Ditched By The Cool Kids

Not that it really bears mentioning, but yesterday was my ex-wife’s birthday.
I didn’t really think about her much; after all, it’s been a long damn time and the whole mess is a bit of the past that I prefer to keep in the past, so I don’t often think of her anyway.
The only reason I mention it now is that, as I started writing this, the song Rotten Apple by Alice In Chains, from the album Jar of Flies, shuffled on in Windows Media Player, and the song – and indeed, the entire album – invariably brings her to mind.
Why? Well, there are a few reasons. For one, she and I both really liked it, and it was in regular rotation in our car’s CD player. For another, on the last anniversary we spent together, one of the gifts she gave me was a Jar of Flies T-shirt.
(The other gift was the Suicidal Tendencies CD Suicidal for Life. She’d bought the CD, opened it, and put it playing in the car before picking me up from work that evening to see how long it would take me to notice. I noticed as soon as I got in the car. For the life of me, I can’t remember what I bought her. Whatever it was, she probably didn’t like it.)
The other reason it makes me think of her is that it was sort of emblematic of a character trait of mine that, for whatever reason, always drove her up the wall.
Basically, she hated it when I would change my mind about...well, anything, really.
I suppose that she wished that I were more decisive, that I would set a course and resolutely stick to it.
Or maybe she was just nuts.
Either way.
In any case, one day, shortly after Jar of Flies came out we were at the mall and she asked me if I wanted to pick it up. For some reason – probably because we were dirt poor and a CD, even a lower-priced EP, counted as a major purchase – I said no.
Later that evening I was listening to the college radio station and Rotten Apple came on, I thought it was awesome, and decided that I’d make a mistake when I said no, and the next day I told her as much.
She got mad at me for changing my mind, but eventually she gave in and we bought it.
So yeah, the album, and especially that song, always brings her to mind.
Anyway, I hadn’t intended to write about that when I fired up Word, so I suppose I should move on to what I was going to write about.
At work we’re in the process of moving into a new building. The way things are now, most of the employees are spread out between three different buildings, so we opted to have one big new building that could house all of us constructed so that we could be under one roof like a big happy family.
They started moving people over to the new digs last week. People are being moved in groups of about 200, based on what floor they’ll be on in the new place.
My group will be moving next Friday. Basically we have to have all of our stuff packed up and labeled by 3:00 PM next Thursday, at which point we’re expected to get the hell out of the movers’ way, and then show up bright and early at the new place on Friday morning.
At our staff meeting last week my boss pointed out that moving is always a good excuse to get rid of accumulated junk that you no longer need, so it was decided that this week, in lieu of a staff meeting, we would all go out to lunch and then spend the rest of the afternoon purging ourselves of those things we no longer needed. A binge and purge day.
So today, a bit before noon, we met at a nearby Fridays for lunch. Well, some of us did. Most everyone else was late.
I had to eat and head back to the office before 1 in order to be at the Flash Report meeting (My contribution this week: The introduction of the character of Barry Allen is widely considered to be the starting point of the Silver Age of Comics, and also served as the introduction of the concept of multiple earths. Okay, not really. I mean, yes, all of that is true, but that was not what I put on the Flash Report.).
So I quickly ate my lunch, headed back to the office, grabbed some things from my cubicle, and headed to the conference room just in time.
Just in time to find the room dark and empty.
I went back to my cube to check my mail to see if there had been a change, or if the meeting had been canceled, but there was nothing about it in my inbox, so I went in search of some of the other attendees, but they were nowhere to be found.
I headed back to my cube once more and dialed into the conference bridge and found that the meeting was being held at the new building and no one had bothered to tell me.
So, as has happened so many times in my life, I found myself getting ditched by the cool kids.
Oh well.
After that I set to work on some purging, then took advantage of summer hours and took off at 3.
Once I got home I sat down to watch some recorded episodes of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, then noticed that I had a message from Verizon in my set-top box’s inbox telling me that there’s a free preview of HBO/Cinemax this weekend. So I started checking that out and ended up watching Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.
After that I flipped over to HDNet Movies and watched the end of Donnie Darko, which struck me as silly, given that I actually own the movie and could watch the whole thing any time I want.
Then I saw that Army of Darkness was coming on next, which is another movie I own, but when Army of Darkness is on, I can’t not watch it. I think there’s actually a law.
So I obeyed the law and watched it, and, as always, it was teh awesome.
And after that, I wrote this.
And posted it.

