Tuesday evening, Mr. Bluegrass greeted me with a kiss on the cheek.
We met at a coffee shop near my house and talked for an hour without resorting to the usual 20 questions games that strangers play. He's from Kentucky and he told me about the mountains there and his father's dog, Lance, who was hit by a car on a winding road. His parents are Baptists. They eat pinto beans and cornbread, he said. He does health policy research and wonders whether he should buy the condo he's living in near Eastern Market. He started talking about religion as a form of social control and it wasn't a place either of us wanted to be, so we changed the subject.
He talked about having friends in Hawaii that were triathletes. The kind of people that swim at dusk, sharks be damned. They left jobs as lawyers and businessmen to wait tables and work at coffee shops so that they could be athletes. Iron men.
He's lived here seven years and rather likes it. He reads Howard Zinn and goes to the Birchmere in Virginia. He is pleasant and polite and calming.
All of the sudden they are closing the coffee shop and it's barely 9 p.m. We've only been here an hour. It seems abrupt to leave now, and we trudge to a bar nearby. They're closing. It's cold out and last call was 15 minutes ago. There's another bar open a few blocks up, they tell us. We stand outside, he's visibly pining for his car, parked back at the coffee shop. He's not wearing a hat, scarf or gloves and it's late January. Your call, I tell him. He says we should call it a night and I walk him back to the car, where we talk a few minutes more, hug, and say goodbye.
Wednesday, January 31, 2007
Sunday, January 28, 2007
Leather Jacket
It was Saturday night and he wanted to play it by ear.
First, he had asked me to a concert, Blue Oyster Cult. Then, he backpedaled, nervously emailing that maybe we'd be the only people there under 40. I didn't care what we did. He looked hot from his photo and I wanted to go out. So we played it by ear. Which meant meeting for drinks at a bar of my choosing.
Five minutes after meeting, sitting at a booth at the bar, a man selling roses approached and leather jacket asked me if I wanted one. "No!" I found myself shouting. "No thanks, that's really not necessary," I said. But part of we was wondering why he was asking in the first place. Either do it or don't do it, but surely, don't ask me. I went on to say how I didn't understand why people bought those roses. He agreed, saying I probably wouldn't have wanted to carry it around all night, missing the point entirely.
We talked about our educations and our families and our ambitions and politics. He said John Edwards was going to be the next president. I wasn't so sure. He was very smart, and sweet and not at all creepy. But nothing about the evening made my heart beat fast even once.
I couldn't get over that he seemed dorky, asking me which beers to order, ordering them, and not liking them. The whole flower-buying debacle. It all seemed to be encapsulated in the leather jacket he was wearing, which was fine in and of itself, but looked like it didn't quite fit him.
He mentioned, more than once, that his apartment was very nearby. He would have suggested that we go there, he said, but it was incredibly small. Hmmm, I thought. He said he didn't even have room for a couch, so we would have to sit on his bed and it might be intense. I agreed that, at this point, it would indeed be, intense.
We went to a bookshop and had hot cider and he asked me, again, what I wanted to do. I said something that I immediately regretted: "Maybe we should quit while we're ahead." He had spoken at the same time. "What did you say," I asked. "Nothing," he replied.
"You said you were hungry," he said. I told him I could go for a slice of pizza. We got empanadas instead and ate them outside. They were delicious, and he made me laugh, reciting an old SNL skit-- something about Dana Carvey and Gerald Ford.
Then he walked me to the metro, gave me an awkward hug and we haven't spoken since.
First, he had asked me to a concert, Blue Oyster Cult. Then, he backpedaled, nervously emailing that maybe we'd be the only people there under 40. I didn't care what we did. He looked hot from his photo and I wanted to go out. So we played it by ear. Which meant meeting for drinks at a bar of my choosing.
Five minutes after meeting, sitting at a booth at the bar, a man selling roses approached and leather jacket asked me if I wanted one. "No!" I found myself shouting. "No thanks, that's really not necessary," I said. But part of we was wondering why he was asking in the first place. Either do it or don't do it, but surely, don't ask me. I went on to say how I didn't understand why people bought those roses. He agreed, saying I probably wouldn't have wanted to carry it around all night, missing the point entirely.
We talked about our educations and our families and our ambitions and politics. He said John Edwards was going to be the next president. I wasn't so sure. He was very smart, and sweet and not at all creepy. But nothing about the evening made my heart beat fast even once.
I couldn't get over that he seemed dorky, asking me which beers to order, ordering them, and not liking them. The whole flower-buying debacle. It all seemed to be encapsulated in the leather jacket he was wearing, which was fine in and of itself, but looked like it didn't quite fit him.
He mentioned, more than once, that his apartment was very nearby. He would have suggested that we go there, he said, but it was incredibly small. Hmmm, I thought. He said he didn't even have room for a couch, so we would have to sit on his bed and it might be intense. I agreed that, at this point, it would indeed be, intense.
We went to a bookshop and had hot cider and he asked me, again, what I wanted to do. I said something that I immediately regretted: "Maybe we should quit while we're ahead." He had spoken at the same time. "What did you say," I asked. "Nothing," he replied.
"You said you were hungry," he said. I told him I could go for a slice of pizza. We got empanadas instead and ate them outside. They were delicious, and he made me laugh, reciting an old SNL skit-- something about Dana Carvey and Gerald Ford.
Then he walked me to the metro, gave me an awkward hug and we haven't spoken since.
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