A Series of Unfortunate Events

Man, you guys! I am not doing well with this...I guess I just haven't been in the "blogging zone" lately. Hmm...what to tell you? A lot has happened since I last blogged...

Well, I think it's safe to say that the honeymoon phase of my move is officially over. Not to say I don't like it here anymore...I love it! It's just that my ridiculous streak of very fortunate events is over with. I know I told a lot of you about the "straight guy" from the gay bar...I'm still debating his sexuality. Since I haven't heard back from him, that automatically makes him gay. Yes, he's gay. The feaux-hawk should have tipped me off right away. Dang it.

I went to take my CSCS exam last weekend (personal training certification). I was taking it in DC at 9am, so I took the metro. I gave myself plenty of time..I knew how the metro could be and I just wanted to have a non-stressful morning. I emerged from the metro around 8:30am and I saw a little Indian woman, no more than 5'2" holding a single sheet of paper looking around at all the buildings. I pulled out my single sheet of paper (our exam information) and said to her, "are you taking an exam?" She looked at me, smiled, and nodded...we had a bond. She and I teamed up to find where in the world we were supposed to take our exams. She was taking a nursing exam from what I understood...she had a thick accent. We walked around the block looking for an entrance to this building. After walking back and forth several times, we established there were two places that might be where we were supposed to go. The main entrance was locked and the other one had a homeless man sleeping in the doorway, sooo....we waited by the locked entrance. She was talking about a mile a minute in her precious little accent. I think it was mainly to calm herself down and rationalize the doors being locked. A few minutes later, a man showed up. He was a black man in his late 50's...wearing some high-watered jeans, dress shoes, a leather jacket, and a sock hat. He came to join us in our stressful adventure. He was taking a medical exam of some kind...some acronym I didn't know. Since he arrived, we decided to try the homeless man's entrance again. We walked back around the corner, and the little Indian lady just walked up and stared at him..she was a little firecracker. She went up and reached right over him to try and open the door...it was locked. The homeless man, who was buried in blankets, peaked out of his little nest and then rolled over. She asked him if it was locked (clearly it was) and he reached up with one hand and pulled on the door, not even looking at her. It was kind of like he was saying "seriously? It's obviously locked...let me freakin' sleep!"

We found an open door to the building next to the one our exam was in..we thought we'd give it a try. Maybe there would be another way in. So here we are...a middle-aged black man, a freakishly tiny Indian woman, and me. I felt like I was on some kind of reality show. So we entered this other building and started to take the elevator to the basement (our exam was supposed to be held in the basement of the other building). We got down there and the walls had weird paintings on them...strange looking people all in bright colors. There were several doors and I kind of felt like I should choose one. Then it hit me...I wasn't in a reality show...i was in Mystery Theater! Wondering which one of them would try to kill me. Probably her.

Anyway, we decided that wasn't the route to go so we came back to the street. The Indian lady tried talking to the homeless man once more. I think he was more scared of her than she was of him. He finally got up and moved to another stoop. I don't blame him. BUT, the door was still locked. We decided to go wait in the warm lobby of the building next door until 9am. While were were there, we collected more characters in this little story. A young, smiley, kind of heavyset black girl and a thin-framed 50 year-old white man with glasses and thinning hair that he was obviously ashamed of (you could tell by the way he combed it). So here we are, all in this lobby...and I thought to myself "where am I right now?" Looking around at this very diverse group of people, it looked like we were waiting for a verdict of some kind...to find out who was indeed the killer.

We each left at different points to see if the door ever unlocked, eventually the skinny white man came back and motioned for us to follow him. The door had finally opened and we all walked off hand-in-hand into the building. Actually, we all got to take our exams extremely peeved and stressed but that's not a good ending, is it?

On a lighter note, but just as amusing...we had some visitors last weekend. I heard the doorbell ring and I was the only one home so I ran down to answer it. I see this random guy looking through the door, looking kind of confused. I opened the door to find this guy and girl, both early 20's standing there. He told me they were friends of Dan's and he told them to come over. I replied saying Dan wasn't here but they were welcome to come in. I introduced myself and they did the same. The guy told me his name was "Mock," and I thought to myself, "hmm...Mock. That's different, but he looks kind of hipster so whatever, it fits." Her name was Anamari. Which made me rationalize his name being Mock even more. I was talking with them and I had referred to him as Mock at least twice. As we talked I came to realize they were from Australia, which was really exciting! After my excitement subsided, I then realized how the name Mark would sound if one was Australian. Craaaaaaaaaaap. Whatever, I was just trying to make him feel more at home...I bet they all call him "Mock."