F our Ls

Tess and I took a road trip to Montana. About 5 miles into our trip, as we cruised up Hwy 1, we heard a little crackle in the radio. The crackle continued for a few miles until it crackled into a disappointing silence.

We now were faced with the feat of travelling 1,200 miles sans la radio.

To pass the 18 hours a head of us we listened to our iPod...two heads, 1 iPod, and listed medical maladies in alphabetical order.

I love Dick!

My baby bro just graduated from college. And no, he did not major in Wicca, as the eery red sash with gold star may lead some to believe.

Thoughts on a Bus

Riding the bus is an insightful experience, and one that I rarely get to enjoy. Arriving at JFK in NYC I am overwhelmed with anxiety surrounding a particular situation at work and my upcoming unplanned journey to Jersey. I fear that I am transparent, that those around me can see my feelings on my face, but when I look around the bus I see that everyone else is transparent too.

I can see worry in the eyes of the old woman next to me. At first glance she looked strong and powerful, but when she felt my gaze and returned it, her eyes lacked the sparkle that I had expected and darted nervously from me to the driver to the destination sign. I can hear excitement in the voices of the French couple behind me. Although I have lost almost all of my ability to comprehend French, the inflection of their voices and the ease of their laughter draws them as a happy pair in love, which is much the opposite of the couple beside me. The woman, a pretty brunette stares blankly out the window. Her partner's body language suggests irritation or anger. He sits cockeyed in his seat facing away from the woman. His face shows no expression, but his left hand grips the headrest in front of him and his right hand taps his knee erratically and at an increasing rate. The ban in the back of the bus is the most difficult to read. His eyes are black, so dark that I can't see his pupils. For some reason this makes me uneasy. It's not only his eyes that give me an unsettled feeling; it's his raspy voice, the tired smell of sweat, cigarettes, and the street, and his outrageous green hat, that, coupled with his large front teeth, makes him resemble the Mad Hatter.

These thoughts are merely my perceptions, my unfiltered insight on the strangers sharing this crowded loud ride with me. I may be completely off base with my assumptions. But, in any case, this exercise has brought me comfort and eased my anxieties as I remind myself not to compare my reality with other people's masks.

Rain (err...unfavorable weather conditions) on my Parade

I've been living a charmed life the past couple weeks.

I feel like I've had a vial of Felix Felicius (yay for Harry Potter dorks).
In regards to work, let me just say that I'm currently living the auditor's dream. My client is located a short 10 miles away from my lovely "beach house," which means an extra hour + of sleep every morning. The client is located right on the Bay so I have beautiful views of the water, landscape, and wildlife (including, but not limited to: dogs, birds, and old people from the local retirement home).

The client is pharmaceutical company that is still in the development stages....meaning....they have not yet had time to breed their hate for auditors. Coming to work is like going to Gramma's house. People are bringing me cookies, teaching me to use the stove-free teapot, and giving me cold medicine when they hear my pitiful sniffles. For those of you outside of the Public Accounting Realm, this is very atypical. My clients usually behave like Pavlov's counsin Ernie's dog, who was once starved, beaten, and emotionally damaged by a public accountant and now snarls when he hears, "Hi, I am an auditor."

Additionally, my senior is a dream, Praise LDS! I've always had warm fuzzy feelings for those of the Mormon faith. Heck, the object of my first case of puppy love is now a full fledged Joseph Smith Jr. lovin', Book of Mormon thumpin' Latter Day Saint. But this guy….this guy is the poster boy Mormon. While most boys are made of snakes and snails and puppy dog tails, this guy is made of truth and honesty and down home modesty. When most seniors would huff and puff or sigh and stress, this senior keeps on his Mr. Rogers cardigan and smiles through it.

Of course this kind of life can't last forever....so of course, yesterday God shit a big ol' snowstorm all over my parade and caused my lil' bro to get stuck in Denver on his way to SF.

Swivel Hips

Saturday night I went on a date to see Brett Dennen at the Fillmore. Let me just say, that ginger-balls can put on one hell of a show.