Birthday Excitement Winding To A Close

So after returning home and IMing with Scott and Brian for a bit, I decided to head out and get a late lunch/early dinner.
I went to the nearby Fridays, as I’ve been wanting to try those fried green beans (they were pretty good), and there was some small, retarded part of me that was thinking that maybe – just maybe – I would get a cute waitress who would flirt with me and take pity on me because I was alone on my birthday.
I knew better, of course, because I never get a cute waitress, or even an uncute waitress. I always get a guy.
Still, hope springs etc., so I went inside and tried to make a funny comment to the very cute (and very underage) hostess, but it was a misfire.
(She said, “Smoking preference?” I said, “Non-smoking.” I then added, “Of course, my actual preference would be to still smoke, but since I did quit I might as well stick with it.” Blank look and then, “So…non-smoking?” I sighed and said, “Yes, non-smoking.”)
After that she brought me to the most hidden and out of the way booth so that the other customers wouldn’t have to see the lonely pathetic guy (Birthday Bonus: There was a couple with a screaming toddler in the booth next to me.).
I sat down and waited for the inevitable greasy teenage dork waiter that I knew I would get, but was surprised instead by a balding hipster.
See? This time it was different.
Oh, wait, it was still a guy, so it really wasn’t all that different.
He kept calling me “man,” but had some sort of speech issues, so it almost sounded like he was saying “ma’am.”
In any case, I ordered the green beans, which, as mentioned, were pretty good, and a chicken Caesar salad that wasn’t so good (it was grilled chicken and the chicken was a little too charred).
I thought about ordering some kind of desert, but the couple had set their toddler to toddling, and he had toddled right over by me and proceeded to let out random brain-piercingly loud animalistic bleats of some kind, so that killed that idea.
I mean it literally killed it. The sound stabbing into my brain skewered the idea right through the hear and it bled out right there in my brain pan. And with a wife and three kids at home. Poor idea, never hurt anyone in its life.
So that was fun. In fact, it was so much fun that I rushed home, locked the door and decided that I’m never ever dining out alone again.
(Until the next time.)
Oh yeah, the moving thing.
So sometime shortly after I bought my condo, because that’s how the Universe works, the developer stopped all work on converting the apartments over to condos, began extending renters’ leases, and eventually stopped even trying to sell any more units and went back to strictly renting and tried to sell the whole shooting match to some other developer – as an apartment complex, not as condos.
Obviously this was not a good thing, particularly considering that out of 318 units they only managed to sell 58.
So we owners decided to do something about it and selected a representative to talk to the developer. The result, as I found out today, is that they’ve offered to buy all 58 units back at the original purchase price.
It would be nice if we could get them to pay more, but to do so would most likely mean involving a lawyer and suing and who knows how long that would take.
So far it seems that everyone realizes this, and we will most likely accept the offer.
That means moving (unless I wanted to stay here and rent my place, which I don’t).
I don’t want to go back to renting – though conceivably I could actually get my old apartment back because they did the whole apartments to condos and back to apartments thing as well, and given that eventually my job is moving from Reston to Dulles (and hopefully not to India), that would put me much closer to work – so I’m going to have to go house-hunting again.
Fortunately this time around I’ll be armed with much better credit, a higher income, and money in the bank, so I should be able to find something bigger and better.
I’d like to get a small townhome – the higher cost would be offset by the lower cost of HOA fees compared to condo fees – but at the very least if I go into another condo I’ll be sure to go into an established development.
The other thing I’ll be doing? Hiring movers, because I am never carrying that goddamn couch up any stairs ever again.
Anyway, a bit ago my sister Kim called to wish me a happy birthday, and we chatted for a while.
I didn’t get – or expect – any cards in the mail, though I did get some back issue comics that I’d ordered from Mile High Comics. Still waiting on my bags and boards to get shipped.
And that’s been my Big! Exciting! 35th Birthday Extravaganza Extraordinaire!
Join us next year for the rebroadcast.