i'm sorry carty

dear mr carty

i'm sorry for deleting your comment. don't hate. it will never happen again. 

i love you.

my weird neighbors

our next-door neighbor joan is a 65-ish year old wannabe cougar. her husband died a couple a years ago (he was 20 years older...she married him for $$) and since then she has been on a mission to find a younger, successful man to play games with in the bedroom. when her late husband was deathly ill in the hospital, my male roommate saw joan throwing herself at several doctors at the hospital...while her husband is dying. she's obviously the most respectable and thoughtful person on the planet. she thinks she is hot stuff and flaunts around wearing skimpy clothing and too much makeup. yesterday she was out in the backyard wearing her bikini and watering plants. put some clothes on oldielocks. 

(side note about joan - for my 8th grade graduation gift she gave me a 24 pack of cherry coke)

anyway, i keep my distance from joan and try to avoid talking to her at all costs. i have succeeded & have yet to have a conversation with her since moving home over 8 months ago. pretty impressive. however, i have not been able to avoid her loser 40-year-old son josh who was fired from his company last month and is living in his mother's basement (josh makes me look REALLY good). last week we exchanged a brief conversation last week while driving past each other on our street. he told me how he got laid off and that his company gave him "40 G's" (doubtful) to hit the road. ooh, that will be good for his drug habit. in all honesty, josh creeps me out. i just don't get a good vibe from him - he's seems like a weasel, used-car salesman who tries to BS with you and make it seem like he's god's gift to the earth. i see him in their backyard (i mean his mother's backyard) chain-smoking and talking on his cell phone about 4 times a day. so yesterday i went for a run at a nearby lake and was driving home to shower and change. it was about 4:49pm and my cousin danny was picking me up to head into the city at 5:15. i drive by their house and see josh swinging a golf club on the front lawn. he waves. i wave. i speed into my driveway and try to get out and get into the house before josh comes over to talk...i just have this feeling that he's going to come over. and as i am getting out of my car he comes around the corner. "hey buddy!" he says in his weasel voice. 

hi josh. 

why are you sweating? 

i went for a run (you idiot). 

so let me get this straight - you drove somewhere to go for a run? 

yes. 

that doesn't make sense. 

ok. 

the conversation is off to a rocky start. i need to somehow get out of this conversation and get ready. he seems pretty chatty and asks about my golf background & asks if i can help him with his golf swing. oh god. i take a look at his brand new callaway driver and see that he has the entire clubhead wrapped with heavy tape. why did he wrap it in tape? i have no freaking clue. he proceeds to tell me how he was a natural golfer as a 15 year old and put backspin on the ball and was an incredible putter. i don't believe a word he says. i've seen him swing and he sucks. far from natural. he tells me he has some swing flaws. i ask him what his swing flaws are. he proceeds to tell me how he is a great putter (again). feeling a bit irritated, i say "josh those aren't your swing flaws. what are your swing flaws?" he swings a few times and i point out a few things he is doing wrong and try to help fix his swing. he then asks if i have a second because he wants to show me something. oh god. i say "how long will it take? my cousin is picking me up in 20 minutes." oh it will only take a minute. we walk into his house and i am praying i don't run into joan wearing a bikini. we go into the basement...i'm getting more than slightly creeped out. we walk into his 'bedroom' which he refers to as "my pad" and all i can think about is how i hope my life is drastically different than his when i am 40 years old. he shows me the putter he just bought on ebay and all of his other clubs (half which are taped up). i make small talk about his clubs - oh they are nice, great putter, etc. i start to walk towards the stairs and he says "hey man do you want to go to the driving range with me sometime this week?" i point to the sling on my finger and say i wish i could but i cant play because i broke my finger. awesome excuse. so relieved i got outta that one. here is where i am just shocked...he asks if i will go to the driving range with him anyway and help fix his swing. i stutter "uhhhh" and try to think of a quick out. he says how about monday? i can't do monday. how about tuesday? uhhhh i'm not going to get out of this one. fine, i say, reluctantly. 1pm on tuesday i have a driving range outing with my creepy neighbor. awesome. can't wait. 

