Juggling

Well, so far, adding the part time job to my schedule hasn't been TOO much of an adjustment. The main thing I have noticed is that I haven't really been watching a lot of tv or reading. Which is fine. Cooking and cleaning have also taken a back seat. I haven't been able to keep the sink free of dirty dishes or fix anything more complicated than a sandwich. Which isn't great, but it's not the end of the world (I'm kind of anal-retentive about the cleanliness of my kitchen).

And I have found that knowing I won't be able to go to the gym every day has made me REALLY motivated to exercise whenever I can. I was so excited to go for a run on Sunday that I almost didn't want to go home! CN, Sammy and I were at the park for almost 2 hours!

Thanks to my lighter-than-usual schedule at Dildo's this week, I won't have to work until Friday this week, so I can hit the gym today, tomorrow and Thursday morning! WOOT!

I am a little worried about how my new schedule will impact my social life. I did manage to meet up with MJ last Saturday for dinner. (If you are a former reader of her blog, you may be interested to know that MJ is now a redhead, and it looks fantastic!) MJ was seriously stressed. I think that having 5-6 dogs at her house at any given time for the last year has started to take its toll. Between the potty training accidents, the dog barf, the vet appointments and the stray dog who is now in heat, it has been a zoo at "Casa de MJ". And I thought I was feeling frazzled, with my messy house, aching feet and lack of sleep.

Then MJ mentioned that she had told our friend Super that she would dog sit for her over Memorial Day weekend. This would mean 7 dogs at MJ's house. Eek. Seeing how stressed MJ was, I decided to volunteer my services as dog sitter for Super.

So I will have Super's dog for the weekend. Actually, make that an almost-week, since Super will be gone from tomorrow to Monday night. But it's all ok. I will be working a lot, but I am totally free on Sunday and most of Monday, so I can hang out with the dogs then. Sammy and Super's dog, Biggie, are both well-socialized, high energy dogs, so they will definitely entertain themselves.

CN and I were going to take a day trip on Sunday or Monday, but I can't bear the thought of MJ stuck with SEVEN dogs and being all stressed out while I am frolicking in Charleston or Asheville with my boyfriend. So CN and I are going to take Sammy and Biggie to a local state park or something, where we can hike, take a walk, go for a run (or whatever) and have a picnic with the dogs. It should be pretty fun. The weather is supposed to be perfect -- sunny, low 80s. Ahhhhh.......this time of year is so great in SC.

Now as long as I can remember to pay my bills, fold my laundry, take my trash out on Friday morning and pick up a few things I forgot at the grocery store......I should be good. I think.

*Prays to God to thank Him for her excellent memory and natural organization abilities.*

And it's only a matter of time until I start up with Big Brothers Big Sisters -- they have called all my references, so they are just waiting on my background check to come through. Soon, I will have to squeeze in some time for a little sis, but I'm so excited about it, I will find room in my schedule without a care.

I was hoping that doing all this extra work would keep me away from food, and I could possibly lose some weight from the stress/exhaustion/simple lack of time to eat......but so far, this has yet to happen. Hmm...maybe in a couple of weeks, when all of this starts to catch up to me. For the first month at Dildo's, you don't work Sundays, so right now, that is my only day off from working. Soon, I will be working 2 Sundays per month, which means I will have NO days off on those weeks. Ugh. Oh well. I need to just do it and make the best out of it. It will all pay off in the long run.

So far, I am juggling all these balls pretty well. I am getting a decent amount of sleep and even managed to do some laundry. I have a new appreciation for working mothers, single mothers, people who work 3 jobs and people who work and go to school at the same time. I honestly have no idea how they do it! Major props to them!

The Pick-Up Artist

In case you cannot already tell that my personal life must be deathly boring right now, I will continue on with my dating topic....

So this weekend, I caught the encore presentation of a new VH1 show called "The Pick-Up Artist". Like most new shows these days, this is yet another reality competition show. They have gathered up a group of geeky, shy and/or insecure single men and this guy who calls himself "Mystery" is going to teach them how to pick up chicks. Each week, the weakest link will be eliminated, which will only serve to increase their insecurities, which makes absolutely no sense to me. (If they are doing poorly, don't they need to stay on the show??) The winner gets $50k, and I presume, lots of one night stands with unsuspecting 21 year olds. Anyway, here is the trailer for the show.



