'Scuse me while I whip this out...
Jun. 19th, 2005 05:31 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tspencer227It's been a very long last month, in more ways than one, and life has been exceedingly busy here at work. Apparently, in my case getting advanced means my workload has gone up exponentially- I really need to learn how to say no more often, or at least dodge the office better after working hours when we're out to sea. I'm really starting to think the warranty on most of the equipment onboard the ship has recently run out- it seems like for everything we fix (almost always at 2 in the morning), two more pieces of equipment break down, burn up, stop working, turn their insides into cold spaghetti, or otherwise do things they shouldn't be doing. I mean, I know I'm damn good at what I do, but I'm not the only expert on everything electrical in the propulsion plants. Must learn how to hide better.
So this is probably the first chance I've really given myself to sit down and finally write out some of what's been going on in the last month- for anybody who's reading, let me apologize now- this is going to be one of those mega- long entries, but I promise I'll make extensive use of that lovely little LJ cut feature to try and not make it so impossible to load on one page.
To start out with, the plan to get back into the summer body is coming along beautifully- apparently, lack of sleep, combined with lack of food, makes me burn calories at a furious rate. Combine that with my daily workouts (now going on 3 hours most days, to avoid being called down to fix stuff, and to relieve all the stress my inept chain of command causes me), and I haven't looked or felt this good in a long time. I'm back down to a 33 inch waist, and my last bench press was 245lbs. Thursday afternoon. (Do you have a bandaid? Because I'm CUT!) I'll have the 6- pack back by September I hope, and come post- deployment next year, I'm gonna be hot. Or so I hope. One thing I've learned about being out here in California is that "cute" doesn't count worth shit- unless you have a body like a pornstar, girls will talk to you but they won't necessarily call you back. Screw personality, intelligence, etc.- it's all about looks and money.
Which brings me to my first story. Lesson learned, and thankfully no damage done.
This started 3 weekends ago- we've been in and out every week, coming back in on Thursday or Friday for the weekend before turning around and heading back out the following Monday. I had pull- in duty that Friday, and had just gotten home Saturday morning when I got a call from my old friend Chris Hanson (the motorhead) asking what I was doing for the night. I convinced him to meet me at MacGregor's, the local watering hole down the street from my apartment complex where everybody in my section of Mission Valley goes to hang out and drink, and went for a drive up the Pacific Coast Highway from La Jolla up through Orange County, sunroof open, windows down, stereo turned up as I blasted out Jack Johnson from my CD player. It was a lovely day for a drive, and the warm California sun beating down on my head felt good, as did the wind in my face. As I turned around just north of Laguna Beach for the trip back, I came to the conclusion that the only way it could have been any more perfect was if I'd had somebody in the passenger seat to enjoy it with me. Hmph. Not likely, it seems.
Chris and I met up at MacGregor's around 9, and were hanging out playing pool when the first girls started really trickling in. Of course, Chris took note of this, and made sure to point out each one that walked in. Of course, he wanted me to play my typical role of "The Opener", as he puts it, and find some girls for us to talk to. Well, ok...but I was just having fun hanging out.
We had just gone up to the bar to grab a couple more beers when I saw her. She was sitting across the bar from us, and was staring at one or both of us quite hard with a slight smile on her face. She was quite cute, really- blond, with brown eyes, and a dazzling smile. I nudged Chris and discreetly pointed her out to him, but he was more concerned with a couple of other girls he'd seen. The girl looked in our direction again, and it seemed clear to me at that point she was checking him out, so I told Chris I'd go over and stike up a conversation with her (I seem to be really good at that, for some reason), but he told me that really wasn't necessary. Until she got up from the bar and went to the bathroom.
He turned to me with his jaw down around his toes. "DAMN TED, did you see the body on that girl??? Yeah, go hook me up!!"
I smiled, and waited for her to come back. "No problem, man. You know I've got this."
Sure enough a few minutes later, she came back out, smiling at us as she started to walk past. Hell, may as well go with the direct approach, since sublety had obviously been thrown to the wind. I walked up and tapped her on the shoulder.
"Excuse me, can I ask you something real quick?"
She turned around and smiled at me. "Sure, what's up?"
I put on my best apologetic smile for her. "Well, I didn't really want to bother you, but, well I saw you checking out my friend here earlier. He's a great guy, a little bit shy, but he thought you looked cute and wanted to know if he could buy you a drink."
Her smile broadened. Ha- got her.
"Do you really need him to do the talking for you?"
That caught me off guard- not quite what I was expecting as a response, really. I tried to recover as quickly as I could.
"Um, well...I thought you were checking out my friend there earlier at the bar..."
She shook her head. "No, not so much, really. So tell me your name, and yes I would love that drink."
I glanced over my shoulder at Chris, who shrugged at me and gave me the signal to proceed as he walked over to a couple of cute coeds and struck up a conversation.
