It’s really weird to have your face on the front page of the paper, even if it’s a free alternative-daily newspaper. I didn’t think anyone really read the Portland Daily Sun, I just thought people picked it up for the crosswords. Not the case, and here’s a story about the repercussions of having your fifteen minutes of local fame.
The night of the run in with the promiscuous 85 year old, this cute guy came by the bowling alley. This is nothing out of the ordinary, tons of cute guys come by all the time. But then I recognized him as a friend of a friend, and had a tiny freak out because I had a crush on this man, even though we’d never actually met. What was he doing in Portland, at my bowling alley? Before I had a chance to go over and introduce myself, busy caught up with my senior citizen suitor, he was gone. So, I did what I do best- I wrote him an email. He came up right away on the Google search, and right there on his website, I found his email. Although Googling someone usually yeilds results, it never ceases to amaze me. This was like the scene in High Fidelity where Rob is going through his what-does-it-all-mean phase and finds Charlie in the phone book. “She’s in the fucking phone book.” There is the whole stalker factor one has to be considerate of when confessing to someone that you found them on the internet, so I carefully wrote him a pleasant, complimentary email, trying as hard as possible to not sound like a total creep show, and offered to buy him a beer.
Much to my surprise, he wrote back within 24 hours with his phone number. We sort of text a little bit about a potential time and place to meet, but I soon realize we were going to have to have a conversation to figure this out due to my complicated transportation issues and scheduling conflicts. Unbelievably nervous, I call him. It goes to voicemail. He calls back almost right away. I try to smile the whole time, which is the only thing I learned during my one week of telemarketing, other than that telemarketing is the worst job on the planet. I recommended Flatbread to a friend for a lunch date, once. Since he’s now in a serious relationship with that girl, I figured my intuitions were correct that it’s a good lunch date spot. Although, anyone who was at the Scratchpad Series knows how I feel about lunch dates. For lack of a better nickname, we’ll call this man the Boat Guy (but not the man in the boat,) because he has a boat. I call him the night before our scheduled meet-up to confirm plans, and we talk on the phone for over an hour. I love talking, and I love talking on the phone. This is already a really good sign.
***
My day consisted of meeting Matt from the Portland Daily Sun at the Hilltop for a quick picture for the paper, then a lunch shift at the bowling alley and then my date with Boat Guy. My hair was a mess and I had no make-up, but there was no turning back now. What does one WEAR on a day with so many different kinds of activities?! A severe thundershower narrowly misses me as I duck into the restaurant. (So much for the eating outdoors idea.) I’m right exactly on time. He’s already sitting at the bar, and from the amount of beer in his bottle, I can tell he’s been there for more than five minutes. This is actually a stunt I usually pull- showing up extra early for a date. That way you just sit, cool and collected, letting them come to you. There’s always the possibility that they’ll walk in, see you, turn around and walk out, but luckily that hasn’t happened to me, and it definitely didn’t happen to Boat Guy. We make eye contact right away and he waves me over. I breath a sigh of relief and sit down.
It seems to be going well. He’s asking me a lot of questions, which keeps the conversation moving. We talk about travelling and Portland and food. I make him tell me everything he’s done since college, which is a lot, and he confesses that he’s recently ended a serious relationship. Noted. At some point in the process of getting to know someone, they’re going to want to know what you “do.” What I mean by this isn’t your job, but what drives you. What your passions are, what you would spend all of your free time doing if money wasn’t an issue. For me, lately, the answer has been writing. Looking back, I’ve been writing for years, I even had a LiveJournal way back when, but never seemed to realize it was like, my thing. I went to art school, so new people usually tend to focus on that- “Oh, Amanda, well, what kind of art did you do? Are you still making art?” I hate that question, and so does everyone who’s ever “done art.” I’m halfway through my second pint, and apparently feeling some sort of liquid courage, because I start talking about the blog. I mean, you’re here, reading it. My Google Analytics tracker tells me that my readership has been steadily growing, which wouldn’t happen if it sucked. And I tell him that the next day I was going to get my first big press- the Portland Daily Sun. It seemed like all of the silly stories I’ve been putting down were actually kind of going somewhere. My writer friend Sean even said that he was thinking there might be a book in there somewhere. A book! Holy shit! This is completely self-motivated, I’m in complete control of the whole thing, I’m working on it a lot, and I’m happy.
