Week Ten

If you’re like me and you’ve periodically blurred out staring deeply at a particular tile in your shower, contemplating the harrowing reality that one day you will be so old you might defecate in your pants unknowingly at a Chili’s, or stared at yourself in the mirror wondering how long your ears have been crooked, then you know how easy it is to lose track of time. I begin with my usual tired apology for the infrequency with which I post.

Who am I kidding? You’re not mad I post infrequently. You read this because I ask you to. Or you’re trying to fall asleep. Or it was the last thing you accidentally clicked on before switching to airplane mode on a long flight. Either way. I’ve got you here now and you might as well stick with it. Beyond this, there are only three posts remaining.

Before we get into the thick of it, I’d like to update you on some of the feedback I received from last week’s post. Remember? The one where an assumption about my sexuality almost led to my sexual assault or, as I’ve been calling it, “The Consequences of this Haircut”. The responses to that colorful, albeit uncomfortable, post were mainly positive. It has been my most read post to date and the likes and comments were through the roof. Guys. Almost 100 people clicked on that link. Less people went to see Bad Moms.

The morning after I posted, I received a few interesting responses from some extended family on Facebook. Some people in my family were concerned and apologetic that I might have been confused as gay, which to them is the worst type of person. I’d like to remind them they are wrong. Everyone knows that hover-board owners are the worst type of people, and I assume little overlap between those two groups. A few similar messages made clear I’d caused some minor discomfort with my candid approach to discussing my mistaken sexuality in the hot tub. I’d like to remind people they don’t need to read this if they don’t want to. I live a pretty vanilla life. I spend most nights talking to myself and managing my unibrow. If something about my second-hand accounts of promiscuity makes you uncomfortable, there is plenty of uninteresting TV you could watch. Might I suggest catching an episode of America’s Funniest Home Videos with Alfonso Ribeiro hosting? No laughing required!

What I’d like to say is that provoking controversy is a clear indication of incoming attention. Like Bjork’s swan dress or Kim K’s nude selfies…or that time I got confused about the title and asked someone if they’d seen the latest episode of Black Orphan…sometimes you can’t help but make an attention seeking decision. Basically, don’t be surprised if you see me on Ellen.

You may remember I once divulged that a large number of the Complex’s guests are college groups, visiting together for short term internships in the world’s entertainment capital. This week I focus on a few choice encounters I’ve had with those groups.

Penn State

Remember my friends from Penn State? Between the two of them, they’d decimated a year’s share of Bud Lite and criticized the size of my nipples…forcing me then, and now, to defend my completely normal nipple size.

You don’t remember? Here.

Well, weeks later, I visited the hot tub for a morning dip, which is also what I call eating mozzarella sticks for breakfast. My Penn state bro’s were there, and for obvious reasons, they did not remember meeting me. I felt like I had landed in a sadness themed “Choose Your Own Adventure” game where you come around to the same characters, only to yield completely new responses. We exchanged names and brief small talk like the first time I cleared this level, but this time, they directed the conversation to Wrestle-Mania.

You may be surprised to find out that I am not a Wrestle-Mania fan. I know nothing about it and I care even less than I know. There isn’t really any story here except for the fact that I listened to these two explain the story-lines of every Wrestle-Mania character since the dawn of time. Thankfully, I was released before submitting to any compelling temptations to drown myself. I only share to retroactively apply some shred of purpose to an otherwise “waste of time” encounter…and for my more cynical readers, I share because mine should not be the only time wasted. Now I’m wasting yours. This is Week 10 after all. Think of how much time you’ve spent reading this blog. You could have been watching SO much Orphan is the New Black.

Syracuse

After a particularly grueling day at work and a continuation of work at home, I discovered it was much too late for the culinary art I usually put into my dinners, you know, like when I bake the frozen pizza instead of microwaving it. I decided to walk down to our Complex’s convenient store and carefully select one of their frozen, microwaveable offerings. A lean cuisine with Kirstie Allie’s scribbled signature across its logo caught my eye and I was off. I’ll be honest here. I was electrified over this dinner. And not just because I left the foil wrapping on the box this time.

The work day was over. With all my tasks crossed off, the only thing standing between me, a lean cuisine I’d eat three of and a Star Wars puzzle I’d been putting off since Christmas was a group of Syracuse students ahead of me in line. They had gathered a pretty serious collection of snacks and various libations and it was immediately clear when I approached the line they had been arguing with the deeply overwhelmed store clerk.

Here, much like the time I walked into someone’s office right at the moment they said “cat anus”, I did not have much context. What I did have instead were three defrosting lean cuisines and the back half of a conversation in which six grown-up “adults” (quotes because college students) were trying to convince the store clerk to decrease the price of their assorted goods. Collectively they only had $45 and their selections were coming in at over $60.

“$15 is not that much. Can’t we just give you the $45 and come back with $15 another day?” one of them asked. I had to be careful not to audibly laugh at the “$15” comment. Not that much? Are you kidding me? At the Dollar Store, $15 is 14 things. That’s 14 boxes of off-brand kleenex called “clean-ex” I could buy only to discover that instead of tissues they’re just feminine wipes with a “weed” fragrance because they do research about who shops at the Dollar Store and they give the people what they want.