If you haven't heard of Brett Dennen I would strongly recommend checking him out at

http://brettdennen.net/

Watching Brett Dennen dance is like watching a Special Olympics team imitate Elvis Pressley's classic pelvic rhythms. You can't help but stare as he lifts up his arms, hands usually flexed awkwardly, and starts the thrusting and swiveling. At times during the night, it almost looked as though he was trying to do the funky chicken.

However awkward his moves are, his good energy makes up for it. His voice is beautiful and he naturally radiates good vibes. I hope he had a whole line of ladies waiting outside of his bus to take advantage of those swivel hips. :)

Date with a Doppelganger?

I think I may have a date with a doppelganger* tonight.

I met a guy on Saturday night. My roommate and I went to see a show with a few friends from work. As we were struggling to reach the bar for a few refreshments, an older gentleman and his two handsome sons saw us struggling and ordered our drinks for us. We had a pleasant evening with the mid-western family and Monday morning I was contacted by the cute son for a subsequent date.

Now, let me delve deeper into the adjective cute as used above. This guy was definitely cute....tall, styley, dimples.... the strange thing was that he bore a striking resemblence to Cameron Chambers. (See above. This is a picture that I creepily downloaded off of my friend Hallie's Facebook page. Cameron and Hallie went on a fishing trip to Argentina this past winter. This photo was taken on Thanksgiving.) Cameron is a guy that I went to High School with and have had random encounters with ever since. Now, for the record I have nothing against Cameron Chambers... BUT, the last thing I want is to look over on a first date and see the eerie image of Cameron Chambers looking back at me!

From what I know of the doppelganger, he shares a lot more than just dimples and full lips with Cameron: a love of nature, concern for the planet, a small-town upbringing.

Afer doing a little bit of research on Doppelgangers and their meanings I became rather interested. Doppelganger is a German word deriving from Doppel (double) and Ganger (goer). Doppelgangers historically have been harbingers of bad luck and have oftentimes been used as Evil Twins in literary history. After reading this, I began thinking....Which one is the Doppelganger? Cameron or the New Guy?

After careful consideration and meticulous research (kidding....) I have determined which man is the Doppelganger/Evil twin. Throughout literary and media history, evil twins have become more and more common. So common, in fact, that common themes and patterns have been identified. The most common dissimilarity between the protagonist and his evil twin is the goatee. This was famously illustrated in the Star Trek episode Mirror Universe. In the episode, the goatee was an easy way for the viewing audience to tell "good" Spock from "evil" Spock. Based on this infallible method of judging the character of a man and his Doppelganger, I have determined that based on the photo above, Cameron Chambers is indeed the evil twin. I will take that as a green light to proceed with my date.

[Disclaimer: Cameron - if you ever, by some weird chance, view this Blog... I apologize for casting you into the evil twin stereotype based on your choices in facial hair and also for using Facebook in a very creepy way.]

* For those of you in the dark....

doppelganger
1: a ghostly counterpart of a living person

2 a: double

2 b: alter ego

I feel as though he's documenting my life...

The next time someone asks me what I do for a living, rather than give them the big speech that "..I provide reasonable assurance that the Company's financial statements are free of material misstatement...," I am going to had them this Dilbert cartoon. I will smile sweetly and say, "I try to validate Dilbert's fake numbers."

A perfect example of this happened this morning. Currently I am working on a small pharmaceutical company, and I approached the VP of Finance about how he calculated the Accrued Bonus Liability. I watched as he awkwardly maneuvered through spreadsheet after spreadsheet, desperately searching for the magic number that I was looking for, and tragically finding anything but. I felt a little uncomfortable making a grown man, a VP for Christ's sake, get so nervous, so rather than stare intently at his screen and wait, I let my eyes casually wander around the room. They spotted the things that I expect from a VP of Finance's office... huge window, industry-related magazines, motivational posters, various schwag collected from conferences... My eyes then spotted something familiar...Dilbert's strangely phallic striped tie. I strained my eyes to read the cartoon. It said, " I didn't have any accurate numbers, so I just made this one up." I looked back at the VP, sweating and scrolling, knowing damned well that he was not going to find any support for the $142,000 in accrued bonuses that he had booked....and I thought, "You dipshit....if you're going to make up numbers, at least keep your Dilbert Cartoon tucked away from the Auditors!"