A Failure
Tuesday, March 27, 2007
In my self-righteous, post-dumped phase, I feel entitled to free meals and attention from men whom I plan to dump. I also agreed to go on a blind date. In my opinion, a blind date should be either wonderful or disastrous. I had personally hoped for disastrous, since I had already decided not to like the guy. For this purpose, I was hoping for a purple mohawk, lots of facial piercings, and an addictive drug habit. For example, Turret’s syndrome would have been fantastic.
Unfortunately, the guy turned out to be extremely likeable, polite, and normal looking. He even has an apartment and a job. Normal people like this make me very uncomfortable.
"So what do you do for a living?"
"How do you like San Francisco?"
Pointless banter made me yearn for the rude, crude gossip that I make with friends like Shannon, who most recently started complaining about her boyfriend's bad habits in bed. In detail. And in comparison to other guys' habits in bed. ("Robin was so much hotter, do you want to sleep with him? I think you should give it a try so we can compare notes.")
Who cares how I feel about San Francisco.
To future date prospects:
- I fart
- I speak too loud in restaurants
- I say cuss words near children
Being around well-mannered people makes me very uncomfortable.
Plus, overly nice guys are not as satisfying to break up with.
Cold Fusion
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
Ok, sometimes people ask me about cold fusion and what the whole thing is about. So here's a basic explanation. Fusion is the thing that happens in the sun, that makes it glow and warm up our planet. In a fusion reaction, two hydrogen atoms crash into each other and become a helium atom. We've been trying to get this to happen on earth so that we can have tons of clean cheap energy, but we aren't having any luck because we aren't as big and sexy as the sun.
Then, in the 1980's two guys named Stanley and Martin noticed that palladium (it's a metal) has a weird ability to absorb hydrogen like a sponge. It absorbs about 900 times its volume of hydrogen. Since hydrogen atoms in a piece of palladium are so close together, they said "Gee, I wonder if we could get the hydrogen atoms fuse more easily!"
So they tried.
And they got lots of crap for it when they said they had room-temperature fusion, but none of the other scientists could verify this claim. And now, twenty years later, I am standing in a laboratory filled with hydrogen cans and chunks of palladium, writing in my blog about this alchemy that most of the world views as BS. But whatever, it got me in a magazine. And I get to write in my blog while I'm at work.
Hungry Ego
Thursday, March 15, 2007
When you tell people that you’ve been dumped, you get lots of attention and sympathy. I figure this is way better than saying that you dumped somebody, which makes people think you’re full of yourself. You don’t get any compliments for being egocentric. Using this logic, I decided that the break-up I went through last week should be recounted as a dumping session where I get teary-eyed and heartbroken. “Oh, he’s going to regret that,” I imagine my friends saying to me, as I tell them my tale of woe. “He had an ugly head anyway.”
In my favorite daydream, I start talking about my feelings of rejection, but my smartest friends just roll their eyes at me. “Oh come on,” they protest, as I tell them about my low self esteem. I put my hand over my heart as if they have just stabbed me with their words, but they just continue glaring. “You know that it’s you that dumped him.” It takes me a moment to absorb their words, but once I do, they are smirking at me proudly. We both burst with laughter.
So today, I decided to try this in practice. “I got dumped!” I announce to two female coworkers who walk into my office. My office-mate turns around to see what’s going on. She has heard my rant about guys dumping me a few times already. To maximize the melodrama, I say that “I always get dumped. Every time.”
I mentally prepare for the string of compliments that are coming my way while the two girls study the distressed expression on my face. Finally, one of them speaks.
“Um, maybe you should brush your hair,” she says with a sneer as she looks me up and down.
“Yeah seriously,” the other girl adds. “See how our hair looks pretty?”
Office mate cringes, as the situation unfolds right before her eyes. She looks like she has something to tell me, but waits politely as the two girls look at me with disgust.
“Maybe it’s because you’re so loud. Guys like girls who laugh at their jokes. Not the other way around.”
After five or six tips on how to be more like them, I thank them for their support, which successfully prompts them to leave. Finally, Office Mate chimes in.
“Laura, why don’t you go on a blind date with my friend?” she suggests supportively. "He's a really nice guy. He's just having trouble meeting a nice girl."
I struggle not to look appalled, and try to imagine myself as a 'nice girl.'
"My husband thinks you'll really like him,” she adds, despite the fact that I have never met her husband. "He's just been down lately, ever since his wife divorced him."
Maybe telling people you got dumped is not such a good idea after all.
Online Stalking
Tuesday, March 13, 2007
The guy that dumped me works for a website. This is detrimental to my productivity, since I regularly check his online profile to make sure that he does not have any messages from his friends. This way, I can verify my image of him as a lonely, friend-less loser. Of course, this only works if he is, in fact, friend-less loser, which is not true.
"It was so good to see you last weekend."
"I saw your feature in the Chronicle today. Amazing!"
"Thanks for the chocolate, babe. XOXO."
I looked at the dates on the messages, and they were all posted this morning. He has 167 friends on this site. I have 3:
1) The guy who dumped me
2) The coworker of the guy that dumped me.
3) A goat. (no, I'm not kidding. It is actually a goat)
Not to imply that the coworker is as worthless as a goat. He's quite cool. For example, last time we were hanging out, we went to a concert in a club. I collected a few drinks from the losers at the bar, and subsequently fell in love with the beautiful, blonde, electric violinist who was performing on stage. She was like an angel.
I didn't think I had any chance of wooing an angel, but after the performance, Coworker helped me to locate her so that I could express my feelings. According to his version of the story (which I can't remember) I was very excited to speak to her, and I said "Dude, if I had a penis, I would totally do you."
And that makes me happy. (Thanks, Coworker!)
Say cheese
Thursday, March 08, 2007
We raided the company liquor cabinet hoping to find colorful liquids to pour into beakers. Julia and I had stolen white lab coats from the laboratory manager, and were pretending to be mad scientists. 
We were doing this, of course, because a university in Ohio asked me if I would guest-lecture in their physics department. They wanted a photo and bio of me, so I needed a respectable portait of myself. After pouring blue curacao and vodka shots into test tubes, we added liquid nitrogen in for special effects. Then we took photos of ourselves trying to eat the smoky stuff coming out the tops of the test tubes.
Weighing Benefits**
Tuesday, March 06, 2007
Benefits of being a hot chick:1) FREE SHIT
2) POWER
3) EGO
4) MORE FREE SHIT
Although, the benefits of being a chick do not necessarily outweigh the costs. The goodies are temporary. For example, they might terminate when the guy decides to ditch your ass at a hoity-toity corporate event in San Francisco where he decides that you are a mortifying embarrassment. Whatever. I had a few glasses of wine, and I was FUN. People told me I was fun! So Paisley ditched me... as a consolation, I had a fun time rambling to his boss about boobs before he left me. I think I said something about breasts giving women the dominant power in relationships. He agreed.
But that's not the point. The reason that I am writing this is not because I got ditched at a party a while back, but because I actually got dumped again last week by another guy. Worse, this time the story does not include a chapter about seducing the guy's boss, or even a scene in a restaurant where I throw my wine at him for being a jerk. Furthermore, my insistance on staying in bed for two days to provide emotional healing completely prevented me from collecting free drinks.
**blog entry edited by Ryan
