a lawn mower.

I thought about moving the phone out of my way, but then I realized that I’ve never had trouble lifting before and, quite honestly, I don’t ever push myself hard enough where I would struggle with a weight.

But I go to put my knee on the bench and it breaks. Like the stop on the bench clunks I drop the weight square on my phone, and fall off the bench.

I almost wept and pissed my pants at the same time.

But, LO, the phone was fine. The 65 lb weight just bounced right off the case.

INDESTRUCTIBLE!!

Somewhere above me a lady in a T-mobile shirt smiled down, a ray of cellular light coming out of her hands: “My son, now you have learned. Always listen to the lady from T-mobile.”

Recent Dates and NY Resolutions

Recent Dating Highlights

There’s nothing too crazy here, but plenty of awkward to go around:

The Set ups:

One of my favorite stories about a set up came from a work friend. We were all at happy hour after hours and a coworker of mine grabbed my hand as if she had just had some sort of vision.

“Ohmigod, Tedd. Tedd.”

“Yeah?”

“I just realized I have the perfect guy for you.”

Eyebrow raises, “yeah, right” lip smirk creeps across features, “Oh?”

“Yeah, he’s really cute, and he’s sweet and fun and I think you guys would be perfect.”

She takes out her phone and shows me a picture. He’s cute, so I shrug and am like, “Sure. Set us up.”

“Okay, well, he just got out of a really long relationship, lives in Denver, and is kind of emotionally unavailable right now.”

….

Like, what? Why did this set up even seem like a good idea? It must have been the 3 glasses of wine. But I was honored… to be considered?

There was also another set up situation as well. I’m naïve and think that if you have a mutual friend, the baseline is coffee. Maybe this is 1950’s of me, but if you know someone in common, the vetting has been done, so it’s a matter of seeing if there’s chemistry and hanging out a little bit.

I’m not a 21^st century gal, evidently.

So, I tell the girl, I’d definitely meet up sometime with her friend and it was left at that. About a week later she chats me and says, “Okay, Tedd, so John looked at your Twitter and is okay with meeting up. Like, he thinks you could be interesting.”

Um, no.

1.     If your friend tells you someone is interesting and you don’t trust them – NEXT.

2.     If you’re not open to meeting new people just for the interaction – NEXT.

3.     If you use phrases to describe another human like “could be interesting”” – NEXT

4.     Twitter vetting? Like, of all things - NOPE

That date never happened.

He likes having options:

I had met a guy over the summer at a bar one night. We had a fun time, but we never exchanged numbers. It just so happened he was able to find me on Facebook, so we chatted a bit and went on a couple dates.

After about 3 or 4 dates he wanted a strong commitment and I just wasn’t there yet. Great guy, but wasn’t in a place to commit to the connection.

We had the talk, broke it off and that was that.

Well, a week later he was tagged as “in a relationship.” Not only that, but there was the montage of pictures. THE MONTAGE. Like Facebook hunts out all the pics of you and this person and then laces them together so that when you flip the relationship official switch YOU GUYS LOOK LIKE THE CUTEST AND EVERYTHING IS PERFECT! Montage goes up on the newsfeeds. I scanned the comments and there were ones like, “It’s about time!” “I thought this would never happen!”

And I politely closed my computer.

I don’t want to even know how I fit into to all that mess. They currently have date nights like every other day and are traveling the world together. Maybe, I chose poorly…

Hokey-Pokey

I’m used to rejection by now. I’m a writer, I date, I’m a liberal arts major – like people say no to me often and emphatically.

A couple months ago I went on a date with a guy. It was fun, we laughed, drank tea, and then he gave me a hug.

I texted him later that day all like, “Hey! That was fun. If you’re up for it, I’d love to hang out again.”

Didn’t hear back from him until middle of the afternoon the next day with: “Oh! Sure!”

Which, I just took as a blow off. I don’t know how many times I’ve sat down with my girlfriends and we share stories of “he’s just not that into you.” I felt like if a boy was interested he would text back, “Oh! Sure! My week is busy, but let me know a time.”

That, I feel is a normal human reaction to someone you like.

This was better than the other guy I went on a date with: I texted him right after, and then he responded 2.5 weeks later with, “Sorry for the late response. Hey.”

What? I mean, why even bother texting at that point. You got to Frozen “Let It Go” at after a week. His number was deleted off my phone and I had 3 other dates lined up. Also, obviously after 2 weeks you’re like in the B-tier of his possible dating pool and nobody wants that.

Anyway, first blow off guy and I never text again. Then one Friday I’m at a bar in Boystown and he walks up to me:

“How come we never went on another date?”

