dearest,well here i am, hands at a less bitchy keyboard. ahem.
so as i was saying, there was coffee and a movie (yes
men) last night with the mitch. we met up at
satellite at eight. i had only not stood him up (that
construction is some kind of five car predicate
pile-up, no?) because it was his birthday. (it also
happened to be my niece's birthday, and i had just
come from cake and ice cream for a 15-year-old (her
idea) to coffee and a movie with a 33-year-old (his
idea)) so, i was saying that we met at satellite on
central (there are, like, a zillion satellites now)
and i was early, so i stood in line to get my coffee
behind this woman who was being that woman who is very
knowledgeable about the beautifully tattoo'd and yet
highly inefficient satellite counter help. she turned
around several times to look at me, as if to include
me in the conversation (which i recognized because she
did that thing, that "..." thing, like she was leaving
a space in the convo which i was supposed to fill in
at my discretion) and of course this made me responsd
not with a conversational gambit but with a feigned
and very avid interest in the contents of the pastry
case. i got my americano while the woman moved on to a
converstation with another complete stranger, telling
him how she was doctoring her coffee up with things
like nutmeg and cinnamon, spices which they apparently
don't have on the planet nutso. i took my americano
and went to sit at a table outside.
mitch came up, gave me a hug, and we went inside so
that he could get coffee. i took a seat, at the same
seats where we sat when you showed me the pics of you
and x at the wedding. and when i looked up, mitch was
talking to the woman. he ended the conversation and
came over and said, do you remember the woman i was
telling you about yesterday? the one who was sitting
behind us at winnings making the collages? that's her.
having been conjured, she came over and mitch went to
pick up his coffee and i had a conversation with this
woman. her name is sky, and she's depressed. a blue
sky, erin, which might have struck the blackest, most
cynical side of me as funny if the universe hadn't
been trying so hard, tugging so insistently at my
sleeve despite my trying to shake it off, trying to
say, look, look, willya look at this already? it's a
blue sky and (explaining it to me as though I were the
child) it's not what we always associate blue skies
with. see? do you see that even blue skies are more
complex than that?
when mitch came back, i heard myself telling sky,
well, why don't you join us? she did, and we moved to
a table. she began telling about herself, about her
trials and tribulations over the last year, things
like her husband--a pastor with calvary chapel--who
ditched her for his secretary, the 18-years-younger
trophy wife, and her children who she described as
being "very into the far northeast heights thing."
(apt description, don't you think?) as she was
telling us about her pet geese (two of them, which she
keeps in her one-room apartment here in the ghetto),
mitch looked up at a man behind me and said, hey
shiva. shiva said, hey, mitch, and came over to say
hello. i hadn't caught his name (i thought mitch had
said, hey, steven), so i introduced myself and then i
found myself saying, why don't you join us, shiva? (i
was trying to answer the suddenly insistent universe,
trying to say, yes, i'm hearing you. i see that. you
send me this message via the great destroyer (and i'm
making that frighteningly simple, because shiva is so
much more than just a destroyer in the mythology) and
i'm listening. i'm trying to understand this.)
we talked.
later, as we were preparing to leave for the movie,
mitch invited shiva to come along with us and shiva
came. (i saw a movie with shiva, erin, shiva the great
destroyer, who in this incarnation happens to be a
chemical engineer from india.) since it was mitch's
birthday, i tried to pay, but the owner of the guild,
on hearing that it was mitch's birthday, insisted on
treating him and gave us a big bucket of popcorn
besides.
after the movie, i said to shiva and mitch, i have my
car, would you like a ride home? shiva lives behind
the guild, so he declined, and mitch wanted to go for
a coffee. i was still in ditching mode, (i had heard
the universe but wasn't sure about what i was
hearing), but i agreed, and we tried a few
coffeehouses that were closed before ending up at the
frontier. we talked until about two in the morning.
i'm not saying much here, am i? what am i not saying?
i'm not really saying that i don't think there's much
chemistry between me and mitch (i'm his null-girl, i
think), so it was distressingly easy for me to
side-step his very subtle invitations to accompany him
home. (and too, the brain had set up some steady
"brauer. brauer. brauer" mantra.) i'm also not saying
that i seriously thought about kissing him--the
opportunity presented itself via verrry subtle body
language as i dropped him off at his house--but i
couldn't do it. i couldn't, despite the desire to be
kissed, do it, because it was not the desire to kiss
mitch, only the desire to be kissed that would have
been the motivation behind the kiss. it was a wholy
selfish desire and i refused to indulge it at mitch's
expense.
but mitch? mitch has had a very interesting life. he's
had the kind of life that should have resulted in the
creation of one of the most miserable people on the
planet, a person mired in a dreaded pit self-misery
the likes of which the creator (brahma?) modeled
quicksand on, but which has instead resulted in
someone who is able to see into the causes of that
potential misery. it's like he has a map of his own
personal landmines, his own Big Book Of Demons, that
he can consult at will and say, oh, yes, i need to get
past that one somehow, or, that one was a real test,
and look, i made it. what did i learn, and how can i
apply that to the next one? he's an interesting
person.
and i'm not saying either that i'm in falling in love
with the guy, or that i'm going to fall in love with
the guy, or that i'm going to pretend to fall in love
with the guy so that i can sleep with him, because i'm
not. but i don't know why not. have you ever been in
that predicament? do i throw myself down on my stomach
and wiggle my way out, like a worm, like all the books
tell you to do to get out of the quicksand trap? do i
go with it and see where it takes me?
he wants to see me again today, but i put him off at
least until tomorrow. we'll see how he takes that. if
it's just birthday week angst that's leading him to
seek out my company, then this is just a temp job and
i'm done after this week. (then i'll be free to play
all through your break--won't that be fun?) if it's
bigger than birthday week angst, then i'll have to
start a new book of demons, i think. or maybe i can
set the cynic to work on the new demon excavations
while i play with my new friend.
and you? have you found out yet whether marv can talk
to bears? if so, i think i may have something to talk
to him about too...
sublingua