The Complex, Part Deux

Hello my friends.  It's been a while and I have so much to catch up on.  Observations and comments and insights, it'll take a while to get back up to speed.  I had to take a moment, though, to write about where I live.  Actually, to comment in general about life in a high-rise.  I have to say, I absolutely enjoy living in a high-rise.  I've already written about some of the pros and cons about it in previous entries.  There are a multitude of interesting people, the care and upkeep is minimal, and, most importantly, few bugs.

One of the greatest things about living in a high-rise is the elevator experience.  See, one of the most enjoyable moments I have living in my complex is riding the elevators up and down from home, to lobby, to the gym, to the laundry and so on.

Yes, I've been stuck in an elevator, three times!  I imagine this is what it looked like from the outside.

Here's what I particularly enjoy about the elevators:  The people.  Not only are there a bunch of outrageous characters living here, but many of them are women of all shapes, sizes and demeanor.  Seriously, do the math.  There are 44 floors.  With the exception of the first floor and the second floor (private lofts, four of them) there are 12 apartments per floor.  Given that there is AT LEAST one person living in every apartment, that means there are 528 residents living here at any given time.  Now, since I KNOW there are at least two people living in most of the apartments here, I'm going to shoot that up to about 1,000 residents, give or take a hundred or so residing around me. 

It's kind of like a bachelor's dream.  Going by the national statistics, if there are 1,000 residents in my building, then at least four to five hundred of them are, statistically speaking, women.  Every single day I ride up and down in my elevator, chances are good I will be riding with a woman. 

The elevator rides are always an adventure.  I'm not talking about a couple going at it like rabbits once the door closes, only to emerge looking dishevelled and in a daze.  But the mere experience of riding elevators is something I've always enjoyed, and not because I'm whizzing upwards in a metal box controlled by computers and cables and maintained by angry, gruff technicians. 

There's something fun about the awkwardness of two people, complete strangers, riding alone in an elevator.  I'm a large man, I can be intimidating sometimes.  A lot of the women I ride up with are smaller, more petite women, mostly dancers or chorus girls in shows at the performing arts center.  They're attractive, they always seem very nervous.  I don't stare, but it's hard not to look at them as they stand near the front of the elevator, fidgeting with their purses or staring at their phones.

In time, though, if they stick around long enough, or if they live here, we all get to recognize each other and I've had some interesting conversations in those rides.  I've chatted with a girl on the fourth floor about music, a woman on the 19th floor about public relations, I've had conversations about BP, politics, sports and even relationships.

Of course these are all short conversations.  Three minutes, tops.  And since we both know these are short rides, we somehow manage to cut through all the polite banter and get right down to business.  Of course we say hi to each other and then a question or observation sparks the conversation and suddenly we're talking as if we're long lost friends.

As I've stated previously, I've been living in high-rises for a long time now, five years here, four years in another complex, three years before that in a different building.  Oddly enough, even though all of these complexes are separated by miles of road and situated in very different economic areas, each of them have some interesting things in common.  Of course, the elevators have similarities too, such as the strange smells, the stuffy-hot atmosphere and the occasional dog pee on the floor.

First, I believe that every high-rise has screwy fire alarms.  I'm usually up late or working from home, and in every building, the alarms have gone off randomly at all hours of the day or night.  You get used to the alarm going off for no reason.  So it came as a huge surprise one night when the alarm went off around 2am one night a couple of years ago.  Right before the alarm went off, my lights had flickered on and off.  It was kind of spooky, actually.  Then the alarm went off and about five minutes later, I lost all electricity.  It was strange, so I walked out into my hallway and to my shock, smoke was billowing out from underneath the electrical door and out from the elevator doors. 

A moment of panic set in as I tried to figure out what exactly was going on.  For so long a fire alarm was simply a distraction, a nuisance.  But now it seemed as if it was a real, honest-to-goodness fire...in my building!  In my sweats and t-shirt, I grabbed my phone and started walking down the pitch black staircase. 

Slowly, I was joined by several other folks who had been rudely jolted awake by the blaring alarm and the smell of smoke.  I chatted with several lovely women while I waited outside for four hours for the fire department to clear the building. 