The girl led me back to her place at the bar, where we started chatting and I learned a few things about her quickly:
-Her name was Karlee, just moved from Seattle that week.
-She had just graduated from WSU, and was working as a preschool teacher in Mira Mesa (hint #1)
-She was a Pi Beta Phi in college (hint#2)
-She'd been a cheerleader (hint #3) and soccer player from high school onwards.
-She was staying with her cousin in Chula Vista until she got her own place. (her cousin was there with a large group of his Harley- riding buddies- hint #4 that I shouldn't have even bothered)
We chatted for a good long while as her cousin's friends watched me like a hawk, and she proceeded to get more and more flirtatious as the evening progressed. Finally, she got up to go to the bathroom, and before I could say anything, she'd grabbed me by the hand and was dragging me along with her. She told me to wait for her to come out, then ducked inside. As I was waiting for her to come out, her cousin came up to me- I'd seen him there before, but we hadn't talked. We talked for a few minutes about bikes, cars, sports- the usual guy stuff, and he nodded his head.
"Yeah, you're cool....I think I approve of you hitting on my cousin, even if you ARE military. Just to let you know, though, unless I find something else to ride on the back of my bike tonight, she's coming home with me."
I nodded. "Thanks, and that's no problem. I'd be doing the same thing if I were you."
Mike walked off just before Karlee came out of the bathroom, and as soon as she saw me, she pushed me up against the wall and started making out with me. It's gotta be the shirt. I swear, every time I wear the shirt I had on that night, stuff like that tends to happen- Kelly, Remie, Kaleena, Tina...that's gotta be it.
We made out for a while, then headed back to the bar, where Mike repeated to his cousin what he'd told me about who she was going home with. At which she promptly grabbed me by the hand again and started cruising around the bar, looking for a girl suitable for her cousin to take home for the night. It didn't matter who the girl was, Karlee went over to her and struck up a conversation, then managed to mention her cousin and talk him up a bit. It was really quite funny, but he wasn't biting at the available options. I can't say I really blame him- it was after midnight, and most of the choice pickings had been snapped up by 11. Finally, Mike pulled Karlee aside.
"Look, I know what you're doing, and while I appreciate the effort, it's not going to happen tonight."
I chimed in behind him. "Karlee, go ahead and go home with your cousin. You've had a bit more to drink that I have, and you really should just go home tonight and sleep it off. However, I will call you next weekend, provided you give me your phone number, of course."
She smiled and grabbed my phone, punching in her number and handing it back to me. "You better call," she threatened.
"Promise?"
I promise I'd call her, then saw her, Mike and the rest of the gang out, and after an extended make- out session on the back of Mike's custom Fatboy, she took off, yelling over her shoulder again for me to call her the following weekend. Chris and I both headed to Denny's for the traditional post- party breakfast, made plans for going to the beach the next day, then both headed back to our respective places to catch some sleep for the night.
The next weekend, I called her before I headed out to MacGregor's, but got no answer. I did, however, get a text message saying she might head out there for the night. No problem- it was just a group of us hanging out chilling. She ended up beating us there, but for whatever reason she was barely talking to me- I played it cool and decided to chill with her cousin and his friends since they were pretty cool, and maybe she was just having a bad night. We talked for a little bit with all of the guys, but decided to bail when one of Mike's friends started to get mad at Chris when a girl he was talking to started showing some interest in Chris. I said goodnight to Karlee, who showed minimal interest, and we headed to Denny's for breakfast before we all went home.
Friday night we headed back to MacGregor's after a couple of unsuccessful hours spent by Chris and his friend Pierre to talk a couple of coeds into bed at Effin's, by SDSU. Dwayne, Mike Brue, and a few others from work were there already, so they had a table waiting for us. I decided to ignore Karlee and just hang out with my friends, which was working fine until Adam pointed out that she was there, and waved her over.
"Hi Ted," she said when she saw me, not looking the most pleased to see me.
"Hi," I replied indifferently. "You know, I called you earlier about going out to the beach."
"Yes, I know," she replied, "but like I told you before, I'm really not a telephone kind of girl."
"Funny," I responded. "I'm not really a 'maybe I'll call you maybe I won't' kind of guy. So you've got my number, other than that it was fun, and I'll see you around."
I walked over to her cousin Mike. "Hey man, I just wanted to make sure we're still cool. I mean, it's obvious your cousin isn't digging me, but no offense to her, she's a bit ditzier than I usually go for. But you're still my boy, man."
Mike chuckled as I spoke. "I was wondering how long it was going to take you to figure that out. Yeah, Neither one of you is really feeling each other. But we're still cool, and when you get your bike, we're riding in the desert."
What I wanted to hear. I left Karlee to the growing group of guys I saw crowding around her- besides, something else had
caught my attention, but that's another story...