the match.com experiment

it was friday, march 27th and i stayed in to watch hoops & hang out with the roomies. it was about 10:56pm and i was bored. female roommate went to bed b/c she couldn't stand watching any more college basketball. male roommate was passing out on the couch and starting to snore. it was a friday night and i was twiddling my thumbs out of pure boredom - i need a girlfriend, i thought. big time. so then i remembered an outrageous email my cousin kevin sent last year about signing up for match.com and having 5 dates in 6 nights. i thought that signing up for match.com would make for an interesting blog post, at the very least - and i didn't have anything to lose, so i signed up. i told myself i would not contact anyone, just see if any fish take the bait (after 4 minutes of thinking, that was the best metaphor i could come up with...8 months of not thinking too hard has significantly diminished my creativity and quick-thinking). even though i knew i was moving back to boston this summer, i said that i lived in IL. on match.com you can "wink" at people that you are interested in. in real life if a guy winks at a girl, he is immediately a perverted creep slimeball and a drink is thrown in his face. but on match.com, a wink is a big compliment. funny how that works. i received my first "wink" within 25 hours of signing up. hoo-ahh. 

one thing that i found pretty interesting was how quickly you can make up your mind up about someone w/limited info. for most people, a glance at their pictures can make your decision - sometimes just one picture can make up your mind. or reading a sentence or two about their interests. i don't think that it's being judgmental - it's just a matter of who you are attracted to and knowing what you want. 

in 27 days on match.com, 72 females (or so i hope) have viewed my profile

7 winks

about 1 wink every 3.85 days

(side note - for some reason i gave Carter my match.com username and password so he could see all the girls who winked...keep that in mind...)

here are the winkers (that sounds creepy) - 6 of the 7 didn't make the cut...

SaraB5 (match.com screenname) 

- SaraB5 claims to be 26, but she looks like she is 54 years old. i almost fell over laughing when i read the first line of her "intro" - "First of all, I look young, but I promise I am 26. Also, although I look good in this photo, I look much better in person!" No! you don't look young at all! you definitely get AARP discounts at the movies.

- 2 of her 4 pictures are of her ugly little annoying shitzu-poodle-rabies infested looking dog. one of the pictures looks like the dog is deceased. no thank you. 

- "But I also love to stay in and watch a movie or play some video games" - Oh no SarB5...video games? at age 26? and you're a chick? you're killing me, smalls. 

- "Don't judge a book by it's cover...I look young but am not...Let's go walking in the forests of life." Walking in the forests of life? No thanks...you stay in your "forest" and i'll stay in mine.

26?? i don't think so

SaraB5's quasi-dead dog

babybucky

- babybucky hails from maple park, IL. i have no idea where that is. according to google maps, it's only FIFTY TWO MILES away. 52 miles away from the chi-town burbs means farmland and cows. google maps says maple park looks like THIS. i say nay nay. even if i was not moving away, there is no way that i would even remotely consider commuting 52 miles to maple park, illinois to see babybucky. 

- her 'intro message' is "volleyball enthusiast looking for someone to hit it off with." i am almost as good at volleyball as i am with wrestling...and we all know how good i am at wrestling. this probably won't work. 

- i don't even know her real name, but what 24 year old calls herself babybucky? strike 56. she's out. 

gemini_ml

- 24 year old...kinda exotic looking...doesn't really do it for me though

- includes a picture of her and a muscular looking guy who could probably kick my ass (see below - the headband is intimidating). they look kinda cozy. is this an ex-boyfriend? a current boyfriend? either way, gemini_ml you probably shouldn't put up pictures of you with other dudes. at least the picture is of her at wrigley field...that earns her a point.  

- also includes a picture of her dog (why do girls think guys want to see their dogs?) and a couple pictures of european architecture. really? c'mon. you're not a random building. or the eiffel tower. guys want to see pictures of you. 

- one of her favorite bands is linkin park - NEXT PLEASE. 

ruby2zday007

 - 20 years old. immediate strikeout. no way jose. 

- her screenname is named after a terrible chain restaurant that i had a bad experience in back in '97 in atlanta. 

- what's with the 007 at the end of her screenname? does she watch bond movies all day? or is 007 on nintendo64 her favorite video game of all time? maybe her and SaraB5 can get together and play video games sometime. or does she think it makes her seem more mysterious? i don't think i want to know the answer. 

"I want to have fun" - oooh thanks ruby2zday...i was worried that you hated having fun. thanks for stating the obvious. 

