Camp Nano August 2012: Words 1-694

Act I: Where ten people are introduced. Words 1-10,000

Storyline A:Father, Mother, Daughter, Son, Son, Son Words 1-3,333

1. Personality of Daughter 1-694

She walked into the kitchen. The parents were already gone for the day, and she was finally ready for her first cup of coffee. Being the only girl of four children, she was reluctant to do anything anyone expected of her. She thought of her boyfriend, upstairs, and the bravery of such a boy to decide to sleep with a girl with three brothers. She liked putting her boyfriends in difficult situations, and situations they didn’t necessarily go into with full knowledge. Saturdays. She poured her coffee and stirred in a cube of sugar and watched it malforme before sipping the air cooled coffee off the top. Some noise came from the basement. The boys were plotting the execution of some massive attack plan. There were four computers down there, just in case she wanted to join them. Usually there were four more boys down there and the computers they hauled with them taxing the internet. She didn’t even use the internet anymore on the weekends. She’d learned better. She cinched her drawstrings on her running pants and stepped into her shoes. She laced them tightly and waited while sipping the occasional new layer of less-than-scalding coffee. The boy came down in his swishy pants, she could hear him. She smiled and turned around. She gestured to the coffee and worked on finishing her own. When he sat down she got up, put a bagel in the toaster and poured a glass of orange juice and a glass of water. She drank the fluids quickly and then gave him half the bagel hot from the toaster. She ate hers dry and didn’t offer him anything to put on his.

She looked at the time. Approaching lunch. The brothers and brother friends would be stampeding up in just a few. She debated leaving him there. She decided to go outside and stretch, letting him at his leisure in the kitchen. Whatever happened, happened. She heard a hootenholler from the basement just as she was closing the door behind her. She grinned.

The breathlessness of running was always an unmatched feeling, the pounding, the forcefulness, the knowing you had to breathe and breathing because it kept you alive. Unmatched. Yes, sex made her breathless. Running was better. She barely felt the push of the earth back into her legs as she used them to propel herself forward. He kept stride with her, kept up and brushed his breath against hers. She kept the ones that kept up with her, but that didn't pass her up and leave her behind, as if she needed to be impressed. With three brothers, she couldn’t be impressed by a boy. There was nothing left that could be done that was impressive. Five miles was her standard run. He kept her pace and when they returned to her front porch she felt fully exhilarated. They stood together in the kitchen and depleted the rest of the cold water from the fridge. She thanked him for the company, kissed him breathlessly on the cheek, and told him she’d see him at school on Monday. She jogged upstairs and left him in the kitchen again.

The shower was invigorating. The sex, the coffee, the run, the shower. She didn’t need to accomplish anything else that day to be having a good, good day. She started shifting gears as she soaked. The stack of homework she had left to do sounded like a good way to avoid getting into trouble. If she got it all finished, she’d treat herself to an evening out, maybe an ice cream cone, and take the day tomorrow for a hike. Write an essay, read a couple chapters, plug through some mysteries that need solved, mostly about the relationship between gravity and its opponents. She decided she didn’t like the shampoo she’d been using and should buy some new stuff. She also decided she should probably get a job to pay for her shampoo whimsies. A job working on the trails in the summer sounded like fun. She could get paid to hike and move a rock every once in a while. That would be a good job.

Typewriters in Public Day

My friend and I sat on Main Street in front of a popular coffee and lunch hangout for people of all types. Our typewriters nearly match, so as we worked occasionally we would have problems we could ask each other and help each other solve.

So what did we write?

1) Found Poetry:

The mountain sprouts at Main Street;
Art cycles from Scratch every day.
  Aspen photos Art's main squeeze:
  Aspen photos upcoming women;
  Aspen photos your exceptional Baby.
The photography gallery made Art blue.
  Bar headquarters! Bar interiors!
  Champion boots & red wings;
  Champion the trek.
Fair Colorado.

I wrote 3 versions of mine before this one. I wrote mine after my friend wrote hers, and she observed at some point that there was a significant lack of verbs on the signs around us. This was an advantage as I helped her look around to find words that could be used as verbs.


2) The Things People Said, including to us, about us, we said or we overheard.