This does not go over well. Boat Guy says things like, “I can’t believe I ended up here with a blogger. This is the last thing I need in my life right now.” Suddenly, Boat Guy was no longer smiling and his body language has completely changed. I back pedal. “Listen, Boat Guy, I don’t write to offend or hurt feelings. My relationships are more important to me than the blog. It’s supposed to be funny, that’s all.” (This is all completely true, by the way.) I try and change the subject, but I’m totally flailing. This date did a 180, and I’m not even sure if it’s still considered a date at this point. No amount of arm touching or eyelash batting was helping. I had unknowingly struck some sort of nerve. Something was going on in his life that he wasn’t going to tell me, but was making him freak out. He was invited out under the pretence that I was buying him a beer. So, I insisted on paying for lunch. The check came, and I threw down. This probably made things even worse, in some kind of old fashioned emasculation way. We walk outside and I seriously want to get the fuck out of there, it’s awful. I’m fairly certain at this point I’m never going to see Boat Guy again, and don’t know if I even want to. I make a lame excuse and try not to run. I barge into Angela’s office two blocks from Flatbread, flabbergasted, and tell her the whole story.
That night at work, I’m sad. When you’re trying to get over someone, having someone new to take up that space in your brain is always helpful, and I was especially disappointed that Boat Guy was not going to be my new distraction. I’m good at dating and it shouldn’t have gone down like that. But whatever. Whatever was going on with Boat Guy had nothing to do with me. We all have varying degrees of fucked-upness in our lives, he was at some sort of peak. My blog is awesome, and I shouldn’t have to make excuses for my writing. Men should be lining up at my door to take me out, blog or no blog. So... imagine my surprise when I miss a call from Boat Guy later that night. He doesn’t leave a voicemail. Perplexed, I decide to call him back in the morning.
***
8:30 a.m., I get a call from Kate Digby Skinner. I can’t imagine what on earth she needs at this ungodly hour of the morning, especially since I had a pretty good idea what she was doing the night before and until what time, but I answer. She screams into the phone: AMANDA YOUR FACE IS ON THE PAPER AND IT’S HUGE AHHHHH!!!! I wince, then smile, and wince again. I hang up the phone, immediately throw some shorts on and run out to Sonny’s Variety, then over to the Greyhound Station. I probably grabbed 30 copies, not really knowing what to do with them. It was hard to not make eye contact with anyone, but I didn’t need any crazy St. John Street people stopping me. (Except for the Pizza Villa people. I wanted them to see it and think, that’s our GIRL! By the way, I didn’t tell anyone there I was moving. They probably think something happened to me.) Upstairs, in the comfort of my room, I read the whole thing twice. Although I’m reasonably satisfied with how the blog is represented, with Matt’s reporting, it’s shocking that my picture is so huge, a full half of the cover. Then there was the headline, “Putting it all on(the)line/Blogging as commentary on the modern dating scene” which might as well have said, “BEWARE! Amanda Pleau has a dating blog, do not go out with her!!!” That copy editor must’ve felt pretty fucking good about themselves. I spent my remaining minutes with Boat Guy downplaying the whole thing, and this headline couldn’t have made things worse. “Oh, but Boat Guy, no, don’t worry about it, it’s not even like that. No one really reads the blog, it’s not that big of a deal, I don’t really write about dating, it’s just a fun hobby that I’m not even really that into. It’s not about dating or anything, I promise I’m not going to write about this or you or anything. This isn’t just like, research for the blog. REALLY, it’s not that big of a deal. The only reason that reporter guy talked to me about the blog is because we like, know each other and it’s been a slow news month. REALLY.” This headline made me feel like I had to give a disclaimer in the first thirty seconds of a date: I have a blog and you might be the subject.
I call Boat Guy back and he’s on the boat. He says he read the blog, and I’m assuming this has put his mind at ease from whatever shit show he was picturing. It’s a beautiful Friday morning, and he asks me to meet him for coffee. This would be all well and good, I love/need coffee, except I told him I was going to be in the paper. I panicked. Up until Blog-Gate 2010, the Great Blog Meltdown, it seemed like things were going well between us, and I wanted to put the blog in the past. I weighed my options, which were few. There was definitely not enough time to beat him to Aurora and hide any papers there, and those papers are everywhere, anyway. Unless maybe I ran. He could have forgotten, although that seemed unlikely. I sucked it up, got dressed and headed over. It’s on his table when I arrive. Right there, my face, same hair and clothes that he had seen the day before. Thinking quick, I acknowledge that he’s seen it, by pointing and rolling my eyes, in and attempt to act annoyed rather than embarrassed. We don’t talk about it, it’s as if nothing happened. Close call.
You, my awesome and devoted readership (have I mentioned I work for tips for a living?) might be wondering how it’s possible that you’re reading this right now, since I promised Boat Guy I’d never write about him. Well, I pled my case. “Listen, Boat Guy, I’m reasonably certain that I’m never going to be in the paper again. It’s incredibly funny and ironic- the timing of all this whole thing, and it’d be a shame if I didn’t get to write about it.” He agreed, gave me the go-ahead, as long as he remained completely anonymous.
