Sunday, March 16, 2008

Don't mind me, I'm just the guy at the end of the bar

Here might be the best example of what type of employee (and person) I am. I spent two hours tonight designing spreadsheets for a job (and a company) that I will be leaving in two weeks. It shows my dedication to my craft, how I always finish the job and that I care too much about what happens in the office. It also shows that I have nothing else to do and prefer crafting incredibly intricate spreadsheets to watching bad television. Oh well, the future will come soon enough where life will no longer consist entirely of Excel documents.

It’s been an odd little weekend. Some of that is my fault and other parts just seemed to happen. Things started off great on Saturday as I had a great treadmill workout. It was one of those times when you felt that you could keep the same pace up for another hour and not even blink. Got the oil changed on my car, picked up some CDs (Kathleen Edwards awesome new disc being one of them), and simply stayed productive all afternoon. I even watched another hour of A History of Britain, which has somehow become a Saturday evening ritual for me.

Somehow this all led to my spending hours cleaning my apartment on Saturday night. That’s not entirely the way that I wanted to spend the night. I’m supposed to have this entire carefree lifestyle but occasionally I have to deal with the fact that dishes are supposed to get washed as opposed to pile up until they spill out onto all available countertops. I also made a half hearted attempt at reorganizing my bookshelves, which is now at the point where I should just give up and wait until I move to figure out what I’m going to do with my library. At least the CD collection is by artist. My books are more by wherever I had space at the time.

I did go out late Saturday night and I had…well, it was my typical interesting experience. It took me a little while but I got my usual stool at Harry’s where I can joke with the staff and watch the world go by while I think through some things. One great story from the night. So I was sitting around drinking and thinking and these two girls come in who a) know the staff, b) look vaguely familiar and c) are extremely drunk in the “I’m just going to lean on the nearest stable object for balance” sense of the term. Well, for one girl, that stable object was me.

Now some people would think that I would have a problem with this. Random person in my personal space when all I’m doing is minding my own business. The thing is this is precisely why I go out. Fun story started by people who are clearly enjoying themselves. I ended up talking to her for a while or at least as much as one can talk to someone who will clearly not remember the conversation in the morning. At one point she ended up just lying her head on my shoulder and I’ll have to say it was pretty cool. It was bizarre and unusual and that’s what I want in my life. I’ll leave normalcy for the masses; I’ll take the unique.

Of course I imbibed a little too much and suffered for it today. Workout sucked, grocery shopping was even less enjoyable than usual and I still haven’t finished doing all of my laundry. Oh, and the Illini lost. At least tomorrow is St. Patrick’s Day. Who knows what will happen to me tomorrow.

No Depression Week: We’ll start the week with the band that named the genre: Uncle Tupelo. “Chickamauga” is my favorite Uncle Tupelo song and probably my favorite song of all time. It certainly has my favorite lyric (and what has become a motto of sorts for me) “Catch yourself in midair thinking your dreams can never be bought.” I could listen to this every day and never grow tired of it.



The five random CDs for the week:
1) Whiskeytown “Pneumonia”
2) Jay Farrar “Sebastopol”
3) Vedera “The Weight of an Empty Room”
4) U2 “War”
5) The Subdudes “Miracle Mule”

1 comment:

Foodie said...

Chris, I'm so glad you wrote this post. Now I can help you get a girlfriend. Since you go out a lot and go to bars you already have the first step down.

Next time a really drunk girl leans on you, put your arm around her - kiss her neck - do something to her!!

Drunk girls are perfect targets! And all you have to do to make them your girlfriend is be an ass to them.

Take them home - try to get them naked and don't call them but make sure they have your number. I'm telling you - it may not get you quality but it will get you quantity and that's something!!