bittersweet everything
Tonight I find myself home alone. I love my house. I've had a pretty incredible day and I'm here, for the first time ever, writing this from the comfort of my lovely little home, having just had wireless internet installed today. Yay for technology!! A sweet little hippie-boy who contracts for the mega-cable company came over and hooked it all up, and now I can sit at my desk (or my low-slung chair or my bed, or the toilet for that matter) and check my email, post a blog-note, surf Craigslist for the loveseat I need... anything. The known universe is at my fingertips.
But what's missing? SK.
I miss SK tonight.
We were going to meet up for drinks after her class which ended tonight at 9:30. But it was decided early in the day, since I'm not feeling so great today, to cancel. I kept my plans with Dreadlock, though, and we went driving all over northeast looking for a place to sit down and have a drink. Everything was completely crowded and obnoxious. We finally ended up at the White Eagle off Mississippi in that weird industrial-cum-yuppieville hangout area. I just wanted some tater tots and, after three other bars, it was the only place with *seating* -- this town is getting to be impossible on the weekends.
We sat there and talked a bunch of useless smack about nothing and I drank a very smooth oatmeal stout which was the nitro selection (I'll have to post a whole separate thing about "nitro" beer -- it's good stuff and is always on tap at the McMennamin's joints -- for those of you not in Portland... well... I don't know what to tell you. You're missing out...) So we dredged up as much work gossip as we could and then we both started losing steam.
Near the end, my phone rang and it was SK. I hate cell phones and the kind of access they bring to people in all sorts of situations, and if it hadn't been SK, I never would've answered while sitting at a table with a friend in a bar... but I'm just deeply, deeply smitten or something much bigger than that and... well... what the fuck am I supposed to do? It was SK and I answered the phone.
But it was awful. It was loud at the bar, I couldn't hear her, she couldn't hear me. We were missing each other, missing in every way. I asked if I could call her back in half an hour and she seemed certain she would be sleeping by then. I felt this awful sort of sliding feeling, like some bit of earth was sliding out from under my feet, like when you stand in the sand at the ocean and the tide comes in over your ankles then starts sweeping back out, pulling the sand, grain by grain, right out from under your little feet and you sink.
That's how I felt, sinking. Dreadlock and I were already waiting for the check. SK and I got off the phone and I rushed Dreadlock to her house, rushed me to mine, holding my phone through the pocket of my jacket, sort of chanting under my breath "pleasecallpleasecallpleasecall" but sort of somewhere knowing she wouldn't call. Knowing it was off-putting to catch me in a loud bar, sort of hollering into the phone, unable to hear, unable to speak.
What's happening? All these signals sometimes, we're sometimes just missing each other. It's so confusing. Everything takes on a feeling, a meaning, much larger than life. Is this one of the red-flags we'll note with a bitter sort of head-shaking wonder later, much later, retreating to separate corners to recover from wounds we've caused each other? I certainly hope not. We manage pretty well with our little scorpionic idiosyncracies and, truth be told, as terrified as I am, I just think she's perfect.
Perfectly not calling back tonight. It's well past any reasonable window of opportunity. So I'll just go draw a bath (keeping the phone nearby, just in case) and I'll lay there enveloped in hot water and patchouli soap, just daydreaming about her, sleeping soundly across the river, like a fairytale.
But what's missing? SK.
I miss SK tonight.
We were going to meet up for drinks after her class which ended tonight at 9:30. But it was decided early in the day, since I'm not feeling so great today, to cancel. I kept my plans with Dreadlock, though, and we went driving all over northeast looking for a place to sit down and have a drink. Everything was completely crowded and obnoxious. We finally ended up at the White Eagle off Mississippi in that weird industrial-cum-yuppieville hangout area. I just wanted some tater tots and, after three other bars, it was the only place with *seating* -- this town is getting to be impossible on the weekends.
We sat there and talked a bunch of useless smack about nothing and I drank a very smooth oatmeal stout which was the nitro selection (I'll have to post a whole separate thing about "nitro" beer -- it's good stuff and is always on tap at the McMennamin's joints -- for those of you not in Portland... well... I don't know what to tell you. You're missing out...) So we dredged up as much work gossip as we could and then we both started losing steam.
Near the end, my phone rang and it was SK. I hate cell phones and the kind of access they bring to people in all sorts of situations, and if it hadn't been SK, I never would've answered while sitting at a table with a friend in a bar... but I'm just deeply, deeply smitten or something much bigger than that and... well... what the fuck am I supposed to do? It was SK and I answered the phone.
But it was awful. It was loud at the bar, I couldn't hear her, she couldn't hear me. We were missing each other, missing in every way. I asked if I could call her back in half an hour and she seemed certain she would be sleeping by then. I felt this awful sort of sliding feeling, like some bit of earth was sliding out from under my feet, like when you stand in the sand at the ocean and the tide comes in over your ankles then starts sweeping back out, pulling the sand, grain by grain, right out from under your little feet and you sink.
That's how I felt, sinking. Dreadlock and I were already waiting for the check. SK and I got off the phone and I rushed Dreadlock to her house, rushed me to mine, holding my phone through the pocket of my jacket, sort of chanting under my breath "pleasecallpleasecallpleasecall" but sort of somewhere knowing she wouldn't call. Knowing it was off-putting to catch me in a loud bar, sort of hollering into the phone, unable to hear, unable to speak.
What's happening? All these signals sometimes, we're sometimes just missing each other. It's so confusing. Everything takes on a feeling, a meaning, much larger than life. Is this one of the red-flags we'll note with a bitter sort of head-shaking wonder later, much later, retreating to separate corners to recover from wounds we've caused each other? I certainly hope not. We manage pretty well with our little scorpionic idiosyncracies and, truth be told, as terrified as I am, I just think she's perfect.
Perfectly not calling back tonight. It's well past any reasonable window of opportunity. So I'll just go draw a bath (keeping the phone nearby, just in case) and I'll lay there enveloped in hot water and patchouli soap, just daydreaming about her, sleeping soundly across the river, like a fairytale.
posted by reasonably prudent poet at 9:40 PM
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