One of the other interesting commonalities in each building is the people.  It seems as if every single high rise in the world has the same mix of individuals living within its walls.  There is the strange couple that looks at everybody as if they were criminals.  They don't speak much, they squint when they look at you and they mumble when they say hello.  For a while this couple lived right next door to me.  They had, well, I guess they still have, a small dog, a tiny dog, a poodle I think, that they take for a walk four to five times a day. 

I have to clarify when I say "take for a walk" because really, they carry the little dog around in a miniature pet carrier.  The front of the carrier is open and the dog sits with its front paws hanging out the front with its head just barely poking out from underneath the little blue curtain that hangs down from the top.  They lived next door to me for about a year, before moving to a lower floor.  I don't know if I made them move, I might have.  I kind of terrorized them, I think.  I don't throw a lot of parties, but when I do, they tend to get a little rowdy and loud. 

More than once, I would get a call from the front desk, or a knock on my door.  "Please be quiet" they would say.  And then another call or knock, another request.  This would go on a few times, until, more than once, a very angry and tired-looking neighbor, dog carrier in hand, slippers on his feet would pound on my door.  I was drunk, he was red-faced, he'd yell, I'd blow him off.  That was pretty much the nature of our relationship.

So, I can understand why he might look at me with disdain.  But he looks at everyone like that.  It's strange.  Even his dog seems to look at people with a suspicious glint in its beady little eyes.  Every time I see him now, he's still taking his dog for a walk, and he still mumbles when he says hello.

Then there's the person I call "the nervous one".  In every instance, this is a middle-aged woman, generally tallish, skinny, wearing glasses and dressed like a 1950's librarian.  In my last building the "nervous one" never actually spoke to anyone.  She mostly talked to herself and stared straight ahead.  I think people truly frightened her.  I don't mean, made her fidgety, but really, REALLY scared her. 

In my building now, the "nervous one" looks much like all of the other "nervous ones," tall, skinny, dressed in severe gray skirts and buttoned up blouses and horn rimmed glasses.  She rushes around as if she's always late for something and never, ever talks to anyone.  She happens to live a few floors below me, so I catch a ride with her from time to time.  Two days ago, she actually said hello to me.  I was so shocked, I almost didn't reply.  It was just the two of us in the elevator, but I thought she might have a phone in her hear and was talking to someone else. 

I finally said hello back and she commented on the heat and something about her neighbor's dog keeping her awake at night.  I'm not sure if she thought I was someone else, or what exactly happened.  In four years, this lady has never said a single word to me, or anyone else in our building as far as I know.  And here she was being practically verbose. 

There are a ton of other characters in the building...the slutty women, the slutty guys, the angry couple, the couple that is WAAAYYY too in love and takes every advantage of public displays of affection to let the rest of the world know exactly how much in love they really are.  Recently we even got our own Balke.  Unless you're over 30 years old, you probably have no idea who Balke is.  He's a character from an old TV show called "Perfect Strangers".  Balke was a foriegner, living with a cousin in New York, or some big city.  It was your basic fish out of water story, hilarity ensued. 

Our Balke, is just like that character, only real.  He chats away, happy as can be, but no one really understands what he's saying.  He has a high pitched voice, is timid, doesn't look anyone directly in the eye, but still he chats away to anyone who will listen or respond.  We've had fascinating conversations during our rides together.  I'm not sure what we talked about, I think it's mostly about the weather, but it's hard to walk away from those conversations in a bad mood.  Cheery and seemingly clueless might not be such a bad way to go through life. 

Sure, there are the fights you hear at 4am, the drunken parties who's pumping music filters down to you at midnight on a Tuesday, and the whoops and hollers from inebriated men and women as they stumble back to their apartments. 

All in all, though, it's great living in a high-rise for no other reason than the elevator rides.  As I stated, I've yet to get a date from my ups and downs.  I have been stuck in my elevator for a few hours, I napped.  Not so surprisingly, I found myself wondering why I had to get stuck by myself in the elevator instead of with one of the single dancers living on the 10th floor.  Oh well, it could have been worse, I could have been stuck with my angry neighbor or with the "nervous one". 

Check back soon, I'll be discussing the issue of juggling, and I'm not talking about circus juggling, either. 

