...Miss Head, if You're Nasty

Monday, August 20, 2007

First

Can you remember the first time you were in love? Really, horribly, hopelessly in love? Like, waiting all day just to catch a glimpse of his face? Smelling her perfume on the air and thinking she's behind you, even twenty-years later? Watching him walk off an elevator toward you and bursting into the most ridiculous grin that it makes other people smile to see you? The kind of love that follows you around, tugging at your shirt-sleeve, whispering in your ear, "Remember, he's going to be at his locker between his Chemistry class and Stats, so you want to hurry up there and walk nonchalantly by until he says hello." Stupid love.

Everyone falls in love like that once or twice, right? Phone calls in the middle of the night kind of love. Fantasies of Prom or formals or, God forbid, marriage dancing through your brain. Or, I suppose, fantasies of car backseats or parks at night or dark alleys. Whatever floats your boat, really.

I first fell in love hard. It was awful. Just awful. And I was so dumb. So, so dumb. And he was in love with someone else. I just had...even worse that first love...unrequited love. Actually, pretty much all love on my part until I was about 23 was unrequited.

But we were really good friends. Those talk in the middle of the night in high school kinds of friends. I'd call and wake up his step-mother, who was pregnant with his half-brother at the time. She must have absolutely hated my guts, although I'm fairly certain I was not the only girl he had running around in circles. I was just the most naive. I'd be bitterly jealous when he wouldn't come to school, realizing that he was off doing something he enjoyed and that I couldn't be a part of it. My mother thought I was ridiculous and she was at least partially right. I was in love, honest, true love, but I was an idiot.

I bought him a dictionary for graduation from high school. How...dorky. I mean, I'm trying to think of a good word to use to describe it, but dorky really is the only word that fits the bill. But I didn't know any better. It was the first time I'd been in love. A dictionary. I could tell you long stories about our AP English class (speaking of dorky) in an effort to justify this gift but it really can't overcome the sheer pathetic nature of the entire situation.

I still smell Obsession for Men and think of him. Even though the only people who wear it now are old men. I'll catch a whiff of it and look up, thinking for sure he's there. Instead, a white-haired man is holding a door open for me. Or a man with metal-framed glasses is asking me the time.

We're still friends. We go long periods without talking. Then we'll talk every day for a week. We pick up where we left off. I complain about my job. He tells me about his new girlfriend. I wonder about the future. He bitches about student loans. I talk about crime statistics. He bounces ideas around about Al Sharpton. He keeps me young.

But it isn't the same. I can't feel that way about him now. Thank goodness. We aren't the same anymore. And I'm looking for different things.

I get glimpses, however, of feeling that way again. About other people. And I'm so thankful that, now, I can recognize that feeling. And know that it is real. Actual, honest-to-goodness love. Just as long as I don't still act like an idiot, I should be okay.

Tuesday, August 14, 2007

Career Girl

I was in the middle of nowhere this weekend. Actually, Indiana. Which could, as a state, be considered the middle of nowhere, seeing as how it is surrounded by Ohio and Illinois and Michigan and whatnot. An unenviable position, all things considered.

But, honestly, where I was in Indiana? Actually the middle of nowhere. Small town on the highway between Indy and a city out of state...which is any highway in the state, really. All highways lead to Indy, eventually. Terminus.

I was there visiting family, ostensibly. But I managed to schedule in visits with old friends from school while I was there. The first visit was with a guy I knew in college and hung out with for the entire four years. We even went with a big group on Spring Break together our senior year. He's managed to get himself engaged and I wanted to meet the woman he'd conned into doing laundry for him for the next forty years of her life. Poor thing, she doesn't know what she's in for. Honey, all I can tell you? If he's listening to Jimi Hendrix with the door shut, just let him have his alone time.

I hadn't seen him in four or five years and we made arrangements to meet at a restaurant in the town in which I was staying. A Mexican restaurant. In Indiana. And it was good! They've apparently decimated the avacado market in town, as everyone just buys their guacamole there instead of making it themselves. This is coming from my grandmother, who makes guac with sour cream, however, so take that info with a grain of salt.

I get a seat in a booth with my back to the window, so I can see them when they walk in the door. Of course, this means I can't see them as they're walking through the parking lot. So I'm sitting kind of sideways in the booth, looking out the window and, also, looking nervous. I have a habit of sitting in restaurants, waiting for people to show up when, in actuality, they are simply sitting on the other side of the restaurant, waiting for me.

In looking nervous, I apparently garner the attention of the other folks in the room, including a couple sitting at a table across the aisle from me.