“You never really texted me…”

It was then discussed and I told him I thought I was blown off.  We laughed about that and set up another date.

Second date happens and he’s thoughtful, texts me after, and tells me we should hang out again. It was during the holiday time and I was gone for a week.

I text him after that week and his response: “Sorry, I met someone else.”

Wait, what? In a week? It took us a week to set up one date, how did this sorcery happen? And also, you obviously had to be talking to this guy when you asked me on the second date after 2 months of not dating?

I didn’t really care, as I was busy and just, like I said rejection is in my BLUHHDDD, but it still gave me a moment of, “Wait…what?”

I’m optimistic, though, as my best friend at work has told me that this is Capricorn’s year. After a 3-year curse, we are now free to live large and things are going to start moving our way.

I actually have gone on a few dates with a new guy and… like… I enjoy it!!!

I messaged my friend at work today:

Things are going well with the guy and I’m scared. Like, I’M SCARED OF GOOD THINGS!

That’s fine, you’re a Capricorn and the universe has been shitting on you, but now it’s not.

You’re right. the universe has on a diaper and it’s stopped shitting and now I keep wondering why everything doesn’t stink.

These are the deep convos I have at work.

NY Resolutioners

I feel like I blog about the gym a lot, but that’s only because it’s where I run into strangers and the most awkward things happen.

So obvs it was just New Year’s and the whole planet decided to get into shape the first week in January.

I’m kind of a gym bitch, like I work out 40 mins a day and that’s it, but it’s my 40 mins, so you better just step off of me.

The first Monday after New Year’s, I get off the elevator and it’s like Soldier Field after a Bears game. There are hordes of people filing into the gym. You can tell none of these people ever come because they are all carrying 400 bags apiece. They haven’t learned how to cut corners and instead carry all the things all at once.

So I get inside and there’s a line to get in. There are only 4 people in line, but no one can figure out how to take a towel, scan the card and then get into the gym. So there’s a lot of people scanning, towel, oops! Second towel – did I scan?, towel, scan, I FORGOT MY TOWEL! Things happening.

Every locker is taken, so I get shoved into the back corner of the locker room.

Once I get out to the floor, the weights are pretty clear. All the new dudes are benching things and all the girls are on ellipticals.

Then comes Star Fish.

Star Fish RUINED my day.

So he’s some sort of freelance personal trainer and has this girl with him who is wearing skin tight clothes with a pronounced beer gut (not pregnant, babies don’t look like this).

So these two basically practice manifest destiny on the gym. They go to a corner AND USE EVERY SINGLE MACHINE, WEIGHT, PULLEY, ETC. All while grunting, of course.

This is all in addition to them doing starfish push ups at the only entry point into the gym. I don’t know if these are even called starfish push ups, but it’s an exercise where you spread out every limb of your body as far as you can and then do pushups. If I were to pick one place in the gym where you shouldn’t do this exercise, it would be at the entrance, where you take up all the space so that NO ONE can get in.

So I try to get a drink of water and have to leap over Star Fish’s limbs. Then I have one exercise left to do in my workout. There are literally 4 machines that I can do this exercise on.

Star Fish is hogging two of them with his cohort Fat Fonda, another is being used by a man who I can’t even watch because he has put on a lot of weight and is crashing this weight down on the machine, while grunting and probably dislocating several of the disks in his back. The other machine is taken by a guy I have seen almost every morning since I started the gym. He gets a pass.

So I sit with my arms crossed in the middle of the room just waiting for one person to finish. I take note when a guy tries to use one of the 15 machines that Star Fish has appropriated and Star Fish ran over to let him know “we got like 2 more sets, bro.”

Finally, I get to use the machine and go to the shower. As I put my clothes away I awkwardly have to run into a man who has his trousers and undershirt on but nothing else. The guy gives me a dirty look, like this is his gym. (It could very well be, he was roughly 400 years old.)

I take a 5 minute shower and come back.

The old man is still there. Now joined by a second old man.

I’m trying to squeeze in the back corner and get my stuff while the two old men talk to each other. The newly arrived geriatric person feels the need to describe his vacation in terms of the movies he has seen over Christmas:

“Yes, we took a voyage to Middle Earth and fought a dragon, then traveled to London and cracked Hitler’s nefarious code…”

This is all while every other person who has a locker on this side of the room stands and waits to get their stuff as Ancient Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum try put on their dress shirts.

I literally showered, changed, did my hair, put on my clothes and left before the first old man had managed to get a dress shirt on.

The next day it was -20 in the morning and the gym was barren.

Thank goodness for weak resolve and human frailty.