Inside Out

The Lady with the List

2009-07-02T00:19:00.000-07:00

Today is just one of those days. You wake up in your queen sized bed, that warm orange 7 a.m. sunlight filtering through the crack in the blinds – the same crack you made when you attempted to spy on the cute “pasty” kid smoking cigarettes on the lawn next door.

But that was two weeks ago, and you haven’t seen him or any boy since then. Ever the drama queen, you extend your arm across the empty half of your bed, and for a brief moment you imagine what it might be like to have someone to cuddle up next to. You’re not a cuddler, hugger, or even a playful poker, but you still wish you had that movie moment to wake up to this morning – that scene where a tired, but sexually satisfied, couple wakes up, CUDDLES, and immediately begins a tongue in mouth exploration. In the movies, morning breath does not exist.

But as that warm, orange (now 7:06 a.m.) sunlight has so obnoxiously pointed out – your bed is empty. You let the drama queen moment linger, knowing your alarm clock doesn’t report for duty for another 4 minutes. You imagine someone utterly delicious sleeping next to you, which in an unfortunate, but inevitable turn of events, makes you think of all the not-so-delicious people you’ve shared a bed with. Your mind wanders to past boyfriends, past lovers, past 10-vodka-shots-later guys, and the guys you found out about on last night’s disposable camera…

You get out of bed.

As you get dressed, you inevitably hate yourself for feeling like the girl you forever chastised when sharing cocktails with friends. They complain about feeling alone, about not having a “decent man” in their lives, about “guy from the bar” never calling them back – while you tell them “there’s more to life than men,”…(as you order your third Long Island, secretly hoping the drunken sex with cute waiter #3 will be totally “awesome.”)

Now as you wait on the corner of 5th and Mercer, wearing your crisp, starched “office garb,” you half amuse-half console yourself by deciding to take formal stock of the day’s prospects – you list every man that looks at you in a brooding/lustful/mysterious way, every man who for a sustained period of time sits/stands at optimum eye contact distance, every man who makes a traditional or even scandalous pass at you, and every man who you happen to have an unexpected conversation with. You pull out your handy-dandy BlackBerry, knowing full well that these are the kinds of things the folks at RIM designed it for. As you set up a list, you pause, do a 5 minute “I can’t believe I’m doing this, this is so sad” blah, and get right back to it. Experiments were meant to be tried first, fail second.

The day goes by much faster. You’ve been very diligent, taking notes the describe situations, colors, smells, sights, signals – skills from your 4th grade bird-watching summer camp (which you later told friends was actually a modern dance academy) are finally being put to good use. Your eye for detail was finally having its day-long orgasm.

Back at home, with the day’s obligations stranded at the front porch, you unwind with wine and a collection of selected shorts by Chekhov. You were going to re-read some of Candace Bushnell’s fluff, but decided not to because Slavic last names (secretly) turn you on.

Having gotten through Agafya, you remember the BlackBerry, the project, the list. You search through your documents and find it there. You read it once, laugh, read it twice, and think “damn, this is embarrassing,” and somewhere along the line, realizing that this should remain what it originally was – a scientific experiment – you label the list “the useless boy project.” Creativity escapes you on a day like today…

(1) Laptop Guy: Foreign passport holder perhaps. Have decided he has a sultry accent and nice teeth. See him every day at the bus stop. He is always on his laptop, and while I have no idea what he does, I’m going to guess he is a technology forum poster OR a very very serious twitterrrer (?). But today, I notice a wedding band… next.

(2) Fat guy on seat next to me insists of staring a LOT. He stares about 8 inches south of where my face is :::shudder::::

(3) Skinny, but beautiful guy on seat opposite me has a sharp hair-do, BUT is wearing women’s peep toe shoes. His nails are painted in a color I have been looking everywhere for. This bus’ ridership is colorful, to say the least.

(4) Campaign worker on street. At least two years younger than, but insists on calling me “ma’am.” But I pass, because I don’t like men in politics.

(5) Guy in elevator…smells...so….good.

(6) Guy in lunch time elevator: Says hello, we chit-chat…the elevator still smells so good.

(7) Guy at dinner time Chinese take-out place…is 55 and speaks no English. But I imaging he was a good lover in his heyday.

Back at home, you realize the prospects are about as promising as mildew.

You decide not to “try so hard,” because the real prospects will be worth the wait, AND because a dear friend once told you to “just fuck it.”

So you smile, feeling a sense of fulfillment know one will quite understand, and snuggle back with your book. You turn the next page, and it’s titled “The Kiss.” You quickly rush back to your list, just in time to add one last entry…

(8) Chekhov

Does the first time really hurt?

2009-03-11T00:50:00.000-07:00

The title of my blog post has absolutely NOTHING to do with what I'm going to write about. In my current job, I've quickly come to realize the power of a good headline to draw the reader in (evil laugh).

