Let's Recap

Barring a truly ridiculous story, which is unlikely since I'm driving home tomorrow to stay with my mom for a week, this is going to be my last post of the year, number 199 of the blog. I may have lost focus a couple of times, so let's take a moment to regroup and recap.

Regroup:
I would like to reiterate my goal. Simply stated it is to chronicle my adventures dating in DC. I am doing this for me. This is sort of a diary of my bachelorhood. There are so many crazy things that happen to me I want to remember them all exactly how they went down since time tends to "embellish" stories. Therefore, I am being as open and honest as I can. I tell almost everything that I experience, unedited.

I do get some feedback and commentary from readers, either in the form of online comments or through email (crazygirlsblog@gmail.com). I appreciate them all, and generally try to respond to the positive and ignore the negative. I leave all online commentary posted except where people are blatantly spamming products or promoting other sites. I never remove or screen negative feedback.

I think it's important to remind you that not a single one of my friends knows about this blog. There are many reasons I keep this anonymous, but the biggest one is that it allows me to be 100% honest. I don't have to worry about offending friends, hurting feelings, covering my ass, or pulling any punches. I can share my true thoughts, which I believe are similar to the thoughts of many guys in my demographic.

Recap:
2009 has been interesting. I rang in the New Year riding the coat-tails of my buddies doing their best impersonations of rock stars in South America. It was truly the high-point of my year, and likely my life. What goes up must come down, though, and in the following months I found myself in a serious female drought. This was compounded by a flu I picked up, which I am certain was the first case of H1N1 in the US.

The drought ended with drunken sex in a Chinese hotel fire escape at 4am. I suppose that's as good a way as any to break out of a slump. However, once back in DC I continued to find myself in precarious situations with women, mainly do to a short stint dating online.

In reviewing my entries for the year I am not surprised to see that Kay was the focus of the vast majority of my entries. Even today, she continues to weight heavily on my mind. I simply can't seem to shake the empty feeling and borderline anger that hearing her name evokes. It's the one thing I my life I am unable to control and it drives me bananas. My only solace is that I know that I played my cards to the best of my ability and left nothing on the table.

After succeeding in fucking things up with Kay I regressed, and basically ended 2009 the way I ended 2008: having sex with Bear and a couple other girls that I either had no feelings for or downright loathed. I learned that: Asian pubes are strait, it's hard to meet girls in the gym, girls like hot tubs, Halloween is still the best night of the year, my readers don't condone sex with deaf girls but are by and large OK with facials, and that I still think girls in DC are crazy.

Snowed In

DC got absolutely hammered with snow this weekend. We received somewhere in the neighborhood of twenty inches of snow in twenty-four hours. In a city that appears to only have three plows, two inches is crippling, so twenty literally shut down the District and the Federal Government.

As the snow started on Friday evening I settled onto my couch with a beer, satisfied that I had cancelled my plans to go to the bars. Around 9:30pm, though, I got a text from Bear asking if I wanted to go to the Tune-In for drinks and "breakfast". The snow was coming down pretty hard at that point so I figured if I was going to be snowed in for any appreciable amount of time I might as well get a little action. We met at my house and went to the bar together.

The Tune-In is this cool joint on Pennsylvania Ave. It's a total dive, replete with mounted animals on the walls, a juke box, and PBR on tap. They open at 8am and serve breakfast all day long. I've only been there twice, both times with Bear, but if I had to guess it seems like it would be an easy place to meet girls because just by being there it's like you're "in the club". What I mean is it's very small, and everyone seems to know each other, so all the clientele intermingle. It's great. An example of this is at 11:37pm a guy stood up from his table, wobbled a bit, then waved to everyone. The place erupted in applause and cheers. Bear and I were really confused, so a guy next to us leaned into our booth and said "He's been here for exactly 12 hours." He kissed, hugged, and hi-fived his way out of the bar. Hysterical, I loved it.

