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Feb. 24th, 2007 06:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
walbournThis trip to Austin was unusual in many ways. Normally I've got plenty to do visiting friends, but this time through the combination of having been there last month, people's busy schedules, being downtown sans car, and the natural drifting away of once close relationships thanks to five plus years away, I found myself with lots of unscheduled time. In years past, my old ghosts of shattered and squandered love that today take the form of Kim's hazy image would have left me scared out of my mind of so much unstructured time in such familiar and haunted territory. This time, there were other distractions.
In my decade of living in Austin, I think I never spent more than 30 minutes in the famous Sixth Street party district, and that was for some festival rather than clubbing. As I was downtown with co-workers, we ended up going down there several nights in a row. The place is practically throbbing with youthful exuberance fueled by cheap alcohol--often in the form of some really nasty concoction blending jet fuel with cough syrup by the brand name Jaeger Mister--and live music, heterosexual parading behaviors, and territorial displays of testosterone-fueled violence. Being somewhat of an un-fan of country and rock-a-billy and lacking in a desire for drink, the place never held much charm for me. Still, having become a world-weary traveler I've learned to appreciate the simple pleasures of people-watching in the nightlife scene of various cities so I embraced the concept more willingly than in the past.
Our native guide was a friend of a co-worker, both of whom lived on Sixth Street for many years. As such, we were on a first-name basis with every bartender and bouncer on the strip. We quickly moved up to a roof-top bar to enjoy the warm fresh air of Texas burgeoning spring nights, mostly to watch the beautiful people doing the circuit of the dozens of tightly-packed bars, restaurants, and music venues. Almost immediately upon approaching the upstairs bar, a very drunk blonde sitting by a taller brunette sporting horn-rimmed glasses that evoked a combination of "sexy librarian" chic and Lisa Loeb folkish charm asked if we were with the band.
Now I'm not the kind of guy who scams on anyone, much less young coeds who are obviously well into their umpteenth drink quite possibly before their 21st birthday. The blonde, Ally as I learned a few moments later, was a bartender on Sixth and I wouldn't be at all surprised she was not in fact of legal drinking age when she started her drinking career. Pretty party girls are not carded the way the average riff-raff are, which is actually a fairly aggressive standard on Sixth for fear of ATF under-cover investigators. None-the-less, my first thought in part of my primate brain that could have been a highly successful "player" had I not developed such a strong sense of empathy was, "When a girl asks if you are with the band, you say 'YES!'"
My co-worker responded by saying, "No," which raised him in my estimation as I haven't known him for very long. Ally follows-up by saying directly to me, "You look familiar?" Which we play off as another round of drinks is ordered. Later in conversation with her running buddy and best-friend, Lara,--the aforementioned beauty in glasses--I learn that Ally's usual response to intoxication is to find everyone familiar so I shouldn't feel special.
While I have absolutely no agenda or desire to manipulate drunken coeds for my own ends, I figured it was a great opportunity to practice my chit-chat with strangers and a much better way to pass the time than mere people-watching. I'm really an introvert pretending to be an extrovert, as evidenced by eight years of more-or-less-single status. I've been attending quarterly happy-hours in Seattle to try to meet more people, and was not entirely out of practice. By this point, Ally is flanked by my co-workers but is holding her own, and I occasional query her friend Lara if she should do anything to ensure her more inebriated drinking wingman doesn't get carried away by vultures. She gives a quick amused response that indicates to me Lara is used to Ally being the center of attention and Ally probably wouldn't have it any other way.
Naturally given the fact that 99% of Sixth Street's regulars are college-age habitual drinkers, they are both students at University of Texas. I ask the requisite question about her area of study, trying with all my might to avoid using the cheesy come-on line of "What's your major?". I steel myself for the kind of answers I usually get inquiring of single women at the happy-hours expecting something along the lines of advertising, sales or business. Perhaps noble purists to others, but I admit having a strong prejudice against the classic "marketing types". Instead she responds "Biochemistry, pre-med". Her friend Ally is apparently studying Microchemistry.