"Oh MAN..." bemoans the toddler with his mom grimacing behind him.

"Look all studious, like," says the girl taking our photo.
"Write it down," whispers <friend>.

It sounded like he said, "We all have a public stowaway."

"They're down at that corner there, at the cafe with the checkered umbrellas."

"My brother-in-law tried to sell one of those on Craigslist...sell a manual typewriter."

"Bicycle bells, isn't it?" "That sculpture over there? I thought it was reflectors or something." They go over and ding the bells.

"Did Sherry see that?"

"Do you guys travel everywhere with your typewriters?"
"We're an art installment today."

"So you can type it and it prints at the same time?" he asks in faux awe. "What happens if you make a mistake?"
"Of course, we don't. We're perfect."

"I really like commas. Sorry."

"That's my typewriter."

3) Alternating Passages of a Story.

(I do not have the transcript for this; if it becomes available I will link to it or paste it here.)

4) Practice Using Apostrophes. Because apostrophes are not found by reaching with the pinky, but instead are located at Shift+8.

That bill is Mary's. This hat is Harry's. We are at Mom's house. We weren't expecting anyone to show up to watch us.

 5)  Q & A to each other. Specifically from her to me. Maybe I'll ask her next time.

6) Our Own Narratives
(Note, typewriters have a level of thinking ahead involved that I don't have practice at. This is unedited, and I just tried to use what I had already put on the page, even though I would have deleted, edited, or reworded things if I'd have been on the computer.)

Daring each other to perform better is an important requisite for the members of the group who are gathered here today. There are many of them, caught in a tangle of legs and wheels and chains and bike bodies. When they are all together they are one, but then they start peeling off like the audience after a movie, and the cars leave the lot one by one. The bicyclists stand and talk and seem oblivious to the others who are leaving. Somehow they know they are leaving, and there is some sort of order to it. It's instinctive, as if they are a particular species, with ingrained habits. Then, without warning, they slip their feet one at a time and push forward and wander into line and they are all gone. All that is left is the store and all the bicycles and bike bells for sale lined up on the sidewalk. And me, with my typewriter and coffee.

7) Handwritten Notes

10 people tallied mention us within ear shot or talk to us about our typewriters.
3 people take our pictures.
Kids
Learn to use apostrophes
We should have a typewriter cleaning day
Performance Art in Public
Dress like 60s business women to match our typewriters
Tip Jar
Paper, envelopes (stationery)
eraser paper
They can type
Polaroid 

8) And From This Developing Idea, a Handout, by <friend>

What can we type for you?

A love letter?
An eviction notice?
A poem?

You can dictate.
You can give us something to copy.
You can improvise.
So can we.

    Typewriters On Demand
*An original, one-of-a-kind gift
*A unique way to communicate
*A way to be an imaginary time-traveller

Feel a connection with the past
                                  with your grandmother
                                  with mechanics
Isn't it swell to be able to look at something and see how it works?
Don't you think it's nifty to type something and have it print at the same time?

It's the cat's pajamas!
It's the bee's knees!
It may even be groovy!

We can type in red.
We can type in black.
We can type (sort of) invisibly.

What can we type for you?

Crushing

One small thing, from someone you barely noticed,

bang.
done.
crush.

I imagine it'll last a while, and then I'll get over it. I always do.

Camp Nano 2012, Words 13,984 to 16,022

Camp Nano intro

Camp Nano 1 -- 2 -- 3 -- 4 -- 5 -- 6 -- 7 -- 8

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It’s very interesting to be in a classroom again, but it’s almost not a classroom. School just ended, I worked all summer, I did my final mission with my church’s youth group, and I jumped right back into school. The difference between high school and college is enormous. For one, I can’t find my classrooms in college. They’ve got numbers, but unlike in normal places, the order of the rooms is sporadic. Huge sections of numbers are sequestered down hallways, some are the numbers of broom closets, and why they put the numbers for the Braille readers above the doors with the room numbers, I’ll never know. It’s not like a blind person is going to know where to look...Can you imagine them running their fingers around the perimeter of the doorframe, as people are walking in and out getting to class. It would be easier to say, What room number is this? Though, if the were off by one number, it would probably be a three minute walk to the next consecutive number.

