A quest (for Guero) and a Trail (of Dead)

After "Scrubs" (how I love that show) on Tuesday night, I set out to pick up Beck's new album Guero. I was at Sound Waves, ready to check out for $9.99, when the words "deluxe edition" went through my head. Normally I wouldn't really care about a crappy pack in DVD, but this one included a 5.1 mix in DVD Video and DVD Audio, and that's potentially worthwhile. I asked at the register and Soundwaves was sold out.

So, I went to Cactus (which I really want to like more, but their selection is just never very good) and found they were out as well. My next impulse was to go for Best Buy, but it was 9:00 and they would be closing soon. I stopped to think what would still be open that sold CDs. Target.

I felt thoroughly dirty, but I set out for the Super Target nearby. They had it, but the packaging made no mention of including the regular audio CD. After a quick call to Bryan to sleuth out the answer, I picked up my copy and headed out.

I bought music at Target. I feel like... someone with bad tastes. I think, though, in this case, my actions were justified. I tried to buy from a real music store, I really did.

After being home long enough to rip and iPod the new disc, I got a call from Jeff, who had earlier that day picked up his Audi A4. He felt like driving and I wanted to see the car, so he picked me up for some Whataburger.

Tonight was the Trail of Dead show. Jeff and I hit up Niko Niko's for some Greek salad, pita and hummus, and then headed to the show. Octopus project opened, and though I generally like their gear-head instrumental rock (yay for theramin), they seemed a bit flat. Trail of Dead had the energy and agression that I had expected from their emo meets hardcore meets prog rock, but they were a bit sloppy. The show picked up towards the end, though, and for the last song they pulled about 30 people up on stage from the audience to mosh, dance, and scream. It was gimicky, but I'm a sucker for those kind of rock moments.

Uneven show aside, I did get a nifty t-shirt that says "...And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead (Texas Longhorn Logo) Austin, TX). It's nifty, and a nice departure from the usual fair. I'm pretty sure it's going to confuse people.

I had, last week, e-mailed Lauren (the BCM girl that I saw at the Pixies and Death From Above shows that has the boyfriend) mentioning that it was nice to have run into her, etc. She seems glad to have found somebody else at BCM that's into music, and mentioned going to the Trail of Dead show, so I was pleased to run into her. If only there were no boyfriend. Oh, if only. I don't know her that well yet, but she seems really cool, smart, nice, has good tastes in music, and she's cute. I can even make an exception to the Louisiana thing, but the boyfriend has to go. She did have a cute friend with her, but I wasn't up for putting my A game out there last night.

Speaking of crushes on Louisiana girls, the genetics girl that I always used to go after at graduate school functions has withdrawn, having had a miserable qualifying exam experience and some ensuing stress-related issues. I was on the e-mail list she sent to friends announcing this, and I sent her back an e-mail relating my horrible qual experience and how I sympathized, and I think she appreciated it. She told me not to be a stranger and gave me her number; I might have to do something with that at some point. She is sticking around Houston, so maybe this won't be the last I hear from her.

No Holly since last Monday. It's all feeling pretty non-existant at this point.

The catching up entry

I'm over a week behind, so let's go ahead and get last week taken care of, shall we?

Monday was a busy, draining day at school. I had two meetings with statisticians who were to help me with my project (one of whom had a great idea that was in a completely different direction, and another who wasn't particularly helpful) and a lab meeting. All of that work-related interaction was quite draining. Still, I was in lab at 5:30 Monday afternoon, working away, when the boss came in and told me that he wanted to see some results, and it had to be Tuesday morning because he was leaving town. Thankfully, I was pretty close to done, but I still had to compile and summarize the data.

Holly called at 6:00 to see if I wanted to go get dinner, and of course I did. After walking to her car, we first tried a vegetarian place (closed) before driving around for a while trying to make a decision. Stephanie called, we asked if she wanted to join us, and she did (if we would pick her up), and we went to Star Pizza, where I once again enjoyed their kick ass salsa verde pizza. We drove Stephanie home, picked up somebody else, and then I got dropped off at my place at around 9:30 for the first time that day. Holly was having people over to work on the leftovers in the party keg, but I decided that it was probably important that I make some headway on work stuff, so I brought my PowerBook over and performed an hour and a half of mind-numbing cutting and pasting (should have written a script) while they watched movies. I had some beer, too.

