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Saturday, Mar. 26, 2005 / 4:54 p.m. ~On Moby and Motorcycles~ (Disclaimer: I wrote this last night, to post in my LiveJournal journal, but I want to post it here too, because this is where it all started, the writing online thing, and I really like how this turned out - it was a helluva night, and if John and I ever find each other again, I hope we have another night.) It's hard to find an exact beginning, but I'd like to start with the energy, and we could call it the energy just before the full moon, we could consult an astrologer and he would tell us this is so, or we could even say it might be Venus being in my sign right now, or maybe a decent night's sleep, but I woke up tired, so that's not it. At work, I spoke to my district contacts, asked if they knew our site shuts down for good on April 29th, and they didn't know. It was accidental, I was talking to the one who is just outside of Chicago, and she goes on and on about the weather, and I tell her it's not so bad here, if you don't mind smog, and then she told me about Hawaii, how perfect the weather is, but how she wouldn't want to live there, and somehow I told her that my last day is in five weeks. She, and the next woman, the older woman, and I've never seen these people, but their voices are firmly planted in my head, asked what they will do, who will key their documents, and what is going to happen, in general? I don't know, or, I do, but I don't, and I am forbidden to say anything I think I know. The last contact was at the end of the day, a local district, and surprisingly, very, she asked, "What are you gonna do?" - ME, what am "I" going to do, do you see that? I was a bit flabbergasted, like it was hard to answer her, and I told her I'd gotten my resume all finished and I'd applied for a library job, and my real background is in books, though now I've done this data entry thing, this office thing, for seven years, this would be my new background, wouldn't it?, and she said I should fax my resume to her, no, wait, yes, no, should I, she wasn't sure, protocol and all, and I assured her our site manager explicitly told us he will not attempt to prevent us hopping from the contract company to the customer company. It's kosher. And I faxed my resume to her, along with a problem document. I was high with it. She said she knows there are admin jobs available, and I know how much these people make, and it was the money that got me excited, not the job itself. I told the favorite coworker, asked her to keep it on the DL, under wraps, hush hush, and etc. And then it was Moby, Moby, Moby, and no one at my office has heard of him, except maybe cute vegetarian girl, but I didn't tell her I was going. In traffic, the rush hour kind, the kind with all the Interstate merges and incompetent assholes all trying to get someplace at once, volume, volume, volume, I got to town in thirty minutes, realized the record store was not Wax 'n Facts, but Criminal Records, and I didn't know where it was, but then I did, and I went in and paid for my CD and book (Moby has a book about his vegan restaurant in NYC, Teany Book: Stories, Food, Romance, Cartoons and, of Course, Tea, well, he and his partner, Kelly Tisdale - very cute - they are supposedly exes, but I wonder...), and got in line. It was a very festive atmosphere, lots of tattooed staff on hand, lots of fans in an orderly line to the back of the narrow and long store where Moby sat at a table lit by candlelight. Moby and another chair at this table, as I could see later, a chair for each person who came to sit upon and have a brief chat and photo. Sweet. There was tea, rooibos, my current favorite, and some cute young women with funky emo glasses and shirts a few sizes too small passed around cucumber sandwiches and nut spread sandwiches, all provided by an Atlanta version of the NYC Teany. The woman behind me in line stepped out to get some tea and offered me some, which I gladly accepted, and before long there was an Atlanta Journal Constitution photographer in front of us asking us to toast with our cups of piping hot tea so she could snap a picture. Sure, we said, and she got our names and cities and was off. I was chatty, people were chatty, and I soon learned that the woman in front of me was incredibly nervous, like going to see the Beatles at Shea Stadium nervous, and I told her at least she didn't look like those girls, she wasn't yet pulling out her hair or anything, but she did start to cry, and was very self conscious, saying, "Oh my god, I can't believe I'm crying!", and I said I understood perfectly. Moby is amazing, meeting him is amazing. People who don't know about him, or listen to his music, or visit his web site, or look at his cartoons, or his photography, or read his journal, may not get it... but the dude is really very cool. And HOT. In the geekiest way (I just inserted a smiley emoticon, then caught myself). As we approached Mo, and saw all the hangers-on, or record company people, we weren't sure, and both women on either side of me ate some vegan snacks, and I guzzled my tea, the one who had started to cry said, "I think I'm gonna throw up", and Moby looked up, and wondered which said it, and no doubt saw the look on the poor woman's face, and I said, "But in a good way", and she said, "Right, I'm going to throw up in a good way", and he asked her if she watches "South Park", and did she see the "South Park" movie, the part where the guy throws up, and he asked the character's name, and someone said, "Kyle!", and he said, "Right, the way Kyle throws up every time he's around that girl he likes", and we all laughed. He was nervous