How NoHate2013 became NoRegrets2013 for this blogger

[this concerns the highs and the lows of Thursday. all/most non-bloggers will be kept nameless in this overly-comprehensive story]

Prologue

Like any other day, the story of Thursday starts Wednesday night. As my friend and I were leaving Skooby's Hot Dogs, a group of girls asked him to take a group picture for them. He did, joked with them a tiny bit, and he noticed one girl that he found particularly attractive. We were in the car and we looked around for a pen and paper. The only paper we had was some old receipt, and before he could make up his mind and seize the opportunity, the group of girls had walked by, never to be seen again.

We talked about how letting opportunities slip by sucks, and we talked about how getting girls and careers can be kinda similar (in the sense that you have to be proactive about approaching people you dont really know).  I told him how I didn't jump on a similar opportunity to talk to one of the graphic designers at work (for career stuff, not because she's hot, not that she's ugly necessarily but I think she's in her 40s).  So we decided Fuck That.  You make your own luck.  Either you let fear intimidate you out of doing anything, or you reach out and grab what you can (not like grabbing a tit, but more of an abstract-grab type of thing if that makes sense). We parted ways Wednesday night, agreeing to take advantage of all the glory that Thursday could give us.

Thursday

I go into work on Thursday feeling great.  This is going to be a good day.  Why?  Because I'm going to make it a good day, that's why.  I hatch my plan.  The graphic designer's office is between mine and the bathroom.  I go piss, wash my hands, dry them as dry as physically possible, and gather my thoughts and my courage to pop into this lady's office.  I'm walking down the hall--here we go!!--I'm just outside her doorway about to speak up when--RIING--her phone goes off.  FUCK!!  I take a few steps past her door and stop.  I'm standing awkwardly next to a water cooler, the phone still ringing.  But I shouldn't go back to my office.  Fuck that.  The phone stops ringing.  This might be a little awkward but fuck it.  I walk back to her doorway and blabber out a "Hey--Kathy?" Kathy turns from her computer and looks back at me, a little caught off guard and confused. I stammer out a little introduction and apologize for interrupting and ask if I could talk to her and if now's not a good time then some other time would be fine.  She's like yeah sure, how about we talk at 11 tomorrow morning? Sweet. Awesome. That went relatively well. Victorious, I walk back to my office.

Later I get a text from my dad. Late loan payment. Wat? Neither I nor my dad have received one email or notice of any kind relating to any loan before this. When I get home we spend 45 minutes on the phone trying to figure out how to fucking pay it because the website is dumb; 172 dollars later that's all figured out, and I eat some frozen pizza.

As I eat, plans are being made on two fronts.  Jesse and I are gonna go pick up some [popsicles] that our [popsicle salesman] left sitting in a kitchen sink in a random parking garage somewhere on the West Side.  This screams adventure.  Meanwhile, a friend is staying at a hotel in town that supposedly has a pool on the roof, and some of our other friends are going there. [Popsicle]-adventure followed by hotel-roof-pool?? That is an easy Yes.

Santa Monica

About an hour later, Jesse, Adrian, and I park behind a bird-shit-covered Mustang and head to the address of the garage. We sketch our way to the back of an apartment building where there is a little open garage with three cars in it. Not what I had in mind, but for no apparent reason there's a counter with a sink in it, so this is the place.  I hold the iphone flashlight up as Jesse opens a drawer under the sink and pulls out a jar.  Inside the jar is a small plastic baggy full of [popsicles].  Success.  Jesse and I peace off while Adrian takes a piss next to the garage and catches up a few minutes later.

We park on a random side street next to some big ugly storagey-looking building behind a shitty metal fence, ready to sample the marijuana that we accidentally found in our popsicle bag.  But wait. That big shitty building...it's a fucking school? Yes. Wow what a shitty school, we shouldn't smoke next to a school, that school sucks. We take off and go around the corner, driving past a crowd of middle school band members and their parents ushering them to their respective cars.  We find another spot, park, and smoke.

Three hits later I'm marveling at the greatness of Cali weed. We blast some sweet-ass mellow tunes and head to Hollywood.

We stop by Jesse's so he can get his bathing suit.  Our friends are all at a bar in West Hollywood.  Jesse mentions something about how that sucks, but we're already talking about something else en route to West Hollywood.

 West Hollywood

We get to the general area where we think the bar is.  Circling around and around for parking.  It's now cold and raining.  Keep on looking for parking.  Finally we see a spot: it'll be a really, really tight fit, if we fit at all.  Jesse is determined to try.  First attempt, too far from curb.  Second attempt, no room to cut back into the spot.  A bystander smoking a cigarette doesn't think we can fit.  Jesse wants to try one more time.  We dive deep into the spot and try to cut back.  Adrian and the bystander are outside, telling us it ain't gonna work.  Jesse starts to pull out of the spot and turns to the right.  We're really close to the car in front and--SCRAAPE. We're rubbing all up against the car in front of us.  But we have to get all the way out of this spot...SSCCCCRRRAAAPPPEEEE. Fuck. We just hit that car and we're high and there's a bystander who was telling us we couldn't fit.  Fuck fuck fuck.