Time to get to bed- it's been a long night, and I need to get some sleep. I'll tell about the rest of the weekend later.
G'night yall, and I'll hopefully be back on here more often now.
So this is probably the first chance I've really given myself to sit down and finally write out some of what's been going on in the last month- for anybody who's reading, let me apologize now- this is going to be one of those mega- long entries, but I promise I'll make extensive use of that lovely little LJ cut feature to try and not make it so impossible to load on one page.
To start out with, the plan to get back into the summer body is coming along beautifully- apparently, lack of sleep, combined with lack of food, makes me burn calories at a furious rate. Combine that with my daily workouts (now going on 3 hours most days, to avoid being called down to fix stuff, and to relieve all the stress my inept chain of command causes me), and I haven't looked or felt this good in a long time. I'm back down to a 33 inch waist, and my last bench press was 245lbs. Thursday afternoon. (Do you have a bandaid? Because I'm CUT!) I'll have the 6- pack back by September I hope, and come post- deployment next year, I'm gonna be hot. Or so I hope. One thing I've learned about being out here in California is that "cute" doesn't count worth shit- unless you have a body like a pornstar, girls will talk to you but they won't necessarily call you back. Screw personality, intelligence, etc.- it's all about looks and money.
Which brings me to my first story. Lesson learned, and thankfully no damage done.
This started 3 weekends ago- we've been in and out every week, coming back in on Thursday or Friday for the weekend before turning around and heading back out the following Monday. I had pull- in duty that Friday, and had just gotten home Saturday morning when I got a call from my old friend Chris Hanson (the motorhead) asking what I was doing for the night. I convinced him to meet me at MacGregor's, the local watering hole down the street from my apartment complex where everybody in my section of Mission Valley goes to hang out and drink, and went for a drive up the Pacific Coast Highway from La Jolla up through Orange County, sunroof open, windows down, stereo turned up as I blasted out Jack Johnson from my CD player. It was a lovely day for a drive, and the warm California sun beating down on my head felt good, as did the wind in my face. As I turned around just north of Laguna Beach for the trip back, I came to the conclusion that the only way it could have been any more perfect was if I'd had somebody in the passenger seat to enjoy it with me. Hmph. Not likely, it seems.
Chris and I met up at MacGregor's around 9, and were hanging out playing pool when the first girls started really trickling in. Of course, Chris took note of this, and made sure to point out each one that walked in. Of course, he wanted me to play my typical role of "The Opener", as he puts it, and find some girls for us to talk to. Well, ok...but I was just having fun hanging out.
We had just gone up to the bar to grab a couple more beers when I saw her. She was sitting across the bar from us, and was staring at one or both of us quite hard with a slight smile on her face. She was quite cute, really- blond, with brown eyes, and a dazzling smile. I nudged Chris and discreetly pointed her out to him, but he was more concerned with a couple of other girls he'd seen. The girl looked in our direction again, and it seemed clear to me at that point she was checking him out, so I told Chris I'd go over and stike up a conversation with her (I seem to be really good at that, for some reason), but he told me that really wasn't necessary. Until she got up from the bar and went to the bathroom.
He turned to me with his jaw down around his toes. "DAMN TED, did you see the body on that girl??? Yeah, go hook me up!!"
I smiled, and waited for her to come back. "No problem, man. You know I've got this."
Sure enough a few minutes later, she came back out, smiling at us as she started to walk past. Hell, may as well go with the direct approach, since sublety had obviously been thrown to the wind. I walked up and tapped her on the shoulder.
"Excuse me, can I ask you something real quick?"
She turned around and smiled at me. "Sure, what's up?"
I put on my best apologetic smile for her. "Well, I didn't really want to bother you, but, well I saw you checking out my friend here earlier. He's a great guy, a little bit shy, but he thought you looked cute and wanted to know if he could buy you a drink."
Her smile broadened. Ha- got her.
"Do you really need him to do the talking for you?"
That caught me off guard- not quite what I was expecting as a response, really. I tried to recover as quickly as I could.
"Um, well...I thought you were checking out my friend there earlier at the bar..."
She shook her head. "No, not so much, really. So tell me your name, and yes I would love that drink."
I glanced over my shoulder at Chris, who shrugged at me and gave me the signal to proceed as he walked over to a couple of cute coeds and struck up a conversation.
The girl led me back to her place at the bar, where we started chatting and I learned a few things about her quickly:
-Her name was Karlee, just moved from Seattle that week.
-She had just graduated from WSU, and was working as a preschool teacher in Mira Mesa (hint #1)
-She was a Pi Beta Phi in college (hint#2)
-She'd been a cheerleader (hint #3) and soccer player from high school onwards.
