 |
April 7, 2000 |
|
Ring… Ring…
It's just past 6am on Friday morning. Did I mention that I went to sleep
past four? It's Pam; she's supposed to give me a
wake up call this morning so that I can drive her to her interview. I stay
in bed half dead until I finally muster enough willpower to go get a
shower. I don't care what you people out there say… Mornings Suck!
Think about it, the idea that you should be awake at a time when you need
artificial, external sources (like caffeine) to stay alert is fundamentally
at bad one. The problem is that we, as in Americans, have gotten so
accustomed to doing so many things in one day that the premise of getting a
good night's sleep is a foreign one. The idea of getting a thirty-minute
dinner at a fast food place is the exception rather than the rule in other
countries.
Where was I? Oh, yes… mornings! Pam was
interviewing today and I was to drive her around this morning. I was ready
to go right on schedule. We got some coffee at a place called
Jitters on the way to the human resources building. She got a
chocolate croissant and I got a ham and cheese croissant to go with our
coffee. Now doesn't that seem a tad strange? What else do you know that
is a viable medium for chocolate, ham, and cheese? I chatted with Pam for a little bit. Apparently, I was back to my normal
(as in non-evil twin) Frank.
I dropped her off at the human resources building and wished her luck. I
then headed in to work. Today I had lunch plans with Tom and Kenny (and Dave, but he cancelled). As a
matter of fact, due to this or that meeting, we ended up re-scheduling
lunch to a number of times… five times to be precise. It's a
good thing that this is done through e-mail, because the chances of the
three of us in three different buildings coordinating this would be a
bloody nightmare. Oh, did I mention lunch was at Hooters?
As I was about ready to leave, I had one last e-mail that I had to attend
to, so I ended up leaving about five minutes late. I also arrived about
five minutes later than the other two guys who were riding together. As I
was coming up the elevator, I got a phone call from Kenny, asking me where
I was. Maybe we're a little too connected? The moment I walked
in to Hooters, one of the waitresses, Kealy, shouted my name. It was only
about 11:20am or so, so there were only about two or three tables occupied.
I'm not making this up! She's a cool waitress. She's recently
had her first kid, about four months ago, and I remember she was pretty
nervous about motherhood. She also recently dyed her hair red. Apparently,
she feels really comfortable chatting with me, so I listen. I don't mind,
she's a cool person.
She was indeed our waitress. We chatted for a while and asked what she was
up to. My friends were taken a little aback by her familiarity with me.
They're too easily impressed. As for my friends and I, we ended up talking
catching up a bit. I had seen Tom yesterday, but I don't think either of
us had seen Kenny for some time. Naturally, we discussed my nipple
piercing since Tom is so easily amused. No really, it is not that big of a
deal. Although a piercing seems to be more socially "out there", I always
see it as being an easier decision to make than getting a tattoo. Why?
Because a piercing is very un-doable; just take it out and it will heal
fairly quickly. You can't say that about a tattoo.
Well, anyway, That was lunch.
The afternoon was spent working on bug fixes and waiting for Pam to finish her interviews. I had no idea when that would happen, so I simply waited for the occasional phone call between breaks when she would tell me how she was doing. As for what we would do when she got out of her interviews, I figured that we could certainly get dinner, after that we could either go to a movie or to see The Guarneri Underground playing at Crossroads. In fact, Nancy left me a voice-mail to remind me about the band. We had options.
She ended up finishing her interviews at about 5:30pm; I went to pick her up. It was a stunningly beautiful day. It was warm (for Seattle) somewhere in the 60's, and I picked her up wearing shades with all the windows down. Life is good. We decided to go to get Chinese food at Best Wok, which is my favorite Chinese restaurant (well, at least in Washington). As we were driving off, we somehow managed to get in the topic of my hair.
Note: When people ask me, "Why don't you cut your hair?" My response is often a logical one. If I happen to hook up with a woman who happens to like short hair, I can simply cut it. If I happen to hook up with a woman who happens to like long hair, I don't have to grow it. The inverse is obviously not true. Even Aaron could not argue with that one.Oh, yes… my hair. Pam made a comment about my hair, "If you ever cut your hair [short], I'm going to withhold the deed." True story. So there you have it folks, aren't you glad I haven't cut my hair?
She noted that the staff knew me by name; I think it is simply because I'm Chinese because Len comes here just as frequently as I do. She was wondering if I was going to be as affectionate as I normally am. I was. We had a very pleasant dinner. We had the orange beef, mu shu pork, and some fried rice. I impressed Pam by wrapping the pancakes with spoons… a little something I picked up from my waiter days. Once we got our fortune cookies, she asked if we were going to add the "…in bed" to our fortunes. I agreed. And my fortune was:
"Find release from your cares …in bed. Have a good time …in bed."I simply cannot make this up. Naturally, Pam was incredibly amused. She picked up dinner. [Thanks, sweetie…] We went to catch a movie after dinner. Last week, we had talked about seeing High Fidelity since we both like John Cusak, so that's what we decided on. We stopped by the futon place to take a quick look, since I'm in the market for a futon, but the store had just closed. We simply went to the movie.
The movie was pretty good. However, Cusak's comedy is very subtle and in my current state of fatigue, I simply could not keep up. [Drat!] I liked the premise of the movie, where he enumerates his five worst breakups. Cusak is one of the few actors who has the personality to pull this off. I'd probably watch it again at some point, when I have more sleep. Instead, I focused my attention to my girlfriend sitting next to me, who maintains that I was being too frisky. Is there such a thing?
On the way back to her place, we stopped to get some… err, supplies. Nevermind what kind of supplies. Once we got back to her place, we were both struck by a renewed sense of vigor. We stayed up for a little while, frolicking, before we went to sleep. It was a good sleep.
April 7, 2000