(I haven't finished a character since word 10,000 until now. Bear with me while I finish them and I'm hoping to get all 50,000 words published on the blog by the end of the month! Also, I stopped editing altogether. July is for editing.)
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It’s serendipitous that my first journal assignment corresponds with my first real date. This is great--because I’ll be able to look back at it and have some real things to remember.
So I’ll start with how I got asked out. It’s the fifth day of classes today, and I’ve seen this guy three of the five days. Yesterday was one of those days. He apparently noticed me during those days, too because yesterday he held me up before class in the hall. He came up behind me, knew my name, and used it to get my attention. Since I’ve been in this town a sum total of two weeks, there’s a very small number of people who I believe can identify me from behind, so I didn’t think anything of it when I turned around, and when i didn’t see anyone I recognized as one of those people, I must have had a comical perplexed look because I noticed him as he was laughing at me. He reached out the hand that wasn’t busy holding his laptop, palm down, and asked me if I would meet him for dinner tonight. I dont’ even remember his exact words, I don’t even remember saying yes, and I don’t even remember how we figured out which resturaunt we were going to eat at tonight. I do remember how his hand felt, because the way he offered it I put my hand in it automatically. Not quite a handshake, not quite holding hands. I believe I went into the classroom abouot three different shades of red.
So tonight I met him in front of the resturaunt, and I just chose some jeans and a t-shirt, I forced myself to just choose something I would normally wear. I had caught myself thinking about my wardrobe several times that afternoon. I determined I was not going to be that kind of girl, I was not going to panic about dates like that. I was going to walk into my closet after class, and dress as if for the next day. Just, clean clothes. Not obsessive clothes. Not too much thought. Not too much power in the wardrobe. So I managed to chase the nagging thoughts away with this decision I had settled on.
I got home from class, grabbed a red t-shirt and black jeans and pulled them on after my shower. The jeans are worn--I’m thinking I’m going to do this neat thing where I sew lace into the holes as a sort of pseudo-patch, and I’m thinking green lace. But theyr’e not quite holey enough for that yet. The t-shirt is from a concert I didn’t go to. I picked it up at the salvation army on a day where I went to get t-shirts to make into washcloths. I happened to like the design of this shirt ,so I kept it. It’s pretty worn, and form-fitting, and I think the band is now defunct. The cities are all major concert cities except this one in Iowa. I didn’t even know this city existed.
I pulled my hair into a ponytail--I also made hairties out of the sleeves of the t-shirts I cut into cloths--in a matching red color. Same shoes I came in the house with, and I went out. The resturant is close enough I can walk to it so I did. I met him in front and he seemed startled that yes, I did indeed walk from my house. He assured me he didn’t suggest this restarunt because it was close enough for me to walk to--that he had no idea where I lived and no, he hadn’t been stalking me. I thought it was funny that he got defensive about it and we talked about the people we had stalked in the past, or had stalk us, as we waited for our table. (He had actually called and made a reservation). I really like american food restuarants, I like the insane variety on the menu. He ordered a burger and I ordered a pizza and we shared a bowl of tortilla chips and salsa.
He’s a year older than me, a summer baby. Awesome for him because of the abundant opportunites for having free celebrations, which he has taken advantage of: he invites a hundred people to the park and they play volleyball. Or, he arranges a rock climbing expidetition with his friends, complete with birthday cake. Once, he even had a birthday on a lake, and all his friends brought their little fishing boats and row boats and they just hung out in the middle of the water and tossed waterballons and went swimming. I told him about the challenges I had always had having a winter birthday. As a kid, I always had my parties at home, or could only invite a couple people because we were at an establishment where people had to pay, or my parents had to pay, for their attendence. As a teen, I discovered that places that advertise they host birthday parties free are actually just fishing for the rest of your cash. Laser tag was fun one year, bowling, and my senior year we went to the LEGO store (most of my friends had jobs and could afford the$15 per person to hang out and make a creation of $15 worth of legos to take home). Now that I’m in college, I’m pretty sure there isn’t anything I want to be trying to do in the dead of winter with people I barely know. I’m thinking I’m changing my birthday. He thought that was a capital idea. I’d like to play volleyball for my birthday for once, without having to rent a gym or ship everyone three states southward. That would be nice.