I HAVE to get out more!

So, I'm a drinker.  I'm not an alcoholic, I just like to drink.  I likes my adult beverages.  I also like to tell stories.  I'm a drinker and a talker.  Some guys are lovers, some are fighters...I like to drink and talk.  I days past I would have been relegated to sitting on an old log sporting a robe and a long white beard smelling of plum wine and rambling on about the "days of yore".  On the one had, that guy never got laid.  On the other hand, he DID preserve the cultural history of his people, so, I guess it's a trade-off.

Therefore, it's not a huge surprise that I wandered down to a wine bar on Wednesday night to partake in what is called, "The Narrators" series.  Basically, it's just a bunch of artists, comedians and writers gathering in a hipster bar to ramble on about personal incidents and throw back a few two-dollar PBR's.

Just look at the crowd waiting for my story...not.

 Storytellers Wanted:

I joined in the fun because a friend of mine from L.A. was coming back to town to do some shows and she was participating in the event and encouraged a bunch of us to also get involved.  Now, a few things about this lady.  First, she is perhaps one of the funniest people I've ever met.  Truly a comic genius.  Second, she's also the same gal that somehow managed to talk me into doing stand-up, not once, but twice.  Both times compeltely sober (my third stand-up effort involved a lot of alcohol and a seedy bar, so it doesn't count).

It's odd how she has some kind of comedic sway over me.  Probably the only woman in the world that I don't have a crush on that could actually talk me into doing stand-up more than once.   I wanted to see her perform, and I wanted to see how I'd do in that environment.

I got there early, about an hour early, because I misread the time on the invitation.  That was fine, it gave me time to partake of the cheap beers on tap at the Paris Wine Bar.  And by cheap beers I mean the one cider they had in a can for two bucks and the one dollar Pabst.  Eventually, people I knew showed up and we all gathered in the back room for storytime.  There were ten "narrators" on the docket and each one was supposed to have only ten minutes.

Of course, you KNEW this wasn't going to happen.  At ten minutes, ten storytellers, that should have amounted to just under two hours.  Give it a full 120 minutes with people getting up and sitting down and the host time.  As it turns out, we weren't done until about 10:30, so...you do the math.  SOMEONE went longer than ten minutes, right?

I enjoyed the stories, I didn't wow the folks, but I didn't embarass myself, and sometimes that's all you can hope for.  I told an old radio story.  It wasn't funny, but I made up for it by sitting on a stool and not making eye contact, so, it was all good.  But that's not what this entry is about.  No indeed.

A Lovely Surprise:

Because afterwards, all of the performers and some of the random folks sitting around watching the show mingled and shook hands and told everyone how much they enjoyed the others' story.  I didn't really know anyone else there outside of the couple of people I met there.  But as I was chatting with the organizer of the event, a very pretty girl walked up to me and stood in front of me, not saying anything.

Of course I noticed her, but I didn't know her and I just figured she was waiting for me to get out of the way of the very narrow aisle that led to the front door.  I stepped aside, but she didn't move, she just stood there.  After about two minutes, I said my goodbyes to the the host and I turned to look directly at her.  Without saying anything, she just put her arms around me and held me for an awkwardly long time.  I'm not talking about five minutes, but when a complete stranger does a drive-by hug, even 30 seconds can seem like a very long time.

After what seemed like forever, the young lady pulled herself back from me and grabbed my hand and looked into my eyes and simply said, "I loved your story, I...I loved your story."  Here's what I heard.  "I want to have sex with you."

Yes, I know, that's not what she said.  But you have to understand that what a woman says isn't always what a man, particularly a bachelor, hears.  I'll admit she was pretty.  Very pretty in a librarian, curly dirty blonde hair pulled back with glasses, fair skin and striking green eyes sort of way.  It took me a second to respond, because I truly didnt' expect anyone to come up to me and talk to me about my story.  It was grim, it wasn't funny, it was just a straightforward story.  Not even close to the best I could do.  But she seemed very smitten with the retelling of my story.

I grabbed her hand back and thanked her profusely for her compliment.  It was crowded as people were starting to file out and make plans for the rest of their Wednesday night.  Well, really it was just crowded in the very spot we were standing in because we were smack dab in the only walkway between the back room and the front door.

