My Cheeks Were Red
Yesterday was another beautiful day in Seattle. As I have said - how typical - sweltering 100 degrees Saturday, overcast and frigid Sunday and a beautifully perfect sunny 80 degree Monday. So after work I headed to Green Lake. This time I was walked around the lake sans Discman mais avec mon frere and his live-in girlfriend. They have become the shoulders I lean on in this time of transition. I can talk to them about anything, although my brother pushes his fingers into his ears and goes LA LA LA loudly anytime I get remotely near talking about anything close to sex - understandable since I wouldn't want to hear him talk about it either. But it is nice to have a couple to confide in about anything. My other friends (read: my conservative Baptist pals from the South) were shocked and dismayed at the news of my impending divorce and even more amazed at my rapid leap into the arms of another man such that the nature of our friendships has been irreparably altered.
The friends X and I shared here in Seattle were all his friends and their wives from long before we met, so with the split he inherited the friends leaving me with a very small social circle consisting of family and Mr. Slick (boyfriend). Yes, the urge to inhale large doses of Ben and Jerry's does creep up on me on those evenings when X has Bubba and Mr. Slick and family are unavailable leaving me with a night to entertain myself by myself, but I am happy and have come to cherish my evenings alone - typically I spend hours playing the piano annoying my neighbors as I stumble through Moonlight Sonata or The Swan. Being self-taught leaves me far from Carnegie Hall-ready and I am sure a source of many an ear plug purchase, but it fulfills me. It was a life-long dream to own and play the piano, and there has been nothing better than realizing that dream.
But I digress....So we were walking around Green Lake in my typical counter-clockwise fashion and a couple of very attractive men went by on roller blades. I all of the sudden found myself wondering what it would be like to ask out or be asked out by one of them (it wasn't that I was interested just curious). I asked my co-walkers if they had ever tried to pick up a perfect stranger. Both admitted to the negative and inquired if I had either tried to pick up or had an attempted pick up by a stranger. I was about to say no but I remembered an occasion from a few years ago.
I said "Well, there was this one time that I was working at Crab Co (local restaurant) as a hostess and a very handsome man came in. He gave me his takeout order. When I returned with his food, he paid, leaving a sizeable tip - and his business car. He said 'I think you are just absolutely beautiful and I would love to take you out some time. Here is my card, give me a call sometime.' From his card, he was an investment banker and, by the looks of his suit and car, a very successful one too.
Big (my brother) said "Did you ever call him?"'
"No," I said, "he was just too short for me."
Coco (his girlfriend) said, "What's wrong with that?"
I said, "I just had and have a standard that a guy has to be taller. The guy is supposed to be taller. I need to be able to wear high heels and still be shorter and at 5' 10" that is a tall (no pun intended) order." And just as I uttered those words I noticed the man walking in front of us, close enough to hear all I was saying. He was short, around 5' 5". He looked back at me to see who was so unacceptable of the shorter man and perhaps to see how tall I was. He smiled at me and shook his head. Immediately I felt mortified.
He said, "geez, no wonder-I'll never find anybody."
I tried to apologize, but the foot was firmly stuffed in my mouth, so I dug my grave a little deeper by trying to illustrate how it would never work by bending my knees until I was shorter than he. I was almost completely kneeling down - it wasn't my finest moment and probably did nothing to make the poor guy feel any better. He was cute and young too, just short, and to make matters worse, Coco is shorter than he and Big is 6'5"(another short girl snapped up by a tall guy and a tall guy hogged by a short girl - disgusting to all of the short guys and tall girls who find such mismatches mortifying and unfair to the proper balance of the circle of life). I decided to speed up my walk a little bit and take my red cheeks with me and hope that the poor guy finds love - and soon.
The friends X and I shared here in Seattle were all his friends and their wives from long before we met, so with the split he inherited the friends leaving me with a very small social circle consisting of family and Mr. Slick (boyfriend). Yes, the urge to inhale large doses of Ben and Jerry's does creep up on me on those evenings when X has Bubba and Mr. Slick and family are unavailable leaving me with a night to entertain myself by myself, but I am happy and have come to cherish my evenings alone - typically I spend hours playing the piano annoying my neighbors as I stumble through Moonlight Sonata or The Swan. Being self-taught leaves me far from Carnegie Hall-ready and I am sure a source of many an ear plug purchase, but it fulfills me. It was a life-long dream to own and play the piano, and there has been nothing better than realizing that dream.
But I digress....So we were walking around Green Lake in my typical counter-clockwise fashion and a couple of very attractive men went by on roller blades. I all of the sudden found myself wondering what it would be like to ask out or be asked out by one of them (it wasn't that I was interested just curious). I asked my co-walkers if they had ever tried to pick up a perfect stranger. Both admitted to the negative and inquired if I had either tried to pick up or had an attempted pick up by a stranger. I was about to say no but I remembered an occasion from a few years ago.
I said "Well, there was this one time that I was working at Crab Co (local restaurant) as a hostess and a very handsome man came in. He gave me his takeout order. When I returned with his food, he paid, leaving a sizeable tip - and his business car. He said 'I think you are just absolutely beautiful and I would love to take you out some time. Here is my card, give me a call sometime.' From his card, he was an investment banker and, by the looks of his suit and car, a very successful one too.
Big (my brother) said "Did you ever call him?"'
"No," I said, "he was just too short for me."
Coco (his girlfriend) said, "What's wrong with that?"
I said, "I just had and have a standard that a guy has to be taller. The guy is supposed to be taller. I need to be able to wear high heels and still be shorter and at 5' 10" that is a tall (no pun intended) order." And just as I uttered those words I noticed the man walking in front of us, close enough to hear all I was saying. He was short, around 5' 5". He looked back at me to see who was so unacceptable of the shorter man and perhaps to see how tall I was. He smiled at me and shook his head. Immediately I felt mortified.
He said, "geez, no wonder-I'll never find anybody."
I tried to apologize, but the foot was firmly stuffed in my mouth, so I dug my grave a little deeper by trying to illustrate how it would never work by bending my knees until I was shorter than he. I was almost completely kneeling down - it wasn't my finest moment and probably did nothing to make the poor guy feel any better. He was cute and young too, just short, and to make matters worse, Coco is shorter than he and Big is 6'5"(another short girl snapped up by a tall guy and a tall guy hogged by a short girl - disgusting to all of the short guys and tall girls who find such mismatches mortifying and unfair to the proper balance of the circle of life). I decided to speed up my walk a little bit and take my red cheeks with me and hope that the poor guy finds love - and soon.
posted by The Narcissist at 11:11 AM
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