Weekend to Remember

This is another "update" entry.  It was an interesting weekend to say the least and I just wanted to remember a few things that seemed to stick in my mind.  I must admit that I think I want to remember most of the weeked for bragging rights about funny stories.

Leading up to this past weekend I had been doing the shameful myspace message sending that leads into meeting someone face to face.  In this case it finally did and I met this girl at Starbucks on Thursday night.  This is the first woman I’ve had a date with that has been within four years of my age, my female friends applaude this event…my guy friends seem to mourn the passing of an era.  She was bright, articulate, goal-driven, and a religious girl to boote.  We talked for over and hour and got on the topic of my younger sister’s wedding that would be taking place the saturday following.  She began to ask questions rapid fire all of the sudden and it got a little wierd.  It was at that point that we realized that we were cousins…we did the best we could to laugh off the situation and actually talked about the wedding and family for another half hour or so.  We joked about how the wedding invitation had been on her grandma’s fridge and she and her family had not been invited.  On the way home I texted her and told her that someday we would have a good laugh about all this.  To which she responded that she was already laughing anyway.  I felt better.

I rushed off from boardman area straight to canton to try and catch some friends who were running up to akron to have a good time.  They waited on me as I drove speedily trying to avoid both the memories from the situaiton in the recent past and speeding tickets.  We had a great time at this club in Akron and later in the evening I danced with a girl for about half an hour.  I told her that she could’nt leave until I got her phone number.  We started texting that night and I talked to her the next day.  I found out she was a recent graduate of a local high school and was out with her friends for a night before they all took off for college.  I clung to the the fact that she was at least 19 even though I still really didn’t feel super good about talking to a teenager on the phone, it just makes me nervous.  Around the same time I found this out, I had to tell my brother about my "date" because he knew I was going out and had seen the girl’s photo on my myspace page…better he have a good laugh than to realize he had a family gossip gold nugget when he put all the pieces together.

Ahh, the wedding.  I got to do some guitar for the opening ceremony that turned out really well.  But as we all know, everyone who’s still single looks forward to the reception.  I joked with my sister a few times that she had better have some single friends in attendence, I thought this would not be too hard considering she was a recent graduate that was more than active in a few groups as well as an athelete.  However, it didn’t turn up this way and I almost wished I had brought a date even thought that was really not too much an option anyway.  I hung out and had a good time talking with friends and relatives and taking there reassuance that there was nothing wrong with not being married yet…I never thought there was, but when people tell you in succession over and over: "hey there’s nothing wrong with that"  you get annoyed to the point of concern…if people could just remain silent in the right moments, I hope I don’t do that too.

Someone told me there was a beautiful girl in a red dress all the way across the floor.  I didn’t have my glasses but could manage to make out the contour of her shape from across the low light of the facility.  Sitting almost totally alone was a young blonde in a rose-colored dress.  She had her legs crossed underneath her elbows and her chin in her hands.  Even in the distance I could see that she had taken time to look amazing…straightened hair and soft skin tone of late summer shone of a light bronze and I knew I was staring…  I can’t explain attraction to the opposite sex and any attempt to put it into words makes it sounds cheezy and inauthentic but I know its real.  I don’t know why a woman’s legs can require so much attention….I just know that they have it.  Althetic legs that grew down into feminine ankles was all I could see in the poor light of the dance hall, the rest of her was there but seem to fade into the shadows while the most breathtaking parts were shimmering with soft light and whispering of how the sun had been their companion all summer.

Then, someone told me it was T.  T and I have history, awkward rederings in the past.  We pseudo-dated in a couple years ago while I was moving to my first real job and she was going away too college.  In the end, the gaps of time, distance, and age seem to errode away her feelings for me…and I was left with a longing for a beautiful girl who did not feel the same.  I had fallen hard no doubt because of transition.  As I understand people gravitate towards the familiar when they are forced into change.  My change was a hectic under-paying job over a hundred miles away in a community with no one my age (when they get out, they stay out).  She had been worried sick about going to school only to find that my promises of how wonderful it would trun out to be true.  I was right, as was I right when I assumed that she would vanish when she realized she had friends and boys a plenty in party-thick atmosphere.  And since I seemed to be a man on an island of 40+ inhabitants who indulged only in cheap beer and nascar, I clung to her memory for months in lue of the lack of friends or women my age.  I remember thinking it wasn’t too bad, but I think it was a serious speed bump in my life…I had my first real round with the reality of the word "alone," and her face was the last things I had seen before someone came into the ring swinging hard.

In fairness we had coffee a few weeks before that time.  In the same fairness, it had been our first meeting in over a year which had nothing to do with me.  I was going to go over and say hello when my myspace cousin date from a couple nights before plopped herself down in a seat across from me.  Since she had not been invited to the reception and we had agreed we were’nt going to tell our families about this little misshap, it would have been an understatement to say that I was surprised to see her there.  She told me she had heard about a job opening up in the area that I might want to check out.  She also told me that she crashed the recepetion and had indeed told my grandparents that we had unknowingly gone on a date.  It was at that point that I decided it was late enough to make my hastey exit from the reception regardless of the fact that I was in the bridal party.

I texted T and told her she was having coffee with me.  When she joked backed she asked if that was a question or a request.  I told her it was a demmand but that I did have a request as well, that she not change from what she was wearing as I had not got a chance to see her all dressed up.  She didn’t agree to the staying dresse

d up.  But she did hang out with me for an hour or so driving around drinking coffee and laughing.  I hate putting her on the spot but at the same time I know we still have a fraction of chemistry.  I asked if she was ever gona date me or want to date me.  The usual "I don’t know stuff," was returned and I stumbled over her words and tried to find something new in the same old material.  I told her that was fine with me, and told her I had turned over a new leaf and planned on dating more people anyway.  I simply told here that it had came to my attention that not being a nice guy gets you a lot further along than being a nice one.  She made some comment about how this was stupid, but the eyes tell no lies and she knew that we both knew I was unfortunately right.  She is leaving for school in less than a week and I joked that I would see her in about 6 months since that is how long she waits to surface to me when she goes back to school.  With a smile she told me I was "mean" and I told her she was "selfish" for not wearing her dress to see me.  She told me she’d talk to me sometime in the next week and I just smiled thinking about if I ever bring that up when we do talk in a few months she start with the I’m busy and class has been so crazy routine.  I just smiled as she looked so small and cute in my passenger seat.  I smiled too when she hopped out of the car into the darkness only to see her figure and blonde hair come back to life when she slipped into the light of the porch of her parents’  house and opened the red door.

I backed out of the drive and tried to think as best I could as to how to be not be a nice guy…it has to work as I’ve seen it done several times, besides, everybody’s doing it, I just have to figure out how to pull it off.