paint vs. stain

This guy who's new to selling the software product I support sent me an email last week asking to audit my class. I was like sure, what's one more rabble rouser.

I'm glad he came to my class. I'll call him S. S is from Lebanon, so right away we had a lot to talk about because I am fascinated by the middle east. I didn't even rip his head off too badly when he started dissing the jews (I just saw a documentary about the golan heights, yeah, I kind of see some of his points). S took me to dinner for helping him and we had many interesting discussions over the course of the evening. It's funny that we were looking for a bar to go to and we both wanted to find a place quiet enough to talk. That's not my usual MO for people I'm hanging out with. I usually don't talk much at all when I go out.

I found out how S met his wife. We discussed persian music, babies (he has a three year old), what he thinks is wrong with me (he has a minor in psychology), middle east politics, political prisoners, torture, enterprise architecture, wines, how to illegally ship a laptop over seas, Greece, diving, bungee jumping, and our favorite place to vacation (Lebanon for him, Turkey for me).

Then I started thinking about how I never go out (S said that's kind of fucked up, but, given my track record, I think the world is safer when I'm at home). But I don't go out that much because I feel weird. With S I was comfortable. We could get into a political argument (he started defending the palestinians and I was like don't EVEN go there with me) and it was fine. We had a conversation about ideas instead of the usual gossip. I was reminiscing about Greece, and he was reminiscing about coming to the US and ending up in, of all places, fucking Nebraska, and having drinking buddies there, and he said to me "A true friend sees you through hard times when you are down. Most of friends are not like that". I was thinking about chemo days and I said "Friendships, for the most part, are like paint. They chip with wear and tear. Most of my friendships are like stain. They'll always be there."

The next day, when I got to my classroom, S had done research at my company (he's worked there for 10 years) on how I can publish a book and get my company to pay for it. He contacted people he knows to inquire about the best way for me to write a technical book, and what the best topics would be. In turn, I had made him a CD of my favorite middle eastern music (I was disappointed to discover that some of it was religious).

Anyway, when I'm in Florida I am going to meet his wife and kid. On tuesday I'm introducing him to some consultants that can help him out. I wish every work relationship was like this. We're helping each other instead of trying to stab each other in the back to make a buck.

There was no point to this blog. I'm just waxing philosophical while getting drunk.

dumb ass

People who forgot today is my birthday:
me
my mom, who is supposed to keep track of this stuff for me so I don't have to worry about it (hell, if I pushed 5 pounds or whatever I weighed (I was a preemie) out of my vagina, I think I would remember that day forever)

People who remembered (in order of appearance):
My co-author (hbd via Bob Dylan)
Trina (thanks for the ghetto bday wishes!!! that was the funniest text ever)
Glen-ski, my best friend from high school, how he remembers shit after all this time I don't know (sorry I made fun of you in NYC)
my brother Bob, who never remembers anything, including his own birthday (maybe because I just spent my birthday evening painting his house his brain did that thing where it actually thinks)
my old boss Barry (who called me two days ago to wish me hbd, and then called me today because he realized he called the wrong day, I actually feel guilty now that I purposely got the idiot admins on our project to put his name as "Berry" on all of his award plaques)
my sister's husband (though I suspect he was really calling me about the dogs, since I'm watching them this weekend)
my dad, who can't remember his birthday either (this could be a genetic thing, perhaps someone would like to do a scientific study on my family) - in fact, not only did he remember my birthday, but he also sent me a jewish cookbook (he said the recipes looked "easy" and I was like okay dude, you can cook one when you come visit me and he was like fuck that, we're going to order out) and a book on sharks (every shark in this illustrated masterpiece is shown ripping a hand or leg off of some unsuspecting swimmer)
Felty, the mail man stalker, who's question prompted this email

tagged

Friday around 530 I went for a bike ride. I had the week from hell and figured it was time to stop working and get outside.

When I got back some little fucking fuck of a fuck tagged my garage door (and two others in my alley). It wasn't even a cool tag. It was the initials "DK" scrawled obviously by a little kid (judging from the height). I was fucking PISSED. On top of everything ELSE I had to do this weekend I now had to take care of that.

I went to home depot Saturday and this really nice guy greeted me at the door. I asked if they had something to remove graffiti. The guy showed me this spray and we chatted about this fucking kids tagging our houses. He has gotten the same tag that I had on the side of his house. I told him if I caught the kid I was going to break his fucking spray finger. The guy laughed and then said to call him because he was going to kick the kid in the nuts.

I got home and decided to start my other little project before I cleaned the graffiti, mostly because I realized I didn't have any paint to touch up my garage door. I lent it to my next door neighbor before he moved and the fucker never gave it back. My other project was to sand down and restain this lingerie chest I have in my room. I've been meaning to do it forever but just got around to it.

That project ended up being a disaster. I realized someone (likely my ex-boyfriend) took my sander (I don't blame him randomly, he took almost all of my screwdrivers, which were new) so I had to get another one. Then I got this stain with polyurethane in it that sucked. I called my friend Neil and texted my co-worker Jamie to find out why the stain wasn't sticking. Neil told me to resand, get a new stain, and start again, which I did, and now the lingerie chest looks just like I wanted it to.

Back to the graffiti, I opened my garage door and started to read the directions on the graffiti cleaner. This guy walked up to me and said his name was Robert. He's worked for the city of Denver for 18 years, building and rebuilding low income housing. He was the NICEST guy and he helped me clean my garage door (maybe he was afraid of a girl with a spray paint can). His house gets tagged all of the time too and he said he wakes up at random hours of the night to try to catch the kids, but he hasn't yet. He lives in this big, really nice Victorian a few streets over. It's all white so the kids are constantly tagging his walls.

Then this guy who lives behind me, whom I've never met before, but I see him when I'm riding my bike, came over and said "I just wanted you to know that I didn't do that and my brothers didn't do that". He has three younger brothers that I some times talk to when I'm out walking.

We talked about the graffiti problem for a while, and the guy who lives behind me said he would try to find out who's doing it. I said "bring the kid to me, I'll have him arrested". The guy said "How about if I just beat him up instead?" I was like hmm. Then I said no, because even though I like the idea right now of him getting beat up, if it really happened I would feel bad.

Kind of funny how nice everyone in the neighborhood was about my tagged garage. I was just thinking today that I wished we all talked more, and not just when something bad happens...