Tuesdays with Todd°

Note to the reader:Many of my blog entries contain inside jokes, or references to things that any common passerby would most likely not "get". With that in mind I've decided to explain as much of this entry as possible and in that way invite you, the reader, to break the fourth wall and join in on the fun. For the duration of this entry, whenever you see this symbol: °, feel free to find the attached note at the bottom of the page and join in on the fun. I'll leave the matching of the note to the section it pertains to as an exercise for the reader. Still confused? Alright, I'll give you an example. The title of this entry is Tuesdays with Todd°. The ° lets you know that there's additional information. When you look at the bottom you get to find out who Todd really is. Its that easy, and fun too! So, without further ado, lets continue on with today's story...

My sister has a friend named Geremy. She's known him since high school, and while I knew of him, I wouldn't say I knew him back then. My sister is 7 years younger than I am, so we didn't exactly hang out a lot back then. As we've gotten older, we tend to hang out more, and that leads to more interaction with her friends. One of these friends is Geremy. He comes out with us sometimes to social events, which is equivalent to me saying, "He goes to the bar with us". I'd like to describe Geremy accurately for anyone reading who doesn't know him, but I'm afraid that the English language is not sufficient for this task, and I'm sure that the few people who do read my blog don't have a firm grasp of Ancient Aramaic. I will endeavor however, to give you the important details about Geremy as they pertain to this story:

A) He's tall, 20-something, pretty decent looking guy, articulate, charismatic, funny, etc°
B) In a social setting he's quite out going. He'll talk to anyone, comment on anyone, involve anyone in his conversation, and say anything to anyone°
C) He's got balls so big° that when he books a flight he has to notify both NASA and the National Weather institute of the impending gravitational shift. Remember that Tsunami a few years back? I'm relatively sure that that coincided with his move to California.

At any rate... the other night I met Mory, Stacy, Geremy and Jodi up at McDuffy's for our usual time of complaining about work, goofing off, and other such nonsense. At one point in the night Geremy had a conversation with our waitress, a cute blond girl. I was sitting across from Geremy, and being that I don't have good bar ears°, I didn't really get to hear the conversation that well. What I did hear was simultaneously impressive and shocking. She introduced herself to him...

"Hi, I'm Mary Kate"
"You look like you eat more than I would have expected", he said, making a reference to her weight in relation to Mary Kate of the Olson twins. I believe I picked up on the reference before she did as she had a slightly confused look on her face for a moment.
"I bet you get that reference a lot" I said to both give Geremy a hard time, and give her a hint as to what he was getting at.
As I did, it seemed to click for her and she shot back, "No that's the first time", as if to say, "Shut up short man, I'm talking to Todd, he's dreamy". For what its worth, I've gone by the name Jesse for 12 years now°, and if I had nickel for every time somebody has told me that they "wish that they had Jesse's girl", I'd be rich now°, so I know that someone has made the Olson reference to this girl before.

Later in the evening Geremy was ranting about how he didn't feel sorry for people who died or were injured in natural disasters since they could have moved. This is taken a little out of context, but very close to how he presented it to our waitress. Even later, when she came back they had a short exchange which I didn't catch, but it ended with him saying, "Don't worry, I think my cold sore is gone" as she picked up his glass and her responding, "Okay, you want to make out later?"

Lets pause for a moment and recap for the reader at home. So far Geremy has told her:
1) She's fat
2) He's soulless and mean(Not really, but I'm rolling, so go with me on this one)
3) He possibly has oral herpes

To all of this she responds with, "Cool, wanna make out?" There are porno movie's with more believable plots than this... If it had been me, I would have gotten half way through #1 before she would have slapped me and had the bouncer throw me out, but somehow Geremy gets away with it.

Is there a point to this story? No, not really, but I figured people were tired of reading me suck with women, so they should read about someone doing well.

° When my friend Stacy met Geremy for the first time she was drunk(go figure), and he was wearing a shirt that said Todd on it. For the entire night she called him Todd, and later insisted that she had never met a "Geremy"

° While my description of Geremy and slight man-crush may lead the reader to believe that I am in fact gay, or that this is a "coming out" entry, I assure you that is not the case. I felt that the information was important to the story.... Besides, I'm still writing that entry. Expect it early next week.