Tuesday, of course, the boss wasn't even in that morning, which, although frustrating, gave me more time to work. We ended up meeting that afternoon, and he seemed pleased with what I had done, though that gives minimal encouragement to me since I was only doing what he had told me to do and nothing, say, original. But, at least it had gone better than our last couple of meetings. We had a journal club that evening (free food!), and then I found a ride home. I went by Soundwaves to pick up the new Decemberists album. Finally, I made it home to stay, played some Metroid, put some music on, and then fell asleep on the couch unintentionally, which rarely happens. .

Wednesday and Thursday were similarly uneventful, though sans boss, which was a nice break.

I took off Friday afternoon to head back to Waco. My parents had taken a day trip with their friends the Hoffmans for Anna H.'s birthday, and upon their return, I joined them for dinner. We came home, Rebecca made it back into town shortly after that, and we had some family time, and then Rebecca and I took off for Wal-Mart so that she could pick up a few items. We then dropped by Cricket's for some drinks.

Let me just say that, if you're a bartender, you should know how to make a dry, dirty vodka martini. This isn't complicated. Not only did Rebeca's martini not have any olive juice, it didn't have any olives, either, until I explicitly. I tried a $2 margarita (idiot forgot to salt the rim), but it kind of kills the bargain when you have to have them toss in an extra shot of tequila. At least they couldn't fuck up my 1554. Thank God for the New Belgium Brewing Company.

The rest of the weekend consisted primarily of more family time. In church on Sunday, I considered falling back on the med student line, rather than having to continue with my standard "And what exactly are you doing?" conversation.

I got back into town Sunday night, and after unpacking, I was ready to go out and do something. I called Will up, and we went for beer and conversation at the Gingerman, and then at Woodrow's, before checking out Chapultepec for late-night Mexican. Although I liked it—particularly the atmosphere and the crowd—the food quality compared to the glory of La Tapatia was like comparing One's A Meal Greek Village to the brilliance of Niko Niko. Still, it's nice to have options.

The boss was still out of town today, but he's back tomorrow, so my little break ends. Still, there are two kick ass shows this week (Trail of Dead on Wednesday and the Decemberists on Friday). A bill like that, how can things possibly go wrong?

Learning to share, or not

Saturday, after lunch with the parents, laundry, and some quality Metroid time, I was privileged to enjoy dinner with the Chastain family at Pappasito's. Bryan looks like a child molester with his "beard".

As for the evening's activities, I had a few options. The first years were going to hear some blues. Of Montreal was playing at Mary Jane's, and had been excellent on previous occasions (though they are, thankfully, back in June). And then, Holly's friends were throwing a party, and I had kind of committed to going.

Consequently, you get to hear me bitch for a bit.

The problem here is that, before we hooked up, Holly had invited UQ#1 to the party. Additionally, to UQ#1 (now known, but the name stays), I was an unknown quantity. Holly hadn't told him about me, so we weren't "together" at the party—but they were.

I was wishing I still had one of my emergency dates around (Sabrina, Charlene, Robyn: I'm looking in your direciton). The best I could come up with was Stephanie, who surprisingly decided to come. She would have made an excellent emergency date, actually, as she's fun to flirt with and many people at the party apparently asked Holly if we were a couple (including people who had, six months previously, been told otherwise). However, Holly knows Stephanie, so it didn't really do me any good in the jealousy department. Still, Stephanie was a good distraction.

Things were finel, for a while. There was a keg and lots of liquor. UQ#1 wasn't there. I hoped maybe he wouldn't show up. The party kind of sucked, but I had Holly and Stephanie there, so that was OK, really. UQ#1 eventually showed up, but neither Holly nor I really interacted with him. Holly had to give somebody a ride home, and I went with her, which was nice, but she told me something about needing to spend more time with him when we got back—and she did, or at least she spent quite a bit of time grabbing his ass. Fortunately, it was late, and I took off pretty quickly.

