"One is the loneliest number..."

This weekend left much to be desired, but I tried to make the most of it. Jill is in NY, Nina is on the boat, and Jenn had to work both shuttle launches Saturday and Sunday (which scrubbed, of course), so I was hanging out by myself mostly. I could've sat at home, but what would that accomplish? If you want to meet people you have to get off the couch and get out there, right? So I stayed primarily in my comfort zone and didn't stray too far.

I was never much for hanging out by myself. I've never really desired "alone time" before. I've always been the one to be up for hanging out in a big crowd of people. I used to tell people I get enough "alone time" just getting ready in the morning. These days I'm getting more comfortable being alone and I've learned to try and appreciate my alone time.

Friday night I went to Barnes and Noble around 9pm to read-up on the book I am very interested in, but not buying. It's called Stumbling on Happiness by Daniel Gilbert. It's all about how we think we know what makes us happy, but in reality, we are fooling ourselves. Our brains work and interpret things a certain way, and once we understand how it works, we can be happier (supposedly). I am only on page 88, so I haven't delved too far into it, but from what I have read so far, it seems we can't ever be truly happy because, as humans, we have something called foresight. Something that no other animals has. We have the ability to imagine and prepare for the future, and it's something we cannot turn off (at least not without damaging our brains). I am intrigued as to where the book is headed from here, so I suspect I will be making more trips to the bookstore very soon.

Around 11pm, I headed out to Dog N Bone to just hang and have a beer. There wasn't anyone there I knew, but the band ended up being pretty good, so at least I was entertained. I got hit on by some old men, a drunk surfer, and some pool shark named John who works at a hospital. One of the bouncers, John, was being sweet to me since I was by myself. He bought me a pity beer and told me to let him know if I needed anything. I left around 1am and pretty much went straight to bed.

Saturday I finally got my movie, "My Own Private Idaho", in from Netflix, so I was able to watch it. I thought River Phoenix did a pretty good job of playing a narcoleptic, and Keanu Reeves was ok, but he mostly lacked feeling. Something I didn't expect was the type of language used throughout the movie. It was almost Shakespeare-like. Almost no contractions were used and there were flowery words peppered throughout most of the movie. I thought the way they did the sex scenes was very creative. They basically showed a montage of still shots with some churchy-sounding background music for about 30 seconds. Interesting. This movie will probably not be on any of your lists any time soon, but I'm glad it was on mine because I did enjoy it.
I also ended up watching "Two Brothers". Jill stuck it in the queue because I hadn't yet told her what movies I wanted. It was kinda lame, like I thought it would be. It would've been much better if the tigers talked or something, but whatever.

I cleaned up the living room and caught up on some DVRs. I'm pretty into the show "So You Think You Can Dance?" By far my favorite couple is Benji and Donyelle. They are a bit of an odd couple, but wow they are good! Benji is my favorite. Not only can he dance anything, but he's got the personality and charisma to boot. I never watch the show live, so I never get to call in and vote for them, but I think they will easily be one of the last couples standing, even without my help.

That night it was off to the book store for more reading and to Coconuts in Cocoa Beach around 11pm. I was very surprised by the diverse crowd there and the really great band they had playing. I really thought it was going to be full of old people, but there was a vast age range. I sat down at the tiki bar and immediately noticed a group of guys talking about me across the way. It was almost as if they were in a football huddle flipping a coin to see who was coming over to talk to me. Andy lucked out and made his way over to "rescue me" from the nice gentleman who had bought me a beer and been chatting me up. He works for the Coast Guard and was only in town for the Shuttle launch. So Andy was really trying hard to pick me up, but his conversation and flirting skills were severely lacking. He wasn't really paying any attention to anything I said. If he had been wearing a watch, I'm sure he would've looked at it probably 10X before he asked me for my number. I politely turned him down stating that I have no interest in anything short-term. This is where you could really tell that he had been dropped on his head a few times as a child, because instead of responding to and respecting what I had just said, he ignored me and kept trying to get me to go out with him?! I don't think he could keep up with a changing conversation. He had a script in his mind of how he picks up chicks, and he doesn't waver from it. He kept saying, "we can just hang out, nothing has to happen" over and over again. After a while of being badgered, I started to get really irritated, so I just called him out on everything that he was doing. That did the trick and he slunk back over to his psudo-football huddle...probably to tell all the others that I am a crazy, psycho, hose-beast who was all over him, and how he had to turn me down. After he left, the guy sitting on the other side of me, Tim, was in hysterics at what just went down. He said that he loved that I "called it like I saw it" to Andy, and then thanked me for the entertainment. Tim had his father with him, visiting from NY. We all ended up talking the rest of the night, mostly about how Tim Sr. should get back out and date again since he has been divorced for about 18 years. All in all, it was a pretty interesting night. Lots of fun people to talk to.

Sunday I went back to SUMC for their "@ 11" service where we discussed "Forest Gump". The question of the day centered around destiny and normalcy. What is normal? Do we make our own destiny, or does God have a destiny for us? The answer they had was that God has the same destiny for all of us; to have a relationship with him. Then we can exercise free will and choose whether we want it or not. Sounds good to me.

That afternoon I ate Chinese for the first time in forever...and it made me feel like crap. Now I remember why I never go there anymore.

I had a bit of an epiphany later that night. I was watching The Fray video "Over My Head" on VH1 and I suddenly realized I had an intense attraction to the lead singer, Isaac Slade. I had seen him before, and likened him to a young John Cryer (who was cute in his day), but I never really thought twice about him before. Now, all of a sudden I see him in a different light!? His voice sounds even better than I remembered, and I'm loving the way it kind of breaks up during the semi-acapella part. I'm amazed at how great his hands look playing the piano, something I have always been impressed with. I feel like reaching out and touching his face though the TV screen. WTF is up with that!? So I ponder it for awhile and I come to the conclusion that I must be incredibly horny? Then I thought that maybe this explains my unusual attraction to some less than desirable men (ie. Steve Buscemi). I was horny at the time I saw them, and I just translated that into some weird fascination I must have with them? That's got to be it, right?

This morning I had my yearly exam with the Gyno. I thought about taking a picture with my legs all up in the stirrups getting the duckbill looking clamp thing shoved in me (from my point of view, of course), but then I decided that nobody would probably want to see that.

Wish me luck on my Watermelon 5K race tomorrow morning! It's in Winter Park, so I have to get up at the butt-crack of dawn and drive for an hour. Suck. Well, it was either this or the one in Palm Bay this past Sunday. I didn't know anyone doing the Palm Bay one, and I know at least Jeff was running the Orlando one. Hopefully it will not be raining!