Yeah for progress. In my own age group, it is difficult to find single conventionally beautiful women who not only have interest and aptitude for science, but stick with it through the long arduous process of training at a university being constantly barraged with sexist academic culture. The only thing more attractive to me than the 'sexy librarian' look is the 'sexy scientist girl in glasses' archetype. So I'm happy to be sitting there like a night-blind moth near a bright source of photons.
None-the-less, I'm still a geek with a women's culture fixation and while I'm pretty good at holding my own in conversation with strangers, providing humorous come-backs and banter, and discussing the sciences at a high-level, I'm not by nature a 'player'. I never try the uncomfortable and degrading attempt at pushing my business card her way, and around midnight she decides its time to take her friend Ally home. There is some hubbub between them over what I presume to be the emo-looking bar back that Ally apparently has a crush on, and something about Lara encouraging her to talk to him. A piece of paper is produced, a pen, and then they stand up to leave a few moments later. Earlier conversation has strayed perhaps too close to an emotional sore area for Lara: the classic sexist father who dotes on his two boys and spares no amount of disapproval for his daughter choosing an 'unconventional' career over presumably getting a husband and learning to bake, so I make sure to genuinely wish her luck in med-school as I say my goodbye.
She returns the usual parting, and then pushes a folded up note into my hand and leaves. In that moment I realize I've just been given what barflies consider treasure: a pretty young coed's phone number.
Now, I've not seen the girl again, nor do I realistically expect to. The phone number has not translated into some story that would be published in magazines along with other articles that all start "I never believe the stories I read in your magazine, but...". It has become perhaps a long-distance IM penpal after an exchange of a few dozen SMS text messages, and honestly that's in my book a very positive outcome. Still, one cannot underestimate the uplifting power of such a gesture to a male's ego.
There's many lessons in that moment I've come to take from it all with a few days reflection. First, getting the number of a girl who was in highschool when I left Austin drives home that I did in fact lose five years of my life to a black-hole of depression, too eagerly sacrificed up to feed the sorrow Kim's many betrayals and departures planted in my heart. I should have spent those five years living instead, and clearly when I go out in Austin I can find scientific single women--I met Andrea at a The Dog & Duck on a similar balmy night, Angela I met a decade earlier. Unfortunately, finding them in Seattle is much more challenging with the prevailing culture of closed tribes. Second, the element that is missing from my inner thoughts is the feeling that romance is just around the corner. The surety of it's loss is what drove me to despair in the first place, and yet even though there is no practical result of that chance encounter one could at all considered an affair or burgeoning romance, the moment did spark that sense of hope. I had a similar spark twice last year, and it reminds me yet again that I'm still alive and the power of it takes me by surprise every time it happens.
My once-every-7-to-10-days relationship with Jane has certainly provided and continues to provide sustaining affection and comfort over the past four years in a part of the country where people hibernate with close friends 9 months out of the year, but the reality of the situation keeps me at least from falling into the warm embrace of romantic love. I crave the feeling of being in love, but I don't trust myself. Part of me probably feels I don't deserve it, but that part has long since faded from my thoughts. The practical realities of co-mingled lives, scheduling, quirks of living reinforced by years of living alone without compromise, and the memories of past failures get in the way. I'm glad Jane is part of my life, but I'm also glad she has Rachael, Sean, and the kids to be the foundation of her life because for most of the past decade I've been a minefield of emotional turmoil hidden under the mask of a survivor. I'm also grateful that Rachael and Sean are supportive of our relatoinship as it has been. Still, the stirrings in my heart at those moments of interest from a newly-met woman remind me that the glories of love are not totally forgotten and out of reach, even if it remains an elusive stranger somewhere out there.
I found it amusing that Lara really digs Grey's Anatomy, which makes Seattle look a lot more glamorous than it actually is. The fact that the show is being re-run on Lifetime just goes to show that it belongs firmly in the category of a 'chick show', which is no doubt why I like it personally. In a conversation with Kirby and Meg I quipped that I really did not want to end up being the poor Dr. George who just had sex with Dr. Meredith the intern when she starts sobbing. Kirby and I realized about the same time that my goal should simply be not to be the person sobbing in this particular little scenario, which was in fact me a few years back. Sad, but true.
