Up to the year 2000, Asian women were one of many options for me. I didn't have what one would call a "thing" for them. They were just another type of woman I would consider dating when I was looking through personal ads. A few called me after I responded to their ads. One I met said she preferred men with short hair (when I had very long hair). Another one acted like she was getting a bad vibe from me. However, there was one I was glad I didn't meet because she barely spoke English and I was having so much trouble slowing down my delivery for her. I couldn't see having to do that for the rest of my life.
Now that I was in a more secure place in my life, I was ready to start looking for romance. (I should add this was right before I moved into my own apartment or got the promotion at NDC.) Abed and Qued had recently acquired a PC from her mother and were able to get access to the Internet. This was something we all needed. I tried looking through a few websites that offered personal ads, but everything free I came across just seemed like scams. I recall finding one ad on Yahoo! in which the woman stated that the man didn't need to do anything, she would take care of him. I found this same ad on several zip codes that I searched.
I then came across Match.com. They were offering two weeks for free on their service. I figured I would give that a try. I entered in a few parameters of what I was looking for and viewed the results. I'd been in the personal ad game long enough to know that the longer an ad's been posted, the less likely you were going to get a response. I had to limit my search to ads that had been posted that day or the day before. I found a few and wrote to them. I didn't know if any of this was going to work.
A couple of days later, I received a response from one of them. Her name was Molz and she lived in Carlsbad. She was 30 years old and came here from Thailand. She was vegetarian, but didn't mind if others ate meat. We exchanged a few e-mails back and forth through Match.com. My two weeks were almost up. I told her that I was going to be discontinuing my account and that she could e-mail me directly at my Yahoo! address. The exchange continued for a few more days.
During this time, Abed, Qued and I planned to be part of the Hotels/Motels art event at the Motel 6 in Downtown San Diego. The way it worked was that the organizer (named Erid) arranged to have an entire floor of the motel dedicated to artists, who would each book a room and present their art, whether it be music, performance painting or artistically trashing the room. Abed and I were going to perform music and Qued would have some of her paintings on display. Hird was also going to take part and play experimental music in his room.
I e-mailed Molz and told her that if she wanted to meet me, I was going to be at this event and she should stop by and introduce herself. I gave her the date, time, room number and my phone number. A few days later she called. The caller ID showed the number as "Private." It was great to hear her voice. She did speak with a distinct accent, but she appeared to be fluent in English and had little trouble understanding me. She said she was going to come to the Hotels/Motels event and meet me. She was going to take the train to Downtown San Diego.
The day of the event, Abed, Qued and I went to Motel 6 set up in the room. On the way, we saw that Hird was in his room talking to someone. The other person was someone I had seen several times before. I concentrated on getting my keyboard set up in the room and didn't think any more about it. I was kind of ticked off that Hird was going to be in the room right next to us playing music. I knew that he would try to turn his equipment up really loud in order to drown us out. (Ferd and his ensemble were going to be performing in another room further away.)
While we were setting up, the man who had been in Hird's room came into ours. "Hi, I'm Hofd. I'm a reporter for the San Diego Reader and I'm writing an article about this event." Suddenly, I recognized his name and realized who he was. "That's right!" I said. "And you also play with Garager!" (Garager was a well-known local singer/songwriter.) Hofd seemed shocked that I knew who he was. I explained that we had met before and he had signed a CD that he performed on. He was even more shocked.
Hofd asked us a few questions about what we were doing. When I gave him my name, I indicated that Fayd Ogolon wasn't my real name, but that was what everyone in the local music scene knew me as.
After Hofd left, I went into another part of the room. I could hear someone come in and ask Abed about me. "He's right over here." It was Molz. She introduced herself. It was exciting to finally get to meet her. She had black hair, golden skin and a beautiful broken smile. I was immediately attracted to her.
We talked for a little bit. We walked around the other rooms to see the other exhibits. I don't know what she made of it. There was one room in which some people were naked and having body paint applied. Then, they ran around naked on the floor.
We came back to the room. Abed and I started playing. A few people strolled in and out of the room during our performance. Everything went pretty well and I don't recall Hird trying to out-noise us. After we were finished, Molz said she had to go. I offered to walk her back to the train station. We talked a little on the way. She gave me her phone number and said I could call her to try to go out sometime. I was very excited about the prospect.
The event was supposed to run from 7pm to 9pm, which was when I left. However, it didn't really stop right then like it was supposed to. The other artists ran around the motel for most of the night. Abed and Qued spent the night in the room, but they said the noise didn't die down until 2am.
The article that Hofd wrote appeared in the Reader about a month later. Abed, Hird and I were all mentioned in it and it included a photo of Ferd and the ensemble. However, he reported that the police came in and shut everything down. Erid indicated that the police did show up, but everything was already winding down by that time. There was nothing to shut down. As it turned out, the article ran the same day that the San Diego Union-Tribune ran a story about the experimental music scene in their weekend section. The reporter had come out to a show Abed, Hird and I performed at. People in San Diego must have thought we were the kings of the local experimental music scene.
You'd think Molz would have been impressed by that. But as you will find out tomorrow, she never got that chance.
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