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Weekly Wacko (17)

Magically Pretty

Last year I went home for ‘spring break.’

My family lives in the Phoenix area, so baseball’s spring training was in full gear (I put swing originally, then decided to pre-emptively veto an unintentional pun).

*

My journey began at the San Jose airport.

While I was heading up to the security gate a VERY pretty girl was walking in front of me. How I do love a pretty girl. I noticed she had a name tag on her bag. Her name was … infatuation derailed … Kristie Crist.

Who names their child Kristie (Kristy?) Crist? Sure, Bradley Stanley is bad, but Kristie Crist? That almost makes Bradley Stanley normal.

*

I’m sitting on the plane and reading, waiting for everyone to board so we can take off. I’ve got the window seat because I always think, ‘this flight I’ll figure out a very comfortable way to lean my head against the wall, and I’ll sleep oh-so-nicely.’ That will never happen, but man I’ve got to try!

The lovely, the beautiful, the talented (it’s a talent to be so pretty) Kristie Crist sits beside me. Well, not RIGHT beside me. Right beside me is a friend of Kristie’s, who is also very good looking.

I wanted you to know I was sitting first because I would never sit next to such pretty people. Especially when I’d worked that day and then run to get to the airport without a chance to shower.

Them: pretty.
Me: pungent.

I hear them talking and it turns out that Miss Kristie Crist is Mrs. Crist. And she’s flying to Arizona to see her husband play in a spring training game!

I’m sitting next to a major league baseball player’s wife!!

This is doubly bad. Not only is she pretty, but she’s a sort of celebrity, and her husband plays pro ball. There are so many questions I want to ask. ‘Will you marry me, and then I can meet your husband at divorce court?’ Or, ‘will your husband play ball with me, while you stand around and look pretty?’

Eventually I couldn’t take it and I awkwardly looked up from my book and said something like, “excuse me … your husband plays major league baseball?”

Yes, she said smiling.

It turns out her husband, Crist, is a pitcher for the Royals (my favorite team from growing up!).

HOW AWESOME!

At that point I was too overwhelemed to say anything worthwhile. That doesn’t mean I didn’t stop talking, but thankfully my memory blocked all that out.

*

I go back to my reading, and later I switch off to a notebook to do some writing. At the time I was very secretive about my writing. This may be awkward (that’s my calling card), but the vast majority of friends didn’t know I wrote til I started this blog. Friends from high school knew I wrote for a paper, and friends in middle school knew I wrote odd little stories … but I didn’t keep in touch very well. Now I’m friends with these people on Facebook, and I trumpet my site on there all the time.

Anyhow.

Secretive. I was/am secretive. I’m very afraid someone will steal my stories or ideas and go off and live my dream.

But what happens if someone very pretty asks me what I’m writing?

Kristie leaned over and tapped my arm. I removed my headphones.

“Are you a writer?”

Ohhhh Kristie. Dear, dear Kristie. You have just done yourself in.

The next x minutes were filled with me uncontrollably babbling the whole idea behind the book I was writing. Complete with unecessary arm gestures and a complete disregard for my audience’s attention span. (‘Should I keep talking?’ – that was not a question that entered my mind.)

If I see a book published by Kristie Crist, and the book is MY book, I would probably get incredibly angry, and then be touched that she liked my idea. And then I would picture going to a book signing where I win a law suit against her, get a book publishing deal, and I marry her. It would be a hectic day.

*

We (Kristie, her friend and I are all old hat, you know) talked for a bit. Kristie and her friend worked incredibly close to where I lived, so I always hoped to run into them.

Kristie’s friend was having relationship troubles, and they asked my advice. I’m sure I gave some answer where I tried to be appropriately funny, wise and clever – but at point I was distracted by my wishing I’d showered before I’d gone to the airport. Half of my thoughts were focused on, ‘don’t lift up your arms – bottle the stink up!’

Kristie semi flirted with me in place of her friend. I think Kristie didn’t like her friend’s boyfriend, and was suggesting that she should drop him and find a new fella. I happened to be the closest thing around.

I went so far as to write my number down on a corner of a piece of paper. I even tore this corner out of the page. But then I used it as a bookmark, as a reminder to myself of that one time I almost married a baseball player’s wife (my imagination is my best friend).

*

Kristie Crist, or Mr. Crist, if you’re as vain as I am and you randomly google yourself – hello! How are you! Your husband should throw a perfect game, then talk about my blog. Get back to me on this.

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Weekly Wacko (16)

Lean, Mean Crying Machine

The past few weeks have been very stressful to me, and I’m about to whine about stuff like I did before (blah blah blah), but I’ll try and keep it interesting (read: I’ll make fun of myself).

Last week (le what?!) I found an apartment. This week I started at my new job. Today my co-captain of the move left. The co-captain was more commonly called: mom, ma, and her favorite, lady (she has proclaimed this website “the greatest space on the internet. period.” Note: my brother and sister do not have websites).

When I moved to California about 2 years ago (Feb 5, 2008), my mom came with me to do much the same as we did this trip. Apartment hunt, furniture shop and drive me to work the first day (this mama’s boy tradition dates back to my first internship).

When she drove me to work the first day in California, she then drove around and did some errands, and finally caught a flight to go home – all before I got home from work. So, as she dropped me off for work (a little ways away from the location so my co-workers wouldn’t see that my mom drove me to work – I’m an ADULT now!) it was our final goodbye. I saw that she was upset, which made me upset. And that, combined with the scariness of my first real job, a new home where I knew pretty much no one (except Anna and Whitney) … made me cry like a little girl.

