I have a headache

I get bored with my hair pretty easily. Since I've decided I want to let it grow long (-er than it is), this is a problem because I can't just go chop it off for a change.

So, I decided to wear my hair in pigtails today. This is something I haven't done since Coal Creek Central days ... and for those of you that don't know, that would be K-3. I really don't even think I liked wearing it like that much then, and now I might have a reminder why (see headline). Too much weight tugging at both sides of my head ... yes, my "pig"tails are pretty much two ponytails by anyone else's standards. Ouch.

Anyway, I thought it would be something to make a Tuesday more interesting and see what kind of reactions I would get. Here are my findings:

1) My boss told me he doesn't talk to women who wear pigtails. He was kidding ... I think.

2) I got a few double-take looks on the street.

3) The guy at the store where I bought my dad's Christmas gift was EXTRA helpful ... and kept smiling at me strangely.

4) Another co-worker asked me if I was in a bad mood when he got into the office. When I said no and asked why he would think that, he said, "Because you've got your naughty girl hair today." Hahahahahaha. That one was funny.

5) After I paid for some items at CVS, I turned around and a guy in line had a huge smile on his face. When I made eye contact, he gave me the "what's up" nod. Sorry, Dude. I was over it by that point.

Number of women that commented: Zero. ;)

And there were a few people that held a conversation with me completely like nothing was out of the ordinary. I might find them the most odd ...

Random sighting

I got to the airport WAY earlier than I needed to for my flight today. I see that Indy is in definite need of an airport upgrade now because there weren't any TVs at the gates for me to watch the game on ... not in D concourse anyway ... and the only thing in that concourse is the lame, Dick Clark's American Bandstand restaurant.

I thought that restaurant had gone out of business, but I guess not.

Anyway, not important. I go in there to the bar to watch the Colts game until my flight.

There was hardly anyone in there, and TONS of open seats at the bar, yet two guys come in and sit down right next to me. Even though there were plenty of open seats to have put an empty one in between us. Annoying.

And the game was annoying at that point, too. And the guy kept grabbing his cell phone every two minutes and bumping my chair. Enough already.

Not far into the second quarter, a guy comes up to the guy who sat next to me and says, "Are you Rupert?" To which he replies, "Yes, do you need a picture?"

HA. At that point I realize the guy who has been annoying me for the last 20 minutes was Indy's own Rupert Boneham from "Survivor."

It still didn't do all that much for me since I don't watch the show, but I did think it was kind of humorous. And I still kind of wished he had sat farther down to allow a seat in between the two of us. :)

Vacations anyone?

I usually feel a little weird when people talk about traveling ... with that sound in their voice like absolutely nothing would make them happier than seeing destination A or B. I've never really gotten it. I guess if I'm going to spend a lot of money on something, I like to spend it on an object that I can keep/see/touch/use everyday.

I'm not much for seeing tourist sites. The museums and such around here? Boring. My skin doesn't take too well to tanning, so it bores me to lay out on a beach knowing it will do nothing for me ... though it MIGHT cause me some pain from a burn at day's end.

That's probably why I can barely remember the last time I took a "vacation" that wasn't to fly home to Indiana to see family and friends for a holiday or event. While that honestly suits me just fine, it isn't very interesting, so I finally came up with a couple of options.

The first is a ballpark tour. I hadn't really thought about it until talking about someone in the process of completing one a few months ago, but it seems a good way to have an excuse to see various areas of the country while doing something that is a LOT more fun than sitting out on the beach or visiting museums.

I could say I have some crossed off the list already, but to do it right, I guess I should go back to the three still functioning and document them with photos other than me in my seat with a beer or something ... A trip to New York will be must-schedule for next season as well.

I have little doubt I can find people to accompany me on this mission, but the second is a whole other story. It's an expedition to Antarctica. I haven't really started asking anyone, but how do you suggest taking a cruise somewhere you'll be walking around on ice?

I say there is nothing better than the chance to have a penguin come sit on your lap, and surprisingly the ice looks amazing, too. I don't know though. That could just be me. We get to leave from Buenos Aires at least. Any takers? :)

Weird lunch situations continue

It happens to all of us every now and again. You walk toward a stranger on the sidewalk, you side-step to not run into them, both of you go the same way ... then both back the other way. You get hung up. You smile and laugh. You apologize. You go about your way.