The night of the run in with the promiscuous 85 year old, this cute guy came by the bowling alley. This is nothing out of the ordinary, tons of cute guys come by all the time. But then I recognized him as a friend of a friend, and had a tiny freak out because I had a crush on this man, even though we’d never actually met. What was he doing in Portland, at my bowling alley? Before I had a chance to go over and introduce myself, busy caught up with my senior citizen suitor, he was gone. So, I did what I do best- I wrote him an email. He came up right away on the Google search, and right there on his website, I found his email. Although Googling someone usually yeilds results, it never ceases to amaze me. This was like the scene in High Fidelity where Rob is going through his what-does-it-all-mean phase and finds Charlie in the phone book. “She’s in the fucking phone book.” There is the whole stalker factor one has to be considerate of when confessing to someone that you found them on the internet, so I carefully wrote him a pleasant, complimentary email, trying as hard as possible to not sound like a total creep show, and offered to buy him a beer.
Much to my surprise, he wrote back within 24 hours with his phone number. We sort of text a little bit about a potential time and place to meet, but I soon realize we were going to have to have a conversation to figure this out due to my complicated transportation issues and scheduling conflicts. Unbelievably nervous, I call him. It goes to voicemail. He calls back almost right away. I try to smile the whole time, which is the only thing I learned during my one week of telemarketing, other than that telemarketing is the worst job on the planet. I recommended Flatbread to a friend for a lunch date, once. Since he’s now in a serious relationship with that girl, I figured my intuitions were correct that it’s a good lunch date spot. Although, anyone who was at the Scratchpad Series knows how I feel about lunch dates. For lack of a better nickname, we’ll call this man the Boat Guy (but not the man in the boat,) because he has a boat. I call him the night before our scheduled meet-up to confirm plans, and we talk on the phone for over an hour. I love talking, and I love talking on the phone. This is already a really good sign.
***
My day consisted of meeting Matt from the Portland Daily Sun at the Hilltop for a quick picture for the paper, then a lunch shift at the bowling alley and then my date with Boat Guy. My hair was a mess and I had no make-up, but there was no turning back now. What does one WEAR on a day with so many different kinds of activities?! A severe thundershower narrowly misses me as I duck into the restaurant. (So much for the eating outdoors idea.) I’m right exactly on time. He’s already sitting at the bar, and from the amount of beer in his bottle, I can tell he’s been there for more than five minutes. This is actually a stunt I usually pull- showing up extra early for a date. That way you just sit, cool and collected, letting them come to you. There’s always the possibility that they’ll walk in, see you, turn around and walk out, but luckily that hasn’t happened to me, and it definitely didn’t happen to Boat Guy. We make eye contact right away and he waves me over. I breath a sigh of relief and sit down.
It seems to be going well. He’s asking me a lot of questions, which keeps the conversation moving. We talk about travelling and Portland and food. I make him tell me everything he’s done since college, which is a lot, and he confesses that he’s recently ended a serious relationship. Noted. At some point in the process of getting to know someone, they’re going to want to know what you “do.” What I mean by this isn’t your job, but what drives you. What your passions are, what you would spend all of your free time doing if money wasn’t an issue. For me, lately, the answer has been writing. Looking back, I’ve been writing for years, I even had a LiveJournal way back when, but never seemed to realize it was like, my thing. I went to art school, so new people usually tend to focus on that- “Oh, Amanda, well, what kind of art did you do? Are you still making art?” I hate that question, and so does everyone who’s ever “done art.” I’m halfway through my second pint, and apparently feeling some sort of liquid courage, because I start talking about the blog. I mean, you’re here, reading it. My Google Analytics tracker tells me that my readership has been steadily growing, which wouldn’t happen if it sucked. And I tell him that the next day I was going to get my first big press- the Portland Daily Sun. It seemed like all of the silly stories I’ve been putting down were actually kind of going somewhere. My writer friend Sean even said that he was thinking there might be a book in there somewhere. A book! Holy shit! This is completely self-motivated, I’m in complete control of the whole thing, I’m working on it a lot, and I’m happy.
This does not go over well. Boat Guy says things like, “I can’t believe I ended up here with a blogger. This is the last thing I need in my life right now.” Suddenly, Boat Guy was no longer smiling and his body language has completely changed. I back pedal. “Listen, Boat Guy, I don’t write to offend or hurt feelings. My relationships are more important to me than the blog. It’s supposed to be funny, that’s all.” (This is all completely true, by the way.) I try and change the subject, but I’m totally flailing. This date did a 180, and I’m not even sure if it’s still considered a date at this point. No amount of arm touching or eyelash batting was helping. I had unknowingly struck some sort of nerve. Something was going on in his life that he wasn’t going to tell me, but was making him freak out. He was invited out under the pretence that I was buying him a beer. So, I insisted on paying for lunch. The check came, and I threw down. This probably made things even worse, in some kind of old fashioned emasculation way. We walk outside and I seriously want to get the fuck out of there, it’s awful. I’m fairly certain at this point I’m never going to see Boat Guy again, and don’t know if I even want to. I make a lame excuse and try not to run. I barge into Angela’s office two blocks from Flatbread, flabbergasted, and tell her the whole story.