° For all of my exaggerations, let it be known that Geremy will quite literally say anything or do anything. In my short time of rolling with him, I've witnessed him do the following:

1) Picture message his man parts to multiple people he had never met
2) Tube the salt river wearing only a women's bikini bottom
3) Tell a story involving him accidentally inserting his wang into an oscillating fan that had had the cover removed. It should be noted that he told this story while our waitress on that particular night was at our table.

° I say that he has big balls figuratively... meaning that he's got guts, but apparently this statement holds up literally too. Although, by the grace of god, I've managed to so far go without seeing them.

° Bar ears refers to one's ability to hear things at a bar. Whether this skill is gained by lip reading, alcohol consumption, or sacrifices to a pagan god, I don't know, but you'd think someone cursed with ears as big as mine would at least get this as a consolation.

° Before then my name was Jun Fan, but I changed it to Jesse when, after killing a man, I fled to America from Hong Kong and developed Jeet Kune Do("Way of the fist")°

° I assumed that the one good part of the ending of my relationship with Stacey was that the conversations about "Jesse's girl" were done, but I was wrong. And... every single person thinks that he's the first one to have made that connection.

° Rest assured that I didn't kill a man in Hong Kong, the above is actually Bruce Lee's story, and a reference to MTV's "The State"

Third times a charm?

By March of 2005 I had done more stupid things and said more stupid things to Ana than I care to admit. After the chocolate incident I had mostly given up and was content to have an uneasy smile and an awkward "hello" at passing. I figured the semester would end soon, and with it my crush on the cute Chilean girl.

After class I would sometimes sit out on my bench finishing up homework in to the wee hours of the night. On one particular evening I was surprised to see Ana walk by. She seemed kind of out of sorts. As she passed by I asked, "How's it going?" expecting the normal, "Fine". She was on her way out of the building with her hand on the door when she stopped, turned to me and said, "Its better now, I think." When you've struck out with a girl as many times as I had with her you reconsider any kind of personal inquiry before you let it come out of your mouth, but by this time I figured I had nothing to lose, and she did seem upset.

"Something wrong?" I asked.
"Well, this C++ class I'm taking is really hard, but I think I'm finally catching up"

It should be noted at this point that I've been a professional programmer, mostly in C++, for about 6 years, but before that I was a C++ programmer as a hobby for a good while. Telling me you need help programming is like telling Keith Richards you'd like some help getting wasted, or Andy Dick you need help making your sexuality a little more ambiguous. A girl couldn't possibly give me a better "in" unless she added, "I also need help finding the princess in this Mario game." to the end. But, with my normal level of smoothness, I froze and let her walk out the door.

Later that evening, after kicking myself in the butt a few times I decided I should send her an email offering my help. I was surprised a few days later when I got an actual email back saying she might have to take me up on the offer. I didn't expect another email, but it came the next day. We agreed to meet after class the following week so that I could help her with a project.

It went well, and in no time we were getting together once or twice a week for C++ studying. I had a hard time keeping focused on the work, but she didn't seem to mind too much. We joked around a lot and had a good time usually. She'd give me a hard time for being so white, and I'd give her a hard time for being such a princess. I brought her a tiara one day and insisted she wear it while studying in the library, and she would send me emails in Spanish and make me translate them. All in all, things were going quite well, but on an outside of school level not much was happening. We'd often stay till 8 or 9pm, and I'd invite her out to dinner, but she'd always decline. She made it quite clear that she had no intention of giving me her phone number or calling, so while I always had these amazing 3 or 4 hour study sessions with her, that was it.

As I got to know her, it became kind of apparent that her and I probably weren't a good match. She's an amazing girl, but she's also very Christian, and very strong in those beliefs. While that's not a deal breaker for me, if the crusades have taught us anything, its that heathenism is frowned upon by the Christians. Aside from that, she was home schooled, and raised in a South American type household while I was raised by rednecks. The saying opposites attract is quite true, but they don't always make for the best match.

Our differences aside, I think we made a great pair, and since we're both fairly laid back and able to listen to the others opinion without getting heated, we got along well. The semester continued, and our friendship did too, but as the semester started to wrap up I was getting quite worried that when it ended, so did our "relationship"....

