Drank wine for my first time (I think).
I drank wine for my first time on Saturday, I think. I can’t remember any other time I have tried wine before except a couple times in church but I’m not sure if that counts. I'm pretty sure we all have like at least one or more experiences where we randomly spoke to a stranger, and that was the only contact you'd ever have with that person ever again but you wouldn't ever forget about that conversation even like years later. It's happened a couple times to me. Like this old guy at a Ryan's restaurant when I was 6. This lady at a bowling alley when I was like 13 or 14. Ok well it's happened at least two times before Saturday. Anyways, I'm really cool so I decided to spend my Saturday night studying for a midterm at this coffee place nearby where I do all of my homework. Around 9 or 10 pm when I was sitting in the outside sitting area doing a buncha math problems and staring at this full cup of iced coffee sitting on an empty table that had been there for quite some time. It didn’t even look like anyone had taken a sip of it yet. Then this girl comes in with her bike and set it down and went inside to buy a drink and I didn’t see her face or whatever and I thought hey she’s kinda cute I guess, her shoes are kind of weird though. That's like what I was really thought at the time and I wouldn't have typed that unless something kinda funny came out of it. And then she comes back outside and I still hadn’t gotten a real good look at her yet since I was studying and then she goes to this hippie couple with dreadlocks who were playing some board game and she’s like are you guys smokers do you have a light? And indeed they were and they did give her a light and she’s like here you go here’s a cigarette. I guess in exchange or whatever. So anyways she sits like down and she’s sitting at the table across from me. She's sitting backwards like facing me and I can tell she's looking at me but I decided not to look and then she says to me, “you look like you’re doing a lot of work” and then I looked up and saw her and then I realized that she wasn’t a girl, she was a much older woman probably in her mid 30s or so. And I think I said, “oh yeah…”, I didn't really know what else I could possibly say to a question like that. Anyways she’s like “do you have time for a break so we can talk, I don’t know anyone here. I’ll buy you a glass of wine.” And I was almost done studying that night anyways so I was like “oh uh you don’t have to and then she handed me a 5 dollar bill and at that point I felt weird and I was like, “I’m not 21” and she’s like “oh haha you’re funny” or something like that and she goes inside to buy a glass of wine and then I moved some of my stuff and she sat down she said cheers and then we both took a sip of our wine. Then I was thinking, man this tastes disgusting but I didn’t want her to think I was a vagina so I continued taking sips of it. She asked me how old I was and I said I was 20, and that I was going to be 21 in two months and I was excited about that. She told me she was much older than me, about 20 years older, and that she was going to turn 40 soon and that she was excited about that. She said once she's 40 she’ll feel like she doesn’t have to try really hard to look as nice anymore because she’s 40 anyways. And then we were just talking about like my school stuff and like where we were from and there were several awkward silences until I realized that if I just asked a question she would go on and on and on so at that point I pretty much just kept asking questions and she was the one doing all the talking.
She was working part time at the School for the Blind in Austin and the course she’s teaching is called “Tree Hugging”. I asked her if that’s like the formal name of the course and she said it was, and she teaches blind kids how to climb trees. To her what she found most shocking while doing this is when the kids were climbing up they would start feeling the branches and be like, “Miss what are these?” and she’s like “uh… they’re branches. You guys don’t know what branches are?” She thought it was kind of sad. She has taught in other states also and she talked about the philosophy they had on teaching. Then she told me about where she was originally from. She has lived in several places in the US. She grew up in Oklahoma, and lived in California and New York City, and probably a couple of other places that I forgot about but now she’s in Austin. And so I asked her why and she said it was like a while back her boyfriend was in a band and so she followed him to Austin so that’s how she winded up in Austin. She’s had multiple boyfriends that were all in bands whom she followed to different places and I asked her if any of them made it big and she started mentioning some names and I was like “no never heard of them. Nope, never heard of those guys either” and so she laughed and was like ok I guess not. Anyways she’s now married to a veterinarian guy. I forgot to ask how long she’d been married but I thought how she met her husband was kind of interesting, like 3 dead birds fell from the sky outside her house one day, and when she saw them she was trying to save them and wrapped them up and took them to her bathtub and then her cat came in with a dead bird in its mouth and at that point she thought she would need more help so she called her friend who’s a vet tech who worked with her now husband and from there you can kinda figure it out. Then later this guy with a dog comes in and she goes and talks to the dog and comes back and she tells me she’s an animal lover. And then I kinda figured that since she was wearing this fleece jacket with like these horses on it. She told me she had one of her paintings at her house and she has an art studio in Austin where her other paintings are. Then she talked about how it’s getting cold and how she’s going to move her cactus plants inside tonight and she was like “how do you feel about moving cactus plants?” and at this point I was really confused and I don’t even remember what I said. I wasn’t sure if she was trying to be funny or something.