On Saturday night I met Poonani out for drinks. Earlier in the week Poonani and I talked and determined we were just going to be friends. Saturday night, therefore, was just like "drinks with the guys". I don't have any good female friends in DC(because I generally hook up with them) so I'm kind of looking forward to this. However, Poonani showed up with this low-cut shirt and her tits hanging out all over the place, something the "guys" don't usually do. I realize I'm new at hanging out with girls in a non-sexual capacity, but perhaps this would be easier if we had sex first? You know, get that out of the way.

Moving on...

The bar closed at midnight, so I paid the check and walked Poonani home. I would like to point out that when the check came Poonani made no attempt at paying. As I've said, on dates I pay for everything. But this was not a date. When I go out with my buiddies we split the check. I thought this was worth pointing out.

It was still early so Poonani invited me up to her place for a drink and I agreed, but in the back of my head I was thinking "this isn't going to end well".

Poonani is looking to buy a house so we talked about real estate a lot that night. She currently lives in an apartment in an older building, but in a great location. She pays a lot for the relative convenience of the neighborhood, $1850 per month. In this economy you can live in a brand new building with a doorman and parking for that price, so I was stunned when I walked into her place and it was a total dump. The walls were cracked, the floors were a mess, the kitchen was bottom of the line everything, and some light "fixtures" were just bare bulbs. It was big, but so what?

On top of the unit being shitty, Poonani was a slob. The place was a pig sty, it looked like a guy's college apartment. She had stuff everywhere. I can't even describe what the "stuff" was, other than an assortment of detritus on most flat surfaces. Clothes, dishes, mail, you name it. I had a hard time finding a place to sit down, and once I found a spot I wasn't sure I WANTED to sit down. It was just gross. I decided to follow Poonani to the kitchen to make drinks. When I walked in the kitchen here was a puddle in the middle of the floor. I looked up at the ceiling and said "I think you have a leak?" Poonani said "No, the dog peed" then she placed a paper grocery bag on top of the puddle! Oh man, I needed to get out of there.

We had a drink and I excused myself to go to the bathroom. I'm not going to lie, I really didn't have to go, I just wanted to see what it looked like. Poonani didn't disappoint, the bathroom was slightly worse than the rest of the house. To her credit, there really wasn't any storage in the bathroom, so she had hung one of those clear shoe holders on the back of the bathroom door and filled it with all her bathroom junk. Maybe I'm spoiled, but for $1850 I would expect at least a couple of cabinets hung on the walls for storage.

At 2am I finished my drink and said I was leaving. Poonani offered me the couch to crash on, but I was really tired and wanted to sleep in my own bed. I took the Metro home and was pretty impressed that nothing more took place.

There is one other note-worthy event from this weekend, but it's so unusual and specific that I'm afraid it would give away my identity if I described it in detail. Let's just say that I did a "good deed" for a random stranger on Saturday. It was snowing freakishly hard, and the person was all bundled up. I could tell it was a female, but that's all. After I helped her she said "Is your name ...", I said "Yeah, how did you know that", she said "I work with your friend ...., we've met before". I don't remember this girl at all, but my friend says she is hot, but one of the most narcissistic people he knows. The next day she sent me a friend invite on Facebook. Does that mean she wants to hook up? I really have no idea. She is hot, and can't be more than 23, which is always fun. I'm just not sure how to interpret the friend invite.

Poonani Email

I received the following from Poonani last night:

"I had no idea that you were such a sore loser and that you wouldn't call me since I beat you at darts!! I would've thrown the game if I'd known you'd take it so hard;)

But seriously, I never intended for us to start dating. I was happy being just friends.. of course we had that drunken kiss... which made me re-think things... but I'd rather be friends with you and be able to hang out than feel like you're blowing me off.

So sadly you'll have to refrain from feeling up my ass, paying for everything and I'll have to refrain from trying to kiss you. Hopefully with all that aside you still want to hang out with me or at least chat. Maybe I'm reading all signals wrong, but they are pretty mixed. I just want things clear, honest and out in the open. Can you help me by sharing a little, please? "

I admit Poonani isn't all that crazy, I've always said she had her shit together. I feel badly that I didn't have the "friends" talk with her, but the timing never seemed right. I'll try to get together with her this week and clear things up.