Mother is the name for god in the lips and hearts of all children

It was my intention last week to tell the next chapter of the Ana story and mostly finish that story off, but life, as it often does, got in the way and that story will have to be delayed. Today's story will veer slightly from the overall "Jesse Sucks with Women" theme, but falls somewhat in to the same category.

We'll start with a little back story on my mom. First and foremost I have to say she's a pretty amazing woman. She's accomplished a lot in her life. She's got a good job, she's raised 3 kids, and my dad, and she keeps a pretty decent house. I believe most of the goals she set for herself in her life have been completed, and as we(the kids) have left the house she's found herself with too much time on her hands, which has led to a new goal... grandchildren.

As my mom gets older her sense of logic isn't exactly always spot on, but that doesn't stop her from trying. That should be evident from the fact that she tried to set me up with a lesbian. She's told me on numerous occasions that she wants grandchildren from me to which I reply:
"Shouldn't I get married first, or at least have a steady girlfriend?"
"Only if it doesn't slow down the baby making"

Now... those in the know will remember that last year my mom was diagnosed with having a brain aneurysm. She underwent treatment which involved filling the aneurysm, which lay squarely in the center of her brain, with 25 coils of platinum. An interesting side note is that they went in through the inner thigh which is just plain weird to me. I understand how it works, and I'm a nerd so technology isn't that foreign to me, but the inner thigh? They couldn't find a closer point of entry?

This last Monday she went back to the hospital for a check up, and unfortunately the aneurysm had grown. They immediately took her to surgery and went to work. She came out of the day's worth of brain surgery with a morphine IV, an anesthesia hangover, and 16 more coils of platinum in her brain bringing her grand total to 41.

After my dad and brother almost beat up a volunteer nurse, we were allowed back to see her where she was obviously quite groggy from the day's surgery. As she talked she didn't make a lot of sense, and quite often dozed off mid sentence. We were all relieved to find her mostly back to normal and in good health. The doctor warned us that the main thing now was to not get her excited, and to keep her blood pressure low.

The nurse, a cute girl named Dorris, came in to take her blood pressure and check her vitals. As she walked away(Behind the curtain surrounding my mom's bed), my mom, in her half conscious state opened her eyes wide, sat up a little, looked at me and said rather loudly:"She's hot!""Yes, the nurse is quite cute mom...""Hot!!!", she correct me and gave me the thumbs up sign and a slight knowing nod of her head.I nodded back and tried to get her to relax and she finally laid back in the bed and dozed off.

For all of her silliness and forgetfulness, the one thing I have to say about my mom is that she always gets an A+ for effort. She's not always sure what she's doing, but she always tries hard to get it done.

For those curious, mom's now doing well, and resting. She's still at the hospital, but she's finally out of the ICU.

Bonus points for anyone(Aside from my high school chums) who knows the movie that the subject quote is from.

Every girl like's flowers on Valentine's Day right?

I was at McDuffy's a few day's before Valentine's day this year with Stacy and Mory. We were bitching about work, and joking around and such as we often do. They had downed a few crappy beer's as they often do, and I was working on a Diet Coke.

Somehow the subject of Angela came up and how her and her girlfriend have a crappy relationship, and how her girlfriend seems borderline emotionally abusive. I thought it was kind of sad, and having no relationship is better than having a crappy one.

"I should send a dozen roses to her with a crappy love poem" I thought aloud. "I mean every girl, lesbian or straight likes flowers right? Besides, her and her girlfriend are probably just going to spend the day fighting." Miranda and Stacy thought the idea was great. We didn't discuss it much more that night, but I decided if I was going to do it, I was going to do it right.

So for the next couple of days I tried to think of the perfect poem, and searched online for a good place to get roses. Without too much effort I decided on a dozen long stem Ecuadorian roses with a matching vase.

The poem on the other hand was a bit tougher. Angela works with my mom, and has a girlfriend. I didn't want anyone to get in trouble for a silly joke on my part, so I decided not to put my name. I did want her to know who they were from so she didn't assume they were from her girlfriend though. I also wanted to express some interest without going overboard. I finally came up with the following:

Some women like diamonds
Some women like pearls
I wish you liked boys
Instead of girls

I saw you at Thanksgiving
I met you at the bar
If you were my Valentine
I wouldn't pout in the car

The day before Valentine's I went to the website, entered the poem, made all of the arrangements and after a moments hesitation and nervousness (Is it wrong to send a lesbian flowers?) clicked the submit button and it was done.

