Another 6am Epiphany

Naturally, my epiphanies only come at 6 in the morning. Hours after trying and failing, yet again, to actually fall asleep. My mind, it doesn't tend to shut itself off, even after my body has begged and pleaded for sleep. Not that this is surprising, in and of itself, as the sun rises over the river that my window looks out upon, but I digress.

I was thinking about calling a woman I met up with for drinks last week. Did I say the right things to her? Did I try too hard? Did I try enough? Did we really mean it when we said that we had a really nice time and we should do it again? Sometimes I can't see the subtext forest through the pleasantries. I am really good at over-analyzing everything, though. Sometimes I wonder if I have even lived twenty-five percent of what my life should have been, or if I have squandered way too many precious moments thinking about living. I'd like to think that I've gotten better at not doing that, but sometimes I'm not so sure.

Thinking about that led me to thinking about the bigger picture. Maybe these internet dates are doomed for failure in and of themselves, irrespective of whether the woman in question and I have chemistry, witty banter and maybe even similar lawn ornaments that we keep on top of our respective television sets. I think aforementioned failure is inherent in the design. I don't like picking out dates from a catalogue. I want to be surprised. I want to be smacked in the face with fate. Slapped upside the head.

And here I am, the clock now reading 7:37am, taking myself entirely too seriously and yet still watching Dawson's Creek. Still thinking about how the best romantic moments in my life have all taken me by surprise. They were few and far between, fleeting, but all completely unexpected. No pre-screening or auditions, like some lame casting call for the walk-on part of the love interest in the movie adaptation of my memoir. I'm not putting out a craigslist ad for this. For once (again) in my life, I am trying to bury my head in the sand and not look for love in all the wrong places. I don't want to look for love at all if it means I am never going to find it. Or is that why I obsessively keep looking? Just like that itch I will scratch until it is raw and bleeding, I keep picking at it obsessively, this scab on my heart. Also, I really want to use the word alacrity here. Don't ask me why. It's 8am and I haven't slept at all.

Why Don't You Walk Over A Bridge?

"I am a dork" he thought, as he trudged back across the bridge from whence he slunk, having at least told the hot girl that she was; going home alone even though he was suited up for the first time ever with a lack of reason. "I know that a taller, slimmer, less sweaty man already danced with you, but I had to tell you that you are extremely hot. Now I can leave. Goodnight."


i was on the prowl, ya know? I'm like a shark with no teeth. Of course, this was after that one (straight) guy started dancing with me. I had just gotten back from the bathroom upstairs, when I was approached. "Just keep dancing" he said, as I looked about uncomfortably, humoring him, because, let's face it, I could always use some excitement, plus, I have been through these things before. "How much are your friends paying you?" I asked, knowingly.

"Forty dollars."
"I want a cut." We danced, us two straight men, for a couple of minutes.

"It's because you were alone," he mentioned, as if I needed reminding. I had just come from a different club, where I had been hanging out with some friends of mine until it got superlame. I had come to this here bar for the hour of free PBR and the 50s & 60s dance party. Hence the suiting up. The guy, his friends stiffed him. No money. Real friends would have bet him ten dollars and never welched on it.

I saw him on his cellphone as I left the club. "Nothing? Really? What's the matter," I yelled as I started walking onto the bridge, "did I not look uncomfortable enough??" Not only did I not impress the attractive woman, but I couldn't even make money being the butt of a joke. It was like high school all over again.

Of course, as I was crossing the bridge, my best friend calls me from Portland, Maine, telling me about how she just made out with a really hot girl. Not bad for someone who's been single for like ten minutes. I told her "I bet I'm the best-dressed guy who has ever walked over this bridge at 4am listening to Frog Eyes on his iPod." I'm gonna end this there because a) I don't want to get anyone else in trouble and b) I have some "pleading the 5th" of my own to do.