Never in all of my 28 years have I been a part of such a ridiculous encounter.

On the way to lunch, Melina and I waited to cross the street. The walk sign came on. We started to cross.

Coming toward us was an older guy in ridiculous '80s running gear. A sweatband on his forehead, those too short running shorts, the mesh tank top over a t-shirt ... a real train wreck.

I'll admit there have been times when I have decided I'm standing my ground and make the other person dodge. NOT this time. I wanted out of this guy's way.

On my left, Melina took the outer maneuvering route. There were strangers on my right, so I decided to follow suit and go left, too.

He kept going straight, but wavered a bit as if in a drunken stupor. Wavered a bit TOWARD me. Melina made it, but I couldn't get out of the way.

I stopped to see which way he would go before continuing.

He never stopped his forward motion, kept mumbling something like a crazy person ... and continued going straight.

I couldn't go anywhere. Still, he went forward ... continuously bumping into me like a Roomba does when it hits a wall and needs to turn around.

Correction ... continuously bumping into my BOOB.

First there was a boob graze, and I expected the usual recoil and apology when an accident such as that happens.

Instead, he looked down, seemed to see what had happened, and PRESSED forward two or three more times before brushing past.

I spun around with an annoyed, "EXCUSE ME!!?" He never turned around.

I stood in the middle of the street, speechless. Melina stared at me with her jaw dropped. I said, "He poked me in the boob!" as I instinctively wiped my shirt off. I felt moisture on my hand. I looked down to find a wet spot left on my boob from his sweaty, disgusting hand.

I was molested in the middle of F Street NW in broad daylight! Talk about a ruined appetite. Even the two or three hand washings prior to getting in line couldn't wash away the filth. I considered buying a new shirt, too. Ew.

Division series ... total suckage

This pretty much sums up how I felt about my entire evening last night:

I believe this was taken around the time Arizona was tacking on another run in the ninth inning. Ugh.

As if the double sweep wasn't bad enough for the night, it also became glaringly apparent I belong nowhere near bars where college people hang out. Maybe my mood wasn't optimal, but as more and more of them shuffled in ... all WAY more interested in dancing like idiots to "My Prerogative" than to watching the game (weren't we at a sports bar earlier in the evening?), I wanted to kick them. A lot of them. And even more so because they were all about 4 years old when that song was on the charts (and that is even probably spotting them a couple years). Then it was "Ice, Ice Baby," "You Can't Touch This," "Footloose" ... I could go on and on. It was awful.

So, the season's over ... again. I'd be OK shifting more of my focus to watching the Colts ... but networks around here don't find it necessary to broadcast their games, so you can swap out the Cubs shirt for a Colts tee and reference the above pic for how I'm feeling about that as well.

Old Town Trolley

My friend, Melina, and her boyfriend like to laugh that the Old Town Trolley drivers seem to have some sort of infatuation with me. While I highly doubt this is true (really it's probably just that their main post is right beside Qdoba, and we go there every week), there have been a couple of incidents that might lead one to think it.

The first one is my own poor decision to go out on a date with one of the drivers last summer. One Mike Fox. The story of that is documented in this blog. (Scroll down to the paragraph that starts with "The aspiring actor.")

The second one involves an apparently magnetizing white dress that I will never wear to Qdoba again. We were sitting in the window eating. One of the drivers walked up to the window, paused, got my attention, gave a thumbs up and walked away. He must have seen my look of confusion because later he came into the restaurant and told me that he wanted to explain that he gave the thumbs up because he really thought I looked nice in "that white dress" ... and then kept hanging around creepily. I didn't get his name. I do look pretty good in that particular dress, but seriously.

Today, I went to get a sandwich at Potbelly's. As I waited in line, I noticed there was a guy in an Old Town Trolley uniform behind me. In a pretty good mood today, I immediately started smiling knowing that when I got back to the office, Melina was going to LOVE hearing about this. I hadn't even turned around yet.

With a big smile on my face, I turn to check out the driver ... and it was none other than THE Mike Fox. DIRECTLY behind me.

