floorpie

On those nights, and there are several, I sometimes just lie in bed, maybe on my side, maybe on my back, and stare unseeing into the darkness. I don’t blink. I don’t shift my gaze around. I just stare. The blackout curtain I have behind the blinds on my bedroom window render the room nearly completely dark. If I lie on my right side with my back to the alarm clock, it as if I don’t have my eyes open at all. I do, in fact, sometimes forget whether I’m awake or asleep; whether I am lying there staring into nothing or dreaming away. Of course, the realization that I am wondering about it affirms the former.

After staring into space for a while, I will sometimes start to see colors or shapes appear, either brought on by my obvious mental problems, or something my brain does to pass the time. Maybe it’s a calibration test. I don’t know.

My ex-girlfriend used to tell me that I would sleep with my eyes ever so slightly open. I think it was partially for this reason that I would wake up instantaneously before her, having caught the motion in my peripheral vision. It became a game over time. With my insomnia, I would pace around the room getting in and out of bed. Stroking her hair to help her fall asleep (which she did easily), and then lying there thinking my million parallel thoughts as I always do. So far, you’re thinking, this is a pretty stupid game. I agree, but there’s more (not less stupid, unfortunately). The point of the prelude is: she would always fall asleep before me.

Fast forward to the morning with my half-open eyes, I would wake up just as she was stirring. I’m able to wake up pretty quickly when motivated, so I’d turn on my side, prop myself up on an elbow and stare at her with a wry smile (creepy? yes, but that was part of the game). She, groggily at first, would begin to wake up. Stretching her arms and yawning (or whatever other highly idealized morning routine people go through that I choose to remember it as). Then, she would turn to face me, or look up, and there I would calmly be, staring back down at her. To which, of course, she would curse almost silently and smile.

This was the game.

The fun part was, she basically never, ever saw me asleep for a long, long time. An when she did, it was a rare and treasured thing. We’re talking once a year, maybe. We’re talking, if I ever was so exhausted that I fell asleep in front of the TV, or felt sick and had to take an afternoon nap, it was news. “I saw you sleep,” she would say, “but you had your eyes half-open, so I wasn’t really sure.” To which I’d reply in evil laughter, “Perhaps I never really sleep.”

Oh the times.

By all rights, I should be exhausted. I walked down to the beach this afternoon, hit the waves, came back and went to a party in Silverlake. After coming back, I unwound watching Journey to the Center of the Earth (possibly my second favorite movie, the first being Rear Window), which lasted me until about one. And now here I am, almost 2 and getting up at 8 to go lay bricks for 5 hours before hitting the beach again, battling the surf. I should really sleep…

And so it begins.

I work a mere 3 blocks from the Arclight in Hollywood where The Movie is premiering tonight, which gives me little excuse for not having gone over there to check out the freaks.

OK, actually I’m writing this from an 802.11g Wi-fi connection in line. I’m dressed in my Obi-wan Kenobi robes and I have this sweet lightsaber I got from eBay. It’s actually from the Episode II Obi-wan, which is inaccurate because I’m dressed as Obi-wan from Episode IV. I just know I’m going to get razzed about it from the guys.

Yeah, that’s the ticket.

Recently, I discovered (or “fervently remembered”) what may be the key to my addiction to love affair with Pepsi (aka god’s ambrosia):

My first real kiss was enfused with Pepsi.

It was 2001, I was 27 years old and looking for love…

just kidding.

It was 1990? ’91? Somewhere around when I was 16. It was at my first real girlfriend’s house on her living room floor.

Aside: To my other first girlfriend that I had when I was in 2nd grade, I’ll always love you baby; but, you see, we’re just different people now and i have to let you go. And, to be honest with myself, I was a pretty shitty boyfriend. I never took you anywhere, and we never did anything save the occassional game of Freeze Tag. It seems, in fact, that the only thing that really made us boyfriend & girlfriend was that we ran around calling each other that.

To continue, girlfriend’s living room floor. We’d been dating for a couple of weeks I think. Going to movie’s, hanging out at each other’s houses, seeing each other after school and between classes. It was, I think, a weekend because it was during the day. Your parents and sister weren’t home (a fact my own parents would have freaked out about if they’d known how little they were ever around… mom stop reading!). We’d gone to lunch somewhere… I’m thinking Subway for some reason (it would have been in my budget) but it may have been Taco Bell (both places that serve Pepsi). I had refilled my drink before we left and I had a big blue cup full of Cherry Pepsi. We were sitting next to but facing one another in a position perfect for Indian Leg Wrestling, and I was sipping nervously from my cup every 10 seconds.