For second, few people in each class are even my age. There are people who are parents, people who come in their work clothes from whatever retail shop they work at, there are people who are re-attending school as hobbling retirees. And then there are kids who can drink and kids who can’t. That’s the demographic--everyone. And since I’m taking all my classes on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, I have this evening writing class and there are four other actual 18-year old freshmen in it. It certainly makes for a different environment.

Third, each of my classes has a completely different set of people in it--I don’t think I have two classes in common with anyone in any of my classes. I’m not bothered too much by this, except that I feel terribly terribly lonely.

My favorite show is Mystery Science Theater 3000. I like the peanut gallery. I like passing notes and making comments on the material, or the actions or voice or anything of the instructor or other classmates. I like to make classes a shared experience, and nothing about these classes are shareable. It’s like tiny little vortexes consuming me in small chunks of time. It’s eerie. It’s like--meditation. I take a lot of notes, now; I used to make notes to pass, and note many different things, but now I’m taking more normal kind of notes, but I’m kind of sucking at the note-taking relevance thing. Which is important? Which is not? blah blah blah.

So here’s a sample of my notes:

Teacher’s name begins with R. Red hair. R is nervous. East coast/southern accent. Said something about syllabus. Stack hasn’t reached me yet.

First few days on book 1--supposed to have read it before class began apparently. Nice to know.
()Assignment: Read Book 1 before Wednesday. How big is book 1? Says we’ll cover the first two hundred pages---Geze
I HATE THIS GUY
Tests and quizzes every day. Glad he didn’t test  today on on Book 1.
He just said something about homework. Missed that. Haven’t gotten the syllabus yet.
()Note to self--don’t sit in front row by door. Too many people look in at you here.
()Note to self--I just noticed the guy sitting across the room

Yeah so those are lame. I don’t even know what’s interesting, or relevant during the class period. So I tried better on Tuedsay:

Professor is older, probably doing this twenty or more years
Lecture hall has nice desks, optional. I opted for the lap, not desk.
Class starts on time.
Class is full, papers get distributed quickly
Syllabus is comprehensive. We don’t review it.
()Read Syllabus tonight
Four texts for class
()Read 1-5 of first text (Angels)
Cover:
Civil war Battlefield primary sources
-Speeches-Utilitarian for purpose, political, langugage is defined and deliberate
=Lincoln
-Letters-Utilitarian for perspective and for order of events, onesided, truthfullness taken on honor, evidence corraboratable. Emotion. More formal languge
=Grant
=Lee
=Powell
=Sherman
-Narratives-Utilitarian for perspective. Like letters, onesided; like speeches, political and deliberate, read for emotion, purpose, retelling
=Truth
=Kirkland
=Turner
Civil War Historical Fiction
Removes emotionally charged truth and replaces it with hypotheticals, retaining politics and deliberation. Like letters, events corraboratable, like narratives, retellable format, stories stick better than chains of events
()Note to self-future memroizaton technique, write important details into a story

That’s better, not exactly sure if it will work for class, but maybe. So then I got to Writing class, and I’m supposed to write craploads a day, and I think this will change my notetaking even more. I’ll be writing notes and stuff to my friends. I think it could be really fun. It will be interesting without the feedback, the back and forth, but I think I can manage. Like, tweeting, but in my notes.

@Kristin: that guy thinks he’s smaller than he is. His shirt buttons pull.
@James: quit looking at her tush. Yes, I know you can see her tramp stamp. It’s still pretty fresh, I bet it still itches.
@Kristin: he’s picking his teeth with his pencil
@James: Can you hack into that guy’s computer? He’s playing a game or something. No? Can you at least find out what game he’s playing so we can go in and mess with him?
@Lara: The teacher’s hand grasping needs alternate narration. Ready: (Okay so I’ll have to do this one in class; I can’t remember enough detail).
@Kristen: And that one girl, she was all dressed up like she was going on a dinner date. Heels? Really? That skirt was too short to sit anywhere but the first row. I bet half the guys know what color her panties are.