I liked to watch him while we talked, i think it must have been a good date because I’d totally go out with him again. I can’t think of anythng that would make me not want to , at least for now. I think he’s going to school to be a musician, plays very large and low-pitched stringed instruments. And piano. And a couple of wind instruments. I don’t think he owns all the different things he can play. He did a lot of looking at his food while we talked. I learned in a pshychology class that I took for college credit in high school soemthing about epeopl that dont’ make a lot of eye contact druing conversation, but I don’t remember what it means. I’m a pretty eye-bally person, I have noticed in previous self-discovery studies that I am always making eye contact. More people smile that way, that was what the study for class was about, but I just noticed that I am nearly always looking at people’s faces. He was nearly always looking at his hands or utensils. I’ll have to look it up. Is it creepy to do encyclopedic analysis on pepopel?
After dinner we just talked over our ever-refilled glasses of water. When I write about dates in stories or read about them in books or see them on tv, all dinner dates include wine, or at least some semblence of alcolol. It struck me strange that we were underage and just had to settle for pop and water.
Things I remember about him besides his major and his past birthday parties:
He likes to eat vegetarian, but he’s not a vegetarian
He thought about going into political science, but music was more fun
He thinks that all people relly do make sense, you just have to listen to them without being jugemental
He grew up working on a farm but lived in a subdivision
He doesn’t like carpet
He ripped the drop ceiling out of his bedroom so he could paint the ceiling and hang planets in between
His bedroom walls were always white because they weren’t allowed to paint
He put the drop ceiling back so no one would know he’d painted the ceilng
He used to have dogs but adoped them out on craigslist when he went to college because of college pet policies (As in , no pets, period)
He has a fish anyway
He works at a place where they make parts for machines in big molding equipment things that need two people to run
He doesn’t know what kind of machines he’s making parts for, or what the parts do
He imagines he works for a factory that makes gigantic army robots like Transformers
He uses the word exceptional way too often
He doesn’t have any annoying habits like nose blowing or nervous giggles or hair flipping
He doesn’t like writing
He doesn’t like reading
He doesn’t like science fiction about space. Which is like, all of it.
He doesn’t like porcupines. I don’t remember how we ended up talking about porcupines.
He likes to take road trips.
He doesn’t like to fly.
He drinks as much water as I do
He doesn’t crunch on his ice--another annoying habit he doesn’t have.
He used to only eat bagles for breakfast.
He once built a castle out of cardboard boxes and lit it on fire and he and his friends hosed it down like they were practicing fire fighting like real fire fighters do.
He never saw a movie in a theater that he liked.
He doesn’t wear sweaters.
He thinks that popcorn is overrated, and thinks the world should try out peanuts in replacement.
He once had a piece of rebar clean through his arm, but never got an infection and was in and out of the hospital in two days. He thinks he might be Wolverine.
He has a bad habit of not clocking out at work.
He goes to bed early becasue he started getting up at five in the morning after he got to college. He said it was becasue he forgets to do his laundry until he is out, so he plans on doing laundry first thing in the morning every day, and if he doesn’t need to, he’ll go down to the music center and practice. And sometimes he’ll wear dirty socks an extra day to practice instead of laundry.
He doesn’t wear sandals.
He likes salvador dali, and doesn’t like impressionist paitners.
He likes modern composers and doesn’t like people I’m familiar with like mozart and beethoven.
I don’t remember him paying the bill, I dont’ even remember the bill coming to the table. I think I might see if he wants to hang out there every week, and see if we get a thing going, or if we get bored with each other. Or maybe we might do something else. I dont’ know, but as we were leaving he didn’t suggest another date, instead said he’d see me in class tomorrow. He wished me a good evening, or lovely evening--something on the more odd end of things.
Oh--something imporant about the date--we had agreed not to bring our phones. Actually, I brought mine but I put it on silent and kept it in the bottom of my purse. He may or may not have had his, but I didn’t feel comfortable without being able to call for help if he were creepy enough to stuff me in his trunk. I’m pretty sure I could get a cell signal in a trunk. But not being able to protect myself from the unknown was kind of weird. I saw a lot of people in the restaurant on their phones--even the hostess. I thought it was a great idea not to have all the people in the world at our fingertips as we were learning stuf about each other, and I also thought it was cool that we couldn’t just instantly answer questions if they came up, you know, the inevitable reach for the iphone when you start your sentence with, “what was the name of...”. We’ll either remember to look it up later or we’ll not, andit turns out, not knowing the answer does not either enhance nor detract from the meaning of the conversation. At least, I didn’t think so. I wonder what he thought.
So that was a date. A proper date where one invites another out to a common and public social occasion and conversation, shared experience, and brain-picking occurred. I think I asked about a million questions and I think he asked about half a million. I think I was nervous enough that I was worried about talking too much so I asked questions. I think he was nervous enough that he was worried he would ask an embarrasing question that he answered questions at length. We know a lot more about each other, I think, but it was stiff, awkward, and really more like an interview than conversation. Which is okay. Because next time--and god I hope there is a next time--we might get better at it.
