tank top boys

I discovered a new phenomenon today. Skateboarding, tank top wearing dudes. I don't know if other guys were wearing tank tops but for sure every single one riding a skateboard on the college campus I was at today wore one loud and proud. I'm not sure what I think of tank tops on guys. On one hand I try to be an equal opertunist. If I want to be able to play sports as well as guys I have to accept the men that want to wear women's clothing. Tank tops outside of working out (and even then that's pushing it) creep me out for some reason. I'd rather they go for some semblence of a sleeve or no shirt at all. No shirt at all would actually be most preferable!

the man who lives at my work

Or rather outside of my office, next to the trash bin. This appears to be his bedroom since he's usually sleeping. When he's awake he never asks for anything. He never talks at all. He never even seems to notice that there's anyone else around. He's just always there. Yesterday, every time we went into or out of our office he was standing and staring off into the distance moving his right hand in a round and then out motion. If he'd have incorporated other movements I would've thought he'd taken up tai chi. And so it's another day and he's asleep and I have no idea what he was doing.

people o.d. part two

It is possible. To O.D. on people. I never used to be this way but am finding myself overdosing more often in the last year or so. Or maybe I've always been this way and am now just realizing the cause. There were definitely times in the past that I've felt crabby after spending too much time with too many people. Guess I just didn't realize I was O.D.ing until recently. This would be something that'd be pretty easy for me to do being that I've always had jobs where I interact with bunches of folks and have a million friends and family members.

In the last month or so I've had one of my best friends visit from the motherland, my mother visit from the motherland, gone to a music festival with at least 70,000 hipsters, druggies, teeny boppers and old people like myself, taken 100 kids on a field trip to a crowded university, facilitated a discussion forum with hundreds of high school participants in a fairly small setting, and assisted an Earth Day event for a large group of K-8th graders. Oh and both visits included multiple trips to tourist packed locales, including Disneyland. I would guesstimate I've encountered half a billion peeps in the last month. This necessitates the removal of myself from society for at least the next month.

I actually thought I was cured after I spent several nights this past week doing my own thing. I read. I took baths. I ate delicious food. I ran. I surfed. Usually I only need a night or two of alone time to get back on track. So when Saturday night came and the bf invited me to meet up with him and some of his friends I thought I was ready. Not so much. It was fine but I definitely wasn't back to my old self. I realized I'd still rather be laying on the couch watching Valentine's Day (okay, slight exaggeration as that's the world's worst movie) than socially engage with anyone, even really fun and friendly people I would normally make my new bestest friends. I hope the recovery period doesn't last much longer cuz I'd really like the old me back.

forgetful people

I don't normally forget people I meet. I might not remember everyone's names but as far as faces go I'm pretty good. I'm that person who'll remind someone we've met before and they stare at me with their blank expression. That is until yesterday. I was facilitating some group discussions at a conference and a guy approached me and said, "Hey! How are you doing?" like he knew me. Thinking he just might be really friendly I said the same thing back. Then, he told me how he'd ran into a friend of mine (he named her by name) the night before. We made some more small talk all the while I wondered how the hell I knew him because it was now obvious we'd met before. I didn't find out until later that night when I saw the friend he'd mentioned and asked her about it. It turned out to be my old roommate's new roommate who I'd hung out with enough times that I should've remembered his face. Hopefully he didn't catch on to my nonrecognition.

parking ticket men

Not sure why I assume they're all men. Maybe because I've only seen men giving out the parking tickets. At any rate I have this ongoing debate inside my head (and sometimes out of it) as to whether or not I could ever be friends with someone who gave out parking tickets. Bonuses of the friendship: maybe he could pull some strings and I could get out of future parking tickets. Negatives of the friendship: I don't know if I could get past the fact that all he does is ruin people's days (sometimes weeks, months, years, entire lifes...). I currently have a vendetta against parking ticket men and am trying to work through this but until they build a small park in my honor (with a dedication plaque) I don't know if I can be the bigger person. And if push came to shove and I had to become a parking meter man to make ends meet I think I'd almost rather be a stripper or prostitute.

music fest peeps

It had been some time since I'd been to a major music festival so when I embarked on my virgin experience of Coachella over the weekend I didn't have a lot of expectations other than hot weather, not showering, mass quantities of peeps, and drinking heavily. The hot weather, not showering, and mass quantities of peeps turned out to be accurate. Drinking heavily was a challenge, though, due to the heat and so I only managed a bit of that. One surprise or I guess not even surprise since I hadn't given it much thought were the types of people I encountered there.

There was an inordinate amount of people who would fit in the hipster category. As I may have mentioned elsewhere in this blog (or if not I often think about doing so in my mind) this is a designation of peeps that fascinates me to no end. When I mentioned to someone the mass quantities of hipsters at this music fest she said, "Well, think about the type of music there." Since I don't know much about the music tastes of hipsters I just pretended to understand. And made a mental note to include that in the unofficial hipster ethnography I'm currently researching.

The hipsters were especially fascinating because the common sense in me packed light sundresses, flip flogs, hats to keep the sun off my face, jeans and sweatshirts. My thinking behind this attire was that it was going to be hot during the day and cool down at night (check), I didn't want to burn in the barely shaded venue (check), and even if I'd been able to shower every day I would've been dirty in five minutes due to being in the desert (check). Somehow I missed the memo that I should've come prepared for a fashion show. I've never seen so many people in one place dressed to impress. I've also never seen so many Halloween costumes in April (or maybe even in October). I wish someone had told me to pack for a costume contest cuz I could've rocked it. I also saw (in 80 plus degree weather) fur boots, fur coats, one too many pairs of uggs, one too many pairs of butt cheeks peaking out of thongs, and my absolute favorite a gold sequined leotard with "Hova" on the butt. At least Jay-Z performed there.

Aside from the hipsters (or probably more accurately in conjunction with the hipsters) were the druggies. I'd also never been somewhere I encountered so much illicit drug use. People were strung out on everything from coke to LSD to Kool-Aid packets. And I could've tried anything I wanted if I'd really wanted to. I was offered party favors by two dudes but am still not sure what party favors are. By no means am I saying I was a saint (Muse was blur thanks to one too many drinks of almost straight rum) but I don't know how they did it for three straight days (or maybe longer). Come Monday morning I wanted to die (and I really only drank the one day) so I can't imagine how the mass quantities of hard core drug users were feeling.

Perhaps the most surprising group there were the teeny boppers. I hadn't expected to feel like the old folks home with our group of twelve mid twenty to early thirty year olds (Might explain why I couldn't hang with the druggies). I know all ages were welcome at the concert venuse but where we were camping it was 18 and up. Yet, I guarantee at least every other spot had at least one under 18 year old there. There's no way my parents would have ever let me go to something like that while I still lived under their roof ('Course my parents probably would've gone to the event in their younger years-had it existed-and known exactly what went on there.). Unfortunately we didn't captitalize on the opportunity to create a small business of selling our booze to our neighbors.

While the bands that performed there were all absolutely amazing I'd say the people watching comes in at a close second in a list of reasons to go to Coachella. And if I ever go back again I'm for sure bringing a notebook to record more specifics since it'd make great writing material. Wonder

overheard randomness part quatro

As I left the grocery store I walked past two middle aged men. One moved to get out of my way even though he wasn't technically in my way. I said, "Thank you," to him. His reply, "You're a much better looking version of Barbie" I didn't even have a response to that one.