We were talking about something inane (The weather? What our favorite movie was?) when I felt The Gravity and we kissed. It was cold, it was wet, and it was… delicious!

Now, she’s long gone, but faithful Pepsi still remains. I’m not sure, but I think that probably means I’m sick in the head.

I live to serve, so I will tell you this now, lest you were considering doing something similar:

Making tacos for one is depressing.

You needn’t thank me, your tear tinged eyes and awed expression are thanks enough.

It turns out, in fact, that making anything for one is depressing. Observe:

.: manicotti for one: depressing
.: caesar salad for one: depressing
.: mandarin beef for one: depressing
.: tuna casserole for one: depressing, and just a tad pathetic

To combat this wave of depression, I have been doing the only logical thing: eating out practicing ritualistic starvation.

I kid, I kid. There’s nothing ritualistic about it.

It is interesting, actually, the incredible drop in motivation and creativity that comes with losing someone to cook for. It’s a fairly powerful miracle that I even use plates for the meals I do make. And let’s not even talk about if I sit properly at my “dining room” table, or slovenly in front of my huge, mid-life crisis brought on by failed relationship, 46″ widescreen TV. (HINT: it’s the TV)

You’d think I’d be used to it, considering the disproportionate frequency in which I find myself in situations such as these. ‘Cause I’m a hustler baby. Yes yes, a hustler.

I can’t remember the last time I tucked my shirt in.

The cable on my headphones is markedly shorter on the left side than it is on the right, which I believe it Phillips attempt at being “hip”. Look! The cable doesn’t hang symmetrically! How awesome is that?

Actually, I believe the idea is so that I can loop the cables behind my neck instead of having them dangle in front, and then still have the main cable going to my iPod I am theoretically holding in my hand.

Or something. It doesn’t matter.

The point is, my radius of head-reach is dictated by the shorter cable (the left. Which, for simplicities sake will now be called TLCPFMH (The Left Cable Protruding From My Headphones). With all headphones in their proper ears, I have a pretty fair range of motion around my computer (to which the headphones are often plugged). I can sort of hunch-stand by my desk if I hear a loud scary noise, I can turn around to throw things at co-workers, I can even do a little chair jig when that awesome new Kelly Clarkson song comes on. What I can’t do, though, is switch.
>
When I inadvertently put the TLCPFMH in my right ear, things change dramatically. I’m now like what’s her face in that movie about the Phat Greek Wedding. She’s walking with a headset on and get’s reverse clothes-lined. You know what I mean. Put some Windex on it.

All this means to me is that my head is so depressingly huge that it’s very width cuts my range of motion down from chair jig to stoic reserve.

Oh, and that god hates me.

Breaking News

According to the Spring 2005 issue of the Thermoplastic Materials and Foams Division Newsletter, the Thermoplastic & Foams Division’s ANTEC 2004 Best Paper in the Polyolefin category was (drumroll):

Structure-Property Relationships and Applications of Novel Flexible TPO Based on Blends of Developmental Performance Elastomer and Polypropylene

Wow!!!

As have all the dorks, I went and saw The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (and yes, I cut and pasted the name instead of typed it) and it was surprisingly good.

Not surprising because of the material. The material is fabulous, the material is gold. Surprising because more often than not, movie adaptations of successful books never fail to disappoint. Especially comedies. Especially especially sci-fi comedies. This one was really pretty good, though.

I’m not sure how you’d fare if you haven’t read the books… but that’s not something I have to worry about.

This morning, after taking a shower, I was walking around my apartment in a towel. Before I got dressed, I wandered into the kitchen and cleaned the few dishes I had left in the sink to soak over night. I got my hands wet in the process, and instead of wiping my hands on the towel I was wearing, I turned and walked the few steps to where the dish rag hangs from the refrigerator.

This struck me odd.

Because I was already wearing a towel, you see.

That I could dry my hands on if I wanted to.

Or even the dishes.

>Or whatever else I might have around that had just been moistened.

Are you for scuba?

Narcissism

Based on a hit in my referral logs, I went and found out that I am:

.: 8th on Google for “David Kleeman”
.: 1st for “Dave Kleeman”
.: Referenced 1st through 3rd for “Panelo Jack” AND found that the 4th hit is a post someone stole from me over three years ago. It’s my first confirmed instance of being a victim of plagiarism. Clearly, I’m pretty stoked… though it shows I haven’t been worth emulating for a long, long time.

And finally (drumroll please)I am Number 1 for:

.: “Japan, see-thru skirts”

Thank you! Thank you very much! I’d like to thank the members of the academy, mom, the letter q, and all the little people I stepped on to get here! We finally did it, baby!