Now I have to take my share of the blame. I knew, somewhat, what I was getting into, and I chose to come anyway—partly out of obligation, partly because I thought I could handle it. I probably should have known that easily-hurt-drunk-Ward doesn't deal well with these things, so maybe I deserved it. But I don't think it's unreasonable for me to have been upset by this.

I feel like I'm still OK with sharing her, in the abstract (or at least I should be). I want to date other (still fictional) people, and she wants to date this other guy. God knows why; he's nice enough, he's not particularly smart, funny, or interesting. I thought maybe he was just cuter than I was, but Holly claims that I'm the cute one. I don't get it, but then again, I frequently find the actions of women baffling—wow, I sound like such a typical guy.

And I don't have to get it, or even be OK with it. I just have to weigh this against what I get out of the relationship, and decide if it's worthwhile. Which, it should be, if I'm just careful not to put myself in bullshit situations like that again.

Holly called the next morning to see if I wanted to go get juice with her. I was still sort of sleeping and turned her down, but she had sounded concerned about my feelings (which she damn well should have been), and also seemed upset about some other random shit that went down between her and the party's hostess, so I called back and invited her to drop by. And it was nice. Not nice enough to put up with any more of the shit that had gone on previously, but maybe nice enough to ignore it.

I do have pictures:


Stephanie didn't want her picture taken.


There was some hot foot rubbing action.


Holly, drinking her beer. I'll put a better picture of her up as soon as I take one.

"I like your bass... Your beat is nice."

As promised, pictures of the new acquisitions.

So, here's the new subwoofer, in all its 47.5 pounds, 4050 cubic inches, and 250 watts of glory:



And, shown with the main system:



Here's the new bedroom system, featuring two NHT SuperZero XUs and an SW1P with amplifier (next to the chest of drawers). Note my nifty cinder block speaker stands. They're coated in antivibrational paint, and they're very solid to begin with, so they work well.



And another view:



Ward's palace of love now rocks harder than ever before.

Why yes, yes I am

The fortune I received at lab lunch last week before my day went to shit. "You are always entertaining and delightful." It's nice to know that the cookies love me.

Mindy: What's wrong?
Homer: Oh yeah, like you don't know... We're gonna have sex!
Mindy: Oh... well... we don't have to...
Homer: Yes, we do. The cookie told me so!!
Mindy: Desserts aren't always right.
Homer: But they are so sweet!

St. Pat's, the subwoofer, and closure

Work was better on Thursday, but I'm still being watched rather closely. Hopefully it will fade. The boss seems to have a short attention span. And no, this is not the kind of relationship I want to have with the man who's supposed to be a mentor to me.

I made it home to catch the OC (sweet, sweet OC). I had fully intended to go to bed very early after to late nights at shows, but I had received several invitations to St. Patrick's Day outings and decided I should go and be social. I decided to catch up with Holly's crew and, after driving around for twenty minutes looking for parking, ending up across the street from the Audi dealership a quarter mile away, I found my way to McElroy's Irish Pub, paid my cover (damn it) and went in to find Holly, Janagi, Raj, and Holly's dad, Bob. I was a bit surprised when Holly kissed me in front of him and was a bit uncomfortable for a while, but she told me not to worry about it and so I relaxed a bit. They had ordered a poblono and tomatillo pizza from Star, which rocked, and Bob bought beer, which was cool of him. A good time was had.

Friday, the sub finally came. It's fucking huge—near the size of a mini fridge. I panicked at first when I hooked it up and heard a loud, persistent bugging but eventually isolated the problem—a ground loop between the sub and the receiver. A quick trip to Randall's to get a (slightly unsafe) three prong to two prong adapter has solved that problem in the near term, and I now have all the clean, rich, bassy goodness I could ever want. I then got the baby sub (which, by comaprison, definitely looks the part) hooked up in the bedroom, and I now have excellent audio to go to sleep to.

Graham and Char invited me out the the Harp for drinks, so I joined them. I was sitting there when Will called; Alex and her friend had showed up at Woodrow's. Graham and Char cut out early, so I took off for Woodrow's (as I had planned even before the ladies had shown up there), thinking that I had probably missed them. They were there, however. I greeted Alex as "that girl who never called me". She gave a half-assed apology; something about being busy and sick. She was very drunk, and though I contemplated using that to my favor, being around her for a few minutes convinced me that she was not as attractive as I remembered, in terms of looks or personality. I took my leave and went and grabbed some Whataburger for Will and me. It was, probably, a much better use of my time. Mmm... Whataburger...

