Thursday, September 1, 2005

Would you think me crass if I suggested that truth comes easily once you have what you want? I’ll explain this by way of story, specifically an anecdote I recalled today out of the blue. It’s the strangest thing. You find yourself on the sidewalk, ambulating under the noisy trees, mind completely fixed on the swaggering clouds and the agreeable weather, and something–a breeze, a panhandler, an errant frisbee to the base of the skull–will trigger a memory.

It was freshman year, right around the beginning of fall quarter, and under a temperate evening I was trying my best to be sociable. How hard could that be at Swing Night, a brilliant bit of programming wherein new students were crammed into an increasingly hot room to flail their limbs at each other? What could possibly go wrong? Certainly I could dance with myself and avoid the tragedy, but ideally I would find a partner. I scanned the room and found a rather hot girl.

“Hey, would you like to dance?” I asked, looking as disinterested as possible.

“Sure,” she replied.

Yes. This is going to be a great year.

We got the small talk out of the way. Hometown, dorm, major this, major that, as if anyone in the room really had a goddamn clue at that point. The music started along with a crash course in the basic steps, which I promptly ignored.

“Please,” I thought, “I already know this.”

This lick of hubris cost me somewhat, because it turned out my one lesson in high school didn’t prepare me well enough for, you know, collegiate swing dancing.

“Wow, you’re good,” I remarked, in a crafty attempt to distract her while I faked it.

In truth she was good–really good, in fact–and after a song or two I was able to keep up with a little effort. Then again, it may have been the thing that women graciously do sometimes, where even the biggest dorks are made to feel smooth. I’d like to think it was a bit of both. I’m also sure I didn’t step on her feet, so I guess that’s another kind of verification.

“Haha, this is pretty fun,” she said breathlessly during a break.

“Yeah, definitely,” I agreed wholeheartedly.

I asked for her number. She wrote it on a snip of paper. Wow.

Wooooo! Suave. I’m like 64 ounces of it.

But then the advanced portion of Swing Night began.

“We’re going to try some lifts,” declared one of the swing club members. “Now–“

He proceeded to outline a strange ritual in which the guys would propel the girls in thrilling acrobatic formations. I don’t remember the exact details, but there would be great harm done, mainly to the women, should we lose our hold. There were additionally, said the swinger, many opportunities for frantic ass-grabbing.

I turned to my partner. I looked in her eyes. She looked in mine.

“Whoa, I’m so going to drop you,” I muttered.

DANGER, DANGER, MOSES ALMIGHTY YOU ARE IMPLYING SHE IS FAT. Bring it back to yourself. Self-deprecation. She is hot, and also very not fat.

“Man, I just don’t have the upper-body strength for this,” I continued.

HOLY SHIT YOU’VE DONE IT NOW. YOU JUST CALLED HER A HIPPOPOTAMUS. IN A FUCKING SIZZLER.

I bet you’d like to hear how she made sure I had two left feet by ripping off my right foot, gluing the left foot of the swinger to my stump, and beating me with my own appendage. It actually worked out amicably in the end because she wasn’t insulted. Imagine that. Do you see my point now? I got the digits, and then the other shoe dropped. Likewise I’ve got your attention, so here it goes. I’m spent. I’m tired of all this typing. I don’t believe I’ll see you tomorrow. Maybe Tuesday?

Wednesday, August 31, 2005

Metadiscourse, honest and useful as it may often appear, is sometimes unseemly in the way it so handily ruins the magic. This begs the question, naturally, of whether we even had enough magic, enough fiery chemistry, to allow for such deterioration, and I’ll leave that appraisal to you.

Our conversations usually materialize during the day. Perhaps I’ll be driving. Snacking. Walking. Trying to solve the age-old problem of fitting a corpse into a single Hefty bag without drawstrings, when an urgent topic comes to mind that I simply must share with you. I quickly hide it in the deep furrows of my brain reserved for my most secret hopes and worst lottery numbers.

When the clock registers 11 PM or so, I’ll be organizing my spice rack and categorizing my pocket lint vigorously. A nagging feeling will hit, but why? Oh, right. That. This will prompt a rush to court the perennially broken mistress in one window and ready my safety net in another.

I suppose that’s the main thrust of tonight’s chat. OpenOffice is up to 2.0 Beta 2, and certainly it’s cause for frugal nerds everywhere to rejoice in MP3 format. This is basically the most professional suite of free office tools available, which is a definite boon for people who, uh, traditionally found Microsoft Office and gave it a home. The way things used to work, no one ever bought Office, least of all in college, and Microsoft was obligated to let us use their software without compensation. This was the unwritten rule. I guess at some point Bill Gates decided to stop bending over his Aeron chair and instead demanded we validate–or even buy–our software. The nerve.

Tuesday, August 30, 2005

Come 6 AM tomorrow, the rumor says, gas prices will hike to frontiers previously inaccessible to human understanding. Like a fool I hopped in my car at 11 PM tonight, expending precious fuel for the sole aim of obtaining more of the stuff at a bargain $3.04 per gallon. Too bad the pumps were stopped by the time I got to the station.

When I was little, I would look at the gas gauge and wonder what exactly would happen when the needle hit the “E.” This was forbidden territory, where anything past the final notch was inconceivable, but in the past few months my fuel light has been constantly lit. It’s almost like a third headlight, you know?

That’s not really important, though, considering how my car isn’t hidden under, oh, 20 feet of water. We were originally going to discuss how, in that breezy transition from summer to fall, there’s a moment when the end of the year transforms from insinuation into arrival. But, sobering as this may be, natural disasters just do it better.