- at least she gets a half point for not putting up any pictures of her ugly dog. 

DKB44 

- good lord another girl with pictures of her dog...i don't get it...just brutal. this dog isn't even cute - it looks scary and that it would bite off my ear. 

- tall blonde - seems athletic, played college softball. but not my type. then again i don't know what my 'type' is 

- substitute teacher - i can't judge because i'm not a substitute anything. 

- nothing really stands out for DKB44...moving on

StarGazer24437

- screenname is very 7th grade. 

- she looks like she is in 7th grade (but claims to be 24). that's enough to formulate my decision - seems nice, but not interesting at all ("I enjoy the outdoors when the weather is nice" - fascinating insight!) 

ok so those are the 6 winking strikeouts. before we move onto winker #7, let me just mention some of the things i listed on my profile: 

- for fun: listening to music, going to concerts, cubs games at wrigley, playing golf, running (kinda generic but whatever)

- i said my ideal day is playing golf & then going to a cubs game

with that in mind, let's move to winker #7

secondcitygirl06

- she only has one picture, but she looks pretty cute

- 25 years old, graduated from michigan state in '06, working on her MBA at de paul. nice. 

- "For Fun: going to concerts (Wilco, U2, Kanye), going to Cubs games in the summer, running along the lake, playing golf, reading a good book, traveling to new and different places" - whoaaaaa now we're talking. wilco...favorite band...i saw them in concert last week...a golfer?! huge points there. cubs games? more points...this girl has potential

- "My ideal weekend is one during a Chicago summer; afternoon round of golf, or a Cubs game, followed by a bbq and drinks with friends" - hmm...interesting. that's basically my ideal day. why am i leaving chicago? will you marry me? 

- the more i thought about secondcitygirl06, i realized this could be a giant sandbag by Carter. secondcitygirl06 has the exact same interests - carter has access to my match.com account and my profile and very easily could have created a fictitious girl to mess with me. i wouldn't put it past him. i even winked back at her just to see if carter called me out on winking when i said i wouldn't. i also tried to log-in as secondcitygirl06 with passwords i thought carter might use (my match.com password, our GCO email password, etc) but no dice. i still think it could be him though...he could have found a picture of a random girl from the internet or a picture of one of his girlfriend's sisters friends or someone random like that. why would he waste his time doing something like that, you may ask? well, he's the same person who sent me 5 months worth of clues for what turned out to be a giant april fools day joke. so there you have it...i thought winker #7 was a sweet angel but i think she could be a fraud. 

t minus one month

i officially have less than 1 month left living at home with the roommates. i brought this up last night to them and this morning they left a note on the counter asking me to run errands for them. i think they're trying to take advantage of having the 3rd roommate around while they still can. i should have kept quiet...today i resume responsibilities as the family servant. the male roommate has terrible handwriting. i almost want to pretend i can't read what he wrote.

when i'm done with chores, i'm heading down to wrigley for the cubs game. it feels like 32 degrees right now. great day for baseball. what happened to global warming. 

i have a confession to make...i haven't used the jumpsoles for 2 weeks. i am ashamed of myself. forgive me. 

stalkage

i forgot to mention that i secretly took several other pictures of billy corgan w/o him knowing. i love being creepy. 

happy marathon monday

marathon monday is the 2nd favorite holiday after christmas (a very close 2nd). this is my first marathon monday away from boston in 7 years and i don't like not being there. i am celebrating from 1,000 miles away by a) not working and 2) watching the marathon coverage on tv. i can't believe it's actually televised here, but i'll take it. 

saturday was national record store day across the country. i took part by going to "vintage vinyl," a well known record shop in evanston. as i was leaving, billy corgan from the smashing pumpkins was putting coins in the meter. i said "hello mr corgan" and he smiled and said "hi how's it going." he went into vintage vinyl and i followed suit and took a picture with him. 

raccoon revenge

on saturday my sister found this 3 dollar raccoon dog toy at the store and bought it to get revenge on my male roommate for accidentally killing the raccoon in our garage door 6 weeks ago. my sister put the raccoon toy in his car window on easter morning. there's a church down the street from our house & the churchgoers were looking quite confused when they walked by and saw a raccoon head coming out of his window. needless to say, he was quite startled and almost fell over laughing.