South by Southeast

Well, it's been a hell of a week so far, good and bad.

No word from Alex yet. Her name will probably show up on my caller ID again when her friend calls and asks for Brad's number because he still hasn't called her. We'll commiserate.

Tuesday, Jeff, Holly and I went to Mary Jane's to catch the Oxes and Enon. Jason Molina of Magnolia Electric Co. was originally supposed to play a show that night in support of Ida, but when Ida cancelled her show, he went with her, leaving me only getting to see 1/5 bands that would have been at the top of my South by Southwest hitlist, rather than 2/5.

The Oxes played a fun show; they had tall platforms they put on top of the stage that they did their rock star posing on. The guitars were hooked up wirelessly, and the guitarists would, say, walk around and mingle with the crowd while they were playing their instrumental rock. Holly and one of the guitarists took turns dragging on a cigarette while he played. One of them went and played from the women's bathroom. Their showmanship was excellent; their musicianship was passable. Enon followed, and despite probably being a better band, either they or the sound guy were sloppy. The Asian girl in the band, however, was so cute and sweet that you just wanted to go up and give her a big hug.

Wednesday, work sucked. After a couple of weeks struggling to get a software package working, I finally got the results I had set out to get, and the boss wasn't happy with them, and especially not that I had "wasted" two weeks getting them. He then bitched me out for all the things that I hadn't done that we had never talked about, but that apparently a "top-notch graduate student" would have done. Finally, he told me to do one thing, I went off to start doing it, and then he came and told me that what I was doing was completely wrong and told me to start working on something else, and to have it done before I went to bed, and that I was supposed to eat, sleep for five hours a night, and do nothing but work on this project until I had a paper out.

I argued and stood my ground for a while, but it just made things worse, so I eventually gave up and went into yes-man mode, waited for things to end, and finally went off to work on what he told me to work on and entirely ignore his orders about how I was to be living my life. I stuck around until he left, and then caught the next bus out.

Thankfully, that night was the show featuring the one top-priority band that was making it to Houston, Death From Above 1979. I've been quite impressed with their debut; I was even more impressed after seeing them. Their live show wasn't 100% of what it could have been, but, hell, it was great. First of all, the band consists of only two guys, one playing bass and one playing drums. I had never been able to tell it was all bass on the record; I think that they process the hell out of it, as it's distorted enough and full-range enough to sound like a full band. Additionally, the drummer sings lead, which is something that's not done nearly often enough.

Man, they fucking rocked. I'm not really into the whole hard-core scene, but they made me want to head bang, and I did a bit (which is pretty fun with all the hair). For one song, a drummer from one of the opening acts came up to drum, leaving the DFA's drummer free to move about. He was doing his singing thing when he jumped down from the stage, into the crowd, and collapsed on the ground, continuing his singing. Then, he started a mosh pit.

Let me reiterate. This man took it upon himself to come down into the crowd and start some shit. That, ladies and gentlemen, is committment to the rock. I guess I have to qualify this by saying that it was tame and didn't last long, but it was fun, and probably about all I really needed. I'll also mention that Controller Controller opened up and were good—great bass work and a cute female lead singer (though she loses points for not actually playing an instrument).

Also, interestingly, I saw Lauren at the show, or, rather, she saw me (and me with Holly—is that good or bad?) and said hi. So I've seen her at two shows now; I think that officially makes her cool. Graham is under strict orders to let me know if she ever breaks up with her boy; in the mean time, I'm going to begin laying what groundwork I can. Graham told me at some point that she's from New Orleans, which makes the Rachal look-alike thing even creepier. Still, she will be mine. Oh yes.

Stood up

Alex never called about our date. I tried her about 7:00 and left a message, but I never heard a word from her. Combine this with the fact that she didn't call yesterday, and didn't return my original call within a week, and things start to look a little strange. I don't think she's uninterested; she had plenty of opportunities to get me to leave her alone. I guess she's just a little flaky or something. I wouldn't mind giving her another chance; where's the harm in that? Still, not calling at all, that's seriously uncool. I could have been making out with Holly or something.

