Author and Columnist
I would go to see Dexter Freebish and SR71.
I believe that these might actually be bands. I do not remember them well, which is less because the bands themselves were forgettable -- though this may be the case -- as you used to go to so many concerts. You would have continued to go to them except, for reasons I have never figured out, The Chance in Poughkeepsie ceased to be a cool place for bands to stop.
I envy some things about your life, but the availability of concerts around you comes near the top.
I half hoped to meet someone there. No one specific, if that wasn't clear to you.
No! Bad!
Or perhaps less so. You had some luck finding company at concerts, and there is basal compatibility there. You still occasionally tell the story of Amanda B., who came to you before the stage saying, "Someone elbowed my mouth!" to which you responded, "Do you want me to kiss it and make it better?" Her mouth must not have hurt much, as the two of you spent the rest of the concert -- no idea what bands -- making out in the balcony.
You never saw her again -- she lived too far away to try to date her, regrettable -- but she would call you for years on your birthday. It's a strange thing, but I continue a fondness for her memory because of it.
So, if you want to go to a concert to make out on the balcony with an attractive young woman, thumbs up! If you are trying to fill the romantic hole in your life carved again by Kate, settle down.
I attended the pre-show party, though the bouncer nearly tossed us out owing to the fact my younger brother and I were not 21, as though we would be drinking. Finally, he deigned to be goodly enough, despite our lack of age or femininity (very obviously underage girls had no trouble getting in), to allow us entry.
This, however? This is precisely what I want you to be writing.
An acquaintance from my college (we'll call her Luna, despite the fact her name is Laura, just so you do not get her confused with other Laura's whom she is not) approached me and decided she would socialize with me for the duration of the show. Do not get the wrong idea, I firmly believe and hope this was merely because I was the only familiar person there.
I have zero idea who Laura is. You call her an acquaintance and not a friend, which might explain why she has faded to nothing.
When my father returned and asked how the pictures were, I stated that it was a tough fight but I had protected them from the shifty person standing near me. The girl I had labeled shifty got very confused, as she did not in fact know me. I explained to her that I was joking, that I did not expect she was at all likely to commit theft of the pictures.
Your flirting is weird. It is stranger still that it manages to pay dividends often enough that you keep doing it.
You used to approach people in the mall and ask why all the apes in Planet of the Apes speak with British accents. You were given more than a few phone numbers that way.
She smiled, evidently enjoying the jest now that she comprehended she wasn't being accused of attempted petty theft. This lass, Jeanie, and I continued to banter lightly. She was obviously attached to some faceless boy (in that I didn't care enough about her cadre to assign them room in my mind) and I was only using her as a prop in a quick joke with my father.
You are still overwriting. Don't think I am overlooking that merely because you are giving me a chronological scene.
Also, I give even money that you were interested in her, or you wouldn't have brought up a boyfriend in your recollection.
I noticed my little brother chatting up quite a few lasses, evidently somewhat successfully as he was still talking to them a few minutes later. He seemed particularly taken with a lass in a tie-dye Superman shirt and leather jacket, which he later identified as Sara-The-23-Year-Old (henceforth known as Sara23).
Don't call women "lasses." Possibly at all, but definitely as often as you do.
Bryan is asexual, which would have not given you specific surprise but would have clarified your understanding of him. He was outgoing in his way and has long persisted in having a tight clutch of friends, most of them retained from his relationship with Jess M. in high school. He had more and closer friends than you did for a long time.
I did not locate her or a comely femme, so I situated myself in the pit!
What have we said about the word "femme"?
The pit was full of an inordinate amount of, to quote a rather filthy man I encountered in the pit, "preteen poonie." Ah, the colorful language of the pit and its pit dwellers.
Ah, such vivid details. I'm not disparaging you, by the way. It does paint a picture when you directly quote creepers.
Since we encounter his equally old and filthy friend and him later in this story, we shall address them as the DOM (Dirty Old Men. Cut me some slack, they can't all be clever). They were maybe 50, wearing puffy, brown leather pilot jackets, and peppered mustaches ripped out of the 1970's. That they even looked at lassies that could damned well be their daughters was reprehensible enough, but that they so chose to title them made me feel these men undoubtedly left slime trails.
Again, I'll echo through time how repellent they sound, but you have gone out of your way to describe them well. I am almost proud of you. Are you learning to be a writer?