After this was done I called Miranda (My personal social barometer) to make sure I hadn't just made a big mistake.
"I did it"
"Did what?"
"I sent the flowers and the crappy poem" (I then told her the poem)
"What the hell is your problem? You can't do that. You have to cancel it"
"I can't cancel, its the day before Valentine's. Besides, you said it was funny the other night!"
"I was drunk, of course it was funny you moron"

At this point I'm a little nervous. We call Stacy (Who works in the office) and let her know. She also says its probably not a good idea, but agrees to run interference to make sure its not taken the wrong way.

After all of the worrying, the flowers were more or less well received. Nothing really ever came of it, but at least I have a good story out of it.

When a cute Chilean girl asks you if you like chocolate, you say "yes"

After my dissapointingly abrupt ending to my "Semester with Ana" I figured I'd never see the girl again. Due to work picking up I was only taking one class the following semester and it was late in the day. The chances of running into the same person at ASU tend to be quite slim, so I had kind of let it go.

I made it my habit to come to school just a little bit early to avoid rush hour that semester. My class was right by the computer lab, so I could sit out on a bench with my laptop and check email, work, etc. To my surprise I saw Ana pass by a few times while sitting there. She would sometimes say hi, but it was that nervous kind of hello when you see someone you're not sure you want to talk to, but you know them so you feel obligated.

So, about once a week I would see this girl. I never had a chance to really talk to her because she was always in a group, and she never seemed interested in talking to me. Being a true nerd I sometimes get a little nervous talking to girls, especially one I've had a crush on for half a year. Knowing this, I had at least a question or two that I'd ask her thought out before hand so I didn't say anything completely retarded should the opportunity present itself. The last thing I need is to finally talk to this girl and say, "I like your boobies", so a little premeditation is a good thing.

Just after Valentines day I was sitting in my usual spot working on my laptop. I must have been engrossed in my work because Ana was nearly right in front of me before I looked up and noticed her. I was caught a little off guard, but she came over and started making small talk with me. I went back to my questions I had thought out..."So what classes are you taking this semester?""How did your classes go last semester?"

The whole time the voice in my head is saying, "For god's sake, don't say anything stupid." over and over again. I'm sweating, I'm nervous, and I'm really worried I'm about to do something dumb. Luckily I make it through the whole conversation. We finish our chat and she goes to class. I'm quite proud of myself for making it through without blowing it. "Maybe I've turned a corner." I think to myself, "Maybe I'm not quite the dork I think I am."

20 minutes later I'm surprised to see her walk by again, and she heads straight for me. Her hands are behind her back and she leans over and says, "Jesse would you like a kiss?" As she does this she pulls her hands forward to reveal a bunch of Hershey's Kisses. At this time there's a million slightly clever things that I could have said...
"But Ana, I hardly know you"
"Shouldn't you buy me dinner first?"

But instead I opened my mouth and went with, "I don't like chocolate."

Something to be thankful for, and mom makes me the fat kid down the street for x-mas

It was probably August or September when I had lunch with my mom and met Angela. At the time I thought the story was over, but I didn't let my mom know that. I now had amunition, and I used it.

"How was work today mom? Did Angela ask about me?"

My mom's birthday was in October, and she had just survived a major aneurysm, so we decided to throw her a big party. My sister invited my mom's entire office, and Angela showed up. We exchanged a few words, and I got to meet the girlfriend. She was a bit older(40ish?), and didn't really seem to like any of us, or was just anti-social. They spent the whole night fighting and left early so I really didn't get much interaction.

As Thanksgiving aproached my mom told me that Angela was coming to dinner at our house. We generally have a big dinner and invite anyone who wants to come, but it was odd to me that she'd invite a girl who worked for her. It turns out Angela doesn't get along well with her mom on account of her being gay, and her dad lives in Seattle. She doesn't get along well with the girlfriend's mom either, so she decided to take my mom up on her offer for dinner at our house.

