Non-profit people

I had a good day and a generally good weekend... I just wish I'd have been able to spend more of it with someone else.

Friday after work I met up with a young lady we'll call Amanda. She and I had been emailing back and forth for a week or so, and finally decided to meet after work. This saved me from coming home and realizing that Allstate still hadn't picked up the dead Saab, and it saved her from making an apple pie. Long story. In any case, we met in DC, talked for a long time, walked around a bit, had dinner, then took a long walk around the Dupont Circle area following a trail of white roses which had been stuck into hedges and fences along P Street. We spent those five blocks trying to figure out why someone would dispense fresh white roses every 20 or 30 yards... we came up with several possible stories, including a situation where some geeky guy gave a really hot girl the roses, but she doesn't like him, so rather than throw them out, she simply meters them out one by one for others to enjoy.

Amanda is pretty easy to talk to, and while I drove her back over to her office to pick up her car, so she could go home, she became the only woman in my entire online dating adventure to actually ask me how things went ("honestly") and whether I wanted to see her again. I thought they went really well, I do like talking to her, and I'd like to see her again. Still, I will not be surprised to never hear from her again.

Saturday I spent mowing and surveying the damage the neighbor dork did to the corner of my property clearing out some creeping vines he didn't like. Dumbass now knows why those vines were there... they covered up all the rocks that Levin and Minnie had picked out of the yard all those years. They're now in a huge, ugly exposed pile at the corner of my lot, instead of in a relatively low-profile covered pile in the corner. When people start deciding that they know better than you about your property, it's time to call attornies and make their lives uncomfortable.

There are hundreds and hundreds of downed walnuts out there.

Miracle of miracles, Saturday morning, the Allstate tow guys came and took the dead Saab away. The Volkswagen now enjoys the entire middle of the driveway, and will eventually get the end space when I rearrange the cars. I am halfway convinced to take the 5-speed out of the dead red Saab and put it in the Saab-o-matic rather than junk them both. Damn me, I'll probably do it, too.

I'd seen a bunch of placards around the valley advertising a "barn party" over across the valley, so I decided to stick my head in over there and see what it was about. I figured maybe it was some new owner over there interested in meeting the people in the valley.

I was wrong. It was a benefit for some suburban-based charity that targets "disadvantaged youth" and whatnot. What this meant was that nearly no one from the valley was there (the only other local, besides the owner of the place, was a guy who works at a farm about a mile north of me, who, like me, was curious, but this was his 25th birthday).

Worse, it meant that the party was jammed with people I call "nonprofit groupies." Alterna-people. The nonprofit sector attracts some of the least-attractive women imaginable... grossly-overweight women in tie dye, pairs of severe-looking lesbians, and younger women who look like leftover hippie-wannabees. Since most of them seemed to be from down near DC, they almost all looked pretty silly in this barn listening to bluegrass, talking about "troubled youth" and smoking clove cigarettes. I absolutely hate being around such people... these were exactly the sort of "friends" Avery had last winter, bringing him stuff while he was in my barn (more about him later).

I hung out for a while, had a couple of cups of semi-warm keg beer, then went over to a place I go in Charles Town to watch the Virginia Tech game. At least over there, there were some people who were unabashed about their ability to party and raise hell. A band Sarah liked was playing and I thought of her. Toward the end of the 4th quarter, two blonde women came in and sat next to me at the bar, and almost immediately one of the women (the more intoxicated and younger of the two) tried to set me up with her older, wiser friend. The friend and I actually talked a bit... turns out they both work for a contractor to the CIA. Makes you feel all secure, doesn't it?

Today, I went to see a play in DC called Save The Leopard, an excellent original play premiered by a theatre group called Spooky Action Theatre and featuring an excellent young actress named Alison Weisgall who I liked immediately because she delivered her opening monologue looking directly into my eyes.

I was there with the older, blonde woman I had a date with a week or so ago. She's quite nice, and fun to talk to, but I'm definitely not feeling a strong pull toward her, nor from her. We saw the play, had something to eat over on 6th Street near H, and watched some football and talked a bit. She herself had a late theatre rehearsal in Silver Spring, so I dropped her off and came home.

On my way, I stopped at the Sheetz over in Brunswick to just get some corn chips with which to watch football tonight. Avery, of all people, was in the front area of the Sheetz, the place where they have tables people can eat their "snackz" in relative peace, but not this time. Avery was dancing like a fool, shirtless, all over the "dining" area, and when he spotted me, followed me all over the store demanding that I buy him some beer. "Come on, buy me a beer, man... I could use a beer. You owe me a six-pack you broke."

I told him I didn't know him, didn't want to, and that I didn't owe him a damn thing.

"Oh, you're looooooost," he cooed as he went back to dancing, shirtless. I paid for my stuff and noticed that he seemed to be trying to figure out where I'd disappeared to. I suppose he was looking for a Saab. Too fuckin' bad, Avery. Go buy your own damn beer, and leave me alone. Nothing like screwing up the end of what otherwise was a very pleasant weekend. If it happens again, I'm calling Sheetz and telling them to tell him to quite harrassing actual customers.

I have less and less patience with people who won't treat mental illness, and worse, jam it into the consciousness of others. I wonder if this is why people in cities sometimes beat up the homeless.

At home, I cleaned. Cleaned a lot. I'm running low on bleach, but the house is actually in pretty good shape. The new faucet in the kitchen is working out well, I've replaced the failing wall outlet in the dining room (cats had peed on it and it was shorting out) with a much more durable one, and the water filter is working great.

This is the last weekend of fall. All the leaves will be gone this week, and things will be gray until April.