Dick Twitch

The slightest things can turn me on during the day. It's frustrating that I can't control my own body, but at the same time it's exciting to me that such a wide array of signals can have such a profound affect.

For me there are two types of sexual arousal; intentional and unintentional. Intentional would be looking at porn. Unintentional is basically everything else. In turn there are two reactions to either type; a full-blown hard on, or what I refer to as a "dick twitch" or simply a twitch. I trust you all know what a hard on is, so I won't elaborate. A twitch is a slight involuntary penile acknowledgement of sexual stimulation. I cannot make myself twitch anymore than I make my heart beat or not beat. For the female audience who can never understand "why that thing is hard", try making your heart stop for twenty seconds using only your mind and you will begin to understand the level of control men have over their dicks. I mean, the best we've come up with for slowing the rise of a hard on is chanting "grandma naked grandma naked grandma naked".

So, you ask, what causes a twitch? Well, it's the strangest things. A suggestive billboard, a bra strap, a woman eating a banana. Today I passed by an office and saw a young female intern bent over a desk looking at a computer screen and I got a huge twitch. She wasn't even that great looking. It was just the sight of an ass in a skirt in a semi-sexual position and bang - twitch. Some other obvious twitch inducers are cleavage, pantie-lines, the top of a thong showing above a pair of jeans. Sometimes they are less obvious, like a really high pair of black leather boots, or when a girl picks something up off the ground without bending her knees. Sometimes it's the lack of a visual, like NOT seeing a pantie line - a hint that a woman isn't wearing underwear. It doesn't even have to be visual. Sometimes I have twitches from audio cues. Ever been to a female tennis match? Yeah, all that moaning. I have twitches before I even get into the stadium. Once I get in there...ha...forget it! All those fucking Russian chicks running around in spandex and short skirts grunting. That's almost intentional, like porn. Ladies, if a guy takes you to a female pro-tennis match it's almost like he's taking you to a strip club.

The gym is twitch central for me. The outfits, the audio, the sweat, holy shit it's sensory overload. People say that the way a woman dances is the way she makes love. I say the way a woman works out is the way she makes love. If she's in there tossing around the weights, sprinting on the treadmill, sweating like a pig, that's the girl I want to roll around with. You can have the girls who leave the gym with perfect hair and smelling like roses.

Sometimes girls that repulse me make me twitch. This really pisses me off because it reminds me that I simply cannot control a very important part of my anatomy. She could be old and busted, but she says or does something and then, twitch! I always have the same reaction, "Oh, really? Come on."

I know it's juvenile, but the beach is quite possibly the worst for me in terms of twitches. If I go to the beach with a girl I am very careful about our seating arrangement. I cannot, repeat cannot, be facing a girl's crotch. Just seeing pussy with so little covering it can quickly turn a twitch into a hard on. And then there's when a girls bikini bottom gets stuck in her butt a little, and one cheek hangs out, exposing some tan line. TWITCH!

Girls, I shouldn't be telling you all this. I'm showing you the man behind the curtain. The Wizard. I must be breaking some section of the man-code.

Imagine if every time a man twitched he made a slight noise! A girl walked into the cafeteria at work with a slightly revealing top and all of a sudden there was a cacophony of beeps, whistles, and honks! How awesome would that be. That's like a Dr. Suess book.

In truth, this probably isn't all that much of a surprise to women. I mean, who am I kidding. Girls know what turns us on.

Low Expectations

It's seldom that I disappoint myself because I keep my expectations of my own behavior very low, but this weekend was a rare exception.

