So there I am, drunk and losing ground. Quickly. While making fun of a near-perfect (in both ways) stranger’s chosen hobbies and best friend, I did a boisterous Irish jig all over common ettiquitte. My drunk self (that bitch!) still thought the whole thing was hilarious while the real me (I hope) recoiled into the depths of my psyche. Ah yes, and the bizarro spinning cosmos had not yet had their fill.. I would yet be redeemed…
While Smell-Nice-Stan was fuming outside on the sidewalk, I gathered my frayed nerves about me, and prayed for the booze to start wearing off so I could get myself home. Owing to my irresistibly charming state of mind, I began to prepare for an awkward and abrupt goodbye. As it turns out, he wouldn’t have time to rid himself of me. As soon as I hit the cold air, my nausea struck again, and the wine boiled in my veins. It’s been a while since I last vomited from an actual physical condition (if wasted is a condition), and it actually isn’t all that different from a psychologically-induced bout of illness. As annoyed as he certainly was, Smell-Nice-Stan took pity on me and in one form or another, dragged me, moaning, to his apartment. I vaguely remember him laughing about something (maybe, maybe…I hoped it was the cat-pack), and I was dimly reassured of his good-natured, albeit excessively patient personality.
The worst of my ookieness had subsided by the time we got back to his place, but not enough to protect me from an unidentifiable odor permeating his entire apartment. There is a certain glee that one gets from the state fair in winning a really big stuffed animal, but it’s also a well-known fact that it really takes very little more than the walk from the front gate to the car to start wondering what exactly you’re going to do with this cumbersome cotton ball in a tailored bag. Smell-Nice-Stan (now a kind of ironic moniker) apparently never felt that way. Populating his bedroom were maybe ten oversized cuddly things. Stripping off his clothes (I had kind of stopped existing on the cab ride home. He wasn’t rude to me, but I think that my drunkenness had caused him to zone out. Like I wouldn’t care either way.), he took a running leap into the pile of animals. I was absolutely stopped in my tracks. He reminded me of my childhood dog, the way he wiggled and scratched his back on the obliging laps of the muppet-esque purples and greens. He grinned and softly giggled in pleasure, apparently unaware of the chin-to-floor action happening in the doorway. I turned on my heel and walked all too soberly into the kitchen to occupy myself with the task of drinking water. Or opening and closing cabinets. Or mashing my hands together and talking to myself in the microwave reflection. Was he fucking with me? Was he a performer taking his art to the extreme, all Andy Kaufman style? Despite this commentary flowing through my head, he seemed to be acting with no recognition of the other person in the room. I crept slowly back in the direction of his room and peered around the corner. Still writhing about, he suddenly flopped over and started vigorously humping a sorry-looking hippo with orange-ish spots. It had long-since been faded and stained (the odor? yes maybe), and seemed frayed at the edges.
The dawning took a long time coming, but the realization was a bolt. My eyes flew open, and the demon-girl leapt to the surface. With gurgling laughter barely corked, I escaped into the hallway, and slumped against the wall, shrieking. Again with my head in my hands, I shook in bewilderment. I have learned the value of the across-the-room desire, and the use of booze in dating. Some crushes are best left untouched, and some dates are best executed under the influence. Drink up! You never know what you’ll have to look at by the end of tonight!

There is a mode that (some) women get into in preparation for a first a date, in which they flounce around their apartment in a bathrobe or towel vigorously lotioning, drying, curling, painting, spritzing and with or without the soundtrack of “Oh crap. Not that. Maybe this. Uh. Hmm. This better be worth it”, mumbling chatter. This was precisely the zone I found myself in before a date with an attorney a few years ago. (Not THE attorney… I meet a lot of them. This has been discussed.) This guy was amazing. He’s the kind of guy you lust after purely because you are so curious about the state of his apartment. I wanted to look in his closet. And in his bathroom. And his kitchen. I imagined a pristine arrangement. He was so well put together- so organized and intentional in his movements, let alone his speech. I had only been in court with him one or two times, but each time his slowly well chosen words did the trick. On me and everyone else. He was not influenced by the caffeinated rush that most attorneys run on, and I suspected there might even be a meditation corner tucked away somewhere in his bedroom. Dark eyes. Dark hair. Dammit. I was done for.

In an attempt to overlook my exceptional awkwardness, I will skip beyond the part of the story in which he just barely gets my number before I run to throw up in the bathroom. When he first approached me, I thought I had done something wrong. That fear combined with the terror of realizing that he was actually asking me for information I could not readily access (I also was briefly unsure of my name and where I was) was just too much. Good thing for that toothbrush I carry around. It would be misleading if I were to say “for moments like this”, because people don’t normally talk to me enough to take me to the brink of nausea. I’m a bag lady. People who work with me regularly neglect to bring their own crap with them because “that girl” is a resource who can more easily be tapped for various obscure first aid items, a full button repair kit, office supplies, tampons, condoms, batteries, contact solution, fingernail polish remover, blank CD’s, lots of pens, and another pile of crap that should probably go unlisted.

Anyway, Smell-Nice Stan (his name may or may not have been changed) as I liked to call him, called me a few days later. Again debilitated by my stomach, I had to keep the conversation brief. Somehow, I collected enough information in my distraction to realize ten minutes later (post vomit) that he had asked me out. For another five, I sat at my rattle-y kitchen table, head in hands, trying to remember what the fuck he said. I wasn’t sure if he was going to call me again, or if we had agreed to meet somewhere, or if he was planning on picking me up. First, I picked up my phone and imagined what it would feel like if I was, at that very moment, calling him back (”Shit! Shit! Oh my god! Shit!” click.). Returning to reality, I gathered my frayed wits about me and came to terms with the fact that he might just have to be stood up.

The next afternoon, he called again, and I realized that I was actually relieved. I had been a little sad that day that I couldn’t keep my shit together enough to understand English. After a few deep breaths, I answered, and it turned out that we were going to dinner and a show one of his friends from college was playing. I was thrilled. That would be easy, right? I wouldn’t have to talk to him for most of it.

We met at a sweet, underground bar that used to be slimy, I imagine, but a new owner had taken over and cleaned it up. There is definitely an allure about previously skuzzy that makes some things that much more hip. It’s like fancy light fixtures help make funky odors dissipate more quickly. Either way, I liked it.

As we ordered dinner, it looked like his friend was about to start. The timing could not be more perfect. We exchanged a few words, and the lights went down. I felt like things were going to be okay after all. click here for Trish’s crash and burn