Curren Events

I’ve always had this weird thing with palm trees. You might know that. I’ve always said that I want to be where the palm trees are and where the beach is. If not live, then travel to. In the winter, I grumble about how I hate the cold and how much my skin hates wind; I just want to be hot!

So I never thought I’d like a place like Alaska. I knew I wanted to go there because I want to go everywhere. That part was easy. And I made a good choice to ignore how cold it might be. My conscience worked hard enough to make me pack enough layers that I might be comfortable enough when I stood on a glacier.

Ok, so it wasn’t that cold. But it was 90 degrees in NY the day I left: the Friday of Memorial Day weekend. I sweat in my comfy pants on the way to the airport. The comfy pants were hanging down on me. Delicious.

My friends met me at the airport and we ate lunch. Then we flew to Seattle.

The flight to Seattle was uneventful and voila – Washington, my 23rd State. The airport impressed me in its newness and vast store selection. To downtown/hotel area, we took a wild taxi ride to the hotel, then Dave hid in the corner while Megan I checked in to our “two person room”.

The room was really really nice. Big, spacious, modern and clean. The bathroom – also very lovely. And yet, lacking something very important. Something that made the bathroom in the lobby very popular: privacy. It had a door. It had a handle. The door slid. It just didn’t slide into anything , leaving a big gap. Basically you were peeing the middle of the hotel room.

Anyway, so the first night there – the traveling trio was exhausted. Traveling is exhausting! We walked in the general direction that the concierge pointed us to and found a smallish bar/restaurant seat yourself kind of place. This is where we spotted real hipsters!

Food was good. Beer was good. Rachel was tired. So we went to sleep.

The next day, Megan and I went running. She was all in shape and I was all lazy. Seattle is so healthy, so environmental that the hotel had runner sized running maps that directed us to a path along the water. Following along, we jogged pasted the Pike Fish market and ran along the water.

It was warm, sunny and super blue skies, snow capped mountains were in the background. Cool runnings.

Later on, we walked down to Pike fish market again and found our friend Debbie. Debbie is a Seattle import. She came from where Dave came. We did the tourist thing. Ate next to the water. Watched the fish being tossed and yelled about. Found a gum wall. Did some tea tasting by a man named Tim who has been to Flushing, Queens.
We ate ice cream by the water and walked 100 miles. Then we toured the underground world of Seattle with the world’s most boring tour guide. There was a fire many years ago, and Seattle was rebuilt on top of what it used to be.

The evening ended with a stop in Old Navy, dinner in a taphouse. And then our 4th travel partner joined us.

The last day in Seattle started with another run along the water with Megan. I had double the energy this time. It rocked!

That morning continued with breakfast in a Vietnamese noodle place. We dropped off our bags with the ship and made the fastest trip in the world to Seattle’s Needle. Fastest as in: Walked briskly to the park where it was located, bought tickets, walked up the ramp past security, up the elevator, walked once around the exterior viewpoint, took 1 photo, walked back to the elevator, walked back to the ship. And boarded.

Bye Seattle!

I made a decision I decided to share. I quit date blogging. (…At least for now.)

Why? Well, expecting to write an amusing blog out of a date completely took the romance out of the process. So, yeah. It’s probably not in my best interest to look for funny flaws in the guys I meet just so I have something to write about. Plus, it felt like I was creating bad karma.

I don’t want to stop writing though. So bear with me as I try out some new things in the next few weeks. More to come…

For our first full day in Tokyo, we planned on spending the morning close to the hotel.  The area close to our hotel is comprised of three parts.  The first by virtue of being the district that we are staying, is Asakusa.  The second is the Sumida area, just across the [Sumida] river and working north.  The third is the Ryogoku district, famous for being the Sumo center of Tokyo.  This all began after our breakfast, which we enjoyed at the same noodle shop Justin and I breakfasted at several years prior.

We began our touristing logically, in the second area I previously mentioned.  The Sumida River area, where I plan on doing my running, is a fairly quiet district.  We set out with a few goals: hit a small park, and catch the temples around it (including Ushijima-jinja Shrine … apparently Ushijima means Cow Island… in case you wanted to know) , check out some of the tea shops on the river front, and just walk around some of the nice walkways along the river.  We accomplished 1.5 of these things.  Made it to the parks and temples, no problem.  But the tea shops?  That was a no-go.  You’d think walking along the river way until you hit some shops would be easy enough.  But nope, instead we ended up somewhere in the middle of nowhere.

