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under_control
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» our Lord and King Ahem...Here we go. 2:27am and I'm in my cube at work. Airplane back from Vancouver was held in a holding pattern for 45 minutes over a rainy San Francisco, and so rmutt and I didn't even get to his car until 11:50pm. Bart stops running at 12:15am. rmutt and I decided to head straight to a 24-hour taqueria near his place. We discussed art and the middle-class for about two hours while Ricky Martin's "Vida Loca" played incessantly on the jukebox. At least tonight I have a change of clothes and a toothbrush, shampoo, razor and such. So, Vancouver...Beautiful city. Loved it. rmutt was there for the release of his book, an anthology of poems by members of the Kootenay School of Writing. rmutt is also in the KSW, but a bit on the fringe since moving to the US. Hanging out with the poets and their friends was wonderful and I couldn't get enough. These people were genuinely friendly and unpretentious. I'll have to go back for more soon. It really opened my eyes to the importance of a support group of friends in the arts community. So, I'm a bit weary and need to catch a few hours of shut-eye before the co-workers start arriving, but I will make a statement or two, in sleepy, low-impact prose, about the interesting time I had Thursday night last. I'll start a month or so back, when I was standing in rmutt's cube lecturing him on his improper use of the company's phone to call Canada, when a strikingly attractive woman, on whom I had never before clapped eyes, walked past and stopped to look out the window. The effect was such that I lost track of what I was saying and stood there rather mute. rmutt followed my gaze and nodded a bit, knowingly. This, then, was our first glimpse of "Red," a programmer from the East Coast who was visiting our offices for a day or two. The next night rmutt, Red, her friend Lara (who had just arrived in SF two months earlier) and me, headed to the Boom Boom Room (owned and operated by Mr. BB King) for some drinks and some dancing. To give you some indication of Red's physical characteristics, I will mention that as the four of us sat at the table together (looking like two couples), Red was hit on by no less than three individuals, one of whom offered a business card (how gauche that he offer a business card rather than a social card on this occasion!) with a scribbled message entreating her to join him same time next week. Skip ahead to last week. Red gets herself transfered to San Francisco and starts Tuesday. (Monday being the observance of Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday, [peace to you, sir]). Thursday night, before our trip to Vancouver, rmutt and I are brought in on the plan to gather a group for drinks in honor of Red's arrival in the SF. Hank, rmutt and I show up to find Red surrounded by fellows at the bar, already two business cards on the plus side. The drinking begins in earnest. It is determined that Red is a die-hard Elvis fan...No doesn't convey half of it. Red has placed Elvis in a position that most reserve for the fellow who reputedly changed loaves into fishes and what-not. No, really. At about her fifth Jack on the rocks, she turns to me and looks me in the eye. She then proceeds to tell me that I remind her of a character played by Jimmy Stewart in some movie. I personally haven't seen the film and I'm at a loss. She then goes on to say that she "love's Jimmy Stewart" because he was so nice to everyone and was so generally bonhomous (not her word). She leans in a bit and reveals that Elvis wasn't always a gentleman when it came to his women. Suddenly she jerked back with a look on her face like a child that has stepped on a crack (and broken her Mama's back). "Do you think Elvis heard me!?" she wanted to know. "I've never said that about Jimmy Stewart, what will Elvis think!?" What did Troy think? Confused, bewildered. I promised, at her insistance, that I would be her "movie and bowling buddy" from here on out. And this will be fun I think. But I know what you might be thinking and I'm not thinking that so stop thinking it yourself. I'm like Jimmy Stewart, remember? I'm nice to everybody and I act like a gentleman around the ladies. - - - - - In closing I'd like to make the observation of something a bit troubling. Last week I was reading David Foster Wallace and I found myself writing like him. Today on the plane I was enjoying a decadent bout with P. G. Wodehouse, and if you've read him you've no doubt remarked that I'm mimicking him in this entry. OK, I understand that this isn't uncommon actually. But within an hour of arriving in Vancouver and talking to rmutt's friends, I found myself using Canandian inflections in my speech (I stopped short of saying "Ay?") even when I was concentrating on NOT doing so! What's wrong with me? |||
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diaryland |