Last week was horrible for me. Work was a bear, and that combined with the foul weather left me generally unmotivated to do anything. On Friday Chuck's wife asked if I wanted to grab some Thai food with them and our friend Amy from Bad Dreams of Robbers and Foxes. I agreed, though somewhat reluctantly. After dinner we went to a bar and had many vodkas. My desire to go home and crawl into bed dissipated rapidly between drinks 4 and 6, and by drink 8 I was ready to go to a birthday party with Amy in Chinatown. For the protection of those involved, even anonymously, let's just say that the birthday party was a drug-fueled rave and we took "having a good time" to an unhealthy level. My only savior is that I understand that I have an addictive personality and I usually put myself in a cab before I have too much of a good time.

Sometime after drink #6, but before the birthday party, Amy decided to give me a hard time about our one-night stand, and how she knew I started dating Kay shortly thereafter. What started as a gentle ribbing became an outright assault on my character (whether justified or not). The final straw came when she insinuated that I "pumped and dumped" Kay. Aside from being none of her business, I'm not sure where she was getting her information because it was clearly erroneous. I decided not to explain any further than saying "That's not true, she broke up with me", and let the topic fizzle away into an uncomfortable silence.

This was not the best solution because I started to get a little mean-spirited. In the end I took Amy home and hate-fucked her for several hours. I regret this immensely.

One good thing came out of Friday night, though. Chuck told me that his buddy Gazpacho was delivering a 75' sailboat for a customer from Annapolis to Tortola between December 20th and the 28th, and that he may be looking for additional people to crew it. I called Gazpacho last night and he said that he had a full crew, but that he may indeed be able to take on one more person for the voyage. I should hear back from him by the middle of the week. I'm psyched, I've always wanted to do a long distance blue water trip. This could really be a wild, though scary, ride. Once in the islands I would stay through New Years, and try to meet up with some buddies in St. Barts. It will all depend on the cost of island-hopping once I'm down there.

I didn't hear from Poonani this weekend. I suspect she was testing me, waiting to see if I would call her. After Friday night I decided I didn't need any drama and opted to stay in for the rest of the weekend.

Digits and pipeline

Last night it occurred to me that I never got a call back from Beads, or the past few girls whose numbers I've gotten. This is not a good trend and something I need to work on. With Beads likely out of the picture, my dating pipeline is drying up.

I called Beads on Wednesday night but haven't heard from her since. This is the same thing that happened with that super-hot flight attendent, United, and the sexy bartender, Persia. All three acted very interested in going out for a drink, but after I either called or texted them they went radio-silent. United is an exception because I gave her my number, so the ball was in her court.

With so many variables in the call-back equation it's hard to pinpoint where I'm going wrong. It might be funny to do a Six Sigma or Lean Six Sigma project on calling girls after getting their numbers and calculating the defects in the procecss(yes, this is part of what I do for a living, and yes, it may in fact be the reason why 50% of the girls I meet don't call me back. It's a classic Catch-22).

I received an email last night from the couple selling the sailboat. They are dicking me around while another couple tries to come up with the cash for the boat. Chuck and I decided to pass on it. We realized it's a lot of cash for a toy and that we were just being impulsive. I'm a little disappointed, but I will probably sleep better not owning it.

Dry Cleaner

My Korean dry cleaner, Ms. Hung, has an unfiltered window into my dirty little world that no one else has. Every time I walk into her store Ms. Hung lets out an exasperated sigh and braces herself for a mess and a "story".

Ms. Hung's tiny store is in my office building, and she does everything from dry cleaning to shoe repair. She also sells candy, cigarettes, get-well cards, bobble-head dolls, and an assortment of strange looking Asian snacks that have suspiciously confusing nutritional labels. The store is so crammed with wares that your mind goes into sensory overload. When you walk in and your eyes dart around like you just snorted a rail of coke a mile long. It's a marketing nightmare.