So I’ll start with how I got asked out. It’s the fifth day of classes today, and I’ve seen this guy three of the five days. Yesterday was one of those days. He apparently noticed me during those days, too because yesterday he held me up before class in the hall. He came up behind me, knew my name, and used it to get my attention. Since I’ve been in this town a sum total of two weeks, there’s a very small number of people who I believe can identify me from behind, so I didn’t think anything of it when I turned around, and when i didn’t see anyone I recognized as one of those people, I must have had a comical perplexed look because I noticed him as he was laughing at me. He reached out the hand that wasn’t busy holding his laptop, palm down, and asked me if I would meet him for dinner tonight. I dont’ even remember his exact words, I don’t even remember saying yes, and I don’t even remember how we figured out which resturaunt we were going to eat at tonight. I do remember how his hand felt, because the way he offered it I put my hand in it automatically. Not quite a handshake, not quite holding hands. I believe I went into the classroom abouot three different shades of red.
So tonight I met him in front of the resturaunt, and I just chose some jeans and a t-shirt, I forced myself to just choose something I would normally wear. I had caught myself thinking about my wardrobe several times that afternoon. I determined I was not going to be that kind of girl, I was not going to panic about dates like that. I was going to walk into my closet after class, and dress as if for the next day. Just, clean clothes. Not obsessive clothes. Not too much thought. Not too much power in the wardrobe. So I managed to chase the nagging thoughts away with this decision I had settled on.
I got home from class, grabbed a red t-shirt and black jeans and pulled them on after my shower. The jeans are worn--I’m thinking I’m going to do this neat thing where I sew lace into the holes as a sort of pseudo-patch, and I’m thinking green lace. But theyr’e not quite holey enough for that yet. The t-shirt is from a concert I didn’t go to. I picked it up at the salvation army on a day where I went to get t-shirts to make into washcloths. I happened to like the design of this shirt ,so I kept it. It’s pretty worn, and form-fitting, and I think the band is now defunct. The cities are all major concert cities except this one in Iowa. I didn’t even know this city existed.
I pulled my hair into a ponytail--I also made hairties out of the sleeves of the t-shirts I cut into cloths--in a matching red color. Same shoes I came in the house with, and I went out. The resturant is close enough I can walk to it so I did. I met him in front and he seemed startled that yes, I did indeed walk from my house. He assured me he didn’t suggest this restarunt because it was close enough for me to walk to--that he had no idea where I lived and no, he hadn’t been stalking me. I thought it was funny that he got defensive about it and we talked about the people we had stalked in the past, or had stalk us, as we waited for our table. (He had actually called and made a reservation). I really like american food restuarants, I like the insane variety on the menu. He ordered a burger and I ordered a pizza and we shared a bowl of tortilla chips and salsa.
He’s a year older than me, a summer baby. Awesome for him because of the abundant opportunites for having free celebrations, which he has taken advantage of: he invites a hundred people to the park and they play volleyball. Or, he arranges a rock climbing expidetition with his friends, complete with birthday cake. Once, he even had a birthday on a lake, and all his friends brought their little fishing boats and row boats and they just hung out in the middle of the water and tossed waterballons and went swimming. I told him about the challenges I had always had having a winter birthday. As a kid, I always had my parties at home, or could only invite a couple people because we were at an establishment where people had to pay, or my parents had to pay, for their attendence. As a teen, I discovered that places that advertise they host birthday parties free are actually just fishing for the rest of your cash. Laser tag was fun one year, bowling, and my senior year we went to the LEGO store (most of my friends had jobs and could afford the$15 per person to hang out and make a creation of $15 worth of legos to take home). Now that I’m in college, I’m pretty sure there isn’t anything I want to be trying to do in the dead of winter with people I barely know. I’m thinking I’m changing my birthday. He thought that was a capital idea. I’d like to play volleyball for my birthday for once, without having to rent a gym or ship everyone three states southward. That would be nice.
I liked to watch him while we talked, i think it must have been a good date because I’d totally go out with him again. I can’t think of anythng that would make me not want to , at least for now. I think he’s going to school to be a musician, plays very large and low-pitched stringed instruments. And piano. And a couple of wind instruments. I don’t think he owns all the different things he can play. He did a lot of looking at his food while we talked. I learned in a pshychology class that I took for college credit in high school soemthing about epeopl that dont’ make a lot of eye contact druing conversation, but I don’t remember what it means. I’m a pretty eye-bally person, I have noticed in previous self-discovery studies that I am always making eye contact. More people smile that way, that was what the study for class was about, but I just noticed that I am nearly always looking at people’s faces. He was nearly always looking at his hands or utensils. I’ll have to look it up. Is it creepy to do encyclopedic analysis on pepopel?