"You waitin' for somebody, honey?" She's about sixty-five, white curly hair and really into her chips and salsa. Her husband, silent beside her, simply sips at his Coke through a straw.

"Yeah." I smile at her and drink some margarita. I'm the only person in the place drinking alcohol.

"You look a little nervous. Family?"

"No, a friend of mine I haven't seen in a while."

"From school."

"Yeah. We haven't seen each other in five years so I want to make sure I recognize him."

She then proceeds to ask me why I'm in town, who I'm visiting, where I'm from...all the good information traded at rest stops and gas stations and Wal-Marts across the country. She tells me about her kids and meeting her son's fiancee and driving around to visit relatives.

"You got kids?"

"No," I reply, looking out the window.

"Oh. You a career girl?"

"Um, I guess so, yeah."

A career girl. Is that what I am? I'm not married. I have no kids. I went to school for a really long time and now I work. But a career girl? Is that how I'd define myself? Am I Melanie Griffin in that movie? Am I the girl in the Dolly Parton song? Because I don't define myself that way, I don't think. But I don't really define myself much at all. I ask people what they do in order to get some idea of the kind of person they are. But I absolutely hate telling people what I do...mostly for the same reason. Because I don't want people to think I'm the kind of person that does the kind of work that I do.

If someone asked me what kind of person I was, "career girl" would be about the last way I'd describe myself. But to this woman, who had three kids and had been married for about 30 years and lived in BFE Indiana, that's exactly what I was. Funny how other's perceptions of you can be so far afield and yet so right on the money, all at the same time.

"Is your friend bald?" the husband asks.

I turn around and see my friend walking through the parking lot. He's given up the ghost and shaved his entire head.

"Yep. That's him. Thanks."

I meant to say goodbye to them when they left the restaurant but they slipped out before I could even register that they'd gone.

Thursday, August 09, 2007

Picnic

I went to the park the other day for lunch.

I was bored, didn't want to be in my office and was in the mood for a drive. So I got in the car with some takeout from our building's cafe and drove down to a park I'd driven by on a couple of occasions. Not a big park. Just a little roadside turnoff. I thought maybe they'd have a picnic area...a couple of picnic tables under a gazebo or something. A little area of shade where I could sit and think me thinks and get away from everyone for a while.

No. Such. Luck.

I pull in the parking lot and look around. No picnic tables. Okay. I suppose I can just sit here with my door open, soaking in some rays, eating my food, taking my time, communing with nature. Just a couple of minutes to have alone.

Yeah, not so much.

The parking lot was kinda full. There was a delivery truck there from the local coffee place. I can see that. The delivery guy wants to just sit there, have a few minutes alone to eat his lunch and not have to deal with people complaining about the quality of the filters he delivers, or how someone got too much decaf rather than the fully leaded. I'm fully up on taking a mental break from the service industry.

But then? There are...all these other cars. Other single guys sitting in cars. They all have their windows open. No one is saying anything. No one is getting out of their car. No one is eating anything. It is as still as a grave.

I park on the opposite end from everyone else, near the exit, so I can sit and watch in peace. They're all just...just sitting there in their cars. Out of about seven or eight cars, only two are unoccupied. What the hell is going on?

I can cut some slack for the coffee guy, who ended up pulling out of the lot ofter about ten minutes. But then there's this guy in a minivan with dealer plates. He leaves after a while, then comes back ten minutes later. And just sits there.

The other thing? They're all parked facing outward. Like they're going to need to make a quick break for it at some point.

That's when I realized. I had parked at the local gay cruising spot!

Every town has them. We have a big park here in town where everyone goes. My friend used to work vice there, walking around in little short-shorts with a t-shirt tied up around his midriff. He arrested all kinds of guys: teachers, bankers, factory workers. It takes all kinds, don't you know. But I'd never heard anything about this place being a spot to pick people up.

And...it wasn't like there were young guys cruising around, looking to score. Maybe they were hiding in the woods because I was sitting there. No. It was just old guys with beards and family vehicles, sitting there with their windows open. I don't know if they were waiting for someone to walk by. Or if they were building up their courage to talk to one another. Or if they were just waiting for me to leave.

I eventually got creeped out enough to leave.

I've certainly hung out with enough gay men in my lifetime not to have a problem with the thought of two men together. I've gone to gay bars, concerts with lesbians, and actually watched gay porn once as part of a human sexuality class in college.

But the thought of these random aging Midwestern married men sitting around in their cars on their lunch hours, hoping that some guy would happen along who would deign to give them a blow job? That seemed more obscene to me than any Playboy or Penthouse ever has.