The Importance of Dictionaries

Spell checker and grammar checker unfortunately do not check reality. For example, I know of no word processor that would find fault with the following statement, "I took a girl on a date." That sentence should be covered in red, but it has no spelling errors or blatant grammatical short comings (well it probably does have grammatical errors but we get the point).

A while back I wrote an entire report for work spelling closest as closet. I even remember thinking what a strange coincidence it was that they should be spelled the same. I figured it was sort of like the word read which is both the present and past tense. My boss who reviewed the report was not so confused.

Just this week I made another small blunder. I was in the break room pulling out my 2-liter of Mountain Dew from the back of the refrigerator. I use 2-liters because I'm told the aluminum in cans can lead to Alzheimer's disease, I usually don't drink a full cans worth during the work day, and it can lead to significant savings over the course of the year. If I have a 50 cent can everyday, or a $1.60 (stupid price increase) over the course of a week I just saved about a dollar, which every year equates to about $52.

The problem was that my bottle was in the back and all the lunches were up front. So I had to pull out one of the lunch bags to make room. But in the process of doing that, apparently one of its straps or something on it grabbed a hold of an adjacent lunch that was in a great big glass bowl and the whole thing came crashing down and made a shattered mess. I cleaned it all up and sent out an e-mail, to everyone who works where I do, saying I owed someone lunch and a bowl.

The e-mail caused a stir because I did not realize that bowl is not spelled bowel.

Turns out the lunch belonged to an out of town visitor who never even got my e-mail. So I offered to replace someone's bowels, and ruined the lunch of a visitor who has such special dietary restrictions that the best we could do was order him a unwich from Jimmy John's that consisted of lettuce and turkey, no bread, no other vegetables, no salt, no pepper.

In other news, as I was typing this a co-worker told me out the blue, "That's what you need, you don't need a car you need a dog."

Right Look For The 'Tequila' Dance

Making good on my goal of dancing with a random girl has been difficult the past two weekends. These past two Fridays I went out at 11 to the dance club but each time I walked in there was literally no one on the dance floor. There were a few people sitting up at the bar counter and that was about it. This came as a shock because previous to those two Fridays there were plenty of people in the bar and dance floor. The first Friday I went and saw nobody I decided to walk over to my friends house and see what he was up to. Video games of course. But then another friend of ours came over with her iPad and started playing some salsa music. My friend told me to show him some moves so I did, but then he laughed and said I look like a bony Pee-wee Herman. The problem was I was wearing white shoes with my jeans and apparently you are only allowed to wear white shoes with shorts without running the risk of being Pee-wee. Well that rather hurt my feelings and made me all self-conscious. After hanging out a bit more I went back to the bar and saw there were a few more people out there but I was feeling deflated so I left. The next morning Mom asked me how salsa went and I told her about my friend calling me a bony Pee-wee. She said, "don't you listen to him. You have the Dr. House look which I think is sexy. You are the guy's guy. Your friends just sit around and play video games, they have no class." Well at least my Mom thinks I'm sexy.

So this past Tuesday I went to another salsa event that goes on which I haven't been to before. Here I danced with 4 complete strangers that I went up to and asked. I also asked if they go out dancing any other night and they all said they go on Fridays at 11. And I said no you don't, because I go at 11 and you most certainly are not there when I go. And they said that they do. So again I said I go at 11 every Friday and have not seen them. Finally one spoke up and said they actually go closer to 11:30. So that cleared things up a bit. But all of this is rather upsetting. I do not like having my best way of meeting people requiring me to go out and start my night at 11:30. That's ridiculous.

In other exciting news Abba's hit Mamma Mia is coming to our concert hall in March 2011. Yep, 'guy's guy' alright.

Myrtle Sighting

One of the more interesting creatures I've seen swimming in the pond has been a turtle. I've only got a good glimpse of him once when the sun was hitting the water just right and I could see really deep down. He was coming up for a breath and after he did he swam off out of sight. But it was awesome. In South Carolina (yep I'm getting better with these links) I see turtles all the time on tree branches that are extended out over the lagoons. They perch on them with the birds to sunbathe. But up here I never see turtles, let alone swimming around in the pond.

Yesterday evening I was walking around the pond and in the opposite direction there was a pretty blond walking around too. Since the pond is circular eventually she has to pass me assuming her apartment doesn't come between us first. The first time she passed I said 'Hi' but she didn't respond. I think she may have smiled but it wasn't obvious. Then I decided to try something. The next time she passed me I planned to say "Hey, did you see the turtle? A turtle came up to get some air, but now I've lost it." Technically none of that is a lie. There is a turtle, at one point he did come up for air, and I have certainly lost sight of him in the month that I last saw him take a breath.

She came on around for the second pass and I made my short little speech. That got a reaction out of her. She lifted her sunglasses and said "Really!? I didn't see him, where is he at?" I pointed vaguely in the direction where I last saw him and said I saw him over there but I don't see him now. And then she went back on her walk. She was power walking so I guess she didn't want to stick around. But on the third pass she definitely gave me a greetful smile.

So there you go, I laid a small foundation with someone new. A foundation based entirely on lies and deceit, but a foundation nonetheless. I don't need a dog, I have a turtle.

Party Engineering

Not meeting enough people quickly enough through salsa class, I decided to talk to one of the apartment managers where I live about having a salsa night. I barely got the words out before the manager exclaimed, "I think it would be an absolute hoot", and put me in charge of getting all the details worked out.

Where I live there is a huge club house with an adjacent pool and a fantastic speaker system that has an iPod hookup. My idea is to have one or two of my instructors come out, give a brief lesson, let us dance for a bit, do a brief review and teach a new move, and then let us dance for the remaining time left. The clubhouse can serve some special drink or food to make it feel more salsa-like.

