Sunday, Mar. 20, 2005
She's in love with a geek, posted at 1:11 a.m.
Epiphany in Baltimore has moved to epiphanyinbaltimore.blogspot.com Earlier this week, I began noticing a smell in my kitchen. I checked the fruit basket, and found nothing bad. I checked in between the stove and the counter, and found nothing. Then I opened the fridge, and it became clear it was something in there. For the life of me, though, I couldn't find it.For the next couple of days, I continued to smell the smell during my brief interludes at home. It was a week during which my arrival at home was often late. Baseball practices are keeping me at school until at least dark. In fact, the only reason I have ended practice the last three days is because darkness made playing with a dirty baseball unsafe. On Friday, I had kids begging to stay out longer, and they almost convinced me, until reason set in. The point is, I don't want to leave the field, or the school, this time of year. May you all have a job that you don't want to leave sometime in your life.
Anyhow, I didn't concern myself too much with the smell. I figured eventually I'd figure out what it was, and I'd just live with the odor in the rare instances when I'm home. Today, though, I decided to clean out my fridge and find out for good. From the living room, laundry baskets beckon to be put away, but the odor was the more pressing concern, especially since I spent a few hours at home today.
I started by taking everything out of the fridge. My fridge has milk, eggs, juice, a bunch of marinades and other Trader Joe's shit, and a lot of beer. You see, I don't drink beer very often, and never drink it alone, or at home, so I have a lot of leftover house concert beer - about 40 or so beers take up my drawers at the bottom.
When I took them all out, I noticed a brown liquid at the very bottom of the fridge, below the drawers. It didn't seem to smell, but I cleaned it up, as well as everything else in the fridge, and the smell is gone. I'm still not sure what it was coming from. It could be some salsa I found with mold on top of it. Or it could be that mysterious brown liquid. My favorite guess, though, is the Trader Joe's cranberry mustard, which had a "Use by May 02" stamp on it.
The expired cranberry mustard made me think of the girl who I've called Renee throughout this journal over the last four years. A huge Tigers fans, a live music aficionado, a fit and healthy woman my age, it always seemed like we should be dating, but the timing never really aligned. I had my heart in other places for a while, then thought she was too quiet, then she hooked up with a friend (now married) one night after we were all out. That pissed me off. But it happened three or four years ago.
Lately, though, I've been thinking of her a lot. She came to my last house concert, and she was smokin' hot. It's like I noticed her for the first time. I also began to think about how cool she is, how her laid-back nature perfectly fits mine, how we enjoy the same things in life. She's a great girl and perfect for me in every way, and it took me four years to realize it.
I hung out with her Friday at a party. There, she dropped the bomb that she's been seeing this guy named Max. I learned two things about Max at the party - that he likes Lord of the Rings (books and movies) a great deal, and that he likes fantasy baseball. Can you say dork? (At least I'm only guilty of the latter. ;)
Like the cranberry mustard, I feel like my opportunity with Renee has expired. And I think it probably expired in around May of 2002, just like the mustard. It's too bad, because she's one of those I could see myself ending of with.
I wonder if this means I should act on things before I actually feel them. Like with Renee, I just didn't feel it at first, so didn't pursue it. Now I do, though. Obviously I should have. I guess I should ignore my first instinct.
I'm no good at this at all.