So this is South By Southwest week over in Austin. I didn't go because I didn't want to have to take off work to attend, and I'm sad that I'll be missing out on a few bands I love (Stars, Magnolia Electric Co.) and one I'm curious to see (the Go Team). However, we get some spillover here; I'll be seeing Enon and the Oxes tomorrow night, and then Wednesday will be Death From Above 1979, which is the one act I really wanted to see that I'll actually get to see. So that's good...

Anyway, that's all for now. If any more Alex details come up, you can be sure they'll be here. Otherwise, I'll have to find someone else to filll the position of backup love interest (it's all about the redundant systems). And you can expect to hear about the concerts, too. And the subwoofer, when it gets here in all of its 12", 250 watt glory. And I'll try to get a picture of holly up, too...

Never again

Today, you get to listen to me bitch for a while. I had considered catching up with Will and his friends on Saturday night, and had also received a call from Dan, but Anup had invited me out with his sister, cousin, and girlfriend Maggie and some of her fellow female psychology students (as previously mentioned), so I thought that was at least worth looking into.

We went to Maggie's place and had drinks (my consumption for the night: 4 shiners, 1 corona, 3 shots of tequila, 1 shot of vodka, 1 Jager bomb, 1 rum and coke). Anup's sister had wanted to go clubbing downtown, and, as an effort to expand my horizons, be open minded, and try new things, I decided to join them.

I've probably said this before, but: I'm never doing that again, except as a special favor. I really don't know what the problem is. Girls do not want to dance with me. I know I'm not the most attractive person out there, but I'm certainly neither ugly nor creepy. These weren't random girls from the club, these were the ones who had come with us. Anup's sister danced with me out of pity, but it was sweet of her, I suppose. Still, though. There were four other single women there (at least one of whom would have been doing quite well for herself to have hooked up with me), and I couldn't get a damned thing going. To be fair, though, one of them (who Katie tried to get me to hook up with) was kind of bitchy (the vibe I got was that Sabrina and Charlene would never approve—I have no idea why that was the particular thought I had), one of them had just been dumped by some loser and obviously had horrible taste in men, and Katie had previously gone out with Oliver and was somewhat off limits. That leaves one unaccounted for. Still, though, fuck. Four girls. You'd think I could make something work. What's the problem? Am I just completely incapable of handling these situations? Am I useless without relying conversational skills? I was feeling confident from the recent successes with Holly and Alex, ready to be adventurous, I just got shut down. I give up. No more clubs and dancing. It's expensive, stressfull, not fun, and completely unproductive. Fuck it, dude, let's go bowling.

Of course, since I was drunk, it all pissed me off a bit. It probably showed a little. Thankfully, it was eventually time to leave. I was with Katie and her friend-from-college Dilia. The rest of the group somehow hopped on a train without us, and though the girls may not have appreciated my company earlier in the evening, they certainly changed their minds when they realized that I would be the one making sure we got home—especially when Katie's cell phone died. So I called Anup, and he and Maggie came and picked us up. We stopped by Mia's on the way back to grab some food to go (and the girls were once again happy to have me when I got water for them). I have to say that at that point, Katie and I seemed pretty cool with each other, but still, the dancing thing was not cool.

I guess it wasn't that bad of a night. I got way drunk, which is good to do every now and then. I enjoyed talking to Katie and felt like I at least connected with her, and I got the dirt on her and Oliver. He seems to remind her too much of an ex, but she's not ready to dismiss him entirely, and interestingly, she seemed very concerned that I not mention how drunk she was to him. I had some good food from Mia's. Still, he's probably better off. She seemed to have issues with dating smart men (interesting, since she went to Stanford), and being 6' has the typical hangup about men shorter than her, which, for the record, I think is even dumber than age restrictions.

So I did some light shopping today, and then caught up with Graham for his birthday at Big Woodrow's for beer and food. It was a strangely adult gathering: two married couples, one engaged couple, Graham and Kennedy, and Graham's parents. Shoot me if my next birthday is that lame. A girl I've always thought was cute (and that used to remind me a bit too much of Rachal, but less so after a change in hair) was there, but there with a boy, though this may very well have been a different boy from the one at the Pixies show. Graham is in her lab, and has a standing order to let me know if she ever becomes single, but I'm not sure if he understands the seriousness of the charge.

