a uniform hieroglyphic

One of my favorite columnists – nay, human beings, and imaginary boyfriend – Nick Kristof wrote one of his typically superlative Op-Ed pieces is the New York Times today about the urgent need for gun control in the aftermath of the tragic school shooting in Newton, Connecticut. An excerpt:

"American schoolchildren are protected by building codes that govern stairways and windows. School buses must meet safety standards, and the bus drivers have to pass tests. Cafeteria food is regulated for safety. The only things we seem lax about are the things most likely to kill."

Please read the entire column – Do we have the courage to stop this?

…

thursday night one of my better Existentialism students, Malcolm, took me out to dinner with his wife Madge to the Pinnacle Club, perhaps the finest restaurant in the city. i almost NEVER get to sup at such a place that qualifies as true fine dining. it was in a high rise and offered a spectacular view of the city and the Savannah river.

Malcolm is a retired doctor of internal medicine – a very distinguished as it turns out – and in his retirement he’s taken to auditing courses at the college at which i teach (or perform my version of such). he loved my course, was impressed with me, and treated me to the finest meal i’ve had in, well, ever. he even picked me up and dropped me off back home! such courtesy!

…

wednesday after meeting Burney at the Metro i texted her "it was so nice meeting you! good luck on your final on Thusday!"

i actually misspelled Thursday. one neighborhood in my psyche knows that it’s less than a big deal, but the ghetto in my lizard brain tortures me for it. these are the minor stupidities you cannot take back.

she didn’t text back, which caused me some minor distress. what followed two days later Friday was a coincidence.

i’d gone back to the Metro with the intention of grading papers and drinking a gallon of coffee, after which i would call her again and suggest we get a drink and una tapa or dos at a cozy local joint known by natives as Bee’s Knees.

instead – wonder of wonders! – i found her at the Metro when I arrived a little before 3pm. she was there drinking a PBR with her platonic friend JP, who it turns out is a math major and intimidatingly intelligent. as it happens, it turned out her phone had been acting up and not receiving texts. she discovered this when the dam finally broke and she received 3 days worth of texts, thirty-something, in rapid succession. funny stuff.

i quickly moved from quaffing coffee to a Brooklyn IPA and we started a game of pool once the group before us surrendered the table. we had a lot of fun.

she left a little early to attend to a pal of hers who was suffering a minor crisis that was explained to me but whose byzantine level of detail was incommensurable with my diminutive span of attention. oh well.

before she left i reiterated to her that i like her very much, and would like for us to go out together, try to have fun, and get to know one another a little better. her reaction was lukewarm, but with stride i took it.

when i see her again i’m going to tell her that, if she doesn’t see us seriously dating in the future, i’d been in her position (quite recently in fact) and would have no hard feelings whatsoever. my tactic here is to preempt any need for her to initiate what often tends to be an uncomfortable expression of feeling.

i’m going to say that i like her, think she’s smart and pretty, but that if she doesn’t see me the same way i understand and sincerely hope that we can continue to be friends without any resentment.

…

after Burney left, i decided to continue with my evening. meandering down Broad Street, i noticed a trio of youngish girls skipping merrily down the sidewalk. the one in the center was wearing a tiara and a flashing pendant around her neck. i asked them about it and discovered that it was the princess’s 21st birthday.

in what would usually be the antithesis of Zeno’s normal behavior, i was amiable and talkative and asked if i could tag along with them. they were heading further downtown to a place called the Loft. i bought her a Lemondrop. and rather than ignore me, the girls seemed very interested in getting to know me. on top of that, each of them was beautiful. they were all 6-8 years younger than me, to which i must confess a slight feeling of disreputability, feeling kind of like a… what’s the word for it? let’s just say ‘not exactly a respectable man’ [i only remember one of there names, Amber. the princess’s name began with an A too, but that’s the limit of my recollection.]

we didn’t stay at the Loft for long, heading back uptown to the Soul Bar, which as per usual on a Friday night, was packed in such a way as to make movement nigh impossible.

*i read something a while ago about the physics of human crowds. a sparse crowd behave like a gas, with individuals moving freely, i a random and disordered fashion, to and fro. slightly more dense crowd behave like a liquid, with what might be called jet streams or avenues through which people pass in more or less stable lines of traffic. in the densest crowds (like the Soul Bar on a Friday night), large groups act more like solids – or densely packed hard particles – and internal movement is difficult if not impeded entirely. i find cool stuff like this on ScienceDaily, a site collecting all sorts of interesting reading material open to experts and laypersons alike.

at the Soul Bar i stayed with them for a little bit, even dancing together on an elevated stage for a length of time. there was never a point where they left me or began to ignore me to talk to some other guys. these girls were beautiful, gracious, and genuinely kind and interested in me. where we these kinds of girls when i was an undergraduate?

i eventually lost track of them through no fault of theirs or my own, but then ran into another Existentialism student of mine, Emily. she was sitting alone in a booth for some odd reason (because she’s cute too), and i sat with her and we talked for a bit not as student and teacher but as a boy and a girl in the process of gradually inebriating ourselves. it was approaching 1pm and i decided it was time to go before i got any drunker. i didn’t ask for a date or her number or anything, but i was a little intoxicated and before i left i told her i enjoyed having her in my class and that i thought she was pretty and that i thought she had beautiful hair.

i don’t normally notice girls’ hair, and Emily almost always wears it up in a bun, but on the rare occasions i’ve seen it down i was struck by how long, full, shiny, with a slight wave to it and the color of autumn wheat at sunset. i wanted to kiss her deeply on the cheek before i left but the better angels of my nature wagged their angelic fingers at me and said ‘bad idea, asshole."

so i left, but before making out the door i realized i lost my iPhone. i looked all over for it, didn’t find it, and panicked a little. i called itand it’s turned off. i’m waiting for the Soul Bar to open tonight so i can ask them if someone turned it in. if not, i’m fucked and will have to get another one, FMLTH.

dialectically yours,

z