I don't know if you can watch episode one on the VH1 website for the show or not, but the site does provide a good background on the show's idea, as well as photos of all the contestants. I am going to summarize the first episode here in this post.

When the show first came on, I thought, "Sweet! This fits in perfectly with my blog!" -- which should really point out how much of a nerd I am. Then I thought, "I bet this show is going to be really bad. It can't be better than 'Beauty and the Geek'." [Note: If you have not watched "Beauty and the Geek", I highly recommend it. The geeky guys get coaching from real, actual women, which is how I think every dating coach show should go.]

There are about 8 guys on this "Pick-Up Artist" show. None of them are going to be SOL. Well, except for the token Ultra Nerd, who seems to be one action figure and 20 years away from being a real-life Andy Stitzer. But the rest of them definitely have hope. A couple of them are pretty cute, actually. One guy claims a lot of girls think he's gay. One guy feels he's too old to be doing this, another guy totally freezes up anytime a cute girl is nearby. But for the most part, they just seem to lack confidence, a surefire way to fail at picking up girls. Like I said, though, there is hope for pretty much all of them.

After "meeting" all of the contestants, I was expecting the coach to be a modern-day James Bond: suave, adult, classy and very masculine. I pictured an incredibly attractive and charming Armani-suit-wearing Calvin Klein underwear model. "Oh, PLEASE be Julian McMahon!" I thought. Who comes out? Some Goth version of Kid Rock. He calls himself "Mystery". My eyeballs almost rolled right out of my head. I think I may have laughed out loud. He had SO many strikes against him, right off the bat, in my book:

1. What's with the pseudonym? How pretentious!
2. The only guys who can wear eyeliner and get away with it are Johnny Depp and David Bowie. But that's IT.
3. Guys who paint their fingernails black? EW. Creepy.
4. What's with the goggles, hats and other costume-y outfits??? It looks stupid. Like he's trying too hard for attention.
5. Long hair??? Didn't that go out about 10 years ago???

So as you can tell, he failed to impress me. At all. "That guy couldn't pick me up if he paid me a million dollars. This ought to be good. I can't wait to rip this 'expert' apart. He's probably just as clueless as his students," I thought, as I settled into my couch, along with my diet coke and animal cookies.

But my eye-rolling wasn't done yet. "Mystery" had assistant coaches: "Matador", a cocky, swarthy, Latino-type guy in a leather jacket and "J-Dog", who with his platinum-bleached hair and black stripes down the side of his head (yes, you read that correctly), struck me as The Guy Who Tries Too Hard, rather than some dating coach. He claims he's an engineer by trade. "Yeah, right. I know so many engineers who sport fur coats and dog-spike collars," I mentally sneered.

"I wouldn't touch any of these guys with a ten-foot pole," I thought. "They are all pretentious, cocky and gimmicky. They look like groupies for some Motley Crue Reunion Tour." *more eye rolling*

I almost changed the channel to alleviate my nausea, but then the contestants started to get under my skin. If there's one thing I'm a sucker for, it's an Underdog Guy. Much like "Average Joe", I was hooked instantly and rooting for all of them.

After all the initial introductions, they threw these poor, unsuspecting guys as-is into a large bar in Austin, TX. It was full of beautiful co-eds. Each one of the guys failed miserably-- boring approaches, awkward comments, depressing topics and entirely too much staring ensued. One guy turned into a complete wallflower and spoke to no one at all, preferring instead to be the Creepy Guy Alone at a Bar (NEVER EVER be that guy. EVER. It is pick-up suicide). In short, they all crashed and burned. I realize it is important to illustrate to the audience how pathetic these guys are, but it's not like they needed to be reminded! My heart went out to them. They were crushed! One guy was crying! I had no idea it was so challenging and stressful for some guys to even just simply talk to a woman! WOW. My eyes have been opened, and I think I will be a lot nicer to creepy jerks and losers who try and talk to me in bars.