After thanking her, I didn't know what else to say.  But she was still grabbing my hand and I was still grabbing hers, so it felt like I needed to say something.  So I asked her if she had an interest in journalism.  To which she replied, "I'm a freelance journalist myself, and I found your story so fascinating."  It was like I had turned on a firehose.  For the next ten minutes she just kept talking.

At this point I started trying to figure out how to transition from random stranger conversation to something more intimate.  I was in luck because we HAD to get out of the way of everyone trying to leave, so I slowly led her over to the bar and kind of sat her down in the one open barstool.  We chatted for a while, talking about journalism, the media, the Iraq war, politics, writing and comedy.

Of course, you won't be surprised when I tell you that she is significantly younger than I am.  And of course you won't be surprised when I tell you that I simply didn't care.  Sadly, after about 30 minutes of chatting, I asked if she wanted to go somewhere and get a drink.  To which she replied, "I'm not sure, I have to see what my boyfriend is doing."

Grrrrrr.  A disappointment, to be sure, but at the same time, I had a revelation.  I haven't spent nearly enough time getting out to the clubs and bars and wine houses and partaking of the myriad of fun things available in town.  I didn't get the girls number, for obvious reasons, but it was nice to be appreciated.

I have to send out a special thanks to Meredith and Michelle, Sarah and Michael for also being there.  Sara and Michelle were performing as well, but Mere simply came down to show support, which meant a lot.  But at the end of the night, I realized that since I'm not doing as much improv as I have been the past several years, I have a chance to get out and do things outside of the community I've been involved with for such a long time.  I still want to do things with those people as well, as much as I can, but I also have to get out and meet total strangers from time to time as well.

Just tonight our apartment complex had their annual "Pool Party" complete with free food, free alcohol and prizes.  I reconnected with some of the handful of people I know from riding the elevators for the past four years, and met some new folks.  I danced to Frank Sinatra with a retired ballarina dancer and shared a mojito with a lovely, overworked female lawyer.

The point is, and I know a few other bachelors that understand this as well, I simply have to get out more.  If this means grabbing Mere and dragging her to places where we can both meet people, then that's what I'll do.  Hell, we could both use a one night stand if nothing else with some mysterious, hot stranger.  Regardless, I've enjoyed this recent foray back into the social scene.  I'll keep you all posted on how it goes!

Dancing Fool!

I'm a guy.  I've been a guy my entire life.  Being a guy, there are a few givens that I have dealt with from time to time.  These are pretty much universal truths that govern the way men, particulary single men, bachelors, think and act.  It's like the law of gravity, only with gender issues.

I call these constants the "Bachelor Laws".  Of course these laws will differ slightly from bachelor to bachelor, and in different regions and probably different countries.  But for the most part, these are the rules that we bachelors follow, whether we want to or not...it's instinct.

"Well you can tell by the way I use my walk..."  Eh, dancing sucks!

They aren't complicated, and even women, if they've ever spent any time around bachelors, are aware of them.  Here are a few to get acquainted with:

1.  You never cry at a sad movie in public...unless you're with a woman and you want to show your "softer" side so you can score later.


2.  The man always pays on the first date.


3.  Slapstick is funny, explosions are cool, ninjas are awesome. (a note here, it's not essential that bachelors like the Three Stooges, but they DO have to like one of the following movies or their bachelor card is revoked; The Blues Brothers, Caddyshack, Spinal Tap, Airplane or Animal House).


4.  Drinking is an acceptable form of recovery from a breakup.


5.  Porn is a basic fundamental right.


6.  You are required to punch Kenny G square in the face if you ever see him in person.


7.  Ogling is okay as long as you don't say things like, "hubba hubba" or "Holy Crap, would you look at those things!"


8.  Never be afraid to make the first move.


9.  You can enjoy the opera and gardening as long as you also enjoy boxing and/or football.


10.  No bachelor "enjoys" dancing, it's merely a way to hook up with a woman.

Not That There's Anything WRONG With That...

These are simply a handful of the laws that govern the actions of bachelors.  There are a lot more, rules that deal with cooking, working out, dating, fighting, etc.  But for a moment, I'd like to focus on the last of the ten rules I posted above.  You know, the one about dancing.