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Recently I’ve been making fun of myself for the lack of single friends I have around me.  So since the majority of my friends are busy with the opposite sex, I am at home, drinking wine and eating pasta. And writing a blog post.

I went on a date this past week.  I liked the guy.  He was really nice and good-looking. And I liked talking to him. Enjoyed speaking to him enough that I was like ok, I’ll try this again. But he wasn’t interested. At first I was upset. But, you know, I went on a lot of dates that I ended up not interested. Sometimes the guys were super creepy (which gave me something to say here) and sometimes the guys were cool, but just not for me.  And sometimes I simply wasn’t ready to date, no matter how great they were.  There was a point in my dating timeline when prince charming could’ve asked me on a date and I would’ve found something wrong with him.

My point is: at first I was frustrated that a guy I liked didn’t like me back. But now and from now on – it doesn’t matter. I didn’t read the book “he’s just not into you” for nothing. I learned a lesson.

I don’t want to be with someone who isn’t really into me.

Another thing that’s been bothering me lately is the fact that I go on so many dates. So many dates that it feels frantic.  Frantic to be with someone. As if I am obsessed with the idea of finding a perfect mate.  And while I feel this feeling as if I should be frantic – I ironically feel the opposite. But dating so much confuses that.  Generally I am living, really really living and having a great time.  Actually, tonight is pretty great. I’ve made time write. I am drinking wine that I chose and don’t care about anyone else. I am putting garlic in my dinner!!! Garlic = I don’t care about making out.  And tomorrow morning I have full intentions (intentions do not = guarantees) of running.

And I am always busy anyway. So this is me just thinking.  This is me realizing it’s ok to be just me alone every once in a while.  And I think it may be good to accept that.

I was in a relationship for a very long time.  I was dependent on one person- and was especially dependent on that person for my happiness.  It wasn’t intentional. I just think I was in the stage of my life where I was starting to figure out who I am.  And to have someone around at that time caused the correlation. I was always thinking about the “us.”  What was good for us, where should we live, what should we do? What would make us happy?

But then we broke up. And I was alone. But I finally looked at the world from the “me” perspective.  What would make me happy?

ME.  I’ve been doing good for me.  If you take out all the stupid nonsense that crowds my life – work frustrations, date frustrations, money, annoying colds, I’ve done every person should do.  I’ve gotten out of my apartment and saw the world.  I’ve met so many people. I’ve experienced 15 states, 3 countries since then.  And more.  So much more to come.  If I did my life in review right now I’d pretty satisfied.  And I’d be excited for what’s to come. I am excited!

Anyway, I’m going to go. I might go get ice cream from the Duane Reade downstairs. Why the hell not?  Maybe. Or have an apple.

Hello, hello.  And welcome to beautiful Tokyo. That’s right, I’m back and blogging this country again!  So here goes nothing.

Megan and I made it in yesterday evening after a rather long, uneventful, yet somewhat fun flight.  I watched several excellent movies, including Back to the Future.  A choice of like 350 movies, and then another 150 or so television shows!  Who needs to go to Japan, I’ll just fly around in an airplane for the next week.  If only I had been in a comfortable seat in first class.  Although not too much to complain about, the two of us did have our own row.  Megan slept for about an hour or so on the trip, I of course did not sleep at all.

Arrival was the usual: baggage, customs, money exchange, etc.  We were instructed on the best way to get to our hotel, which happened to be the last hotel Justin and I stayed in on Japan trip one.  Note: the way we went was different than last time, so I didn’t really know the way.  We’ll ignore the fact that I though we transferred wrong, made us leave the train, and discovered we were in the right place after all and had to pick up the next train.  Damn.  Only a 5 minute wait though.

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I don’t have a running category?  Really?

Sometimes, I forget that I have a blog.  But Rachel’s dating again, so she’s around to hold down the fort.

I’ve been busy busy busy.  I’m leaving for Tokyo on Saturday.  I’m not back until the following Sunday.   The following weekend, I’m running the New Jersey Marathon.  The weekend after that, I’m scoping out the course for the 176 mile Ragnar Relay, which my team runs the following weekend.  The weekend after Ragnar, I leave for Seattle to cruise to Alaska.  My next unplanned weekend is the begging of June, or I’m forgetting my plans that far in the future.

