2005-04-25 - 12:52 p.m.

Monday April 25 Second Entry Of the Day

I feel like I belong to the "entry of the day" club when I do stuff like the above.

I haven't surfed blog explosion since I started playing at my message board. I should do that huh?

A little something for the girls before we continue:

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Image hosted by Photobucket.com

Now then.

I was thinking about Bo from American Idol the other day...wait, before I go on with that, can we talk about the people that they show when they say "This is Constantine's family and friends." Is that the Addams Family?

Okay, so I was thinking about Bo and I was thinking that he really reminds me of someone and I couldn't put my finger on who it was exactly. It was driving me out of my mind.

Then I stopped thinking about it and it hit me, he sort of reminds me of two people.

Both are "florida men". Guys I dated while in Florida so they never really get counted among my "real boyfriends" except Ben who only makes the list because I married him.

I don't know why but I feel like telling you about them so here we go.

First there's Joey. When I lived in Florida (also known as when I felt like I needed to get away from Jordan so badly that I had to move thousands of miles away) I worked in this petstore. I vividly remember the day I first saw Joey.

I was working on the bird side of the store and this girl who's name I can't quite put my finger on but it was strange and beautiful just like her was working the otherside of the store. She was slightly goth but not over the top goth and a little chubby but it really added to her beauty, anyway, this is so not about her.

Joey walked into the door, the bell clinked and she and I looked up at the exact same time. We looked at him, we looked at each other and the message was clear "I saw him first, BACK OFF" He was about 6'1", long blond(ish) hair that was that really sexy long guy hair, not that really nasty long guy hair and he looked like he could bench press my car. Normally I'm not all that hot for muscle men but he wasn't super bulked, just real cut and so handsome with a really sweet face.

We both got to him at the same time, both chatted at him for a bit and he said he just came in to look at the puppies. My win, she was in charge of reptiles,I had the puppies.

I brought him to the puppies (which are behind glass in another room at this store) and asked which one he'd like me to bring out.

He explained that he didn't intend to buy but I told him it was still good for the puppies to get and and socialize with people so if there was one he wanted I'd be happy to put him in a play room with it.

He picked a puppy and I put them in a play room together. I of course can't leave him alone with the puppy but did stand outside the playroom leaning on the half door.

(Just so we're clear, I have no idea why I feel the need to tell you this story at all, let alone in such detail. There is no moral, no big payoff at the end, I just feel like reliving the memory here with you okay?)

Joey has a drawl that makes my panties want to leap to my ankles so I ask him where he's from and he says he just moved to Florida from Texas two days ago.

He moved here with his girlfriend and he wants a dog so bad, but his girl hates dogs so he has to just visit them in stores.

I tell him I don't trust any girl who doesn't love a puppy and maybe he should leave her and get the puppy.

A few days later I was working in the dog room and someone knocked on the glass. It was Joey again. I picked up the puppy he had played with before and brought him out for a visit.

We played with the puppy a few minutes and then he told me he thought about what I said and realized I was right. You can't trust a girl who doesn't like puppies. (No offense Beth.

He said he moved out of the apartment they had just moved into and found a place that took puppies.

He bought that puppy, and every damn thing you could think of to go with it and then invited me to come hear his band Black Cats and Bottle Rockets play at the club (the name of which was fresh in my mind when I started this stupid entry).

I did go see his band and they were really good. I ended up spending more than a few nights pushing that puppy off my side of his bed too.

He was one of the few people who could get me up on stage to sing, but I'd only ever sing the same song, always Joey by Concrete Blonde. I can't sing that song for shit but it made him happy.

Crap it's killing me not being able to remember the name of that ...oh, the Red Parrot. That's it!

(I love my job, a random student just came into my office with a giant, very old bone...uh...we were cleaning the beach and found this should we call the police? I look at it, "it's a dog bone" oh. nevermind)

Joey and I dated until I moved back home, but not exclusively. We were really laid back about it, I used to bring dates to his shows and he'd get a little...well, he'd act out some, get macho, but other than that he was very cool about it.

The second Florida guy who reminds me of Bo is a guy who's name I can't remember.
I know I knew it, at least for a minute, and I know I had a nickname for him that had something to do with his southern drawl but that's it.

I cannot tell you how it feels to not be able to remember this guys name.

(Why do I want to say I called him Ed?)

My friend (remember the one I took the cruise with? yeah, her, only when we were still friends, so BC (before cruise) had moved from outside orlando to Tampa and I had moved back to MA. I went to Tampa for a visit and the first night I was there she, our friend John and I went to the bar next door.

I've heard tell that it was a resteraunt with the best burgers in Tampa, but all I saw was the bar.

They sat together on one side of the booth (super rare, she always wanted everyone to sit across from her because she "hate having to turn my head to look at you people" psycho) and I sat alone on the other.

We were drankin and the bar tender came by our booth. He was in the 6 foot range too (for a short chick I seem to pick up alot of tall boys), with brown hair that was again that sexy long, but he had it pulled back. He wasn't as cut as Joey but his arms were perfect and he was in good shape.

