Lets just say for fun
lets just say for fun, that it's valentines day, and your plans are as follows.
1. Watch the Simpsons and take a nap.
2. Fix some pants for Patrick before he goes to NY.
3. Take an extremely self indulgent bath. Listen to 69 Love Songs in it's entirety. Get 'Busby Berkley Dreams' firmly stuck in your head. Forget what's bothering you. Moisturize.
4. Get that moisturized ass dressed.
5. Take a leisurely walk down Pike to 2nd. Marvel at the sparkly sidewalk. Talk to no one. Arrive at show. Purchase burbon. Enjoy attending a show where you are almost certain to not know anyone. Thus, no talking. No thinking. Just rock. Not even sensitive rock. This is hair rock. Rock Rock Rock. Walk home.
And lets just say that while you did a pretty good job of item 1 and item 2, items 3 through 5 were royally fucked.
The fucking of Item 3 The water in your building is always hot. Scorching hot. So hot you've burned yourself on several occasions, hot. Yeah. Anyway. You put the stopper in your newly cleaned clawfoot and throw on the hot water tap, intending to fill it to the 2/3rds point before turning the cold on. Drag your crap-o little stereo in to the bathroom and think about this scene. Pick up 69 Love Songs where you left off, Disc 2, track 16. Light a cigarette off of a candle and feel a twinge of remorse for killing a sailor. Slide into what should be almost unbearably hot water.
Scream.
Holy bitch ass cold. Parachuting into the arctic ocean naked cold. Might as well be fucking a snowman cold. Throw down every curse word you know and several you just discovered while clawing your way out of the tub. Turn on the hot water tap and stick your hand under.....cold.
You are going to get your bath by whatever means necessary. You wait a half an hour and boil a big pot of water. Compose a shallow, luke warm bath. By the time you get out, you're shivering and you've got "Fido, your leash is too long" stuck in your head.
The slight fucking of item 4 Undaunted, but slightly annoyed, slick some body buttah' over the arms and legs and check out the closet. Realize that all your clothes are dirty except for 3 white summer dresses and a pair of raver pants you recently found folded into a pile of blankets. You consider the pants for just under 4 seconds before you decide to find something that already smells like smoke, perhaps the olfactory camoflauge will help ensure that no one will speak to you. Start disc 3.
The major fucking of Item 5, also known as, the rest of the evening.
Lets now say that you are me. All of these other things could have happened to you, but the rest of this night is the kind of thing that *only* happens to me.
I head out of my apartment building feeling pretty good about being alone. It's cold out, but not painfully so. Almost everyone is in couples. An elderly couple walking up the hill, he is wearing a carnation in his lapel and she is wearing a dressy fur coat. A striking young latin couple in sharp suits and good shoes coming out of Tango and hailing a cab. The parents and the married children making a double date of it walking past the library from the Cheesecake factory.
That's when utter weirdo annoyance numero 1 struck. The thing that I'd been forgetting all evening in order to thoroughly enjoy myself without throwing up in total disgust at the thought of goes cruising by. I don't talk to it. It doesnt talk to me. I wonder if I might be hallucinating, seeing as how I havent seen it in months. It coughs. I don't remember ever having a hallucination that coughed. Strike this as one point for another thing that one would call irony but is not actually ironic. Just unfortunate.
I remember how much I like the sidewalk here. I think about the what kind of sound a cigarette burning into an eyeball would make. I remember that my coat pockets are full of rosemary and I'd have a pretty good chance in a fight against that bitch. I remember that I'm trying not to think about fighting so much these days.
I feel better by the time I hit the Decatur building. There are lots of people crossing at the intersection, I end up crossing in a group of 4 men and a woman, the group gently scatters at the corner. I can feel someone to my left and just barely behind me. I pick up my pace in order to create a comfortable distance. Back and Left picks up their pace. I drop down to half speed in order to get them in front of me and lose them in the next intersection. Back and left waits at the corner instead of crossing. I stand a few feet behind him. He's a little taller than me and about my age, maybe a few years older. Conservative but kind of sporty. Everything has a brand name. Nike shoes, Levi jeans, Tommy windbreaker, Hugo watch. He turns to me and smiles, "Cold, huh?"
"yeah". I feel bad for resenting him so much. *He* doesn't know that I don't want to talk to anyone. He just wants to chat.
"Um...", I can tell he's double checking his words. "Can I buy...um....can I buy a drink?"
Now I really feel like a bitch. He's obviously a tourist and it looks like he's by himself. I feel a strong obligation to be polite but I'd really enjoy it if he fucked right off and left me alone.
"Thank you, but I don't drink. "
He keeps walking with me anyway. Asks me where I'm going, and I say I'm meeting my boyfriend at a club. He tells me he just graduated from college in Japan with an international business major and he's touring in Seattle for the next 2 months. He asks a lot of questions about my imaginary boyfriend which I primarily answer with information about Patrick. He asks me for my phone number. I tell him I don't really feel safe giving it to people on the street, but he can have my email address if he wants to get in touch. He asks if he can walk me to the club and I tell him I'd really rather go alone. He heads back up Pike and I turn down 2nd.
I come across a gaggle of seven foot tall boys in saggy pants and puffy coats, they split in half to let me through. One of them nods, "Whatup Baby?"
"Nothin. How're you?"
We're well past each other now, but I hear him laugh and mutter "A'right." This will be my most pleasant conversation of the evening.
I arrive at my destination and have a brief conversation about Spokane with the doorman. He graduated with some people I knew in high school. I don't mind talking to him because he isn't treating me like a girl. A new song starts up and he whips around to look at the stage before turning back to me "For goodness fucking sake! Do these guys sound like an Alice in Chains cover band or what?" I
I buy myself a drink, call Alisha from a pay phone to leave her a message about The Thing and the Japanese guy, and head back toward the stage. I feel a little weird because I'm the only woman there who isnt attached to a smoking boyfriend. I'm a loser, and that's alright with me. Being alone makes me doubly unaproachable somehow, and that's pretty comforting. I run into a guy I used to work with at Amazon, he's in one of the bands. He gives me a big hug and tells me to stick around after the show so we can get a drink. The current band really *does* sound like Alice in Chains, and their bassist keeps doing that dramatic flippy hair thing. Theres a guy in white tennis shoes very purposefully standing next to me. I glance up and he smiles. I've had several drinks by this point and I'm feeling much less defensive. I smile back and turn my attention to the band. The guy I know from amazon's band has just started and they're talking about it being a "Rock" night. Amazon leans in to his microphone and says "I just got my first manicure. How rock is that?"
I stay for a few more songs before I realize that it's getting past 1 and I have to go to work in the morning, so I leave. I'm almost 3 blocks away when I hear the thwap thwap, thwap thwap, thwap thwap of running tennis shoes on the sidewalk behind me. Someone is running up behind me at one in the morning in Belltown. HOLY FUCK.
So I take off running, of course.
I hear someone behind me "Wait! I was standing next to you at the bar! I just want to walk you home!"
I continue running but turn to look behind me. It's tennis shoe smiler guy. I stop.
He's been running for 3 blocks longer than I have but is not nearly as out of breath. "sorry to scare you, I was just too shy to say anything inside. Can I walk you home?"
He seems pleasant enough, so I agree to walking with him 2/3rds of the way. He's from michigan and he's got 7 siblings. I ask him to stop at the library. He shakes my hand and wishes me a happy valentines day.
I get home and check my messages.
1 message
from my mom,
she sang "I just called to say I love you" in it's entirety.
Posted by sonya at February 15, 2002 12:30 PM