I'm exhausted. I flew down to LA this morning, checked out three museums and now I'm back home bone tired. It still trips me out to think that I spent the afternoon in one city which is on the other end of the state and now I'm back home.

LA was nice and warm, and very summery. For a brief second, I thought to myself wouldn't it be nice to live some place where it always warm.

So red-headed marina frat boy called me at work today, and I made him talk to me for a long time even though he said wasn't a phone guy because I was bored at work. He did have one of his funny little exec lines though.

He said he was in his room and he had just taken a 40 minute bubble bath and had thought of me the whole time. And now he was on the phone with me buck naked lying in his big king size bed drinking red wine. He's such a trip isn't he? He's so very, very amusing.

He said he wanted to be friends with me, but that he would keep doing his exec guy thing and try to get me horizontal. And I'm like whatever. "I'm just having a little, a very little buyer's remorse." I said. Then he kept saying he loved me, and I was special and the real thing, the real deal, and on and on. And how this was just the beginning of our book, the first chapter, the opening line, and how the book has yet to be written, and we don't know how it's going to end, and we should take a chance and enjoy life and other silly sentimental drivel like that.

And then I asked him how his week went and he said he was really busy, but very productive. Then I said, "And so you did think about me every day this week?" And he said yes. And then I said, "Okay so you thought about me every day this week, but you didn't call me?". Mean huh?

But red-haired marina frat guy is a cool customer, and he just laughed and said, "After that D minus rating you gave on our date, what did you expect?" He's just so funny.

And then I asked him where my shoes were, and he said that "I know I'm such a flake." Then he said something about how the shoes would cost me, and I said "you got way more than should have gotten on that first date seeing as how you kissed me and all, and copped a good enough feel in the car to determine I didn't have a fake rack." He said he thought I had a plastique rack, but he wasn't sure and he wanted to make sure, but yes he owed me a dozen pair of shoes for those kinds of liberties and I was such a good kisser to boot.

I don't know. This guy just makes me laugh so much; I just never know what's going pop out of his mouth and it's usually something very, very funny. Plus I guess I'm just a silly sentimental stupid little girl because when he said "God,I love you!" with a huge sigh before we hung up, I got a little thrill. And even though I know it's huge fat honking lie and an old tired and overused line, it seems to work for me ... at least for now.

I know when I'm going to have a bad day when I start out the morning hearing the crows cawing outside of my bathroom window, and when the freakazoid at Starfbombs can't get a simple grande mocha no whip cream right and has to ask me three times what I want, and I hear a chorus of groans from the oh so cranky very long line of people in back of me.

So I had lunch with my boss today and she asked me about the guy I met on the plane from LAX to Oakland. In the course of talking to her, I started to feel a "little buyer's remorse" about tossing red-headed frat marina boy out of my life. I hate buyer's remorse, talk about wussyitis extremis! And I'm still pretty darn sure I made the right decision, but whatever.

Anyway, I'm not sure why I did this but I sent an email to the guy and here's what he said.

**************************
-----Original Message-----
From: Red-headed frat marina boy
Sent: Thursday, July 29, 2004 1:39 PM
To: Brenda Elgirl
Subject: Re: Buyer's Remorse

Let's get together on Friday night in LA or get together as soon
as I get back in town in August?
Love ya,
Red-headed frat marina boy

-----Original Message-----
From: Brenda Elgirl
Date: Thu, 29 Jul 2004 13:12:00
To:Red-headed frat marina boy
Subject: Buyer's Remorse

Hi Red-headed frat marina shoe boy,

I'm having a little buyer's remorse about what happened ... besides ...
where are my shoes???

Hope your week is going well.

--Brenda
**************************

I showed this email to my boss and she was like "what does the 'love ya' salutation mean?" I told her I didn't know, and then I asked her what she thought and she said she didn't know eitehir, but that it was a little familiar for someone I only met last week.

I'm sure it's like one of his used car salesman lines ... like don't you think he signs "love ya" to all the random girls he meets?

What's funny is he wants me fly to LA tomorrow to have dinner with him because he's staying there for a conference this weekend. Like I don't think so. Like if this guy was really serious, don't you think he should have at least offered to pay for my way down there? I mean, not that I would have gone, but he could have at least offered to pay my way. I guess he thinks if I really want it, I'd figure out a way to get it. Some women I know would have flown down to LA for a dinner with a guy they barely knew. I've never done anything like that before ever because, and frankly there hasn't been a guy I've met that's worth that kind of effort.

Of course, he could be thinking the same of me. Like oh my god, I can't believe she emailed me, what am I going to do, I thought the whole thing was over on Friday and now, what if she's weird and starts stalking me, and honestly, she really isn't worth that kind of effort or that outlay of cash. But I wanna come off like a nice guy, so I'll put "love ya" at end of my email because women always like that kind of stuff, and hopefully the whole thing will blow over by August and she won't ever communicate with me again.

So I skipped the democratic convention last night to work out. I kind of regret missing Theresa Heinz Kerry's speech, but then when they showed Howard Dean on the TV at the gym I was glad I was working out. Boy that man scares me! I don't know what I would have done if he was anywhere on the ticket or heaven forbid the democratic presidential nominee. I probably just wouldn't have voted for president, which would have been a first for me since I was 18 years old.

I went to gym again tonight but listened to John Edwards' speech on the radio. Man is Edwards a cutie! He is the cutest vice presidential candidate I've ever seen. He kind of looks like my first love which is such a trip. M was born in Virginia and had a bit of a southern twangy thing going in his voice despite spending most of list life in Bethesday Maryland. Edwards and M have the same face, same hairdo and same boyish smile.

I think John Edwards will one day be a great presidential candidate. Now is not his time, but he's definitely be a contender one day. You got to love his populist speech about how there are two Americas. Paul Krugman from the NY Times has been harping on the "two americas" theme for quite some time as well. Krugman said that what people have to figure out is which America you're a part of, because most middle class americans get it wrong.

I'll go home tomorrow to watch John Kerry speak, and watch the wrap up of the democratic convention. I don't know. I would like to think that the race will close, but I just don't know. My favorite stock picker, who has the best stock picking record in the country, also does quite well at predicting presidential races. Stock picker guy thinks that Bush will win by a landslide. Stock picker guy also picked Shrub to win the presidential republican nomination back in 1995-96, before the Shrubmeister was on anybody's radar. But then stock picker guy's mother is good friend with the Bush's and gets a Chrristmas cards from Laura Bush, so he's kind of got an inside track on stuff.

So I heard this great song on the radio today called "I will breath fire" by this band called Strata. If you like Evanescence, you'll like this band. Strata is from the same label, Wind-up Records.

Strata just released their album yesterday, so the music is like oh so current. On the Strata site, look for the music link to listen to samples of their tunes.

Wow, vintage Bill Clinton 'Slick Willie' speech tonight at the democratic convention. The man is so talented at it's just amazing. One of the political talking heads said later that 'Clinton can take arcane points of foreign policy and talk about them conversationally in a way ordinary americans can understand.'

The boy definitely has a gift, and it makes me wish he was still the President only because he could speak so well. Another pundit said he was watching Bill Clinton reading the teleprompted and adlibing as well. Nobody does it better than 'Slick Willie' at energizing a democratic crowd. I'm sure the republicans were just rolling their eyes and throwing things at their television, but nobody, and I mean nobody does it better than Bill Clinton and his political speechmaking.