My grandfather was there and spent half the time telling me, "She's cute, you should get her number." and the other half of the time telling her, "Have you met my grandson? He's not married"

Not wanting to explain lesbianism(As if I'm an expert) to him, or worse yet have him make a scene, I told him, "I think she's got somebody if you know what I mean dude.... and I don't think you do".

Dinner was nice, albeit uneventful. I switched into normal Jesse mode and avoided eye contact and didn't say much. We were all going to see "Walk the line" afterwards, but her girlfriend called and she quickly took off.

Again I didn't hear much on that front for a while, but a few days before Christmas my mom said, "Stacy and Angela and some people are going to happy hour up at McDuffy's and told me to tell you to swing by". At this point in time I wouldn't call myself "friends" with any of these people so it was odd that they'd invite me to happy hour, but I figured, "What the hell. I need to be more social."

I got up there and a few people were there. Angela's girlfriend hadn't arrived yet, but they were all looking for her. They weren't looking for her in an excited way, but more nervous. I felt like I was waiting for the Vietcong to jump out of a bush and slit my throat. Everyone kept talking about how she was angry and Angela kept saying, "I'm in trouble."

About this time Stacy told me that my mom had overheard them making plans to go to happy hour and told her that she should invite me. So now I felt like the fat kid down the street that your mom made you choose for the basketball team. I'm 28 years old and my mom is telling the other kids to play with me, great.

Rather than be shy and wussy I decided I'd do a 180 and be as loud and goofy as I could. I was loud and obnoxious and generally had a good time. Angela's girlfriend arrived and I tried to talk to her, but she was very standoffish. The more I felt she didn't want to talk to me, the more I tried, but eventually she dissapeared. She was gone for a good hour when Angela informed me, "She's upset with me and sitting in the car to punish me." I found it quite odd that a 40 year old woman would pout in the car, but nobody asked for my opinion, so I kept it to myself.

The night ended with me leaving for a Curium concert in Tempe. About that time Kristen(Angela's girlfriend) was walking back in so I invited her to come with me, but all she said was, "Have fun"

Ana vs. Joe the Nerd

While Dave was the loud obnoxious in your face nerd, the second nerd in my group, Joe, was just the opposite. Joe had a very slight stuttering problem that became a very major stuttering problem whenever Ana was speaking to him or he was called on in class. Joe also, as many nerds do, had a tendency to stick his foot in his mouth, especially when speaking to Ms. Ana.

I felt a little bad for the kid and generally tried to deflect for him, or help him save a little face. Unfortunately this wasn't always possible.

Joe didn't normally say much, but on one occasion, he must have had one too many Mountain Dews or something because he was very excited and very eager to discuss things. He wasn't making the most sense, but he kept on.

"I heard in Japan they have a processor that's like 10 times faster than the fastest Pentium. I heard in Japan they have hard drives that are terabytes in size. I heard in Japan they have the most amazing gaming console and it's like way better than the XBOX."

I'm not sure if Joe had just seen an A & E special on the land of the rising sun or if he thought this would impress Ana. I could see her eyes getting bigger as the onslaught of information (Mostly incorrect) spewed from his mouth and hit her square in the face. She was too polite to do anything so finally I decided to pull out the obscure reference book and put an end to Joe's verbal suicide.

"I heard in Japan they have a candy bar with more moviefone.com in it, I said with my normal dryness."

That finally stopped him and they both turned to look at me as if I had just said the dumbest thing they'd ever heard, and were looking for an explanation. I normally don't explain my obscure references, but for some reason I felt obligated this time.

"Been to the movies lately?" I asked. "There's that commercial where the girl is eating a candy bar and says it's great, but she wishes it had more moviefone.com in it. Then she says she bets the Japanese have a candy bar like that. It's really quite stupid."

I thought by me playing the idiot I had in essence taken Joe's foot out of his mouth and ended the conversation. At this point I had hoped we could all agree that I was an ass and move on to something more productive, but Joe wasn't done quite yet.

"Oh, I've seen that commercial. That girl has a funny voice. She sounds kind of like you Ana"

I'm not really sure if she took offense to this, or just pretended to take offense, but she quickly shot back with an angered look on her face, "Are you saying I have a funny voice?!"

At this point, having been put on the spot, Joe's stuttering kicked it in to high gear and I don't think he got another complete word out before class started and we got to work.