Alex was supposed to have called me about the details of our date tomorrow, but didn't. Now if I did that to a girl, I'd probably never hear the end of it. Anyway, though, I'm just going to chill about it and I'll call her tomorrow if I don't hear form her. And I am going to be fucking on tomorrow night.

You've got Mono!

The boss was out of town for four out of five days last week. He neither told us that he was leaving, nor when he was returning. I find the lack of communication the elast bit unsettling. It did wonders for my productivity, though.

Thursday night, Jeff, Holly and I went to Mary Jane's to hear Mono (the second time, for me)). Their expansive, atmospheric post-rock was as beautiful as ever. The opening bands were... unremarkable.

For the first time ever, though, I got to be one of those people that I both hate and envy, the concert couple. At every show, there will be couples, hanging all over each other, perhaps making out. It's damned annoying, and I've always wondered what it was like. Hopefully Holly and I didn't get to the annoying stage (we weren't making out or anything), but it was sure nice to have my arms around a pretty young thing and share a beautiful experience with her.

The boss returned on Friday, and, notably, I received an e-mail from the guy who wrote a program I've been using. I'd been having a problem with it for the past week that had kept me from advancing in project #1. I was thrilled to find out that not only was I not an idiot and the problem was on his end, but also that he had a fix. Maybe I'll get something exciting done next week.

I did receive and e-mail on Friday, finally, from my good friend and dealer John saying that he had my sub in and would ship it out on Monday. At last, home theater, you will be whole. I'll put up some pictures of the finished product, both for the main system and the bedroom system soon. I've been way to text-heavy lately.

Holly came by and offered me a ride home; she was parked over at the zoo (about a ten or fifteen minute walk), so we had a nice walk on the park, and I got to see her before she took off to visit her brother and sister for the weekend. My parents are taking a week-long trip to New Orleans this week, and were spending the night in Houston, so I picked up some Goode Company barbecue and had dinner with them at my aunt and uncle's.

I was still with them when my cell phone rang, and I was shocked to see that it was a call from Alex. I didn't really want to deal with it then, so I let it go to voice mail. I checked it on the way home to discover that the call was not from Alex, but from her (drunk) friend Holly (not my Holly), wanting "my friend Brad's number, since he's waaay too cool to call me". Now, Brad isn't my friend—he's Will's friend—but I passed the word along to Will and left Alex a voice mail stating these things.

So anyway, I headed back to my part of town, caught up with Neuroscience David at the Gingerman where he was having drinks for his birthday, and then went next door to visit Will at Woodrow's, and enjoyed talking to him and watching him catch girls using someone else's ID when they couldn't tell him the address on the ID.

The weekend and the week so far

My trip to Waco proved to be both wonderful and Sabrina-filled (two elements which are highly correlated). I had been hoping for a weekend of drunken debauchery, and though I was disappointed not to get a chance to indulge the more base parts of my brain, the side effect was that I probably got more one-on-one time with everyone's favorite desperate housewife.

I skipped seminar on Friday afternoon and got the hell out of dodge, arriving in Waco in time to for a short visit with the parents and a dinner at Barris with Sabrina and Spencer. I don't know what it is, but damn is the pizza there good. We BYOBed it, as Sabrina and I had picked up a bottle of wine from HEB (Louis Jadot Beaujolais-Villages; thanks to Rebecca for starting me on it, as it was excellent and made everyone think I have really good tastes).

Then things got interesting. Sabrina's nominal purpose in coming to Waco was to see "friends from Plainview"; I didn't realize that these weren't childhood friends but were instead faculty she knew from her brief tenure at Wasteland Baptist University. They were having dinner at Gratziano's (home of legendarily bad service), so we joined them for some drinkage.

There were a few hangers-on there from the literary criticism conference that 'Brina's friends had attended. One of them was a woman who we at first thought was just somewhat grating but ended up being just really, really drunk. It turns out that this drunkeness was inspired by the presence of a huge figure in the field, Stanley Fish, whom I later learned was responsible for the reader response school of lit crit, which I had actually heard of.

