elliptical therapy

right on the heels of my good blogmate and i deciding that we had to abandon the "i hate everything" moto in exchange for the more reasonable and well-intended, "it's the right thing to do," i find myself pondering the kind of misanthropic question that can only lead to trouble: why is everyone lame?

after a particularly distasteful self-extrication from work this morning i went straight to the gym in order to enable some quality perseverating and expend the last of my dwindling energy supply on the elliptical machine. easier said than done, as i realized when i got there that i'd lost my membership card. this prompted a little more eye contact that i really wanted from the guy behind the counter, who looked more like someone who'd just come back from a 3 month, marijuana-intense trek through the himalayas than the average nerd with the big math book that usually mans the entrance. i should have left well enough alone when he asked me how my day was going, but i was a little incensed at the question (since it was 9AM and i was dirty, tired, and sleep-deprived), and attempted some kind of crack about how i wished i'd slept in my own bed. sherpa guy understandably took this entirely the wrong way and yet again i was back to painful self-extrication.

once i was finally up and going on the elliptical machine i thought a bit about my blogmate and mb's music classification scheme and decided that the mix cds i've been compiling in my head for the last three months could be broken up pretty neatly as "run," "bike," and "wallow" (i also considered "seduce," "flirt," and "high-brow"). i then moved on to more meaningful thoughts like, "people suck" and "online dating is like poking a sleeping bear with a stick," before giving in to some serious stewing about the rise and fall of the stock analyst. (pay attention, rw, this one's for you.)

a few weeks a weeks ago i went on a date that would objectively be described as "fine," although in the larger scheme of things might be more like "great," just by virtue of it's not totally sucking. then commenced a week of vaguely flirty, albeit somewhat unsatisfying emails, until he abruptly went dark. i wasn't going down without a fight, and in a moment of post-call, post-jogging delerium, i enlisted my good blogmate to help me send a last email, inviting him to a drinking event that seemed right up his alley in a funny sort of way.

oops.

the response came fast, and initially seemed like the rejection i'd anticipated. roughly, "can't. busy. sorry."

fine.

if only he'd stopped there. "pseudo-goth wine bars aren't' really my thing. i don't think they're anyone's thing."

ouch!

and more to the point, wtf?

i ellipticized furiously, trying not to think about how much my knees were hurting, and did some final tweaking to my carefully crafted, snarky mental response:

"i would argue that competitively priced belgian beers, found stumbling distance from a good friend's house should be everyone's thing. but that's neither here nor there, as i believe the expression you're looking for is 'no thank you.'

"come to think of it, i believe the expression i'm looking for is 'what's your problem?' "

i understand that this response can only exist in my head (and possibly for all of you to enjoy), and that i can't go around antagonizing stock analysts just because i'm disgruntled. but this whole experience has left me in a state of recalcitrant ill humor, which i suspect will only be remedied when i start stalking that really hot guy who sits in the window at the argo tea on broadway.