Oh, yes. College is much, much different than high school.
I do get the walk of fame, though, sitting between the student center and the dorms north of campus. The windows show a full view of the east side of campus, also filled with dorms, and the north side. Lunch is fantastic for people watching, and me and my entourage--or am I part of their entourage?--can sit and watch and run constant commentary. In high school there was so much familiarity with the people that what you said could easily come back around to you and you could quickly eat your words. Here, though, there is little restraint. The massive number of people brings so much anonymity--I might be lucky to see these people beyond the forum of Mystery Science Theater 3000 actor-audience relationship.

So far, we’ve been pretty comfortable hanging, lounging and giggling at the passers-by. There are some odd ducks--there’s one guy I think he thinks he’s Waldo from Where’s Waldo. He wears striped shirts, a different color every day, well, every day so far.  I look forward to identifying him tomorrow. Kristen is hilarious. She’s so witty with comments about the clothes; she and I watch shows like Next Designer and Project Runway together and make fun of both the designer’s choice of clothing and the clothes they design. She’s awfully quick with the metaphors. She makes me laugh until my sides hurt and I’m squishing my cheeks back together so they have some reprieve, if under force.

Lara and I got hooked on the videos where they re-audio video reels. I’m not sure what it’s called, but basically there’s this guy online who is a lip reader, a sign language guy, and he musses up whatever it is that people say. So  we try to do it, but it’s much easier with hand gestures than lip reading. It’s fun with silent films, and we ocassionally break into parts when people-watching in the park and we see people talking across the way. I look forward to sharing some of those experiences here on campus. Kristen gets in on them, too, and it’s hilarious when they get going in pretend arguments about people’s choice of clothing. I could watch those two at it all day.

James is--well, he’s James. I’ll have to build a picture of James instead of just telling you about him. In high school, we got in trouble together often. Various pranks, like acetone on the tiles of the school, TP across the rafters in the gym, lofted by helium balloons. That one was fun. He was the guy people came to when they wanted to design a senior prank. I heard once he coordinated something that had to do with fifteen watermelons and the principals car, but it was kept so hush hush and dealt with so swiftly that it’s hard to get any details. NOw that we’re out and down the road some, hopefully I can get the full story. Maybe when we’re older and after a couple of beers to loosen his lips.

The four of us were in High School together and we’re all in the same program here at the college, but none of us share any of the same classes at the same times. In fact, I think we all have different profesors for the core subjects. We’re quite a set, us four. I like them a lot and I hope that doesnt’ change much here in the world of the College Universe. Maybe one or more of us will pledge to a greek house; I hear that’s a strain on the friendships because pepole start bonding tightly with the others in their greek homes. I don’t know, I don’t really think I’ll pledge. It’s kind of like signing your soul away for the sake of having friends. I’ve got friends, and I didn’t have to do anything stupid to get them. Though, we’ll see what things look like in 4 more years.

College is different, for sure. Everyone is a little more stupid and a whole lot less sensitive to their image, but at the same time, everyone is a little more introverted, cut off, like I feel in class. I think there’s all this being uprooted and being a tumbleweed that happens on a college campus. People are trying things--going to plays, sitting in on guest lecturers, poking around science labs where they don’t belong, slipping into frat parties. Things they don’t know if they’re going to like until they try it. I’m not so sure what it is I’m going to try. I’d like to try not to change as much as posible. I want to keep hanging out with my friends, my same, well-made friends, and relaxing in a sea of familiarity while the ocean tides push all this stuff I’ve never seen before past me. The walls of the student center are covered with posters in astrobrites and whites and blacks. People want you to come to their all-sorts-of-things and pay their entrance fee or just make an appearance so the numbers look good. People need roommates, cars, carpools. I dont know--It seems a bit over-busy here. I really truly just want to get up, start my day in my dorm room with someone I barely know and I’m fine with that, and toddle off to class to listen to see what all these people who are clearly smarter than I am have to say about the world. I want to find out what more I can know about it that they can offer me, and in a few years, I’ll be doing my thesis and hopefully writing and creating something truly original,and of course, worthy of proving my superior intelligence. I want to make it from class to class with minimum hassle, walk to lunch and hang out with the best and my most favorite people in the world, go to more classes, go do my homework in the quiet universe of my dorm room or the library or somewhere, and then do it all again tomorrow. It really isn’t that much different than High School. I just want to do my work and do well in class and stuff my head full of smart stuff, and enjoy my friendships while I’m at it. I don’t want to try all these things posted on the billboards. I don’t need that. I have everything I could want, and I’m afraid of what College might do to the lot of us.