At the time I had no use for cowboys, I didn't learn to appreciate them til much later, so when he dropped into the booth next to me with a line "What's a beauty like you doing here all alone?" I was less than sweet.

I gave him crap about sitting in my space. I told him he was obviously blind as I was with my two friends.

It's always this way with hot guys. They expect you to flutter your eyes and be flattered that they deigned to look your direction. When you treat them like toads they worship you.

Ed worshipped me. We made him do shot after shot with us until he could barely make his way back behind the bar.

When it came time to leave he was worried about us driving until we pointed out that D lived about 30 feet away, but up some pretty scary outside metal stairs.

He insisted on walking me home (it was well past closing when we left) even though I D and John were going to the same place.

He barely made it up the stairs and so we decided he could stay since it was our fault he was too drunk to drive home.

I was drunk enough to let him sleep in my bed, not drunk enough to sleep with him, not that he put up much of a fight.

The next morning I got a lovely kiss while I was still mostly asleep and he told me to swing by the resteraunt later.

By noon I was laying by the pool, D and John both gone for work.

The pool I should mention is directly next to the windows of the bar at which our dear Ed works. There's a fence so that it's not flat out leering distance, but it's a chain link so it's not exactly discreet either.

I spent a little time by the pool alone and then this little hispanic man, who I took to calling "Paco the Pool Boy" came down and sat near me.

Everywhere D has lived I have visited and spent my days by the pool. I always make friends with her neighbors and she always wants to kill me because she's hugely antisocial. It became like a game to see how many neighbors I could meet and introduce to her that would annoy her when I left.

Paco was sleezy from the outset but i figured he'd be good fun to annoy D so I made nice with him. Not flirty nice, but nice.

Paco spent about 3 minutes talking to me when I hear my new nickname (Ma'am. Ed called me Ma'am because I yelled at him when he did it the first time and he thought it was funny) being called over the fence.

Yup. Ed. Looking better than he had any right to after the night we'd spent. I got up and walked over to where he was and he asked me how in the heck he was supposed to work with me laying over here in the sun talking to other men.

I told him he'd just have to spend his day thinking of better lines to impress me with and went back to my towel.

Paco was non-plussed.

Paco talked to me nonstop for the next few hours, asking me all sorts of things. I blew him off and finally went to hide in the house until he went away.

I went back to the pool later and boom, Paco was back. He wanted to take me to the beach the next day. No, sorry Paco, I don't think I can make it. I have a friend coming to hang out.

Well, maybe, if your friend doesn't come then. I don't think so Paco. Well, maybe. Anyway, if your friend doesn't come. We'll see.

That night D and I went out and did all our usual junk and then came home in time for last call next door. Ed was none to happy that we didn't come in earlier but got over it right quick when I told him I was going to run away with Paco.

Ed slept in his own bed that night, but the next morning when I got up there was knocking at the door. I looked through the peephole to see Ed, again looking amazing, so I open the door. Coffee and donuts and flowers. Sweet.

I let him in, we ate, chatted, there may have been kissing and then I sent him off to work with a promise that I'd steer clear of Paco.

I did go down to the pool and Paco came right down. "Your friend left early, you ready for the beach?"

Oh no, that wasn't the friend I was waiting for (there is no friend, but thanks for obsessively watching my door buddy) there's someone else coming, in fact I should go kinda soon.

I go back to the room and realize I'm trapped inside all day, or over at the bar. Instead I decide to get dressed and walk the 8 blocks (seemed like a good idea at the time but these are not you little city blocks, this is half of Tampa away) to where all the stores are and look around.

As I'm dressing there's a knock at my door. I look out the window and see a woman there.

Hello?

Can I come in?

Who are you?

I live next door. Please, I don't want Ramone to see me.

(Paco, Ramone...same thing right?)

I don't live here, I can't really let anyone in that I don't know.

Okay, well I just wanted to warn you, I see Ramone going to the pool after you. Be careful of him. He is not right, he beat up one girl in other apartment after he have sex with her.

Uh, thanks for the warning, maybe you'd better go.

I dress fast and take off down the road.

It's hot and the walk is long. I shop some and take a taxi back. I'm not in the house 2 minutes when there's a knock at the door. I look through the peep. It's Paco Ramone. I stay quiet and don't answer but he starts yelling.

He's calling me a bitch. He's saying I lied, no friend came and I ran off. Open the door bitch.

Scary stuff.

Do I call the cops? Nope.

I call Ed.

I have a clear view from the window as Ed comes up the stairs, yelling the entire way that Paco had better stay the fuck away from me and my friends or he'll kick his ass. Paco is still screaming at me to open the door. Paco is kicking the door.

Ed punches Paco in the face and throws him down the metal stairs.

I don't know who I'm more afraid of.

I let Ed in though and he's worried that I'm afraid so he comforts me (yeah, that time I'm pretty sure there was sex) and tells work he's gone for the rest of the day.

We didn't hear much else from Paco, but I never called Ed after I came home from vacation and when I went back to Tampa D had moved to the island.

Still wish I could remember Ed's real name. Dammit.


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