She later goes on about how she’s part Cherokee, French, and Irish, and her husband’s like a pure blood Russian Jew or something and how he has to have a really specific diet and to add to that he’s vegan. He was the only one at his work who was vegan which is kinda surprising you’d think since they’re all vets there would be more. And then she asked me and I told her I was Vietnamese and she talked about how she could make the best "fobo" and I was thinking what the heck is "fobo" until like later I realized what she was trying to say.
She later goes on about Oklahoma and her older sister who she described as like being pretty much good at everything when they were younger. She could paint, had musical talent, and do math out the wahzoo and things like that. Her sister had 6 kids and home schooled her kids when they were young and taught them a bunch of stuff so they could also be good at everything apparently. And then I asked her if she had any kids and she’s like “Oh no.” and joked that her sister was the one that had her kids for her. Then I think we were talking about Austin, and I guess where she grew up in some small town in Oklahoma there were a lot of Native Americans there and things were way different there as you could probably imagine. Then she started talking about her niece who came up to visit her recently and she was trying convince her niece to get out of Oklahoma where she’s in community college now and talked about how brilliant her niece was and how she wrote amazing songs and things like that. She said her niece was trying to save up money to get out of Oklahoma but her mom didn't really want her to do that. And then she smiled and looked at me and was like, “I should introduce you two.” and I was thinking uh… and then she went on to describe how pretty she was and compared her to Madonna during the 80s and she's all like "you know with the big eyes and a heart shaped face!" Anyways, then she’s like, “You should date her!” and I was like still thinking “uh…” I didn’t really know what to say I thought it was funny though. She was like I should show you pictures of her and started talking more about her niece and how her mom had different expectations when it came to being an adult. I asked her if her niece was the oldest sibling and she said she was. And then I mentioned this glass of iced coffee that was still full and had been sitting for quite some time on this empty table a couple feet away and that no one had drank it and she went over and took it and gave it to me. And so then I was alternating sips between the glass of wine and iced coffee and she though that was funny for some reason and said that back when she was young they called that “poor man’s speedball” except they drank coffee with beer instead. Then she was like are you driving? And then I said yeah and she was like do you mind giving me a ride back? And I was like oh no it’s fine. As we were walking to my car she starts singing quite loudly and she’s like that’s the band Chixdiggit who I’d never heard of before and I was like are they like a pretty recent band and she’s like “ No no they’re from the 90s, I told you I’m old!” So then we put her bike in my car and I asked her where to go and she just pointed and was like “out and out” and then I didn’t know what that meant so I was gonna just start driving in the direction she pointed at. Then she was just smiling and staring at me for a while and she says, you know like the way your face is and how it’s shaped and the plains of your face really reminds of the way the Native Americans I knew back in Oklahoma. The singing continued in the car and she’s like you want to hear a song I wrote? I said sure and she’s like “this is circa 1983”. My eyes were on the road a good portion of the drive but I could tell she was like staring at me the entire time I was driving, especially when we were at a red light and I turned and looked at her. I wasn't sure if I should've been looking at her because she was singing so I didn't want to be rude and look like I'm not paying attention but I had to drive. She then goes, "you know, there's a really sweet innocence about you" something like that and she said some other things and a buncha compliments I don't really want to say just because some of it was weird. I was pretty flattered I guess. I wasn't really sure what to think. As we’re going suddenly she’s like wait turn here and she pointed to a gas station and was like “we need beer” and so I turned in and she goes inside and then comes back out and goes to another car and opens the door and goes inside. I was like uh... I thought maybe she bumped into someone she knew or something suddenly she leaves the car and goes back in the store and then comes back out with a six pack of Negra Modelo. She gets inside and says, “I got into the wrong car, I went inside this car and there’s a man there and he’s like ‘Excuse me?’” When we got to her house and she shows me like this thing in her front yard of like cactus plants and then we went inside her house and I was wondering if her husband was also as crazy and weird as her except her husband wasn’t there when we were inside her house and so once again I was kind of confused. I was thinking about whether or not this is