Camp Nano 2012, Words 12,151-13,983

Camp Nano intro

Camp Nano 1 -- 2 -- 3 -- 4 -- 5 -- 6 -- 7

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I saw a sign today, a piece of paper printed on with comic sans in black ink. It said, “Having a rough morning?”
“Yes,” I said outloud. I stopped walking. I was outside walking down a street that wants to be Main Street but of course, isn’t, and no matter how uplifted the city makes it, it has the wrong name. It can never be Main Street. Therefore, no one goes there. No one is walking there but me. The shops nearly all have closed, and some of the buildings that weren’t renovated and glowing with fresh paint have been brought down. It’s like a face missing various teeth. This note that has stopped me is a page taped with electrical tape to a lamp post. I read the next line.
“Place your hand over your heart.” I did, like the pledge of allegiance.
“Feel that? That's called purpose. You're alive for a reason. Don't give up." I stood on this vacant polished street with my hand over my heart, feeling my heartbeat, crying at a sign. Just a sign like this points to the idea that someone out there loves me, even though they don't know me--that someone out there loves and respects everyone, and that's enough to keep living, if only to find that one someone.

It’s been a hellhole of a week. I’m somehow in the middle of someone else’s family/legal drama, and someone else is losing their house, and someone else is leaving their husband, and why do I know all these people and how did I get to be such a crutch? How did everyone expect me to be such a rock? No one knows what everyone else is going through; I’m a thread that junctions many threads running parallel in this spiderweb that is life. I’ve run interference for a conversation between people who won’t talk to each other but need to communicate because of the children. I’ve carried boxes of books up and down stairs. I’ve made dinner for friends who didn’t come over because of their...drama, and I’ve made multiple trips in the middle of the night to help a friend get from one end of town to another.

I’m not sleeping. I’m not eating well. I’ve been on the ugly end of a downsizing operation where I was working. I’m forgetting to make it to the bank before they close and had to use piles of dimes to pay for food for dinner. I’ve taken up leaving my shoes and keys and wallet around the house and being unable to find them when I need them. I started school on a grant and a loan because I can’t find anything else to do with myself, and I’m already not doing my homework. I can’t even afford to buy the books I need to do the homework. I stopped opening my mail.

I misplaced my mom’s wedding ring, and I have a pile of library books I don’t feel like taking to the library. I haven’t folded my laundry in forever. I need to take this television over to my brother-in-law because I said I would. I am barely remembering to water my neighbor’s plants while she’s out of town. If her house wasn’t next door and the watering can wasn’t on the front porch, I wouldn’t remember. I was just pulled over for being on a road with known drug trafficking. No ticket, but now I have to figure a new route to that part of town.  I have to write thank you notes for gifts from my birthday, three weeks ago.

I’m wearing a pair of tennis shoes without socks, a pair of slacks and a slinky tank top, since I just took off my blazer I wore over it for the interview. I was just told I didn’t have enough experience. I was walking home, and now, I was crying in front of a light post on a street that no one ever uses, in front of a closed mom-and-pop shop.

Who the heck--who on god’s green earth was looking for me there? Someone somehow knew I’d be there--that I’d see that. Someone was moved to make sure I saw that note because things are getting to be the worst they’ve ever been. I hadn’t slept in 52 hours, and I was headed back to my apartment where someone will have left me a message to help them out, or two messages, or two someones, or more, or some combination of the above.

Some one person’s anonymous note was talking to me. I don’t remember thinking I was going to give up before that thing, but I certainly feel like I must have been nearing that point. I sat on the bench in front of the closed shop, a functional art piece, and waited until I stopped crying.

Purpose. I’ve been doing things for other people because they needed me, and keeping quiet about my troubles because I am so much better off than any of the rest of them are. I’m just doing what any friend should do. And now, this sign is looking me in the face, telling me that this being a friend thing is a little more than one-sided.