now, and very compassionate, caring, and he helped her settle her CD and book on the table so he could sign them, and seemed so damned genuinely concerned that suddenly she was all chatty and asking him if he would consider playing at her wedding in January (she'd told me her fiance knows how she feels about Moby, and they both want him to play at their wedding, and she asked me if I thought he would, and should she ask, and I said, "Oh, definitely ask, definitely"), and she was sitting there and sitting there, and the photographers snapped their photos, and the candles burned, and I jokingly told her that was enough, it was time to go, and she said she never wanted to get up, she was going to just sit there forever. My turn to sit with Mo and I told him I wanted to talk to him about his web site upgrade, and how his journal archives are all screwy now, they're numbered instead of listed by month and year, with a 'previous' and 'next' option, and this is no good, and I've been reading his journal for four years, and can they fix it?, and again, as he is, this guy, he was very concerned, said they are working on the site still, and he wanted to write it down, reached for the receipt in my book, asked if he could write on it, then noticed a portion of my debit card number, and said he shouldn't, and I said, "Use a napkin", because there were a pile on the table, and as he wrote a note to himself about the archives for his online journal, I said, "I would have trusted you anyway", meaning with the credit card receipt, because I would. Then this photographer wanted to snap us together (supposedly there is a photo of Mo and me, and it's going to be emailed to me), but now I was totally nervous and Moby put his arm around me for a photo, but very hesitantly, like he was nervous too, and it was awkward, and I didn't want it to be, I wanted to sit and hang out with him and chat all night, but no. I was somewhat encouraged to leave, and did so, out a back exit, and there was a signup sheet to leave my email address so I could get my photo. The crying getting married no longer going to throw up woman was there too, and she asked how my experience was, and I told her, and she said she was dazed, totally, and wasn't sure what to do next, and I asked if maybe I'd see her at the show next month, and she said she's not sure if she's going... NOT SURE?! Yikes. I knew I wanted a beer after, so I hazily drifted to the pub almost directly next door, and sat at the bar with my book and CD and the free weekly paper, and soon a very tall woman came and obnoxiously taking up way too much space sat next to me with a man. They drank beers, then shots, while I nursed my Black and Tan (Bass Ale with a Guinness floater, lovely stuff), and she was toasted in no time. As John said later, I have an aura around me that makes it easy for people to tell me everything, and so it was this tall woman, 6'3", she said, turned to me at one point and told me her story, how she'd just finished her chiropractic school finals, and this guy she was with was a coworker, a massage therapist, and she has a boyfriend of three years, but he's not sure what he wants, and she doesn't know who Moby is, she's out of touch from all the studying, etc., but she is thirty-two, and she says I'm old when I tell her I'm turning forty-four, and then we're talking Schiavo, and the Weise kid, and the death penalty, and an eye for an eye, and losing a hand for stealing if you live in Thailand, and on and on, and she gets off her stool and stumbles to the bathroom every so often and the massage therapist asks me questions, lazily, drunkenly, and I tell him I'm being laid off and he is very positive, has good vibes, and says I'll do well. Meanwhile, I'd text messaged Brent, and Sam, to say I'd just talked to Moby, and Brent called and said his woman was going too, and she'd come drink a beer with me, as he couldn't get off the couch. I held a chair for her until it got crowded, called him back and he said she wasn't coming. A man sat next to me and ordered a burger, and struck up a chat, told me it was Bike Night, and did I know what that was, and joked that it was my first time there and I had picked Bike Night, then told me all about his racing team, and the kind of bikes he has and races, and he's getting too old to race, and he loves the pimiento cheeseburgers, and when he got his burger and started eating, the drunk chiropractor woman reached across me to grab his burger for a bite, after asking him what it was and hearing the answer. I was shocked and so was she (she was very aware of her drunken behavior the entire time, and spoke freely of it), but he didn't seem to mind at all. This place filled up fast, lots of leather, colorful and bold stripes, not the Harley crowd, the street bike, the racing bike crowd, but they were cool, and the music got LOUDer, and the bartender turned the light on the disco ball, and I ordered fried zucchini and shared it with the drunk people, who got drunker as they ordered shots, and she said to me, "I'm telling you now, I'm overserved, so if I can't talk you know why", and I loved that expression and repeated it later, told John I'd never heard it and neither had he, and I asked if she was driving, and she said they were taking a fat taxi cab all around town and this was not their first stop, and she was going straight home to bed now, and her coworker, the massage therapist, reached for more and more fried zucchini, which I'd offered because I felt they should eat, and it was a huge fucking bowl full, and said, each time, "Mmmmm, these are good", as he slathered them in ranch dressing. When she got up for the last time, before leaving, I