I've never been part of an "underground" movement, or blogged for that matter, so this is kind of exciting. I start here with a mildly dangerous salute to poetic daydreams, colorful characters, unpretentious romance and dreamy prose, and of course, crazy mindless musings. Here goes…

Greetings, from Seattle, Washington. Somewhere near the intersection of Queen Anne Avenue and Mercer Street, in the hip, bustling neighborhood of Lower Queen Anne, is a young, charmingly mysterious twenty-something male sitting at Café Ladro, drinking a piping hot double shot Yankee Dog, wearing a plaid button down with one sleeve rolled to the elbow, his fingers (making love) to a laptop covered in stickers of his favorite artwork, a box of cigarettes holding down his receipt. $3.25. The last four digits of his credit card number are 5683. He does not carry cash. He does however carry a spiral bound notebook, some mint flavored toothpicks and a very old movie ticket stub for the 3 p.m. screening of Vicky Cristina Barcelona at The Big Picture.

He took a young Cornish theatre student to that movie. They decided to make the afternoon show because she had tickets to a Massy Ferguson concert at the Vera Project that night. They are not together anymore, and we might never know why. She was a sophomore, too young to appreciate a good merlot, too old to wear Doc Martens, which she secretly did when picking up teriyaki from the place across her apartment or stretching canvasses in her basement. She was originally from Ellensburg, but came to Seattle to audition for a play about the sexual and emotional escapades of a Latvian immigrant at the underground Ballagan Theatre. She had lied to her mother, saying the audition was for The Lion King at the Paramount. Her mother had believed her. All she had wanted was the very best for her daughter.

The young boy at Café Ladro, now a bit jittery from the caffeine, does not know this, but a man in his late forties is sitting about two tables away, watching this boy send an instant message within nanoseconds of receiving one. This man is not in a good mood. He is in this trendy coffee shop because he senses the onset of a midlife crisis. He doesn’t love his wife; just her sweet pulled pork and mashed potatoes. He hates his job at the power plant, and wishes he could be a world scrabble champion or lead guitarist for a Beatles cover band. He used to run cross country for Oregon State, now he only runs to the mailbox and back, to pick up the monthly TV guide and REI coupons. He doesn’t understand why they call it a Yankee Dog, and not a Cup of Joe. He does not get why the boy has one sleeve rolled up, and not the other. He doesn’t understand why the boy does not carry cash. And he doesn’t understand why the boy broke up with his daughter.

Meanwhile, standing on the sidewalk on the opposite side of the café is a beautiful woman, half-Greek half-Irish. She says she’s 38, but is actually 47. She’s holding a blue umbrella to shield her new bangs from an annoying February shower. She was on her way to her car, parked a block away on Republican, but had to stop when she saw the young boy in the café window, still drinking his warm beverage, still typing. She could have recognized that plaid shirt anywhere. It was what he had worn on their first date in Chinatown, and what she had ripped off on their first night at his studio apartment. She knows she should keep walking, because the drive back home is a long one. But she stands frozen, drained, curious. He is much too young for her, and she now knows that. She sheds a tear, on the inside, but shakes it off right away. She wasn’t going to pull a Julia Roberts from across the street. After all, she was secretly hoping to run into him.

She jay walks across Roy Street, the lights of Counterbalance Park behind her creating more than a Hollywood moment. As she gets closer, the boy sees her, first her blue umbrella, then her face. She is wearing a big yellow scarf. He could recognize that scarf anywhere. It was what she had worn on a ferry ride with him to Bainbridge Island, and what she wore the night he asked if he could “draw her.” She had laughed at him, and his pathetic attempts to turn her on. Even so, it had worked.

He turns down his laptop screen as she walks in, and an odd reflex forces him to quickly put his cigarettes in his pocket, even though she knows he smokes. She walks right up to his table, and sits down across from him. She doesn’t say anything, instead taking a sip from his coffee in silence. He takes her hands, slowly, and looks at her. His eyes shamelessly trace the skin on her hands, the folds near her neck, the lines near her eyes. She grows uneasy. It has only been a few months since they last saw each other, but she knows that he notices how old she has gotten. She feels those big tears peer over her lower eyelids. She looks away, over his shoulder, and notices the man in his late forties staring at her. He is angry, confused. His blood pressure rises, from what he sees before his eyes and from years of sweet pulled pork. The man is her husband.

I am also in the café, looking at all of this unravel in silent contentment. I feel a little evil, a little guilty, a little sad. I quickly pen an ‘intermission,’ so I can get myself more coffee. The bearded man behind the counter asks if I’d like to make that a Yankee Dog. I politely decline. Part of me still feels sorry for the man who never made it to the World Scrabble Championships.

(c) 2009. Also on Chimerical Cafe.