After dinner we just talked over our ever-refilled glasses of water. When I write about dates in stories or read about them in books or see them on tv, all dinner dates include wine, or at least some semblence of alcolol. It struck me strange that we were underage and just had to settle for pop and water.
Things I remember about him besides his major and his past birthday parties:
He likes to eat vegetarian, but he’s not a vegetarian
He thought about going into political science, but music was more fun
He thinks that all people relly do make sense, you just have to listen to them without being jugemental
He grew up working on a farm but lived in a subdivision
He doesn’t like carpet
He ripped the drop ceiling out of his bedroom so he could paint the ceiling and hang planets in between
His bedroom walls were always white because they weren’t allowed to paint
He put the drop ceiling back so no one would know he’d painted the ceilng
He used to have dogs but adoped them out on craigslist when he went to college because of college pet policies (As in , no pets, period)
He has a fish anyway
He works at a place where they make parts for machines in big molding equipment things that need two people to run
He doesn’t know what kind of machines he’s making parts for, or what the parts do
He imagines he works for a factory that makes gigantic army robots like Transformers
He uses the word exceptional way too often
He doesn’t have any annoying habits like nose blowing or nervous giggles or hair flipping
He doesn’t like writing
He doesn’t like reading
He doesn’t like science fiction about space. Which is like, all of it.
He doesn’t like porcupines. I don’t remember how we ended up talking about porcupines.
He likes to take road trips.
He doesn’t like to fly.
He drinks as much water as I do
He doesn’t crunch on his ice--another annoying habit he doesn’t have.
He used to only eat bagles for breakfast.
He once built a castle out of cardboard boxes and lit it on fire and he and his friends hosed it down like they were practicing fire fighting like real fire fighters do.
He never saw a movie in a theater that he liked.
He doesn’t wear sweaters.
He thinks that popcorn is overrated, and thinks the world should try out peanuts in replacement.
He once had a piece of rebar clean through his arm, but never got an infection and was in and out of the hospital in two days. He thinks he might be Wolverine.
He has a bad habit of not clocking out at work.
He goes to bed early becasue he started getting up at five in the morning after he got to college. He said it was becasue he forgets to do his laundry until he is out, so he plans on doing laundry first thing in the morning every day, and if he doesn’t need to, he’ll go down to the music center and practice. And sometimes he’ll wear dirty socks an extra day to practice instead of laundry.
He doesn’t wear sandals.
He likes salvador dali, and doesn’t like impressionist paitners.
He likes modern composers and doesn’t like people I’m familiar with like mozart and beethoven.
I don’t remember him paying the bill, I dont’ even remember the bill coming to the table. I think I might see if he wants to hang out there every week, and see if we get a thing going, or if we get bored with each other. Or maybe we might do something else. I dont’ know, but as we were leaving he didn’t suggest another date, instead said he’d see me in class tomorrow. He wished me a good evening, or lovely evening--something on the more odd end of things.
Oh--something imporant about the date--we had agreed not to bring our phones. Actually, I brought mine but I put it on silent and kept it in the bottom of my purse. He may or may not have had his, but I didn’t feel comfortable without being able to call for help if he were creepy enough to stuff me in his trunk. I’m pretty sure I could get a cell signal in a trunk. But not being able to protect myself from the unknown was kind of weird. I saw a lot of people in the restaurant on their phones--even the hostess. I thought it was a great idea not to have all the people in the world at our fingertips as we were learning stuf about each other, and I also thought it was cool that we couldn’t just instantly answer questions if they came up, you know, the inevitable reach for the iphone when you start your sentence with, “what was the name of...”. We’ll either remember to look it up later or we’ll not, andit turns out, not knowing the answer does not either enhance nor detract from the meaning of the conversation. At least, I didn’t think so. I wonder what he thought.
So that was a date. A proper date where one invites another out to a common and public social occasion and conversation, shared experience, and brain-picking occurred. I think I asked about a million questions and I think he asked about half a million. I think I was nervous enough that I was worried about talking too much so I asked questions. I think he was nervous enough that he was worried he would ask an embarrasing question that he answered questions at length. We know a lot more about each other, I think, but it was stiff, awkward, and really more like an interview than conversation. Which is okay. Because next time--and god I hope there is a next time--we might get better at it.
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