told her there was dressing on her turtleneck, and I tried to hand her a napkin, asked didn't she want to get it off herself, and she said, "No", so I was wiping this woman's breast with the napkin, and there was a lot more conversation between us, but I'm leaving all that out because it would take another fifty pages just to document that aspect of the evening. They were gone, and I was left with my second Black and Tan, and a man who appeared next to me and asked if I minded if he smoked, which seemed absurd, as this was a bar and a lot of people were smoking, but it was nice, though seemingly a pickup line, and we started talking. He had calloused hands, and he was also 6'3", like the drunk chiropractor, and he told me about the kind of bike he rides, a Buell, and how it's different, and American, and he likes to be different, and we chatted, a lot, about a lot of things, and it was nice, and it was flirtatious, like there was something there, some chemistry, but everyone in that place had been so friendly, except the two women bartenders, I took it for granted. He offered to buy me another beer, but I refused, as I was driving a long way home soon, and he watched my Moby book and CD on the bar while I went to pee, after I told him to guard them with his life, and he joked that he'd rub them on himself while I was gone, and this struck me as very out of place and wicked clever and I laughed at him. And told him he should, indeed. I paid for my beers and zucchini when I got back, after he'd gone to pee too, and he thought I was leaving, but I was clearing my tab and thinking of letting him buy me that beer, but we decided to go look at his bike instead, and I asked the bartender to pull up her skirt for us, because I'd seen her do it before - it was the smallest miniskirt I've ever seen, and underneath it were the tiniest black panties I've ever seen, and she'd said, "Front or back", and we said, "Both". Fun times at the bar, but we went outside, and there were bikes everywhere! And exhaust fumes, and people in leather and boots and helmets, and a cop chatting with people, and John said when he turns his bike on everyone looks, they love the sound of it, and I admit I loved it too, loud, Harley loud, and Buells are made by a Harley mechanic, so the site manager told me today. He only had his helmet, so procured another for him to wear, and I wore his, after trips in and out of the convenience store next door for him to buy cigarettes and strawberry Fanta (for which he apologized and berated himself - he was very self aware, this guy, but I think drinking something other than Coke, especially living in the birthplace of the stuff, is very cool), and we went for a ride. He'd asked the helmet owner the best route for a short ride, and we took it, a road I know so well, a beautiful curvy road, and it was uncomfortable on the back of the bike because it's not designed for two people, just one, and I had no footholds, he'd taken them off, but he told me to hold onto him as tightly as I wanted, and I had a good death grip going, my toes where they were supposed to go, my visor up so the cool wind washed over my eyes in a blast, and I closed them to feel like I was flying, gripping this man who seemed so gentle, yet wicked, and hurt, and afraid, yet longing, all at once. We didn't go far before he stopped again, said he was going to buy gum, but went to pee, as I saw him go in the men's room at yet another convenience store, and came out and wanted to know how I felt, and how did I like it, and he pointed out little things he'd added to the bike here and there, and asked if I wanted him to really go fast on the way out, was that okay, and I said sure, most definitely, and I held on really tightly, pressed as close as I could to his back, and we took off out of there at some ungodly speed. I closed my eyes and it felt like I was on an amusement park ride. Totally exhilirating. He slowed and put my foot on the back of his calf, as I'd told him it was hard to hold on with no real grips for my shoes, and I watched as the mansions on the side of the road flew by, and we both turned to look at the country club all lit up and glowing. It was an intimate ride, and my mind was racing a bit, alternating with a calm and comfort. I liked this guy, a lot. When we got back to the parking lot where all the other bikers were, and returned the helmet, we stood while he talked to people who wanted to know about the bike, and he answered questions, and talked about racing, and people revved their engines, and milled about, and we finally walked to my car to get stoned. After another trip to the convenience store to get papers. In my car, sitting, I developed a foot cramp from my shoes with no arch support, my snazzy CodePink No Sweat sneakers, union made, thank you, and he asked if they're Converse, and I told him briefly of their story, and he wanted to rub my foot for me, referred to "Pulp Fiction" and being the king of foot massages, and after he rolled us a joint and we talked about the quality of the herb, my leg went over his and he was massaging my foot, telling me how cute it is, and I said it felt oddly comfortable, being with him, and we smoked and got very high, and talked, and he leaned in to kiss me, and it didn't feel terribly natural, but planned, thought out, perhaps agonzied over for a bit before he made his move. He was hesitant, and I prefer confident, so this wasn't going to be good, and sitting in my car parked on the side of the road in Atlanta's own version of the Manhattan's East Village, smoking a joint on a Thursday night, was one thing, especially on Bike Night, but making out was another whole story, and I