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Sunday, Apr. 28, 2002 / 4:47 p.m. ~Not a Waste of Time~ I have flossed, and I have brushed my teeth with my Scooby toothbrush, and still I taste balsamic vinegar, capers, goat cheese, and garlic. My leftover flank steak salad from last night. The server knew it was too much to eat, she knew I'd be asking for a container to take it home, and I said to Sandy, "Why would they serve something they know no one can actually completely eat?". It was good, the flavors complex and strong, cucumbers, celery, greens, sprouts, and I don't even know what kind, possibly an entire 1 to 1 1/2 pound flank steak, marinated, grilled, lying over this bed of vinaigrette soaked greens and capers and sweet, sweet, goat cheese, with these huge chunks of bread, not dried like croutons, but also soaked in the vinaigrette, and I don't know how to spell vinaigrette, and though my dictionary is right there, down on the floor, only a foot from me, I don't feel like looking it up. I'm tired. Too much sleep? Yes, no doubt. I got up only a few hours ago, around 2:00 I guess. I was dreaming I was cleaning out a limo after some rapper. I'm sure it was from reading the article on Mos Def in EW yesterday. Oh god, will this earn me a Google hit? And does it help to use the word Google in an entry which I fear may earn me a Google hit? So I'm tired, it's my period, I haven't hit the crescendo yet though, it seems that's waiting for Monday, so I can go to work and be bombarded with questions about my big fucking date whilst I worry if I'm "leaking", do I need to change tampons, can I suffer any more cramping of my uterus before I want to curl in a ball like a porcupine under my desk? I can't wait. Really. Doesn't it all sound like so much fun? Am I the only one who knew my "big date" wasn't going to be big? When I fantasized, when I jokingly wondered if we might fall in love, get married and live happily ever after, did no one but me actually realize it was the joke it was? Why is that? I felt very little for him, I still do. He shows no interest in me at all, not romantically, yet he wants to come to my apartment and watch TV with me. Freak. So now I am worried about cleaning, I'm thinking maybe this will be the impetus I need to finally dust all my bookcases. To clean the bathroom, and the kitchen, to clean my bottle collection in the kitchen, to really make things look nice, for me ultimately, but for him too. Why should I care? Because I was too honest, too neurotic, I talked it up, the dusting neurosis. It was okay, it was fine, it just wasn't anything. Not a "thing", not anything to be excited about, it was something to dread, but without genuine reason. First there was a tour of his house, empty because of the newly finished floors, and we're talking and he tells me he's a Leo, we're tired of waiting for me to guess, and I'm calculating, but I don't feel he's a Leo, I don't see it yet. When I tell him both Aries and Leo are passionate he realizes his last girlfriend is an Aries, gets a big smile telling me she was very passionate, and I'm thinking why does he automatically assume passionate equals sexual? It's not what I meant at all. The restaurant I chose was too hip and trendy, and as I feared, on a Saturday night, it was packed. "The wait is an hour and a half", "Okay, we'll come back another time", says I, "Oh, it might be less!", says the hostess. I don't know how to spell the sound I want to write. Pfew! Pshaw! HAH! Or, "No, thanks, we'll make reservations next time, I've got your card", and a fine card indeed, red, nice red, a great shade, with black lettering, very simple, clean, hip and trendy. But we were engaged in talk of Gore vs. Nader, and the conference Sandy went to in Marin, in California, we only stopped talking for me to ask, "Do you have room for two more?" Fine, we'll go to the other choice, I love that place, don't you? Oh, sure, great, talk, talk, talk, we talked. We parked, I was driving, did I mind, no, no, not at all. I LOVE this place, we can sit outside, but the plastic is up, it was cool today. Did my menstrual syndrome, no longer pre-menstrual syndrome, have that much of an effect? Only in that I wanted to rearrange the table accoutrements, the menus took up too much room, we were crammed against the plastic, I wanted it off, and he offers to remove it, but I don't want to cause problems. And this is after we go in to use the bathrooms, stop to chat with the beautiful lesbian server, and her co-worker from Bosnia, "Wait, let me guess where you're from, Austria?", says I. "Bosnia", and her co-worker is saying, "Croatia", and she is saying, "NO!!! NOT Croatia!! Bosnia!!", and we want to know them, both Sandy and I are transfixed. After peeing, our chosen table is gone, hence the one crammed against the plastic. But we're good, although he can't make any decisions, I assume the masculine role, I order the wine, white though he likes red, but it's dry, it's a Pinot Grigio, my favorite, and we get a whole bottle, that's fine with him, and we talk and talk and talk, and finally order Baba Ganouj, and I've never had it, but I know it, and it's good, too mushy for me, but good, and this is my favorite