I don’t deal well with emotions. I’m a boy. I’m an engineer. And at 25 I’m living in my 11th new home. I am one emotionally stunted monkey. When people see me interact with emotions it’s like watching a calf take it’s first few steps – it’s awkward, you want to help but don’t know how, and you crave veal (kidding?).

Anyhow. I decided crying like a baby was a good tradition, so as I left to walk to work today (my hotel is across the street from my work) I cried like a baby. Thankfully I walked to work looking into the sun which made it more socially acceptable. Or maybe I’m just very passionate about my first week of work.

Just a reminder, I’m an adult!

The weird thing for the crying this time was it wasn’t started by SEEING my mom be upset. I think it’s a fair guess she was sad to go, but usually my emotions are reactive – they start up when I see others emotions in action.

I think this is because I am much more stressed about this move – I feel bigger expectations (and my boss confirmed this by saying, not in these words, “this is Brad, and he thinks he’s a hot shot”), and I have an outside work project going on. Let’s just hope I don’t take to crying all the time, because that would be annoying.

But don’t worry for me – there are two bright spots.

At my work there are a lot of acronyms, and an acronym finder. When I was reading through some documents today one of the acronyms I came across was my brother’s name. I found this funny so I ended up looking up acronyms for my and my family’s initials. This is surprisingly entertaining to me, but that is maybe a bad sign.

The real bright spot is this. I work in Texas. And one of my co-workers names is … Peggy Hill! Are you serious!? How great is that?

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Weekly Wacko (15)

Tee-niniest Bit of Fun

Today (1/21/2010), my Mom and I drove around a Houston suburb to look for an apartment. As part of my move, my work paid for a real estate agent of sorts. She does apartments though. This woman, S, also had another agent working with her, K, who was learning the area.

I can’t write well enough to capture their accents, and I can’t remember word-for-word what was said at any one apartment, but here’s a sampling.

The four of us saw four apartments today – who knew that could take so much time. The first two were cheaper apartments, in every sense of the word. Coming from a studio I was fine with a smaller apartment, but it was clear S did not like the cheaper places. My mom was not thrilled with them either.

At the second apartment complex my mom noticed a sign posted outside some of the doors. It was alerting people about an ‘incident’ that had recently occurred where three residents were robbed at gun point.

My mom told me, ‘this place is out.’

(I’m not in California anymore – a news report is on right now about a nut job who went and shot randomly at the state capital. A state Senator wants better security. But, get this, you’re allowed to carry guns there with the right permit. Not California.)

The third complex S was very excited about – it was more expensive and blah blah nicer, fancier. This is the one I ended up picking. The woman who saw us around there was … unique (of the six places total I’ve seen – five of them had females show us around, one was a guy). She was a sweet lady, but a bit chatty for me.

After my mom, S, K and I left, we had this (not exact, but same idea) talk:

S: Oh, gosh, I’d forgotten how she can go on.
K: I know it! That poor thing!
S: You think she has that ADD? Bless her heart. [Note, ADD is not something you catch like ‘that bug.’]
K: You think so? Bless her heart.
S: Maybe. I just wanted her to shut up.

As my mom said (somewhat tongue-in-cheek), bless her heart is a southern get of guilt free card that allows you to say whatever you want, as long as it’s followed by bless his/her heart. I wonder what the equivalent is when you write a blog poking fun at people? Bless everyone’s heart.

(Ok, not in California again – another news report about the KKK trying to RECRUIT, door-to-door, in a town near where I’ll be living. To be fair, when I moved to California one of the first reports I saw was Code Pink (a super liberal group) trying to get a Marine recruiting office kicked out of California. And they of course had ridiculously stupid quotes from them saying the Marines are this, that and the other.)

We ended up spending more time with the chatty woman because we went back for a second look. When she would tell a rather long story, the go-to response from S and K was, “aw, that’s so sweeeet.” Example: a young resident played chess with an older resident when most of the place had been evacuated for Ike. When the apartment held a get together the young resident sought out the old resident to say hello. This story took about 5 minutes though. But you know what, ya’ll, that’s so sweeeeet.

Another funny thing with the chatty woman was a clever move on K’s part. I asked about submitting a maintenance request, and the process for that. The chatty woman said you can come see me. A little bit later the chatty woman came up to me and said that K asked a great question – I can also submit a maintenance request ONLINE (i.e. not in person)! I looked to K and she and I smirked.

And possibly the best story with the chatty woman. Before we began a tour at any apartment we had to give our drivers’ licenses. When the chatty woman gave them back, she looked at each one and declared to the room that she was the oldest one there. And then, a true southerner, she called my mom her first and middle names.

The five of us were at one large apartment complex, so we of course couldn’t walk. The method of transportation of choice: golf carts. With five people this can be tough. At one location we left K behind, but at this location we decided to all pile in. S told me to take shotgun since I’d need to look around.

S: K, you sit in the back with us in the middle, since you’re the tee-niniest one.

At this location we were shown around by a very nice woman who apparently found out the ‘cool slang’ fifteen years ago and then decided to stick with her guns on those words.

“Ya’ll this faux-pond is the bomb.”

“I saw a possum and it made me all wiggy.”

Overall an amusing but tiring day. My work is 0.8 miles from my home, and not on the first floor (bugs and flooding). And I’m pretty close to where I saw a wild hog yesterday. Sweet! [Update, today 1/26 this bomb-diggity woman called me and had my name all wrong. My first, middle and last names could all be first or last names … she chose to call me my middle name, first name. Interesting.]

My mom told S and K that I might write about them on my blog – if either of you was dedicated/bored enough to check this out, thank you for a fun, amusing and helpful day!

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