But I digress.

My next thought was, "Wait. These guys are all saying they'd like to have girlfriends, but it looks like this show is trying to get them hook-ups or one-night stands. I'm thinking there was a miscommunication along the way. These are Nice Guys who just need some confidence-building. This Mystery guy sounds like he's going to turn them into players! We don't need more players!!! I wish they would show these guys they don't have to choose between Awkward and Asshole!!!! There is a third choice, and it lies in the middle. It's called Awesome. THAT's what they should be aiming for!!! This show is ticking me off!!!"

I almost chucked my remote at the tv at this point (Ok, not really, but it paints a nice image, right?). Then it cut to a shot of all the guys standing in front of Mystery and crew.

"I'm going to ask you guys a pretty personal question right now," Mystery said.
The guys looked at each other nervously.
"How many of you are virgins?" he asked, bluntly.
HALF THE CONTESTANTS RAISED THEIR HANDS.

I couldn't believe it. The youngest guy on the show is about 25, I think. I had no idea it was so bad. "Holy Shit! Forget girlfriends! These guys need to get laid!!" I thought. "I mean, they just need something to get them over the hump, so to speak. They do need this cocky asshole of a coach! WOW!"

This completely blew my mind, y'all. I mean, I could see firsthand how terrible they were at approaching women, but I thought for SURE they must have had some drunk night in college where they lucked out. Um, not so much! These guys need serious help. Some of them have never had girlfriends. Ever.

Mystery & Crew went over each guy's footage with them (the poor guys were filmed as they tried to pick up girls, as if they needed more stress added to the situation...). And although Mystery, Matador and J-Dog made me want to barf, I have to say, their critiques were DEAD ON. It was like they were taking the words right out of my mouth: "Why did you ask that stupid question? Why do you think that would work? Where is that conversation line even going? Why are you ignoring her friend? Can't you tell by the look on her face that she wants you to go away?" etc. Every criticism and comment illustrated the coaches' PERFECT understanding of how to approach a woman successfully. The best tip I heard? NEVER start out with introductions. Women don't like telling strange guys their name. You can get to names later. "Holy shit. That's absolutely right. I never realized that!" I thought.

To add insult to injury, for the last part of the show, Mystery and his Wingmen went into the same bar, about 30 minutes later and showed the contestants how it's done. The Nice Guys were blown away at their success. The Pick Up Artists (PUAs) were totally opposite in their behavior: confident, interesting, upbeat and fun. And although I cannot STAND the way they dress and look, I have to say that at least they would put me at ease. I can't say they'd be successful at getting my number, but I'd definitely rather talk to them than the insecure guys.

Needless to say, I'll be watching Episode #2 tonight at 9pm EST. Want to join me?

If you want more info about this Mystery guy, check out these websites:

Holy Cow, he's got a Wikipedia entry.

His "Venusian Arts" homepage [Insert eye-rolling here.] It claims to have free tips on there, but all I can find are descriptions of his seminars, which cost a SMALL FORTUNE and are SELLING OUT despite that fact. (This totally blows my mind that guys pay so much money for this!!!) I guess I shouldn't be surprised at all of the plugging. This guy is making a living doing this. This is America, after all.

There's also a blog, which has a video I presume is to illustrate the PUA lifestyle: an endless stream of random, half-naked and beautiful women in your bed. [Insert more eye-rolling and gagging here.] It's not really 100% work-appropriate, btw. I can't believe this is the "ideal" lifestyle for so many men. I would title the video "The Fastest Route to Herpes" if I had my way. Is this guy for real? Do men find this lifestyle fulfilling? Is this what men are honestly striving for?

I guess I don't understand men as well as I thought I did....

Anyway, make sure you catch the video of Mystery's interview on Conan O'Brien. (There's a link to it in the sidebar of the blog I just mentioned.) Conan rips him apart, and it's hilarious. As if I need another reason to love Conan O'Brien! I friggin love that guy. I was actually upset when he got married. That's who I want to approach me in bars! Where are the Conans of the world???