There was plenty of awkwardness, but Sabrina and I have gotten each other through many an awkward situation in our capacities as each others' emergency dates. After the others left, Sabrina and I hit up Cricket's and were later joined by her friends, whose company I enjoyed now that the hangers-on were gone.

I awoke Saturday to find freshly-purchased bagels and felt as if I had awoken in the Coen household. Sabrina and I joined the lovlier-than-ever Michele at Common Grounds for some coffee and witty banter before moving on to the early drinking stage of the evening at Ninfa's and being joined by the beautiful Randa. I was a lucky man to spend a portion of my evening in the hands of Waco's analog of Charlie's Angels (though I don't think they fight crime—but if they do, do I get to be Charlie?).

A couple of Ninfarita's later, I took off to have dinner with my parents and later joined back up with Sabrina for some quality time at Scruffy Murphy's.

The boss has been out of town this week so far, which he didn't tell us—sometimes his communication skills leave something to be desired—but it's made for a relatively relaxed work week. I also caught up with Dan and Kristin last night at Brasil for the first time in a while.

And because I wouldn't want to let those of you who are here for the drama down: I called Alex last night. Damn, it never gets any easier. But, I did it. She answered, remembered me, asked how I was. I mentioned that I had been wondering if I would ever hear form her, and she apologized and said she'd been busy. There was some slightly awkward conversation. She asked what I'd been up to, and I mentioned my trip to Waco and then proceeded with my usual "I'm from Waco" shtick ("Yeah, I try to keep that quiet, but people are usually impressed that I've come so far."). I eventually got around to asking her out for a drink, she agreed, and we settled on Monday night (she seemed amused that I had to check my calendar).

So, another night of me being horribly nervous. But hey, this shit's fun, right? And at least the situation's resolved now. I've been taking it slow with the ladies for too long. Time to ramp up.

The hookup

So I had hoped that my brief update on Friday to assure everybody that all was well in Wardland would satiate the stronger aspects of my reader's curiousity, but apparently, some of you were still left waiting on pins and needles (Charlene). Not only that, but apparently, people beyond my most immediate circle of friends (Cheek, who will always be remembered as the guy I gave a ride home to when I was hooking up with a certain girl so that he could hook up with her roommate) have been following my tame drama with some interest.

So, I invited Holly over on Thursday evening. She checked out my apartment and my CD collection to make sure she approved, and then we played some Nintendo and watched a movie. While watching the movie, I was laying back against her and she was playing with my hair, and it was time for me to do something. The positioning made things awkward, but I lifted my head to go up for the kiss. She turned her head, and all I got was cheek.

"No?" I said.
"No," she said.
"What's up?"
"I don't want to hurt you."
"I appreciate your concern, but I'll look after myself. What's the deal?"
"Well, I'm already seeing these other two guys."
"So make it three."

The DTR continued from there. She doesn't want to get rid of the other two, and I want the freedom to pursue other girls. She's leaving in a few months, and I just don't think I'm ready for anything too serious. It's perfect. Attachment is minimized, and we can focus on enjoying each other's company. I think she still worries about me some, but, we both know the score going in. We don't think we're right for each other long term, but short term, this will be fun.

And then we made out for a while, and I was on top of the world.

After I got back from Waco (I'll save that for another blog entry), I went over to her place. We talked, played boggle, and made out some more. I'm liking this.

It's still a little weird. I usually remember things with Rachal felt very natural, but they weren't always that way. There's always this cloud of weirdness and doubt and emotions that change like the swing of a pendulum. I forget about this part of things, and it takes a little getting used to. I have to remind myself to chill. But damn, it sure is nice.

Still no word from Alex from the bar the other night. I meant to give her a call tonight but didn't really feel up to expending the energy. I'll call and give it another chance, though. I just need to focus on detachment.

Thanks to Sabrina (and Randa) for coming up with the perfect explanation about the medical school "misunderstanding", if that need ever does, in fact, arrive. You ladies are stone cold professionals. I gave the simple answer, the one that didn't require a long exchange just to establish who I am:

"So what do you do?"
"I'm a graduate student at Baylor College of Medicine."
"Like a doctor?"
"Ph. D., not an M.D. Biological research."
"So what do you research?"
"I do computational biology. Computer analysis of biological data."
"You must be smart."
"..."