Jesse gets out to inspect the damage. I sit in the car trying to accept the harsh reality of what is happening.  I hear them talking outside, can't really hear what they're saying. Then Jesse's voice sticks out of the murmuring, excited: "It's just dirt!" It's just dirt? What the fuck could that possibly fucking mean?  As I write this I'm still not entirely sure what that means or what happened, but apparently rubbing all up against this other car left no damage to either car.  Confirmed by non-high bystander.  A legitimate miracle. We peace out and find parking elsewhere.

We walk to the bar.  It's called "Mickey's." Sounds like a chill Irish pub. We go inside and the first thing I see is our friends.  But this place is neither chill nor Irish nor a pub.  The second thing I see is two dudes in their underwear dancing up on a table.  I look across to the other side--more shirtless male dancers.  Shitty pop music is blaring. Hmm. Ok. I try to convince myself that I can still enjoy this, because a group of friends are here.  Time passes and I'm still trying to convince myself.  But this place kinda sucks.  Last night I was dancing at a sweet punk-rock show and now I'm standing next to these shirtless underwear dudes listening to shitty pop bullshit? And nobody else is dancing? But my friends are here so I should enjoy myself. Can't really hear them over the shitty pop beats but I should enjoy myself.

We decide to leave this shitty bar and go to another one. As we walk down the cold rainy streets we can't really see any bars in sight.  We stop as a group to see where else we can go.  But pretty much all the bars out here are gay bars.  After ten minutes we finally turn the fuck around to go to some other bar.  We stop outside another bar and debate whether to go in.  Some strange social phenomenon is happening and nobody in this group has the power to make an authoritative decision.  Another ten minutes of standing there and we're finally walking inside.  More shitty music.  If not shittier, and in this one they're playing the shitty music videos that accompany the song.  I've never seen women objectified so overtly.  Like at least Transformers had a story.  But I'm with my friends so I should enjoy myself.  I stand next to the bar making the occasional joke as my soul is beat to a pulp by this shitty music and shitty atmosphere.

We finally leave, and eventually reach our parking spot.  We have to decide whether to peace out or go up to the hotel pool.  The three of us are down to do whatever, but I kinda wanna leave.  Our hotel friend doesnt want to go out anywhere because her hotel is nearby.  Our other two friends (let's call them X and Y) seem to be caught in the middle.  The social phenomenon is happening again.  It would be kinda douchey if the five of us just left to go do shit without the hotel friend.  But the hotel friend isn't inviting us up to the hotel.  The hotel friend is also not saying that he/she wants to just go to sleep or whatever.  So we're stuck.  We're stuck for a while.

Hotel friend seems to want friend X to stay.  Friend X came with Friend Y, so if Friend X stays then Friend Y needs to come in our car, because it seems that the three of us and Friend Y are not wanted in the hotel.  But this is only inferred and never stated, so we don't really know what's going on.  After what couldn't have been less then half an hour, and was likely longer, the three of us get in Jesse's car.  We give Friend Y a second to make a choice, but ultimately we've been stuck in this horrible awkward web of insecure social bullshit for so long that we just need Jesse to "Get us the fuck out of here," in Adrian's words.

Post-West Hollywood

Holy shit.  I've never been involved in something so stupid.  Even as I write this I can't believe how long we were just standing in front of our car for a decision to be made.  Like when I wrote 'half an hour,' I was kinda thinking yeah, I was a little high, it couldn't have been that long.  But it was.  It was at LEAST thirty fucking minutes of just standing there, and I think Adrian and Jesse can back me up in saying that it very likely was longer.

Shaken and angry, we stop by Chick Fil-et on the way to Jesse's to comfort ourselves.  I get a nice little ice cream sundae with a cherry on top.  We chill and decompress at Jesse's.  We fiddle with the guitar and finally come up with a good bridge to a song we've been working on.  Success.  Adrian and I drive back and sleep.

Conclusions

I don't think anyone's still reading at this point but just for myself Ima try to draw some meaning from the day and tie up some loose ends.  I know it's no hate 2013, but god dammit I hated West Hollywood.  Those bars suck. Not because they're gay, but because the particular ones we went to were so artificial feeling with such shitty artificial music that I hated it.  I guess maybe hate can be a good thing if you use it to direct yourself.  Like a learning-from-your-mistakes kinda thing.  I hated those loud shitty bars so much that Friday night I just decided to relax and go to a chill French double-feature, and had a great chill time.  And it took hating that shit to make me really re-appreciate how much I enjoy the things that I do like.

The most good that came out of Thursday was probably getting that informational interview at work.  This was done in the spirit of having no regrets, which includes redeeming previous regrets.  I regretted not approaching her on Monday, and normally I just kinda regret it until it fades away. Regret-then-forget.  But instead I used my regret as fuel for actually doing something proactive. I talked to Kathy at work on Friday and it went really well.  When she found out I knew Avid she said she'd mention me to another woman who works on our floor who is always looking for someone to do assistant work in Avid.

So to sum that shit up, I'm done with No Hate 2013 and embracing No Regret 2013.  Instead of trying to suppress negative emotions, I can use them to improve my shit.  Also, fuck West Hollywood.  It's a desolate shithole where dreams go to die, and I hope I never go back. 

:)

TL;DR - I had an interesting Thursday, how was yours?