To say I’ll be busy is a bit of an understatement.

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This weekend, I met a new guy for lunch. He doesn’t know my hood, so he made me figure out a place to eat. According to my dating rule book (the one shelved in my brain), a guy is supposed to pick the place the first time. So, out of spite I chose one of my favorite places. Non-healthy guys would be angry at me. Ha! Luckily he likes salads and stuff. He got lucky this time. So we ate. Talked. Talked a lot about work. Ugh. Our jobs are very related – just different companies. I don’t like to talk shop. Especially the kind of shop I don’t even really like when I’m in it! Shoe shop, ok. Book shop, hell yeah. Movie shop, tell me more! Food shop, don’t stop. Life insurance and the benefit of dividends shop, I need to go wash my hair.

But he was cool actually. After eating, we walked. It was fricken cold. Did you know that even though it’s sunny in April, that doesn’t mean its warm out?? I was stubborn with my spring jacket on and forced the poor guy to walk all the way to penn station. But there were some cool neighborhoods to walk through and billions of annoying tourists to shove through.

I dropped him off at the train and said bye! And it wasn’t weird. And he said he’d like to see me again, don’t need to answer that now! But I laughed. Of course. Anyone I can drag across manhattan via foot is ok by me.

So a second date? Perhaps. Do I imagine a third? I don’t know. But I didn’t mention a very important fact that you’re probably wondering. Guess what I was wearing?

My purple shirt!

I used to follow the school of thinking of the post date text. I have one friend that says you should always text the next day to say thank you. Another friend claims that you’re text when you get home, to show you like the person. And if you don’t… then you clearly don’t like the dater.

I say no more! I am refusing to text afterward anymore. As if I don’t even have a cell phone. What’s a cell phone? Text message?

I went on my first date of many tonight. I’m back on the horse. Out fishing again. Riding the wagon. Putting myself out there. I’m ready. I’m so ready I have/had 4 dates lined up in a 2 week radius. Why? I don’t know. No reason. Just happened. Maybe because my brother encouraged me. Maybe I just got lucky. Or bored. And curious.

Maybe it’s just the way it’s going to be. I skipped the purple shirt deal and went with turquoise. I even skipped heals because I decided to walk to the bar tonight. The guy was tall, so I figured what’s two inches going to do anyway (this is a sign of me caring less - good and bad news). I met him at a bar. I drank a lot of wine - wine that I didn’t know hit me until now, as I’m writing this and am requiring a lot of spell check. But that’s what spell check is for - drunk typing. Mildly drunk, poor typing skills.

I liked the guy because he is a writer so he understands writing. And he’s smart, so he understands how to have an intellectual conversation. And he has a sense of humor, so he can laugh at my neurosis. And he’s just eccentric enough to accept me. He is not really jewish, and I’m not sure. But he was nice and gentlemanly.

I think this dating circuit will produce a lot of 2 daters. This dude may be a little too eccentric for me. He has a 22% creepy gene that I imagine hidden. But its so close to the quarter-mark that I could give him another chance.

So what was the date like? I drank a bunch of excellent wine. I usually don’t like pino grigio. But I brushed my teeth beforehand,so I got the bitter taste I like and by time that taste was gone, I must’ve been drunk and couldn’t notice.

So we drank, we talked about everything but ourselves. He reminds me a little of the “he’s just not that into you guy” but not enough to scare me off. And he’s city boy through and through, no southern. He walked me home and spun me in the streets and called me cute enough for it to be welcome. And he gave me writing insight - which is top marks!

What does it mean?

Nada. Just that I ‘d go on a date with him again. Word.

I really like living in NYC. Like today. Today I walked home from work. Two miles and change - with good scenery. But one major cool thing: I walked in the middle of a movie set for about 5 blocks.

Who gets to do that? I saw all these serious people with jeans and blue polos directing people and wires and trucks. People were working and moving with purpose. Big huge crazy light things set onto 5 story cherry pickers were lit. Catering set up on 50th, off to the side. Arrows on yellow paper stuck to the Haddad trailers pointing uptown and West saying “Set” or something else I can’t remember. Paramount movie trailers hanging out like they belonged there right on the avenue.

And my favorite, there are these hot pink permit signs posted periodically to say no parking - and they say the proposed title: “Empire.” IMDB did not elaborate for me. And I didn’t see anyone exciting. But it was just cool. I am a movie set groupie.