The staunch Asian clerk wouldn’t budge on the price and the students left broken hearted with 1 less 12-pack of “Lime-a-ritas” and down a six-pack of kombucha because “when in Rome”. I was surprised they never turned around and asked if I had $15 I could lend them in exchange for being welcomed into their cluster-florp of garbage humans. Maybe I don’t look like someone with $15 to spare. I don’t have $15 to spare…so I guess that shows. Should I have been wearing clothes and shoes instead of the robe I fashioned out of destroyed Trader Joe’s bags and twine?

On my way out, I quickly passed the students. I heard one of them:

“I don’t get it. Where he’s from, it’s normal to barter. What a dick.”

Oh? Bartering is normal in Ventura County? Miss me with that racism, please.

Perhaps I am worse for not stopping and lecturing them on the harmful racism inherent to their comments about the store clerk and ignoring their general douchebaggery about how paying for things works, but I had a Kirstie Allie approved lean cuisine with my and, literally, her name on it. Naturally, I rushed home.

AMDA

One night, I was enjoying a perfectly tame evening watching a slideshow of our pals Bridgette and Rick’s wedding photos in the hot tub, when a group of four youths joined us.

“What are you looking at?” one spritely gentlewoman asked.

“Photos from my wedding,” Bridgette replied.

“Oh, was it recent?” the other girl in the young foursome asked.

“No it was four years ago. He asked to see them.”

I did not. I would not. And did not.

The conversation slid quickly. The girls were transfixed by Bridgette’s Pinterest wedding and all of the DIY fixtures she’d employed for the big day. Meanwhile, the two more introverted joined me in a game of watching Rick’s head wobble and bob until it slipped underwater, jolting him awake.

When Bridgette and Rick tired of the company, they left me and the youths alone. Some small talk revealed the following. Three are students of AMDA. One was a proud, employed, plus-size model. I wouldn’t feel the need to apply the addendum “plus-size” here, a model is a model, but she insisted and made clear it was an important signifier.

“Guess how old I am,” she asked, inviting me to play an express round of the game I call “No Right Answers”.

“I don’t play that game,” said I, valuing my life and immediate future of eating Chip’s Ahoy in my bed.

“I’m 26.”

“Wow,” I drew out with multiple o’s. I don’t know if my wow meant I was surprised because she looked so young and I should be surprised she’s actually…pretty…young or if she is so mature and established and she’s revealing she’s only 26. Either way, it was positively clear that she was proud of her age and her job and she wasn’t afraid who knew it. Now you all know it too.

We talked about Serial and Making a Murderer and I marveled at each of their unique abilities to 100% speculate about the outcomes in both of those shows using the exact same episodes and collected information as their guides. I’m sorry but those people spent millions collecting research and putting together these series which both end unequivocally ambivalent and you guys can project with confidence that it’s clear what really happened? Wrong.

My rage was eclipsed when the group decided to depart. The model stopped at the jacuzzi stairs to small talk out of the situation.

“I just wanted to say, I’m very good with auras, I’m very good at reading that and am very sensitive to it, and you have an excellent aura.”

“I do?”

“Yeah it’s just exceptional.”

It’d be easy to write these comments off, as this is the type of conversation all too commonplace in LA. I mean, people have said that to me before, but I always thought that had to do with this sunscreen I was using for a while that advertises a “natural glow”.

“You’re just very social and really easy to talk to.”

And then of course, like anything that happens in a hot tub, the conversation got oddly sexual.

“Have you had a lot of sexual partners?” she to me.

“No…but I have had the opposite of that,” declared I.

“Hm,” she stroked her chin.

She exited the hot tub and walked away. I saw the group a few times more. Often, I’d see them here and there rehearsing lines or on the phone with their folks back home. I was a little annoyed they left me in the jacuzzi alone. I am the leaver. I am the one that gets fed up and returns to normal life!

And like that, epiphany!

For months (“weeks”) I sprawl out in the jacuzzi, observing, listening, lying about a Canadian fiancé all for the expansion of a blog empire within which I plant my findings with snark, judgment and criticism. And yet, here am I, possibly the most regular fixture in the jacuzzi. Is there some blog out there “Who Brought a Meatball Sub to the Pool? My Year in a Community with this Whiny White Boy Obsessed with Disgusting Foods?” Am I the odd, quiet, bookish loser in the hot tub in some cool stud’s poorly written and probably typo-laden tumblr amongst his collection of pornographic beer ads and memes about Harambe? Have I become the subject of my own revelation?

As my brain folded into itself, I realized the chlorine, temperature and poorly rationed flavor-blasted goldfish were beginning to affect my thinking. I left the jacuzzi disheartened.

If this were to continue, I’d need a reminder of how this all started; an interaction with someone so bizarre and disconnected from reality, the only logical response would be a blog. Impossible, thought I, I’ve exhausted my store of weirdos here. I marched onward, home, purposeless and itchy, never to post again.

And then I met Tebow.

to be continued…