place, I love this place, and it's hip and trendy too, but it's better than that, and we order specials finally, and he doesn't know lamb is baby sheep, and how in the hell can he NOT know? I'm accusing him of being altered by too much LSD use in the '70s, but he insists it doesn't destroy brain cells. I say I know it does, from my own personal experience. I know I'm altered, but he says it's attention deficit on his part. Still, we talk and talk and talk, about everything really, and talking is good. But he shows no interest, no lingering eye contact, no sign there's something in me he digs. And I am trying to muster something for him, but it's not there. After, there's a DJ, I see him spinning on my way back from the bathroom, and since when does this Mediterranean Cafe have a DJ? But the music is percussive, it's World, it's wonderful, and how can I forget Sandy is a major Deadhead, and he was the type to dance in the halls during shows, tripping, and spinning, blissed? How did I forget that? He is up for dancing at my favorite club, and this used to be the perfect first date for me, this cafe, or its former incarnation a couple miles from here, then dancing at the underground club, but now, my mood swings a bit, I picture us, I see us there, and I'm not sure. We need to refrigerate leftovers, because I'm too responsible, too aware of bacteria not to, and we head back to his house, put them away, the leftovers, and suddenly I'm thinking of a fog bank of cigarette smoke, and I tell him, and we both say forget it, forget dancing at that club. I feel bad, but maybe I don't, did I ruin something? We grab one of two dogs and go for a really long walk in what must be the quietest intown neighborhood. Silence. One car in perhaps an hour. Nothing. Beautiful modest houses, pitched rooves, slanted, pointed, like some Northern town, not the South. Renovated homes everywhere, great attention to detail, not one for sale. A bedroom community. And not one bark, or cat's meow, just us, just the dog we take, and he wanders, we call him back every so often. He shows me where Skipper lives, not far, and I can see inside (I dream later that he is giving me his own tour, Skipper, and he has a roommate), the TV is on, and Sandy tells me, reluctantly, of Skipper's drinking problem, and I say yes, I could see that on the bus, after the rally when he wanted to drink, I am sensitive to alcoholics too, yes, I won't let him drive if he and I go out. I tell him all about Skipper asking me out first, about Skipper's emails, about what I wrote in return, how "it would appear I may be dating someone", but that was you, Sandy, that's what I meant, but didn't say to Skipper. And Sandy says how glad he's not a woman, how he's fine with rejection (oh, really?), but he would hate to have to reject. We sit in his driveway, at the street, and it's a long driveway going up a hill, so this is fine, and we talk and talk and talk some more. Nothing. Just talk. But he wants to come watch TV with me on a week night, and I don't know why. I really don't. And I say okay, "But you cannot talk during 'Survivor', really". 1:30 in the morning I was driving home, 2:00 I was home, and I washed and brushed and took vitamins and got in bed with the TV tuned to a movie I now forget, though there was a cheesy horrible Sci-Fi flick on AMC that I wanted to watch, but without it being the subject of ridicule on "Mystery Science Theatre 3000", it was just so much garbage, bad acting, horrible special effects I couldn't even watch. What was it called???? "Project Taurus"? Something with "Project" and "Taurus" in the title, but there was another word in between. That's it. Sleeping from 3:00 or later until 2:00, it's all approximate, and I could've been watching "Harold and Maude" because that was on too, or was it the night before?, and I asked Sandy if he'd seen it, yes, he had, because I love when Maude tells Harold that everything is here today and gone tomorrow, and with that in mind she collects a lot of things! I told Sandy my philosophy about things, that they are all just here, that I don't really want more, I try to live free of desire, but I enjoy my things while they're here. I am as eccentric as Maude. And I might like a Harold. But I didn't tell him that. How do I feel? Slightly disappointed. Not so much like I wasted my time, but that I may have to do some rejecting not far down this line. And that I dread. Sandy gave me a hug when he saw me, another before I left, but that's the extent of it, and that's fine, that's how it should be. But now I'm tired, I'm going to go back to my "Guiding Light" marathon, and in my mind I'm planning what to clean and in what order. I'm visualizing, as I have done so many times before, doing just the brown wood bookcases first, taking out all those paperbacks, retrieving the big ones which fell behind the one case, finally, then I can do the bathroom, it won't take long, and the kitchen, once I start I'll enjoy it, it will be so satisfying, and he can come over, if he wants, and he seems to, sure, fine, just don't talk during "Survivor". You can talk during commercials, of course. Cost of the War in Iraq
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