I get a lot of flack for my take on dancing.  However, I don't think I'm off base on this.  I have known a lot of guys in my time.  Guys who are graceful, tall, slender, fat and short.  These are guys from all walks of life and different backgrounds and the one thing I can honestly say we have all had in common is out general dislike for dancing.  Don't get me wrong, it's not that we hate dancing in general.  I mean, we'll sit and watch a ballet, or we'll watch women bounce and jiggle all over the floor.  It's just that if presented with a variety of activity options for the night, we will almost never willingly choose to go dancing. 

I know, I know, "But Chris," you say, "I know a ton of guys who LOVE to dance."  I don't doubt that you do.  And for the most part I can put these men into one of two categories.  One group of dancing men are the exceptions that prove the rule.  The other group of men are gay. 

Listen, there's nothing wrong with being gay.  But for the most part, men who really like dancing are, well...gay.  Yes, there are those cowboys who like to line dance...that isn't dancing, though, it's more like organized group activity.  Like water aerobics on dry land.  There are those ballet dancers, the ones who wear the really tight leotards that just happens to highlight their package in a way nature never intended.  I'm not sure those guys are gay, they probably just like dancing with hot chicks and getting paid for it.

Anyway, the point is, I don't enjoy dancing, never have.  And I'm actually a graceful fella.  I CAN dance, if I have to.  I can do the salsa and I'm a particularly good slow dancer.  But by and large when I'm in an environment that involves dancing, I'm the one standing at the bar watching everyone else get sweaty.

My Dancing Disaster:

I did once actually recommend dancing as part of a date years and years ago.  I was just out of college and a woman I'd known for some time hooked up with me at a house party.  The following weekend, I asked if she wanted to go dancing.  Now, I did this for two reasons.  1.) I knew she liked to dance and I wanted to take her someplace I thought she'd enjoy.  2.) She also enjoyed country music so I asked her to the Grizzly Rose, a big country bar just outside of Denver.

Now, the Rose has a live band of some sort just about every night and a huge dance floor right in front of the stage that is fenced off like some kind of corral.  I don't like country music, and I can't two-step.  So you can imagine how I had to psych myself up for the evening.  Still, it was for her and I wanted her to be happy.  We showed up at the place around 10pm on a Thursday night.  There was a live band playing all sorts of twangy country tunes, some original, some covers. 

She knew how to two-step, I already mentioned I didn't know how.  She was cool about it and danced with a couple of guys before insisting I get out there and take a lesson from her.  I did and, in reality, the two-step isn't a particularly difficult dance, I mean, it's really just two steps, shuffle shuffle, move.  The music is simple, I picked it up pretty quick.

That's when disaster struck.  There were about 15 couples on the floor at the time, all moving around in a circle, which is apparently what you do when you do the two step.  It reminded me of a big barn dance.  We were going around as easy as could be, talking a little, laughing a lot, when my date decided to up the ante a bit.  Without saying a word, she pushed me away and said, "now it gets fun!"

I wasn't ready, not ready at all, for anything out of the ordinary and it caught me off guard.  She grabbed my right arm, put her hand on my waist and spun me around.  She did it so fast, I didn't have time to react.  In an instant, she had thrown me out, spun me and brought me back in, all while not missing a beat in the two step dance.  Well, that seems pretty simple, I thought to myself.  So as we rounded the bend, she asked if I wanted to give it a try.  Of course I did.  I wanted to show her I was the man, I could lead, I could dance her silly little two step and do flips and twists, dammit.

The next moment happened in slow motion, like one of those movies where the hero gets shot and time suddenly stands still and you helplessly watch as the bullet enters the chest and papers and blood fly everwhere while someone just off camera yells, "Noooooooooo!" 

yeah, it was just like that.  I grabbed her at the waist and flung her out in front of me, still holding on to her right hand.  And then it happened.  My feet somehow got crossed and when I started to pull her back in, I lost my balance.  I started to fall, but I didn't want to drag her down with me, so I took my left arm and pushed her aside, which didn't help, because she got caught up in my legs and toppled herself.