I was a normal customer to Ms. Hung until I came in one Monday morning a few years ago and kindly asked her if a dark black/brown stain on the front of a white linen shirt could come out. "Ho my Rod, wha happen?" I said "Uh, I think something spilled, I'm not really sure, it should come out, I'll take this pack of gum too." and slipped a pack of Wrigley across the counter hoping it would change the topic. Ms. Hung smelled the stain and instantly recoiled from the stench "Wha ees dees, smells soooo bad?". I really didn't want to get into this with her, so I tried to dismiss it as wine and just have her write up the ticket, but she wasn't buying my story. Under my breath I said "I'm not sure, it may be alcohol, it'll come out, it has come out before, just clean it please." Ms. Hung was not satisfied with my generic alcohol description either and pressed further "Ralcohol, wha kind a ralcahol?" Now someone from my office was in the shop, so I leaned in close across the counter to her and quietly said "It's Jagermeister, please just clean it!". Apparently they don't have Jager in South Korea, because Ms. Hung now wanted to know what "Reiger-Reister" was, and why I poured it down my chest. The best explanation I could muster was that the first drink goes down your throat, and the rest ususally ends up on your chest. She nodded and wrote up my ticket.

One night my dog barfed on my brand new down comforter. I hosed it off in the yard, let it dry in the sun, then brought it in to Ms. Hung in a garbage bag. I explained what happened and she said "You tell many stories." Three days later I picked up the comforter and it was good as new.

It couldn't have been two days later that I met Salsa, who left a gigantic cum stain on the comforter. The next morning I was like "Fuck, I have to bring this in to Ms. Hung again, she's going to kill me!". I'm an adult, I shouldn't be ashamed of what I do in my bed, in my house, but I am. I hung the comforter over the railing of my deck to dry it out, but it still stunk the next day. Monday morning I was back at Ms. Hung's with a garbage bag. When I walked in she said "Another story?". I handed her the bag and said "My dog had another accident, I'll be back tomorrow to pick this up. Thank you." and walked out. I didn't even wait for my ticket because I didn't want to be there when she opened the bag.

When I showed up the following day to pick up the comforter Ms. Hung's husband, Mr. Hung, was there, which was a huge relief to me. I paid him and as he handed me the bag with the cleaned comforter he said "You no even rav dog, do you?" and smiled from ear to ear. I smiled and walked out. The Hungs are clearly discussing my extra curricular activities in their spare time.

Everything was fine for a while, then I went to South America last year. One night I wore this white shirt that had snaps down the front instead of buttons, and my buddies broke my balls about the snaps, they said it was a "tear away shirt". All night long they encouraged girls to rip open my shirt. They would rip it open, everyone would laugh, and then I would snap the shirt back together. Believe me, that game got old really fast. Two nights later I had on a shirt that looked very similar, except that it had buttons instead of the snaps. I think you can see where this store is heading. After a few cocktails a girl walked up to me and ripped open the shirt. This time, instead of hearing "click, click, click" there was a ripping noise, and buttons went flying in all directions. The girl was mortified and ran away, and my buddies fell on the floor laughing. Much to my friends' amusement I walked around this fancy club the rest of the night with my shirt wide open like some sort of ridiculous Guido idiot. Girls would as "Why is your shirt open?" and I would just say "Fuck off".

The shirt was very expensive, so when I got back from Argentina I reluctantly brought it into Ms. Hung and explained that "there was a slight accident and that a couple of buttons popped off my shirt." As Ms. Hung took the shirt from me she gave me a funny sideways look and spread it on the table. At first she looked for a stain on the front of the shirt, but I fold back the front a little and pointed to where the buttons used to be and said "Can you add more buttons?". She was incredulous. She shook her head and said "Hoooo, noooo, dees happen ova an ova again!". I said "No it won't, just once, I promise..." but she cut me off. "No!. Dees happen ova an ova an ova." Technically she was right. As I stood there I recalled that I once brought in a shirt that was missing a few buttons after I was in a little fracas one evening. I said "Well, maybe it will happen again, but probably not to this exact shirt." She pursed her lips, snatched the shirt off the counter and wrote up the ticket.

