Going, Going…Gone

(soundtrack)

Take Me Out – Franz Ferdinand

Wednesday night I treated David to a Blue Jays game. He came out with my cousin, Derek and my model friend/basketball mentor, Cesar. It was one of the rare times where I let my worlds collide, but this was okay because he wasn’t obligated to talk with Derek and Cesar and they were nice enough anyway. The game was good. It dragged a little because the Jays pulled ahead by a lot so the excitement wasn’t there. However, Josh Phelps gave us a couple of jacks (home runs for you non-sports fans) including a grand slam. The first homer came after I saw a little info blip about how he’s making a donation to charity for every homer he hits this season and I said, “Those kids are goin’ hungry this year!” He shut me up real good. (Jays won 12-4)

The unequivocal highlight of the night: The FedEx Pope from Late Night With Conan O’Brien was there because he was involved in the “CN Tower vs. The Space Needle” skit (long story). The FUCKING FEDEX POPE!!! This is the same actor who plays countless classic Conan characters, including:

– Kneesock Jones

– Eyeballs O’Shaugnessy

– The Loser

– Preparation H Raymond

– The “YOU CAN GO TO HELL!” Guy

And I was like, 20 feet from the guy. I probably could have tossed something at him. The crowd booed the hell out of him and I screamed “FedEx Pope come back!!!” My life was forever changed after seeing him.

Did the last couple of paragraphs come off as a bad drug trip?

Today, Tanya left to go to Chicago. Yeah, I know, I know, why am I still talking about her? Well, I’ve been spending a lot of time around her over the last couple of weeks and now I regret that I hadn’t been enjoying her company until then. Don’t get me wrong, I knew all along that she was a great girl, but I felt so awkward about the fact that I had(have?) a thing for her so I could never have fun being around her. Finally, I’m starting to get over my inadequacy and she has to up and leave. She’s going to be gone for two months. In a sense I’m happy about the whole thing. It was nice to watch everyone seeing her off and getting all emotional and hugging and all that…I didn’t do any of that of course. But I miss her and I think it’s a good sign that I’m capable of doing that. If that makes any sense.

I also met this girl named Rebecca today. This is kind of funny actually. I was looking for David, because we were going to go play some basketball this morning. When I got downtown, he wasn’t there yet so I went to this building called Sidney Smith where everyone usually hangs out. I saw my friend Julie who was sitting across from some girl and I decided I’d sit with her until David arrived. So I’m sitting for about two minutes when Julie says, “Ok, I got to go to my class.” And just like that, I’m suddenly alone with this attractive girl. Now what I should have done was offer to walk Julie to class, anything to get the hell out of there. But I didn’t think at the time. So I sat down. I took a deep breath. And I tried to initiate normal human conversation.

It worked.

We talked about work and music and school and partying, you know, normal stuff. Except for me, it was like this big deal. I mean, I generally don’t meet new people by myself. I usually meet them through another friend or at least I have another friend along to handle the meat of the conversation while I pepper it with my snarky comments. Not this time though, this time I had to handle all the heavy lifting. Somehow I pulled it off. We talked for 51(!) uninterrupted, silence-free minutes before David finally came. Admittedly, I was relieved when he arrived because I think I was running out of steam, but it was encouraging to see that I’m still capable of staying afloat when it comes to dealing with human beings. Sadly, it’s unlikely I’ll ever see her again.

David and I couldn’t play basketball because the backboards weren’t put down (WTF, mate?). So instead we worked out for a while. Then we hit the steam room (it’s hot in there!) and the showers (stalls, thank Christ). It was a refreshing way to start off what turned out to be a pretty good, though a little sad, day.

Man, I wanted to use Take Me Out as the soundtrack to this post so bad, but I couldn’t find a decent mp3. So I turn on the radio and the first song they play on the Edge? You damn right.

“Uh… you have any sugar around here?”

“Sugar? Sure. [fumbles in his pockets, takes out a few handfuls of sugar] There you go. Sorry it’s not in packages. Want some cream?”

“Uh… I… no.”