As I fell backwards, and she fell off to my right, an elderly couple just kept dancing towards me.  Because my hands were occupied as I fell, I couldn't break my fall and I fell squarely on my ass, my momentum carrying me backwards.  I knew if I didn't try to stop my movement, or gain control of it at least, my head was going to slam into the floor, so I raised my legs to try and do a reverse tumble roll.  Sadly, as I kicked my legs up to help me roll over backwards, the elderly couple finally saw what was happening in front of them. 

I remember the look on the elderly woman's face, a mixture of horror and confusion as her mind put all the pieces together.  They were too close to get out of the way, and their reflexes too slow to save them from getting hit...hard.

I did roll over, but as my head whipped up, it hit the elderly man smack dab in the gut.  I heard an "oomph!" as he double over.  The woman refused to let go of her man and got dragged backwards as my momentum took us all about five steps in reverse.  I couldnt' see what was happening behind me, I could only feel it.  I knew I hit the man hard and I could hear the woman scream a little as they crumpled into a heap, my body landing right on top of both of them.  Then there was another set of legs all tangled up with us.  A woman's show hit my head, a foot nailed me in the ribs and suddenly there were two bodies lying on top of me.

We apparently had been flung so far back, we hit the couple behind the elderly couple, who, again, just didn't see the disaster coming.  In the aftermath, I envisioned a giant car crash on the freeway, where the semi-truck jacknifes and wipes out about ten cars and all that's left is wreckage and engine fluids and steam rising from the rubble.  For a second I thought I heard the requiem from Full Metal Jacket playing in the background.

There was groaning and my side hurt, as did my butt.  I got the couple off of me and then rolled over so I could get off the couple I had destroyed.  By that time, my date and a few other folks had come over to give us all a hand.  And then I saw it.  There was a pool of blood on the floor.  To be fair, there was blood kind of everywhere.  It turns out the old man had tried to stop his fall and put his hand out.  He promptly broke his wrist and his face hit the floor.  Amy had tripped and hit her head on the stupid fence that ran along the outside of the dance floor and when my head hit the man, I cut my scalp on the dudes oversized belt buckle.  It looked like a MASH unit.

I apologized to the dazed couple and to my date and to anyone within earshot of my voice.  I couldn't have felt worse.  Frankly, I was truly just glad that no one died.  Seriously, I nearly killed an old man while doing the two step at the Grizzly Rose.  I vowed from that day forward I would never dance again...or at the very least, never do the two step again at the Rose.

Dancing For My Art:

I bring this up because one of the ways a bachelor can catch the attention of a woman he's attracted to is dance.  Like it or not, being able to dance is a sure fire way to meet a woman.  If a bachelor can dance, he can always go up and ask a woman out on the floor.  Plus, dancing IS a great way to break the ice.  Let's face it, dancing is sexual in nature.  Men will dance only because sex might be involved.  Women dance because they actually like it.  I never understood that, I never will, but them's the rules and I follow them because it's the law. 

I also mention this because I'm in an improv group that sings.  We improvise musicals on the spot.  This means the characters, the plot, the music, the lyrics, all made up on the spot.  Another element of musicals is dancing.  We've been working, as a group, on dancing and getting better; and we have.  But I'm pretty much the weak link when it comes to the dancing part, so I'm trying to get better at it. 

Last Sunday we rehearsed on the 16th Street Mall because we didn't have a keyboard available to us in the club, but there are a bunch of pianos just sitting on the mall for people to play if they want to (Don't ask me, it's part of the city's summer art program).  We were out there, with our pianist, grabbing people as they walked by and asking them for suggestions for songs.  Then we'd stand around and just sing for them.  It turned out to be a great way to promote our upcoming show, but at one point I couldn't help but think how cool it would be if we also did a little dance to go along with our song.  How impressed would people be then, right?

But for the moment, we'll have to stick with the songs, at least until we get better at dancing as a group, or until I can do it without significantly injuring someone.  So cross your fingers as I attempt to improve my dancing abilities.  Hopefully no one dies and even though I won't enjoy it, I know it's for the good of the group, which is more important. 

I'll keep you updated.  Until then, stay cool my bachelor and bachelorette friends.  Next entry will be after the Fourth Of July and will update the parties I'm attending.  Should be fun!