I sat on that bench and thought about me from Laura’s point of view--the one getting divorced. She’s sitting on a couch in her mom’s house, watching television, trying not to think about her husband and what she would be doing if she hadn’t decided she had had enough. She’s watching crappy daytime food network shows to keep from thinking about her children she walked away from, and what they’re actually doing at that very moment, during the scene where the chef uses the blender yet again to pulverize every ingredient in sight, seeds, stems and all. She wants to take them out to the grocery store, the children, and bring them here and cook dinner together. She can’t talk to their dad. Not today. Not yesterday. Not tomorrow. Not yet. She can’t just pick them up from school. He’d be there. She picks up the phone and she calls my number. She says a few words, not really coherently, not really all in the right order, but the meaning is there. She turns on a channel with a marathon of westerns. She hopes it will last as a distraction until I call her back. I will, and she’ll be able to make dinner with her kids. They’ll have a good time. The kids will remember that. They’ll remember that always.

I sat on that bench and thought of the kids. I’m not suffering my own painful things. I’m not struggling--without everyone else I’d have my own complaints, but with all the pain around me, I’m merely having a bit of trouble. Lots of people are having a bit of trouble. But I have more time, without my job, to help my friends when they need me. I have got to take better care of myself, eat and sleep and stuff, so I can be an even better friend.

I sat on the bench while I worked on my new plan. Job search or no job search? I can probably apply to be a tutor at the school or a teacher’s assistant or a student teacher, or I can work in the cafe or something. I should totally work for the school, maybe evening maintenance. I must be firm and ask for gas money for all that running around I do for other people. Just a buck a trip would make a difference. Ten dimes, four quarters. People can usually pull that off. Must remember to do. I must make a checklist, write all the things down. I must write the list every day, so I don’t overlook anything. My mom did that--she had a notebook and each page was a new day, and what wasn’t done on the previous day got rewritten on the next day. Nothing ever got put off forever, because she rewrote it every day, and eventually it would become priority. I’m not a notebook person, but I can write a list. I have a good magnet board for the list. I can do it in colored pencils--I like colored pencils. I’ll put the library books on the list and I’m pretty sure I can check a couple of places a day for my mom’s ring. She would be happy to have it back. What else? I have got to limit how much time a day I spend with each of the families in need, and I need to spend more time with the friends that aren’t having drama. I do have friends that don’t seem to be sharing their drama if they have any. I should make sure I schedule time with these friends.

I sat on the bench and looked at my watch. In two hours, I would be walking to class, my first writing class ever. When I get there, I’m going to be assigned to write every day. I sit in the class, second chair in the second row from the door. I’ll squint at the teacher. He does not look like one with a penchant for comic sans. He’s never met me, and doesn’t look like he knows that I like to walk on not-Main Street because no one is there. He probably did not post that bill on the lamp post.

Throughout the class period, I took notes, and after class, I noticed my notes had a theme. We’re writing about ourselves, and by writing about ourselves we’d discover ourselves. Yep. Journey of self discovery by journaling. Now isn’t that fortuitous, isn’t that great. I’m beginning to feel a little ganged up on. It’s as if the universe has aligned to have a backup just to make sure the message got across to me. Well, fine and all. I’m grateful I don’t have a therapist because I can’t think I could handle any more shove in the direction of self-appreciation.

So I got in my car after class, put two dollars in the gas tank, and I drove over to Laura’s house and drove her kids back home to her ex. I stopped by the grocery store and bought a whole, pre-roasted chicken, a pint of double chocolate fudge ice cream, and a yellow balloon, and drove the dinner over to my friends while they’re packing. I stopped by a third, happy, friend’s and gave her daughter the balloon after drawing a face on it with a sharpie, and after she went to bed, we watched a movie on Netflix and shared the ice cream. By the time I got home, it was nearly midnight. I realized I made many lives better this evening. I’m more broke, I spent my gas, I have a few hours of homework to do--including write everything down that I just wrote--, but I’m still winning.

Camp Nano 2012, Words 10,001 to 12,150

Camp Nano intro

Camp Nano 1 -- 2 -- 3 -- 4 -- 5 -- 6

(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.