That night at work, I’m sad. When you’re trying to get over someone, having someone new to take up that space in your brain is always helpful, and I was especially disappointed that Boat Guy was not going to be my new distraction. I’m good at dating and it shouldn’t have gone down like that. But whatever. Whatever was going on with Boat Guy had nothing to do with me. We all have varying degrees of fucked-upness in our lives, he was at some sort of peak. My blog is awesome, and I shouldn’t have to make excuses for my writing. Men should be lining up at my door to take me out, blog or no blog. So... imagine my surprise when I miss a call from Boat Guy later that night. He doesn’t leave a voicemail. Perplexed, I decide to call him back in the morning.
***
8:30 a.m., I get a call from Kate Digby Skinner. I can’t imagine what on earth she needs at this ungodly hour of the morning, especially since I had a pretty good idea what she was doing the night before and until what time, but I answer. She screams into the phone: AMANDA YOUR FACE IS ON THE PAPER AND IT’S HUGE AHHHHH!!!! I wince, then smile, and wince again. I hang up the phone, immediately throw some shorts on and run out to Sonny’s Variety, then over to the Greyhound Station. I probably grabbed 30 copies, not really knowing what to do with them. It was hard to not make eye contact with anyone, but I didn’t need any crazy St. John Street people stopping me. (Except for the Pizza Villa people. I wanted them to see it and think, that’s our GIRL! By the way, I didn’t tell anyone there I was moving. They probably think something happened to me.) Upstairs, in the comfort of my room, I read the whole thing twice. Although I’m reasonably satisfied with how the blog is represented, with Matt’s reporting, it’s shocking that my picture is so huge, a full half of the cover. Then there was the headline, “Putting it all on(the)line/Blogging as commentary on the modern dating scene” which might as well have said, “BEWARE! Amanda Pleau has a dating blog, do not go out with her!!!” That copy editor must’ve felt pretty fucking good about themselves. I spent my remaining minutes with Boat Guy downplaying the whole thing, and this headline couldn’t have made things worse. “Oh, but Boat Guy, no, don’t worry about it, it’s not even like that. No one really reads the blog, it’s not that big of a deal, I don’t really write about dating, it’s just a fun hobby that I’m not even really that into. It’s not about dating or anything, I promise I’m not going to write about this or you or anything. This isn’t just like, research for the blog. REALLY, it’s not that big of a deal. The only reason that reporter guy talked to me about the blog is because we like, know each other and it’s been a slow news month. REALLY.” This headline made me feel like I had to give a disclaimer in the first thirty seconds of a date: I have a blog and you might be the subject.
I call Boat Guy back and he’s on the boat. He says he read the blog, and I’m assuming this has put his mind at ease from whatever shit show he was picturing. It’s a beautiful Friday morning, and he asks me to meet him for coffee. This would be all well and good, I love/need coffee, except I told him I was going to be in the paper. I panicked. Up until Blog-Gate 2010, the Great Blog Meltdown, it seemed like things were going well between us, and I wanted to put the blog in the past. I weighed my options, which were few. There was definitely not enough time to beat him to Aurora and hide any papers there, and those papers are everywhere, anyway. Unless maybe I ran. He could have forgotten, although that seemed unlikely. I sucked it up, got dressed and headed over. It’s on his table when I arrive. Right there, my face, same hair and clothes that he had seen the day before. Thinking quick, I acknowledge that he’s seen it, by pointing and rolling my eyes, in and attempt to act annoyed rather than embarrassed. We don’t talk about it, it’s as if nothing happened. Close call.
You, my awesome and devoted readership (have I mentioned I work for tips for a living?) might be wondering how it’s possible that you’re reading this right now, since I promised Boat Guy I’d never write about him. Well, I pled my case. “Listen, Boat Guy, I’m reasonably certain that I’m never going to be in the paper again. It’s incredibly funny and ironic- the timing of all this whole thing, and it’d be a shame if I didn’t get to write about it.” He agreed, gave me the go-ahead, as long as he remained completely anonymous.
1 comment:
ahaha, i wish everyone i wrote about then blogged about how it impacted their lives. i feel so terrible/proud/creepy/powerful.
luckily we're just a 16 page ego-stroking crossword puzzle though, phew.
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