At one point the DOM decided to push unwilling people in as hard as they could, just to be pricks. I happened to be one of their victims. So when I rebounded backward toward them, I made sure one of them caught a ringed hand to the face "accidentally." They behaved after that.
Nothing like clocking pedophiles in the face!
Ah, but the metaphor didn't end here, no no!
Could it, though? Your narrative screeches to a halt when you try too hard.
Maybe I attach too much meaning to insignificant events.
You do.
Between Dexter Freebish and SR71, this somewhat comely stranger approached me with the words, "You're hot, wanna make out?" I damn near wet myself, I thought it was so funny. I smiled and said something to the effect of, "Who are you and who do you think you are?" She walked away without even a goodbye, let alone actually telling me who she was. Bad form.
At this point in your romantic and sexual stumbling, the correct response, my boy, is likely, "Possibly! Tell me more." Get her name first, but don't be a dick about it. These offers do not come as often and easily as you seem to believe.
My mother suggested afterward that I would not have been so flippant had the girl been a small breasted, lithe, fairy of a girl (she was slightly chubby). I would have, I assure you.
I assure you that you would not have. If she matched your literal dream girl, you would have been on her lips before she could finish her question.
Shall I cite Amanda B. again? She kissed spectacularly and freely, was Asian, lived in Ellenville... tell me a fourth fact about her. And you only knew the first two when you swatted spit.
I do not like being hit on. I adore being flirted with (if the party thinks I will be receptive). If you do not see the difference, you aren't looking hard enough.
I see the difference. I simply don't care. You still think you are rehearsing potential wives.
I do prefer flirting. That is a reciprocal process, a warming up, verbal foreplay. Had the chubby girl tried a softer touch, you would have been more receptive. Instead, you rejected her because sarcasm felt better in the moment.
A small part of me expected that the dream girl Sirus would magically appear. She did not, of course. That is what makes her a dream and not a prophesy.
Oh, look, exactly as I thought. You wanted a product of your mind to emerge from the cloud of cigarette smoke -- clubs have been smoke-free for a decade in my time -- and say something literary in your ear. Anything less than theatrical romance isn't going to satisfy you.
Since you adhere to meet-cutes you will not encounter outside a novel, you will end up more than disappointed in a few months.
The energy was frothy during SR71, bubbling over the edge. They knew how to work the crowd, though their liberal use of the fog machine certainly helped. And they threw three picks my way. I kept two and handed the third to an appealing stranger who was lamenting that she had not been given a pick. Again, in all honesty, I had hoped this would lead to some manner of conversation between us. While it did not, I was still thankful I had brightened her night a little. It's all a series of moments.
Moments which you are getting better about chronicling with only a few glaring slamming the breaks so you can expound in faux profundity.
I suppose your flirting at the concert is only mildly awkward upon reflection. You seem to be having fun. You likely could have tried to have a conversation with the young woman rather than hoping she would make the next step, but you are not moping.
We found my father being chatted up by none other than Sara23!
Oh, father, being hit on by women my age...
Sara23 was lamenting how very old she was, to my father's slight annoyance. I afterward told him he has every right to shoot me if I complain about my age at 23.
I am responding on my 41st birthday. I do not complain about my age much, though I worry that you may have in a couple of years and did a few entries ago.
On other fronts, Eileen told me a few days ago that she thinks she will always be a little jealous when I tell her of another girl (brought on by the fact that I confessed I was jealous when she told me of another boy).
Things are always unresolved between you, but they are as resolved as they will ever get. There is nothing that I am aware you could have done to resolve them, though she might have welcomed some romantic comedy attempt.
You drift apart by undefinable increments.
On other other fronts, my father has been reading my entries. A few nights ago, he walked out of his room, hugged me, and told me how amazing he thinks I am, that he thought I knew that. Umm... wow. I really don't know what else to say.
Aw. He does think this, though. You wanted someone to do this.
So this journal is influencing reality. You, yes the one reading, are a part of that. How does that make you feel?
It makes me feel that this journal is one of the most important things you will ever do. It precipitates more than a few arguments and outright fights. It gives you an excuse for depersonalization. It stops a few people from wanting to get to know you and encourages a few others to come to love you. It allows you to look backward and see how you have unconsciously foreshadowed what was to come in your life.
It got the gunk and imitation out of your literary engine. It brought you bravery. It made you an actual writer.