-She was staying with her cousin in Chula Vista until she got her own place. (her cousin was there with a large group of his Harley- riding buddies- hint #4 that I shouldn't have even bothered)
We chatted for a good long while as her cousin's friends watched me like a hawk, and she proceeded to get more and more flirtatious as the evening progressed. Finally, she got up to go to the bathroom, and before I could say anything, she'd grabbed me by the hand and was dragging me along with her. She told me to wait for her to come out, then ducked inside. As I was waiting for her to come out, her cousin came up to me- I'd seen him there before, but we hadn't talked. We talked for a few minutes about bikes, cars, sports- the usual guy stuff, and he nodded his head.
"Yeah, you're cool....I think I approve of you hitting on my cousin, even if you ARE military. Just to let you know, though, unless I find something else to ride on the back of my bike tonight, she's coming home with me."
I nodded. "Thanks, and that's no problem. I'd be doing the same thing if I were you."
Mike walked off just before Karlee came out of the bathroom, and as soon as she saw me, she pushed me up against the wall and started making out with me. It's gotta be the shirt. I swear, every time I wear the shirt I had on that night, stuff like that tends to happen- Kelly, Remie, Kaleena, Tina...that's gotta be it.
We made out for a while, then headed back to the bar, where Mike repeated to his cousin what he'd told me about who she was going home with. At which she promptly grabbed me by the hand again and started cruising around the bar, looking for a girl suitable for her cousin to take home for the night. It didn't matter who the girl was, Karlee went over to her and struck up a conversation, then managed to mention her cousin and talk him up a bit. It was really quite funny, but he wasn't biting at the available options. I can't say I really blame him- it was after midnight, and most of the choice pickings had been snapped up by 11. Finally, Mike pulled Karlee aside.
"Look, I know what you're doing, and while I appreciate the effort, it's not going to happen tonight."
I chimed in behind him. "Karlee, go ahead and go home with your cousin. You've had a bit more to drink that I have, and you really should just go home tonight and sleep it off. However, I will call you next weekend, provided you give me your phone number, of course."
She smiled and grabbed my phone, punching in her number and handing it back to me. "You better call," she threatened.
"Promise?"
I promise I'd call her, then saw her, Mike and the rest of the gang out, and after an extended make- out session on the back of Mike's custom Fatboy, she took off, yelling over her shoulder again for me to call her the following weekend. Chris and I both headed to Denny's for the traditional post- party breakfast, made plans for going to the beach the next day, then both headed back to our respective places to catch some sleep for the night.
The next weekend, I called her before I headed out to MacGregor's, but got no answer. I did, however, get a text message saying she might head out there for the night. No problem- it was just a group of us hanging out chilling. She ended up beating us there, but for whatever reason she was barely talking to me- I played it cool and decided to chill with her cousin and his friends since they were pretty cool, and maybe she was just having a bad night. We talked for a little bit with all of the guys, but decided to bail when one of Mike's friends started to get mad at Chris when a girl he was talking to started showing some interest in Chris. I said goodnight to Karlee, who showed minimal interest, and we headed to Denny's for breakfast before we all went home.
Friday night we headed back to MacGregor's after a couple of unsuccessful hours spent by Chris and his friend Pierre to talk a couple of coeds into bed at Effin's, by SDSU. Dwayne, Mike Brue, and a few others from work were there already, so they had a table waiting for us. I decided to ignore Karlee and just hang out with my friends, which was working fine until Adam pointed out that she was there, and waved her over.
"Hi Ted," she said when she saw me, not looking the most pleased to see me.
"Hi," I replied indifferently. "You know, I called you earlier about going out to the beach."
"Yes, I know," she replied, "but like I told you before, I'm really not a telephone kind of girl."
"Funny," I responded. "I'm not really a 'maybe I'll call you maybe I won't' kind of guy. So you've got my number, other than that it was fun, and I'll see you around."
I walked over to her cousin Mike. "Hey man, I just wanted to make sure we're still cool. I mean, it's obvious your cousin isn't digging me, but no offense to her, she's a bit ditzier than I usually go for. But you're still my boy, man."
Mike chuckled as I spoke. "I was wondering how long it was going to take you to figure that out. Yeah, Neither one of you is really feeling each other. But we're still cool, and when you get your bike, we're riding in the desert."
What I wanted to hear. I left Karlee to the growing group of guys I saw crowding around her- besides, something else had
caught my attention, but that's another story...
Time to get to bed- it's been a long night, and I need to get some sleep. I'll tell about the rest of the weekend later.
G'night yall, and I'll hopefully be back on here more often now.
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no subject
Date: 2005-06-20 09:23 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-06-19 08:09 pm (UTC)Some guy came up to me at my gym a few weeks ago.
GUY: Do you have a band-aid?
ME: Why?
GUY: 'Cause I'm cut! (He lifts up his t-shirt)
ME: You're not bleeding.
GUY: Uh...um. No...I meant-
And then I laughed and walked away :)
no subject
Date: 2005-06-20 06:30 am (UTC)