On Monday:
I started today with a lie. I told Storm I was running late, but would catch a cab into town from the university, where I’d been belayed. Two of those clauses were true: I was late, and I was intending to catch a cab, having missed the bus because I’d had a lie-in that morning.
This made for two truths and two lies, until Storm made one lie (that I was at UC) into a truth by suggesting she pick me up from campus. The upshot was I had to get ready real fast, then run to campus (using the back-roads) then exit the building.
Whereupon I saw the most magnificent car. Storm was sitting in a black VW convertible. I felt I’d slipped into a movie.
“This is fantastic. Unbelievable. Look at you! This your car.”
I walk around the car before getting in. Then got out again and walk around a second time, before we drove off.
I felt like a dude. An absolute dude. There I was, in a fantastic convertible, with Storm looking stunning, and - catching a glance of myself in the rear view mirror - I was not a all disappointed with myself. We got looks on the motorway. Cute couple looks. Cute? No: shaker-mover couple looks. It was incredible. At traffic lights people wound down their windows to talk to us. My accent took a decidedly American turn. We couldn’t have been more Hollywood if Storm and I had been festooned in popcorn and film stock.
We had lunch at Woodstock, and still the MGM glow surrounded us. We spoke loudly. People at other tables laughed when our discourse was witty, and leant in when our conversation took more serious tones. Like a studio audience. Storm spoke of Dom and their ill-fated relationship, I spoke of Viv and my fear of commitment, we both spoke of carousels and our single stolen kiss (which has to be the most relived romantic moment of my life).
Storm, as always, was short on time, and I walked her back to the car. I wanted her to have something of mine, so I gave Storm a copy of ‘Otherwise Pandemonium’ from my satchel, keeping a second book (Alain de Botton’s ‘On Seeing and Noticing’) for myself .
Did we hug? No. We certainly didn’t kiss. What did we do? We made a promise to see each other again, as we always do within a week of my broken relationships. A loveless pact to maintain my record of the three week turn-around by having a decoy date. That was suddenly the most depressing thing ever.
Whereupon I noticed the convertible was dusty, the bumper scraped, and that our meal had left me bloated. The taillights flashed as Storm unlocked the car, and I noticed that one was brighter than the other.
I said goodbye to Storm, and walked away. I really wanted a cigarette, but quit last year. I saw one crushed in the gutter and I sat on the curb to watch it disappear into smoke. I sat for a while, reading Alain de Botton. Then my cell phone buzzed. A SMS one word long from Storm.
“Player.”
Followed by a smile. But as I’d been reading de Botton’s essay on the ‘idealization and romantic excess’ that effects young men in the desolation of single life, I didn’t smile back. I’m not a player; I don’t have the looks for it, or the necessary means. Intellect is undervalued; being thoughtful doesn’t cut it, except in the occasional works of literature in which the ugliest - but most passionate - people find happiness.
And here I was, pretending to be a man about town within the three-week turn-around period of a failed relationship, to be seen (to be noticed). It reminded of an interview in which John Travolta said he used to drive around in a flash car to cheer himself up, until one day he stalled during a u-turn. Travolta said he never lived it down.
I believe coincidence, like desperate romanticism, lingers about the single, and it was at this moment Danny, who I’ve been dying to ask on a date, walked by on the other side of the street. And I realized I’ve been celebrating the wrong record; I should be making an issue of not dating within three-weeks. I should take the time to consolidate, to read more books in which thoughtful and intelligent people find happiness. So I continued reading and didn’t look up, although over the top of my book I could see Danny's shadow advancing down the street. I had to be unnoticeable, if I wanted to avoid the inevitability of another ride in Storm’s convertible. I had to let someone I wanted walk by.
I stayed on the curb until the cigarette went out, I had finished the book, and a person wanted to park.
This made for two truths and two lies, until Storm made one lie (that I was at UC) into a truth by suggesting she pick me up from campus. The upshot was I had to get ready real fast, then run to campus (using the back-roads) then exit the building.
Whereupon I saw the most magnificent car. Storm was sitting in a black VW convertible. I felt I’d slipped into a movie.
“This is fantastic. Unbelievable. Look at you! This your car.”
I walk around the car before getting in. Then got out again and walk around a second time, before we drove off.
I felt like a dude. An absolute dude. There I was, in a fantastic convertible, with Storm looking stunning, and - catching a glance of myself in the rear view mirror - I was not a all disappointed with myself. We got looks on the motorway. Cute couple looks. Cute? No: shaker-mover couple looks. It was incredible. At traffic lights people wound down their windows to talk to us. My accent took a decidedly American turn. We couldn’t have been more Hollywood if Storm and I had been festooned in popcorn and film stock.
We had lunch at Woodstock, and still the MGM glow surrounded us. We spoke loudly. People at other tables laughed when our discourse was witty, and leant in when our conversation took more serious tones. Like a studio audience. Storm spoke of Dom and their ill-fated relationship, I spoke of Viv and my fear of commitment, we both spoke of carousels and our single stolen kiss (which has to be the most relived romantic moment of my life).
Storm, as always, was short on time, and I walked her back to the car. I wanted her to have something of mine, so I gave Storm a copy of ‘Otherwise Pandemonium’ from my satchel, keeping a second book (Alain de Botton’s ‘On Seeing and Noticing’) for myself .
Did we hug? No. We certainly didn’t kiss. What did we do? We made a promise to see each other again, as we always do within a week of my broken relationships. A loveless pact to maintain my record of the three week turn-around by having a decoy date. That was suddenly the most depressing thing ever.
Whereupon I noticed the convertible was dusty, the bumper scraped, and that our meal had left me bloated. The taillights flashed as Storm unlocked the car, and I noticed that one was brighter than the other.
I said goodbye to Storm, and walked away. I really wanted a cigarette, but quit last year. I saw one crushed in the gutter and I sat on the curb to watch it disappear into smoke. I sat for a while, reading Alain de Botton. Then my cell phone buzzed. A SMS one word long from Storm.
“Player.”
Followed by a smile. But as I’d been reading de Botton’s essay on the ‘idealization and romantic excess’ that effects young men in the desolation of single life, I didn’t smile back. I’m not a player; I don’t have the looks for it, or the necessary means. Intellect is undervalued; being thoughtful doesn’t cut it, except in the occasional works of literature in which the ugliest - but most passionate - people find happiness.
And here I was, pretending to be a man about town within the three-week turn-around period of a failed relationship, to be seen (to be noticed). It reminded of an interview in which John Travolta said he used to drive around in a flash car to cheer himself up, until one day he stalled during a u-turn. Travolta said he never lived it down.
I believe coincidence, like desperate romanticism, lingers about the single, and it was at this moment Danny, who I’ve been dying to ask on a date, walked by on the other side of the street. And I realized I’ve been celebrating the wrong record; I should be making an issue of not dating within three-weeks. I should take the time to consolidate, to read more books in which thoughtful and intelligent people find happiness. So I continued reading and didn’t look up, although over the top of my book I could see Danny's shadow advancing down the street. I had to be unnoticeable, if I wanted to avoid the inevitability of another ride in Storm’s convertible. I had to let someone I wanted walk by.
I stayed on the curb until the cigarette went out, I had finished the book, and a person wanted to park.