These are Fantasy Times
For the past three autumns, Monday morning has served as an extention of the just finished weekend, rather than the birthing of an arduous new workweek. The reason for the recreational nature of a time slot that would otherwise be a weekly banality can be summed up in two words: fantasy football.
This is the 8th or 9th year our Yahoo league has been in existence, and aside from one glorious Week 16 way the hell back in 1999 (and the reason why I will always have a soft spot in my fantasy football heart for the now washed-up Marcus Robinson), I've done little in the way of winning anything. And yet Monday mornings still enchant me, to the point where I wake up 10 minutes earlier than usual on Monday (6:20 am, egads!) just so I can get a perfunctory glance at the scores before I head off to work, either in glee or in utter despondence.
Fantasy football, however relishing it is, is only one of several fantasies in which I and perhaps many other rogues indulge ourselves. These are fantasy times, gentle men and gentle women, as defined by the fact that occurences and patterns in my life often weave themselves in and out of the fabric of reality.
Case in point: I've been working in this office for nearly 11 months now, and I'd say that I average about 12 trips to the bathroom each day (with a standard deviation of about 1.7). I'd say half of those are due to coffee/diet coke consumption, and the other half out of sheer distraction. Normal, you say? Well, how do I account for the fact that out of all those visits to the bathroom, I'd say about 60% of them are met with the sight of the same co-worker, either zipping up or whipping out. That's quite a large sample size to work with. It's one thing to find a slacker with the same penchant for utilizing company resources to avoid work; it's another to do it near simultaneously, over half of the time. And of course, as all such awkward office moments go, I've never spoken to him. Not once. You see, I've concluded that there are two reasons why I always see him in the bathroom: a) he actually finds a way to be in there 72% of the work-day (I'm in finance so trust me on the math) and makes it impossible for me to avoid him, or b) like Joey Tribiani and his black-jack dealing hand-twin, he and I are fated to be each other's toilet Doppelgängers. Can either of these frightening conclusions possibly be real? These are fantasy times, my friends.
The thought struck me again last Friday, as we decided to make an impromptu after-dinner appearance at the new club Attica out on the Bund. After a very dispiriting jaunt through Glamour Bar ("Welcome to your mid-thirties" was Jamie's well-timed chime as we swiftly moved through the middle-aged and predominantly white crowd), we walked down the Bund toward the new hotspot, only to be greeted by an aggressive throng of clubbers waiting to pay 100 RMB to get in. It was shortly thereafter that both Jamie and I recognized the pair of party promoters, and after the usual greet and kiss, we found ourselves quickly escorted in without any cover and into the elevator with a gaggle of models and actresses...one of the best elevator rides ever.
On the prominent deck of the club overlooking the Huangpu river, surrounded by beautiful people everywhere, I thought about the VIP treatment I so fortunately receive in this magnificent city that seems to exist only in a hazy dream. In what kind of reality does someone like me, a dude with a seriously misproportioned head whose only noticeable skill is to fill out a Super Mario costume once a year during Halloween, get to sit amongst Shanghai's elite with nary a discerning glance? Perhaps it was my beautiful date. sipping her Sex on the Beach next to me and and waiting for me to show her to the dancefloor, that showed that having the most beautiful creature in the entire place on your arm can go a long way towards acceptance. Perhaps it was our veteran status in Shanghai's night-life, having become accepted in the weekly throng of transient faces that moved effortlessly from Fuxing Park to The Bund to the trendy new place with delirious ease.
Whatever it was, it is still an ongoing fantasy. After three Shanghai years, life is as good as ever...and the fact that reality is even more promising shows how wonderful these fantasy times can be.
This is the 8th or 9th year our Yahoo league has been in existence, and aside from one glorious Week 16 way the hell back in 1999 (and the reason why I will always have a soft spot in my fantasy football heart for the now washed-up Marcus Robinson), I've done little in the way of winning anything. And yet Monday mornings still enchant me, to the point where I wake up 10 minutes earlier than usual on Monday (6:20 am, egads!) just so I can get a perfunctory glance at the scores before I head off to work, either in glee or in utter despondence.
Fantasy football, however relishing it is, is only one of several fantasies in which I and perhaps many other rogues indulge ourselves. These are fantasy times, gentle men and gentle women, as defined by the fact that occurences and patterns in my life often weave themselves in and out of the fabric of reality.
Case in point: I've been working in this office for nearly 11 months now, and I'd say that I average about 12 trips to the bathroom each day (with a standard deviation of about 1.7). I'd say half of those are due to coffee/diet coke consumption, and the other half out of sheer distraction. Normal, you say? Well, how do I account for the fact that out of all those visits to the bathroom, I'd say about 60% of them are met with the sight of the same co-worker, either zipping up or whipping out. That's quite a large sample size to work with. It's one thing to find a slacker with the same penchant for utilizing company resources to avoid work; it's another to do it near simultaneously, over half of the time. And of course, as all such awkward office moments go, I've never spoken to him. Not once. You see, I've concluded that there are two reasons why I always see him in the bathroom: a) he actually finds a way to be in there 72% of the work-day (I'm in finance so trust me on the math) and makes it impossible for me to avoid him, or b) like Joey Tribiani and his black-jack dealing hand-twin, he and I are fated to be each other's toilet Doppelgängers. Can either of these frightening conclusions possibly be real? These are fantasy times, my friends.
The thought struck me again last Friday, as we decided to make an impromptu after-dinner appearance at the new club Attica out on the Bund. After a very dispiriting jaunt through Glamour Bar ("Welcome to your mid-thirties" was Jamie's well-timed chime as we swiftly moved through the middle-aged and predominantly white crowd), we walked down the Bund toward the new hotspot, only to be greeted by an aggressive throng of clubbers waiting to pay 100 RMB to get in. It was shortly thereafter that both Jamie and I recognized the pair of party promoters, and after the usual greet and kiss, we found ourselves quickly escorted in without any cover and into the elevator with a gaggle of models and actresses...one of the best elevator rides ever.
On the prominent deck of the club overlooking the Huangpu river, surrounded by beautiful people everywhere, I thought about the VIP treatment I so fortunately receive in this magnificent city that seems to exist only in a hazy dream. In what kind of reality does someone like me, a dude with a seriously misproportioned head whose only noticeable skill is to fill out a Super Mario costume once a year during Halloween, get to sit amongst Shanghai's elite with nary a discerning glance? Perhaps it was my beautiful date. sipping her Sex on the Beach next to me and and waiting for me to show her to the dancefloor, that showed that having the most beautiful creature in the entire place on your arm can go a long way towards acceptance. Perhaps it was our veteran status in Shanghai's night-life, having become accepted in the weekly throng of transient faces that moved effortlessly from Fuxing Park to The Bund to the trendy new place with delirious ease.
Whatever it was, it is still an ongoing fantasy. After three Shanghai years, life is as good as ever...and the fact that reality is even more promising shows how wonderful these fantasy times can be.
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