Now, forgive me, it has been more than a year since I went out with the idiot (who, if you have read the blog remember, said the trolley job was a "temporary gig"). When I first turned, I thought, "Oh, that looks like it could be him," but I couldn't really tell.

So, I didn't just glance. No, I looked right at him for a good 15-20 seconds, looked down at the name tag that said, "Mike," and THEN turned around knowingly with a BIG smile on my face.

What are the chances of that!? Hahahahaha.

At that point, I could not STOP smiling because I thought the story was going to be fun to tell even if it was just some random driver, but now that it's Mike Fox ... I had hit the jackpot. So, after staring at him longer than I should have, seeing his name tag and smiling wider, I didn't say a word to him.

I don't know if he recognized me or not, but I didn't care. I stood in line in front of him for another 7-8 minutes ... smiling the whole time. It was glorious. Hopefully after 3.5 years working for the trolley company, the guy isn't still telling dates his job is temporary while he looks for acting work. As Melina says, "No, that's not temporary, that is your CAREER."

It was a good day.

NOTE: Please know, I see nothing wrong with anyone working as a tour guide for a career. I just found it completely annoying from him because he insisted multiple times he had plenty of time to move to New York to be an actor, and I thought he was insane.

Fun, fun ... K-12 pics

The reminiscing for the "Senior year" bulletin, and the ensuing response it generated made me think it would be funny to dredge up all my old yearbook photos.

I might not have remembered enough to be able to answer the questions in that bulletin properly, but I DO remember that quite possibly the single most traumatic incident of that entire year occurred when I returned from graduation and saw that my mom framed and displayed, in a row, all of my school photos for my graduation open house ... especially those 6th-8th grade, middle school ones. EW.

Now 10 years later, I'm OK doing it to myself, and could even come up with some added history below. Enjoy. :)

Kindergarten: My hair used to have a nice wave to it ... I think that was a cute little red dress that year, too.

1st grade: I was well into my closed-mouth smile phase here. As a child, I decided to allow one of my front teeth to wage battle with a softball bat being swung during a warm-up at the Elston ball diamonds. The tooth lost, required a root canal and turned brown. I didn't like bad teeth even then. Thank God it was a baby tooth.

2nd grade: I really liked to wear sweatshirts, but ONLY with the sleeves pushed all the way up, so it was as if they were short sleeves. I have no idea why. My mom tried to get me to stop, but it was documented in the school photo this year anyway.

3rd grade: My yearbook from 3rd grade was lost a long time ago, but I might be able to at least scrounge up the pic the next time I go home. We'll see if I remember. (Anyone who went to school with me that last year at Coal Creek, if you can refresh my memory on what it looked like that year, I would like to try again to find it.)

4th grade: If a clothing item had a cat on it, it was in my wardrobe. Those are large cat ears poking up there.

5th grade: Don't let this one fool you into thinking I stopped wearing my hair up EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. I hadn't. Length of my hair at this point: Well beyond my waistline. Since I hated to wear it down, I have no idea why I refused to cut it.

6th grade: The side pony. Niiiiiiice. Ugh.

7th grade: Oh, how it would be nice to lose that baby fat. And those bangs. Lord.

8th grade: A perm and short hair does NOT mix for someone with thick hair. It shouldn't have taken a genius to figure that out.

9th grade: The bangs lived on that one last year, but this pic at least holds the prize for biggest change in a calendar year. Thank goodness because looking at these is wearing me out.

10th grade: I had to give a speech for English class on picture day, and I was NOT happy that Mrs. Escamilla was dictating what I had to wear that day, rather than wearing something more of my choosing. Yes, you read that right. At our school, Escamilla was an English teacher.

11th grade: Does anyone watch "How I Met Your Mother"? I feel like I had the "crazy eyes" here. Or maybe it's more "crazy smile." The picture just looks strange. I sure hated that cowlick, too. It was the bane of my entire bang existence ... so traumatically annoying, it almost kept me from getting my current ones, but luckily it had mysteriously vanished.

12th grade: The cookie cutter senior picture pose. They took the yearbook pics that year before I got the signature "Rachael cut."

Ahhhh ... memories.