okay or whatever. Then as I walked in, her huge dogs started jumping on me, especially this one huge Lab mutt who was holding an envelope in its mouth. Finally they started calming down and she shows me her painting and it was on this pretty big canvas on the wall and it was like a bunch of these shades of grey and black and she said that it’s a painting of a forest fire. I was like oh okay, except to me it just looked like a bunch of these shades of grey and black but it still looked pretty nice. She then started playing music by some old school hip hop group from the 80s and started showing me some of her CD’s and was like I’ll give you my top 10. One of them that caught my eye was this one that was in this cool paper case and the music was like from the 1920s or so I thought that one was pretty cool. Then she was like do you like the Flaming Lips? And I was like I’ve heard of them but I don’t really listen to them. Really the only time I’d listened to them was back in 10th grade when I borrowed/stole a burnt CD-R of one of their albums from Linh and then another time when I was listening to a podcast when they were the guests on the show and then I had read their wikipedia article but I’d never really sat down and listened to them. Then she’s like you have to listen to this! And she started playing the music and was like let’s dance! And she started dancing and singing the Flaming Lips song about Yoshimi and robots and stuff. Well I kinda just stood there and then she showed me her pull up bar and this rowing exercise machine and was like want to try it out? And so I was like uh sure and so I did and then she’s talking for a bit and then at that point I was still rowing and she’s like “You can stop if you want.” And I was like oh okay so I stopped rowing. Then she asked me if I wanted to take a shot and I was like "uh, sure" but for some reason I guess she got distracted and that never happened. Then she was like showing me random pics on her fridge and this postcard which I guess she turned into a magnet that she made and mailed her husband. I think it was like a monster attacking a city and the monster was like supposed to be her husband or something. Then she was like oh wait, my niece I need to show you pictures of her. We went to her computer and she was like you want to see your new girlfriend? And then she started showing me pictures. All I can really remember is that her niece was like skinny with blonde hair, and I could barely even see her face in like every single picture her hair was covering her face. I was about to say uh is there a picture where her hair isn't covering her face. Then she showed me a picture and she was like this is a picture of my niece and then like I'm not sure who the other women were I think she said that they were family friends and one of them really liked Tom Hanks so here they are painting pictures of Tom Hanks. And indeed I saw a couple women sitting on the floor painting pictures of Tom Hanks. Then she showed me a Belle & Sebastian music video on youtube which I've been trying to find but I can't find it or remember what the song was called. Then I think she was checking her house phone and she was like "you're going to meet my friends" and she said that she had to return a movie to one of them at a bar. And then I was like uh... okay and then I realized she was going to go to a bar for like someone's birthday or something and I was like "hey wait I'm not 21 can I still get in?" and she's like, "don't worry about it" and then so we are about to step outside and she's like "Wait, we need to think of a story I don't want my friends to know I picked up a guy from a coffee shop" and then I was like "uh... I'm also working part time at the school for the blind" and she's like "no Don works there too... I got it. You're dating my niece, she came down to visit me a while ago." and I was like "what's your niece's name?" and she's like "Lindsey." and I thought okay that's easy to remember that's my sister's name. And then we went to some bar pretty close by and as she was going in the door she's like we'll meet you outside, and I was like okay so I just stood outside. Maybe like 10 minutes later she comes outside alone and she's like what are you doing I've been looking for you, and I was like you told me you'd meet me outside, and she's like no I mean like out there and I realized there was like an outdoor part of the bar and so we just walked in there wasn't like a bouncer checking IDs or anything like that. Then in the outside part of the bar there were people, a lot of them were older than me, and then I met her friend Don and I ate some chili and corn bread that his wife made and it was some woman named Lo's 50th birthday so that was pretty nice I guess. Then some nice lady with a Southern accent named Leslie talked to me and she was really nice and polite and stuff. She had been from Tennessee originally and had kids about my age and told me about how great Austin was and how she also got a divorce 7 years ago and she had graduated with an archicture degree but had been a housewife until she had gotten divorced and she was like yeah when I got divorced I was like okay well my I can put that I've been a housewife for like 20 years on my resume!