didn't want to do it. And I told him. On our walk to the car he'd talked about us, about meeting me, about the serendipity of it, how odd it was, how he never comes to Bike Night anymore, how he never leaves his northern suburb town, how he's just a good ol' Georgia boy, and how we'll never see each other again, and I was thinking it was his self-deprecating manner, and that sure, sure, we could see each other, we could hang out, we could go on a date, have dinner, ride his bike, or anything, really, but he said it was like a Cinderella story, and if I'd put it all together, with him pointing out the other bar across the street and how he had the best night of his life there, once, and he never went back, I'd know he was the singular experience kind of guy, the Capricorn playing it safe and secure, but I didn't put it all together, and when he got quiet, and stoned, and made fun of us for being stoned, and there was a pause and he looked at me and said, again, "We're never going to see each other again", it was horrible. I felt like I was being dumped, like it was going to be a "It's not you, it's me" thing, and I just met the guy, and our kissing wasn't the best, no magic, but damn if I didn't like the big lug, and I needed his car advice (he already offered up hints on how I can pass my emissions test, and understood how stressed I get about my car), and I like mechanics, and I didn't care if he doesn't get online, he only knows how to fix things, and he said he'd never talk to me online, he wouldn't be doing that, ever, and his cell phone is a work phone, and he has no 'land line', and he's in this place right now, this certain place, and I understand, don't I, he wanted to know, and I thought of him telling that one guy that he lives in a repair shop, and his wife must really have kicked him out, like he said, and what did he do, anyway?, and he has a four year old, and this guy was so sweet, really, and I didn't insist on giving him my phone number, because I imagined him throwing it away, defeatedly, and then he said, "But I want to kiss you again", and I said, "No, I don't think so, not after all you just said", and that was that. And we both admitted it had been fun, and he said more than that, but I kept not believing him, it didn't seem real, I'm far too cynical, and mistrustful now, since Sam and 'the boy' especially, I don't trust that any man really enjoys me, or really means it when he says he had a good time, or that he wants to kiss me again, and I hated him for ruining it, and I wanted to get away as fast as I could, but I was high from the ride, and from the beer, and the herb, and I drove away thinking that's it, he has no way to reach me, I have no way to reach him, I don't know his last name, I didn't get the name of his shop, he knows so little about me, but we could find each other if we tried, but should we? Shouldn't it just be this one great night that had a really weird ending? And if we hadn't been sitting on the side of the road, parked, wouldn't I have wanted to kiss him more, harder, more seriously? We joked about where it was going, how far we'd take it. And wasn't I high from Moby too? And didn't this whole event, the leather, and the bikes, and the beer, and the drunken confessions, and the kisses in cars, and the squeezing together on a bike going as fast as it can in short bursts, didn't all of it ooze the very opposite of everything that happened at the Moby signing? It was the antithesis of Mo's vegan candles and tea and cucumber sandwich 'I'm so nervous and so is Mo' vibe. I know John thought of me all night. I know he walked away hard, and I know he had to go and talk with the other bikers before he even attempted to ride, and maybe he did go and find the people racing and doing wheelies illegally in the streets, and today he must think he should have gotten my number, that maybe he ruined something good, and I thought of ways to find him, and wondered if he'd try to find me, and thought of those ads in the personal section of the free weekly, people trying to reconnect, and I sent Sam text messages and he sent one back, but it was crude and unrelated, and I don't know why I still try to connect with him. John said he would need a hotel room intown, and a cold shower before he could ride home, and I told him it was flattering, and I wrote that last night too, I know, but it is still flattering and bears repeating. I intended to go back out tonight, just have fun, meet people without trying, but can a person try to meet people without trying? I only wanted a beer after the signing, to wait for traffic to die down before driving back, I never intended to get caught up talking to strangers, and offering sips of my beer to strangers, and sharing my fried zucchini with a drunk massage therapist, and wiping the breast of a pro-death penalty drunken chiropractor/massage therapist who at one point rubbed my neck for me, or to press my body up tight against a kind and gentle giant of a man with calloused hands, one too frightened to try, even to try. I honestly think he felt he wasn't good enough, and that is sad, and it makes me want to find him, to try to meet him again, and tell him he is good, there is a lot of good in him, he is the most considerate man I've met in a long time, but I think I'll let it all go. Chalk it up to the longest online journal entry I've ever written, and leave it here, come back to it from time to time so I can read it and remember, and sigh, and wish for more adventure in my future. I may be too tired to go out now. It's taken me close to two hours to write this, non-stop. Cost of the War in Iraq
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