Yesterday at class, I told one of my instructors and he thinks it is a great idea and had been recently looking for a place to hold an event like this. So it looks like this is going to happen. Maybe I should be a party planner.

Hopefully my selfish motives will pan out and I'll meet some new people at Baytowne and maybe even Kailee, who did not attend class this Wednesday, will come. Although, that is looking less likely as the days go by. However, not all is bad. I continue to talk to vomit girl and last night I asked her again if she would like to hang out sometime and this time she said she feels like she'd be able to keep her food down now. We have a penciled in day for this following Saturday.

Seven Number Stress

Class on Wednesday was fun again, and by it being so small I get to spend more time talking to the same people and through that I am starting to become more social around them. One problem is that everyone already seems to know each other very well, so I feel like the outsider trying to fit in, although they are very welcoming. Earlier that afternoon before class, Kailee sent me an e-mail saying she would not be able to come to class again, but that she will definitely be there next week. She also mentioned that she might go out this weekend with her sister, and that she would probably send me an e-mail about which day.

After reading the e-mail, which was quite pleasant, I thought that bit about her sending me an e-mail seemed odd. I kept wondering why she wouldn't just call or even text when she is going (if she is going). We could say that maybe she doesn't feel comfortable calling me but that doesn't make sense that she would feel uncomfortable calling me but has no problem dancing with me. And also it's easier to simply call and she already has my phone number. I came to the conclusion that she doesn't want to call or text because in doing so she would be giving me her phone number and maybe she doesn't feel comfortable doing so. Which is understandable because I could be some guy who starts calling her at any hour of the day.

With an aim to exploit that little piece of information, I finished me e-mail response to her saying an e-mail would be just fine. I also truthfully said that we were supposed to be getting more people in class this week and that, if she feels a bit off going out dancing late and night, with some random guy she has barely spoken to for 30 seconds in person, maybe the other newbies would also come out and help make everything more comfortable.

I genuinely want to make things comfortable and thought that maybe acknowledging it like I did would help. It won't be any fun if she or others are tense thinking about whether or not ulterior motives are involved.

Well it's Friday morning and I have not yet received any e-mail back. But the day is young and there is still tomorrow as well so we shall see, and if not I'll still go out anyway. Last week I came very close to asking a random girl to dance that I saw but did not. So I suppose this week's goal will be actually asking a random girl if I know no one else.

Food Based Music About Food

Having decided to withhold a post about the girls of salsa for now, I have instead opted to post on the music of salsa. Besides today is tasteful Thursday so now is the perfect time for a lesson on music. In class we have been warming up to a really great song that I want to share with you called 'Sofrito' by Mongo Santamaria. The song starts with a piano solo that sounds almost classical, but soon enough several ingredients are added and you get your salsa. The song is great because it is very easy to hear the beat, which is probably why we use it for a warm up at the beginning of every class. The instructor stands in front of us and says, "Follow me." Then we have to mimic his footwork as he shows us a bunch of different solo steps that can be used if you want to dance but don't have a partner. Some of them are neat looking so in some sense they can be thought of as a mating dance because they may attract a lady to you who now wants to dance.

No Dancing This Weekend

Last night I did not receive a phone call or e-mail response. And all day today I did not receive a phone call either. But I did get an e-mail response!

Now paragraph two is generally reserved for the tragic bit after I teasingly set you up in the first. But this time I need to break that format because she actually said she would love to go! While she cannot go this weekend, I think she is out of town, she does want to go next weekend if she can and she also wants to bring her sister. How terrific, no mention of a boyfriend anywhere.

Actually her e-mail was so positive it surprised me. So hopefully things work out next week for us.

Someone Has A New Phone Number

While I did not leave last night's salsa lesson with a phone number it was still fun. We worked on posture, something I should definitely pay more attention to. But that also meant another thing I had to focus on. First it was footwork, keeping on beat, and executing the moves. Now we added a fourth. I also got to dance with the female instructor nearly the entire night. The male instructor wouldn't let the other girls dance with me. I'm not sure why that was. There were 4 guys and 3 girls so that meant for a few minutes each guy had to do the moves without a partner. Which made me feel bad because not only did I always have a girl but I had the instructor to help me.

Despite the fun, I had still wanted a phone number. A little unsatisfied I went out at 10:30 to the bar downtown that has salsa dancing on Wednesdays. I walked in and walked right back out. I didn't know anyone, and I think every lady in there was either already dancing with a guy or talking to a guy. I didn't see any girls not dancing or just standing in a group of girls.

So still unsatisfied I decided to take a look at my class' e-mail listing and see if I could track down Kaylee from it. And I did. Speaking of which her name is spelled Kailee. Fortunately her e-mail is one of those that uses the full name all spelled out, which is why I was able to read it. And how I was able to come up with an excuse to e-mail her.

This evening I wrote her an e-mail, basically stating that being a holiday weekend all the people in class said they were going to be out of town. I told her that I am not, and am trying to make a better effort at going out and practicing. So I went through the class listing to see if I saw any names I recognized, saw hers, and decided to ask if she'd like to go dancing sometime this weekend.

I haven't gotten a response yet, but I sent the e-mail about an hour ago. My problem with e-mails, and as you may have gathered from this blog, I tend to be wordy. I didn't want to make it too long, but I wanted to sound humorous and easy-going, so I had to put a few extra sentences in that were amusing and inviting her to bring others she may know that would like to join us.

While opinions may vary on whether or not I should have sent the e-mail, I didn't feel like waiting another whole week. This way she has my number, and I can rest for awhile not thinking about it.