Yesterday I put on a dress shirt for work and there was a large stain on the breast pocket that looked like rust. I took the shirt off and put it in my dry cleaning bag. This morning I brought all my dry cleaning to Ms. Hung and pointed out that one of my shirts wasn't cleaned properly last time. I showed her the stain and she said "Yoo sure yoo dog no rav accident?" Man, that lady has a great memory.

Tiger Woods or gorilla in a tutu?

Sometimes I second guess my lifestyle choices. I wonder if I should have settled down and focused on having a family. I look at my friends who are married with kids, and how much more "responsible" they seem, and I can't help but think that I might be better off with some roots instead of running around chasing tail. Then I read about someone like Tiger Woods, and what a cluster-fuck his life has become, and think "Nope, I need more time".

There seems to be a huge difference between my married friends and I. The married guys act like Clydesdale horses hitched to a piece of farm equipment. They plod away all day, dutifully pulling a heavy plow, contently, if not happily, making slow progress towards a goal. Blinders keep their focus on the task at hand. Baby. College fund. Bigger house. Another baby. Promotion. They can't see any of the distractions around them, and thus are never tempted. They always move forward, slowly but surely. I, on the other hand, feel like a thoroughbred in a race that just bucked its jockey and is now running the wrong way on the track. Sure, I'm running fast, but haphazardly and likely with disastrous consequences.

Maybe this is an exaggeration, but on occasion I do feel out of control. Take Halloween for example. I was dressed in a Gorilla suit and within an hour of getting to a party I was naked in a bathroom exchanging costumes with a girl in a tutu. Two weeks before that I was on a bike on the highway doing 170mph "just to see how fast it would go". I'm not sure this is particularly constructive behavior.

My friends see my pictures on Facebook and are like "What happened that night, and what the fuck are you wearing?". Then I go to their Facebook page and I see snapshots of them with their sons or daughters dressed like cartoon characters I've never heard of, and I'm like "Me? I'm fucking Madonna. What the fuck are your kids wearing? One looks like a piece of cheese, and the other one...wait, the other one has on the same outfit as me!" I don't understand, five years ago my buddies would have been doing the same shit. I wonder if I missed some narrow window of opportunity in which I could have become "responsible" (boring?).

Then someone like Tiger Woods goes completely off the deep end and I can't help but think that the air of composure married guys have is nothing but a facade. The infidelity, the deceit, what for? Why get married if you're going to cheat. I start to think that I'm going about life the right way, and that my married friends are going to have one divorce in their pocket before I ever get married.

Nope, I need more time.

Tonight I call Beads.

Fisting

I called in sick on Friday so Chuck and I could drive down to Virginia Beach and look at a boat we saw for sale. Neither of us are in the market for a boat. Actually, we're both looking to buy more houses, but this was a reasonably priced 50 foot sailboat, so we at least wanted to take a look.

Holy shit, the boat was huge. It has more space than my house. It has two bedrooms, two full bathrooms, a gigantic main salon (living room), and a long kitchen with a stove, fridge, and probably twice the storage as my house. There is also an engine room and a crew cabin with two bunks. The couch folds into a queen bed, so this thing sleeps eight in comfort. But get this, there is a chrome pole in the center of the main cabin to support the deck above. I walked into the room and was like "Chuck, there's a fucking stripper pole in here!". He looked at the pole, looked at me, and said "We just bought a boat, huh?".

The down side is that it's been neglected for two years and needs a lot of TLC. The other bitch is that the boat is 160 miles from Annapolis (where we would keep it) and we'd have to sail this sucker up there in January in order to be able to afford a dock, which is not ideal given the weather this time of year. It's a "blue water" boat, which means you can easily cross the Atlantic on it, but the only reason we want this boat is to party on it. We put in an offer Friday night, and the owners said they will get back to us by Wednesday. Can you imagine the antics that will take place on this boat if we get it! I might as well put my name on the donor list for a new liver now.

