Me, Myself and Bernie Kosar?

I must warn this post is probably a little distorted. One because it had two extremes-equal parts awesome and fail. It was like a science experiment or something you’d read on Not that kind of Girl’s blog.

If you don’t read her you really should.

Anyhizzle so as you may or may not know I’m not the easiest person to get to socialize. I mean if I know you I’m very open and friendly. I’ve grown as a person quite a bit over the last years. I do things. I go places and put myself in situations that I would never have before moving to Cleveland. There is still a bit of the old me in me (sweet scoring with myself!) and at times I’m a tad reluctant to do things. I should rephrase that a tad: I’m reluctant to do things on my own. I’m not one of those guys who need total separation from the wife to have fun. In fact I’m the total opposite. The wife does nothing but add to whatever fun is going down. She is a ton of fun. Read her here or get her tweety tweets.

Okay commercial for her over.

I mean. I love my wife (unlike seemingly everyone I used to work with. They continually complained bitterly about theirs.) And like to spend time with her. This is not to say we are attached at the hip to have fun. I can have fun and not be with her, but it’d be a lie if I was say she wouldn’t add to my enjoyment.
There are factors that go into my reluctance. I must say here it’s a reluctance to go to things alone. By alone I don’t mean sans wife I mean literally by myself. No wife or friends—just me. I won’t lie I’m much more comfortable with a pen in my hand alone writing. There was a time where if I didn’t have friends I was pretty sure I wouldn’t care. Books and writing. The other factor is the no license/car. This makes going places more difficult. What was the point to all this? Well Thursday night I went against my instinct and went out. Yes (gasp) by my lonesome. Twitter came through yet again for me. I saw that The Cleveland Gladiators were having an open house and free scrimmage.

A sidebar: I rant get over it. Twitter gets a bad rap sometimes. I know a bunch of people who are like “Twitter! Yeah that’s a waste of time.” I also know someone who won’t get onboard the twitter train (chooo choooo) because it’s called twitter and this bothers him somehow. It has been a great way to find new and interesting reads, restaurants and I’ve met people I consider good friends and hang with consistently. Plus if not for twitter I’d never heard about the scrimmage and therefore what happened wouldn’t have.

Anytwitter this is about me and the Gladiators. So I hear about this and I think “yeah I can go for that.” I mean since the unemployment I’ve done mostly sitting in the apartment during the day. I’ve gone for walks everyday but still majority of the time was sitting in the apartment writing. This is a good thing of course but probably be good to get out too. I tried to get peeps interested in going but nothing panned out. The wife had school to go to so if it was going to happen it was gonna be all me. Cue the cartoon devil on one shoulder angel on the other. Only it was me arguing/coming up with excuses and the rizza telling me to go for it. So I did. I jumped. That meant one bus and rapid ride down and one each back. Did I mention it started to snow and get windy again? Full disclosure it wasn’t all that much snow, but still. As luck would have it the wife was able to drop me off downtown, cutting my bus/rapid ride in half. I got down there early and hit up the mall food court for some dinner. Yeah Mall Chinese! Click here to go the Dictionary of Jimi to find out the meanings of my rambles. So I sat down with my bourbon chicken and ate. The whole while this lady who looked about 60 sat down the table closest to me and proceeded to eat her taco bell burrito like she was in prison. She huddled near it and kept her eye on me the whole time.

After the yumminess that was Mall Chinese I walked over to the Q. That’s the arena that hosts the Cavs, Monsters and Gladiators for those of you who didn’t know. So I get there and of course set off the damn metal detector. I had to unzip my coat and let them scan me. Then I had to take all my damn pens out of my pocket. Yes I had about 10 in there, and I forgot about my IPhone so then I had to take that off too. Then it still went off because of my belt buckle but yeah finally I get in there. I pick out a cozy seat in the 4th row (which I had all to myself) and relaxed.

Checked into 4square of course. (shut up!)

Then thankfully I got thirsty. I decided I needed a drink and went out to get one. In the hallway I ran into some dude I went to College with and he proceeded to chat me up. So we’re there in the hallway between the concourse and the lower bowl. He’s blabbing and then what happens but Bernie freaking fracking Kosar walks up.

Okay now if you are someone who doesn’t know who Bernie Kosar is click here. I also really hope you have the excuse that you’re not from Cleveland.

We both (read he) stop talking and silently gawk at him. The Cleveland football god! I do believe there were rays of light (held by Jesus himself) shining in his general direction but that was never confirmed. He’s busy being prepped and we’re busy gawking and well gawking. He then comes over and seeing as us gawkers are in his way stops. I’m wearing a Miami Dolphin shirt. He asks me if I’m a Miami Hurricane fan too. This got us talking about The Hurricanes, Dolphins and of course the Browns. I shook his hand about 60 bazillion times and he signed my Gladiators’ roster:

He then went down, signed and took pictures with people and then gave a short intro to the scrimmage. It was fanfuckintastic. It was a fun time at the scrimmage. Soon a really drunk dude and his younger siblings came and he kept asking me annoying questions like “which team are we?” He could not understand the concept of a scrimmage or why there was no score being kept. Then he asked who that guy everyone is taking pictures of is and when I told him Bernie Kosar, he asked me “Who’s Bernie Kosar?” That is when I turned around and ignored him for the rest of the night. A girl who was pretty wasted too moved over to sit next to me and have me explain the rules to her. After the scrimmage I decided instead of going on to the field to meet the players (a bunch of which would soon be cut) I’d just head on home. I mean it was a fun time and I met Bernie Kosar it wasn’t going to get much better.

So I head back to the rapid station and the girl who sat next to me comes with all the while asking me question after question. I’m so annoyed and trying to be nice. The problem was I sort of got lost in my explanation of things and just got on her train. I thought she said she was taking the same one as I was and I didn’t pay attention. She then sat next to me and yammered the whole time. Halfway through I realize I’m on the wrong freaking train, and that my phone is dying. The only way to get back to a train that I could get on to get where I would need to go to catch my bus is pretty much go all the way back to where I started. By the time this would’ve happened the last bus would have been long gone. Luckily the wife had just entered Cleveland and I got off at Shake Square to wait there. Now a diner that had an open sign lit up and their sign on the door still turned to open was not actually open. I went in and they proceeded to yell at me. I was starving and planned on buying food while I waited but I wanted a place to stay in from the cold too. I headed back out to the rapid station waiting area to at least sit. Luckily I had some Kerouac to read. Of course as soon as I was immersed a tall, older and extremely drunk black dude came in. He said “Hi, my man.” And I said “Good day sir” Nailed that huh?

Anydrunk he ignored the fact that I was reading and talked and talked. Told me how it was his birthday the next day and how he wasn’t going to do shit. Not a god damn thing but lay there. He don’t care who calls. He’ll party for his b-day another day. The best was he looked around and whispered “I come out here to party. Drop like 400 bucks for the night and party and then take this train back to Cleveland Heights to live. Safety over there not in the hood, I just party out here.” The train came and I wished him a happy birthday. He only replied with “Birthday?” Then the wife came and all was well.

Experiment: Go somewhere on my own.
Result: Met Bernie freaking Kosar, but then had a horrible travel fail. You gotta take the good with the bad.

The next day for lunch I ordered something I would generally never ordered. I liked it too.