Hell, maybe I should go with the MD thing as a matter of course. Sure would save time.

Resolution

So as not to keep you in suspense: the Holly question has now been resolved in a quite satisfactory manner. Details later...

I thought this article, about browsing the music collections of strangers via iTunes' music library sharing, was a nice anecdotal account, if not particularly insightful. I had a similar encounter; a girl from Yale, working a summer job in the lab across the hall, would bring her iBook into work and I'd see her music library shared. She had good tastes, so I IMed her. I never got around to going to introduce myself, so I can't really offer a better resolution to my story than the author offered to his, but I can disagree with his conclusions. On the contrary, shared tastes are significant (p < .05).

99 Problems

Continuing the increase in romantic activity in my life, I sent Holly an e-mail on Monday to arrange our beer date. We swapped quite a few e-mails that day, and, I quote, "Why, just once a week, that's just not enough time to spend with Matthew, I always say," as well as "Anyways, for some reason writing to you back and forth has been the highlight of my day." Interesting.

So she called me later in the evening, told me she was going to work out and run some errands, and then "the rest of the evening was mine". I got all hot looking (grey sweater and jeans), picked her up, and took her to Onion Creek for beer. They had one of those arcade machine tables with Pac Man and Galaga, so we played a few rounds and I wowed her with my mad skillz.

A couch was open, so we moved once we were done with our game. Holly again mentioned how comfortable I was and how she was going to take advantage of it, and as she cuddled up to me I said, "I like to be taken advantage of by women." We sat there and talked for a while and I think we both had a good time. There was even some light hand holding (no intertwined fingers).

But yet, there are things that give me pause. She asked me about my dating life, but if she was trying to find out for her own purposes, she hid it well. She also made reference to being OK with making the first move (that came up naturally), which raises the question, why hasn't she? There was nothing beyond the initial cuddling...

Overall, though, it went well. I saw her again (with the couple from last Wednesday) for coffee on Tuesday. On Wednesday, I met up with the first years for dollar beer at Two Rows, conveniently the place that Holly was planning on meeting friends (including me) later. I was talking to them and she came up, hugged me, and went off to get beer, and the guys gave me an inquisitive look and the girl there with us asked me if we were dating.

"I don't know." And I proceeded to give the short version of the story. Things were good, though—until unknown quantity #1 showed up again. Man, I'm really starting to hate that guy. Holly moved a little closer to him, and I felt like an idiot in front of my friends. They left soon after that, and I didn't really want to be around UQ#1, so I told Holly that I was tired and ready to head back home. She walked me out, and I mentioned that we had hung out for three nights in a row. "Want to go for a fourth?" she said.

So I feel reasonably good about this when it's just me and her, but when there's another guy around, it starts to make me wonder if I'm in the "friend zone", which I don't think is the sexual purgatory that most guys make it out to be, but it's not great, either.

I called Alex from Tuesady; she didn't answer so I left a message and told her to call. Nothing yet. Does this mean the ball's in her court now? I really don't know how these things work. If she doesn't call, do I let it go, or do I make one more attempt? Why would a girl who seemed reasonably interested not even return a call? Once again, I end up mystified.

In non-romantic news, lab is proceeding, if slowly. Though this week has been more frustrating, I continue to get more immersed in my work and feel more like I'm doing what I should be with my life.

I ordered a small subwoofer to go with the bedroom speakers from this guy I know from some online forums, and it's due to arrive today. Sadly, the big sub is going to be at least another week, but at least we're making progress.

A note of explanation

So I've been retro-posting these entries lately, posting them under the day when they should have been posted rather than the day when they were actually posted. I've got one that's almost done from last weekend (including some interesting developments on Sunday night) and still need to write one with the latest on the Holly saga, and then I'll be caught up and back to writing in real time.

I do some blogging on the bus on the way home, but it's best done at night with some music on right before bed, and with all the going out I've been doing lately, that time hasn't really been happening, hence the chronological weirdness.