I met Bear out for drinks Saturday night on the Hill. We went out early, around 7pm, and had a couple of beers. I was driving Bear to her house after and she said "Let's go to your house." I wasn't much in the mood for a sleepover, but what the hell, it had been a few weeks since I got laid. We were in my bedroom fooling around and Bear said "Put your fingers in me". I put two fingers in her and she said "More". I put two more fingers in her and she said "More!" again. I obviously only had one more left on that hand, so I put my thumb in her too. She was going crazy as I worked my hand into her up to my last knuckles. I had never fisted a girl before, so I was very curious. I was also a little concerned. I was afraid I was going to hurt her, but her screaming was making it very clear that she liked it. I tried to get my whole hand inside her, I just didn't see how it is possible. I know that a baby's head can fit through there, but my God, how we don't all have football-shaped heads is a mystery to me. In the end I gave up on fisting her and we fucked like crazy for the next 45 minutes. It was pretty hot.

Poonani sent me a text yesterday afternoon asking if I wanted to get together. I don't know if it was the weather, or her, or what, but I just did not want to go out. She was persistent so I gave in and we met in Chinatown to watch a movie. I didn't want this to be too much like a date so I told Poonani I was going to Metro to the theater and asked her to meet me there, which she did.

After the movie we grabbed a bite to eat at Asian Spice (awful, I don't recommend). When we finished dinner I walked with Poonani to the Metro and she said "It's early, what else can we do?". I wanted to go home and crawl into bed...alone, but Poonani had other plans. She said "Let's play darts", so off to Rocket Bar we went. Yes, back to Rocket Bar. Someone really needs to check the air quality in there, it can't be healthy. After the second game of darts I said "Well, it's a school night, we better get going." Poonani took the hint and we walked to the Metro together. When we got to the point where we had to split to go to our respective lines Poonani leaned in for a kiss. I gave her a peck on the lips, but she grabbed me by the arms and pulled me in. I was standing bolt upright as we kissed in the middle of the Metro station. I was very uncomfortable about the whole thing. I don't like PDA, and certainly not in the filthy Metro. I cut it short and made a dash for my train (which I missed and had to wait 15 minutes for the next one).

I know I'm just procrastinating and that eventually we will need to have the "what are we" talk. Fuck I hate that conversation. The only glimmer of hope is that we haven't had sex yet, so I think it alleviates a few degrees of tension.

I haven't called Beads yet, I may give her a call tonight. I'm going to suggest we meet up for drinks and see where it goes from there.

Here's my number...

I went to my first Wizards game last night. It's funny, they wand you with metal detectors to get into the Verizon Center for a basketball game, but not for concerts or Capitol's hockey. Whether justified or not, I suppose that says something about the crowd that attends pro basketball games. Metal detectors aside, I have never seen so many police there. There was even a SWAT van parked out front. What's up with that?

Anyway, my buddy Chuck and I both brought flasks of rum into the game and got a little banged up. Afterwards we went to Rocket Bar, which apparently is my new favorite watering hole because I've been there three times in as many weeks.

Chuck and I got on a pool table and were playing for fun at first. Three games into the night we played for drinks, then $10 a rack and by 11:30 he said "Hundred bucks this game?", which I wanted nothing to do with. He was insistent, so we played and I won. Chuck threw a one hundred dollar bill on the table and said "OK, one more game, new stakes. Winner of this game gets decision rights on a boat." This was kind of big, and I started to wonder if I was getting hustled.

For a little background, Chuck and I each used to have sailboats. I sold mine when I moved to DC. Chuck had his for a year while I was here but wasn't using it much. He asked me if I wanted to buy into the boat, but at the time I wasn't interested, so he sold it, which I think he regrets. I saw a boat on craigslist this week that was a great value, so we're going to see it tomorrow morning.

We played the game and I fucking lost. I couldn't believe it. I beat him all night, and I lost that game. What this means is that if he likes this boat, I have to buy it with him. I probably would have anyway, but it just means I can't get cold feet and wiggle my way out of it.

Chuck went up to the bar to pay for the pool and get another round of drinks. While he was gone I walked over to a girl who I had caught looking at us a bunch of times that night.

