In Defense of Craigslist Missed Connections and Not Having Enough to Say About Anything Else

Sometimes when I'm stuck for having anything to say, and updating this blog that really I love a lot but don't pay enough attention to (like every important relationship in my life) sometimes the best thing is to resort to diary mode. Just list off everything, and see what's left, I guess. I'm feeling very uninspired, like I blew my load last week. Friday night I went to the Cleveland Heights library, and did a little reading, that last post. When I got out of the library, it was a full blown snowstorm. My plan had been to next go to the Cinematheque to see Tarkovsky's The Mirror. But the snow was really building up fast, and I hate being on the East Side during bad weather, it makes me feel extra vulnerable all far away from home. So I skipped the movie and drove back West to my friend's birthday party. Frank was turning 30, and having an "adult" party, which is the kind where everyone looks sorta nice, and we all drink wine and there is calm pretty Grateful Dead on in the background, and there is a cupcake tower that someone at the party worked really hard on. I did not have a cupcake, but I did cheat and have a glass of wine, since it was a wine party after all. I saw a few people that I already knew but hadn't really had a chance to talk to for any length of time. One guy told me about how he had met this girl he was dating through a Craigslist Missed Connection she had posted about him six months ago. That's the first time I've heard that, but it made Slightly Tipsy From One Glass Me extra happy. I've been playing with this new twitter account where I make fun of OK Cupid, and the side effect of this is I've been working myself deeper and deeper into the dating bitterness hole, because you know that's where the funny lives. But it's also where the "oh god I'm going to be alone forever because everyone is a dick" cloud lives.

 I love Missed Connections, it's so rampant with Regret and Misogyny, and Sleaziness. All the ones posted by guys are either "you were so hot I didn't have the guts to talk to you, I'm a soft little man who probably doesn't have a shot with you at all which is why I knew better than to talk to you and get rejected in the first place but maybe the fates will bring us together cause I totally believe in fate." OR it's "I HATE YOU, YOU FUCKING BITCH, BUT ALSO PLEASE COME BACK TO ME CAUSE I'M LOST WITHOUT YOU, ALSO FUCK YOU BITCH." Then, buried in between this ever burning tire fire of poison, are the actual missed connections. By like, normal sane people. Who don't sound like they've been on a Miller High Life bender for two months. In general I feel pretty conflicted about Missed Connections. I don't really respect you for not having the guts and confidence to talk to someone right there in the situation (and the guys who are just begging and cursing for their women back are probably the worst kind of men) but I also think the idea of seeing a complete stranger and having them stuck in your mind is romantic. I used to always tell myself that if I thought of a way things might work out, like I imagined an outcome for any night or date or situation, for sure whatever I conceived of would not happen (it's the opposite of Visualize Your Result. If I Visualize a Result, I have just killed it dead). So when I fantasize about having someone ask me out on Missed Connections, I already know it will never happen, because I've just jinxed myself. But I still read them every day because I think the number of people who find soulmates at gas stations and grocery stores is extraordinary.

Saturday I worked, and that sucked because my computer was being an asshole. After work, Austin and I went to Luna Bakery, to pick up something to bring to a potluck, and I bought a lot of expensive cookies. We picked up Jere who I hadn't seen in so long, so many fucking weeks and it's all my fault but seriously Fuck You Cleveland Heights for Everything. All of us went to the monthly Whiskey and Cigars night, which this month was Bitters and Snuff. I wasn't drinking, so I bought two Starbucks coffees, three shots each, and drank those all night. I met two new very nice girls, one of whom was wearing a large silver locket that she decided she needed to fill with something, and I wanted to cut out a bunch of single words on paper squares, and make it something like Refrigerator Poetry, only Locket Poetry. It all got somehow derailed in the party flow, but I hope she does that anyway. By the time I was supposed to drive my drunk friends home, I was so caffeinated I might as well have been drunk. There was Bohemian Rhapsody singing in the car.

Sunday I woke up and tried to do some work, but my work computer hated me even more so that was a bust. I met Austin, Jay, and Denise at the coffeeshop, and then we went down to Edgewater to snow paint. The dollar spray bottles I bought were crappy, so the results weren't the prettiest, but it just needs more planning. Heavier stencils that won't blow away in the wind, and order some food dyes online, because the grocery store only had food coloring in gel form, which is some bullshit. I want the tiny little plastic bottles of my youth. I was supposed to have a photography lesson afterwards, but the guy canceled cause it was cold? Instead I went home and took seven bags of trash out to the curb. I have no idea how I ended up with seven fucking bags. I mean, okay, two were cat litter, one was christmas packaging I still hadn't thrown out, two were me cleaning out my fridge and kitchen cabinets, one was just Dunkin Donuts cups. I'm only barely exaggerating about that last one. I've been drinking a LOT of coffee. I think I may start inventorying my trash, to see where it all comes from. Like, keep a list by the bin, and write down what I'm throwing out. After lugging out all that proof of my wasteful degenerate lifestyle, I met up with Corrigan for dinner at XYZ, which was slightly weird because we were at a bar but both of us had quit drinking for the moment, and I was eating fruit and he was eating broccoli and if you know either of us you know that's weird. Later we went to see Perren in Texas Chainsaw Musical at Blank Canvas Theater, in the large and always kind of intimidating W. 78th street studios building. The play itself was the thing, there was lots of arterial splattering and mugging for the audience, and Perren is awesome as the extremely sympathetic Leatherface. Corrigan and I wandered around during intermission, and he accidentally wandered where he shouldn't have, and got yelled at by the backstage manager. He is always getting yelled at for something.

Monday morning I met Haley at the coffeeshop, with the intention of a workdate, but it ended up with us playing Sorry. Haley had to go to work, and Amy showed up, and we played some more Sorry. Then I left and went to a matinee showing of The Artist. I love seeing movies by myself, just sitting there waiting and then being alone and private and wrapped up the whole time. That film was amazing, it was witty and cute and moving and beautiful. I would watch it again and again. The way they used sound was perfect, and John Goodman SHOULD have been a silent film star, it's what his face was MADE for. After the movie, I met up with a lot of very cute successful girls at Velvet Tango Room, and we had a Girl Table. I drank fragrant and complex things. We left and went to Johnny Mangos for chicken fried rice, then Genna and I tried to have our own little adventure, and finally after leaving her I ended up at the corner store in Tremont buying cigarettes. Adam showed up, so we drove to Edison's and sang more Bohemian Rhapsody. Saw Nate and Tara again at Edison's, found a new favorite song, drank some gingerale and grenadine, then meandered home. When I got home there was a package of cognac filled chocolates from somewhere in Europe waiting for me. They were much better than the absinthe ones she had sent me before. I heated up my leftover rice, tried to read some more of this very scholarly book about Perspective, and fell asleep not angry, not sad, not anything at all but tired. And happy. Always happy. How did I become such a happy person?