Beads: This girl was young, 23, fantastic body, cute face, and a very large chest. She had on jeans, a tight sweater, and a big set of beads (I know, strange), so I'm going to call her Beads.

I will preface this by saying that I was fairly drunk at this point.

I walk up to Beads, who was texting someone, and I said "555-55..." (I was obviously saying my real number, not just "5"), she looked at me and said "What". I started over, "555-555-5555". She started to punch the number into her phone, then said "Wait, I don't want your number, you have to take mine", I said no, and she continued to punch in my number. After a few more digits she stopped again and said "No, really, give me your phone." I took it out of my pocket and she snatched it out of my hand and punched in her number. She then hit send and called herself, "See, it's the real number." I introduced myself and asked her what she was doing this weekend. Beads said she had friends in town this weekend but was free all next week, and that we should get together one night.

I don't know where that approach came from, I had no idea what I was going to say to her as I was walking over. My phone number was the first thing that came out of my mouth after I tapped her on the shoulder. It worked pretty well though. I've always said there is a very thin line between arrogance and humor. Beads obviously has a sense of humor or she would have just walked away from me.

A few minutes later Chuck came back with drinks, which we downed and then left.

Runaway Razor

There are some things you just shouldn't do early in the morning, and today I learned that shaving your pubes is one of them.

I'm a pretty hairy guy by most standards. I don't have hair on my back or shoulders, but it starts on my chest and runs strait down to my toes, so I try to keep it in check. What that entails is a monthly grooming session with my clippers.

This is actually a little more involved than you may think. You can't just stand in your bathroom and start clipping away, there would be a ring of hair on the floor like some sort of demonic pube christmas wreath. It would take all day to clean that up. If I lived in, say, the Arizona desert, I would be tempted to do this outside, but living in a city that's really not practical.

For a while I used to stand over the toilet and let the hair fall in the bowl, but about 1/3 of the hair would still miss and end up on the floor. I've found that the best method is to stand in the shower (with the water off, obviously) and trim away with the number 2 guard on. I usually start with my side burns, do my chest and stomach, then move on to my pubes. The theory is that the blades magically clean themselves between the time I shave my nuts and when it's time to do my sideburns again a few weeks later.

The sideburns, chest, and stomach all go quickly. You need to be a little more careful when you get to your bits and pieces, though. I assume you all know what hair clippers look like. They are electric sheers with interchangeable guards that attach to the blades. The guards are plastic but can feel like shark's teeth of they catch your scrotum, so you can't just whip it around any which way. You need to go slow and be very deliberate with direction, pressure and angle. If you stray with any of these variables you can end up with a punctured sack or scraped shaft, and it goes without saying that you want to avoid that at all costs.

So this morning I was standing naked in my shower stall clipping my chest hairs, shivering because it was cold as fuck in my house, when the front of the clipper guard caught the skin and backflipped off the blade. The blade then lurched forward and bottomed out against the top of my stomach, carving a three inch long diagonal swath. In the fifteen years I have been doing this I've never had that happen, but the first thing I thought was "I really shouldn't be doing this before my coffee." It was true.

I only had two options at this point. I could either leave the strip there and look like an ass for a few weeks, or shave the rest of my stomach and look like an ass for a few weeks. I shaved the rest off and man do I look like an ass. Not only that, I'm just now learning that it burns like a motherfucker to shave your stomach down to the skin. Jesus, who knew?

When I was done shaving my stomach with no guard, I now had what looked like a pair of hair trousers. I never realized how much that happy trail down the center of my belly tied together my chest and pubes. I tried to fade in the hair on my upper-pubic region but I just got silly watching myself carefully try to arc the clipper up and away from my dick. In a moment of pure idiocy I compounded the problem by trimming my chest and pubes down to a "1" guard, which is like two days of facial stubble. Sweet look I have going here. Good thing it's winter and my shirt can stay on.

This will no doubt hurt my dating prospects in ways I can't yet imagine.