In more conventional news, I did manage much Tex-Mex consumption to the point that I'm actually a bit burned out on Tex-Mex. I also spent about three hours walking the UT campus and Shoal Creek Thursday afternoon to enjoy the mild weather. Texas has a few weeks between cold and too damn hot, and my trip happened to be at just the right time.
In my decade of living in Austin, I think I never spent more than 30 minutes in the famous Sixth Street party district, and that was for some festival rather than clubbing. As I was downtown with co-workers, we ended up going down there several nights in a row. The place is practically throbbing with youthful exuberance fueled by cheap alcohol--often in the form of some really nasty concoction blending jet fuel with cough syrup by the brand name Jaeger Mister--and live music, heterosexual parading behaviors, and territorial displays of testosterone-fueled violence. Being somewhat of an un-fan of country and rock-a-billy and lacking in a desire for drink, the place never held much charm for me. Still, having become a world-weary traveler I've learned to appreciate the simple pleasures of people-watching in the nightlife scene of various cities so I embraced the concept more willingly than in the past.
Our native guide was a friend of a co-worker, both of whom lived on Sixth Street for many years. As such, we were on a first-name basis with every bartender and bouncer on the strip. We quickly moved up to a roof-top bar to enjoy the warm fresh air of Texas burgeoning spring nights, mostly to watch the beautiful people doing the circuit of the dozens of tightly-packed bars, restaurants, and music venues. Almost immediately upon approaching the upstairs bar, a very drunk blonde sitting by a taller brunette sporting horn-rimmed glasses that evoked a combination of "sexy librarian" chic and Lisa Loeb folkish charm asked if we were with the band.
Now I'm not the kind of guy who scams on anyone, much less young coeds who are obviously well into their umpteenth drink quite possibly before their 21st birthday. The blonde, Ally as I learned a few moments later, was a bartender on Sixth and I wouldn't be at all surprised she was not in fact of legal drinking age when she started her drinking career. Pretty party girls are not carded the way the average riff-raff are, which is actually a fairly aggressive standard on Sixth for fear of ATF under-cover investigators. None-the-less, my first thought in part of my primate brain that could have been a highly successful "player" had I not developed such a strong sense of empathy was, "When a girl asks if you are with the band, you say 'YES!'"
My co-worker responded by saying, "No," which raised him in my estimation as I haven't known him for very long. Ally follows-up by saying directly to me, "You look familiar?" Which we play off as another round of drinks is ordered. Later in conversation with her running buddy and best-friend, Lara,--the aforementioned beauty in glasses--I learn that Ally's usual response to intoxication is to find everyone familiar so I shouldn't feel special.
While I have absolutely no agenda or desire to manipulate drunken coeds for my own ends, I figured it was a great opportunity to practice my chit-chat with strangers and a much better way to pass the time than mere people-watching. I'm really an introvert pretending to be an extrovert, as evidenced by eight years of more-or-less-single status. I've been attending quarterly happy-hours in Seattle to try to meet more people, and was not entirely out of practice. By this point, Ally is flanked by my co-workers but is holding her own, and I occasional query her friend Lara if she should do anything to ensure her more inebriated drinking wingman doesn't get carried away by vultures. She gives a quick amused response that indicates to me Lara is used to Ally being the center of attention and Ally probably wouldn't have it any other way.
Naturally given the fact that 99% of Sixth Street's regulars are college-age habitual drinkers, they are both students at University of Texas. I ask the requisite question about her area of study, trying with all my might to avoid using the cheesy come-on line of "What's your major?". I steel myself for the kind of answers I usually get inquiring of single women at the happy-hours expecting something along the lines of advertising, sales or business. Perhaps noble purists to others, but I admit having a strong prejudice against the classic "marketing types". Instead she responds "Biochemistry, pre-med". Her friend Ally is apparently studying Microchemistry.
Yeah for progress. In my own age group, it is difficult to find single conventionally beautiful women who not only have interest and aptitude for science, but stick with it through the long arduous process of training at a university being constantly barraged with sexist academic culture. The only thing more attractive to me than the 'sexy librarian' look is the 'sexy scientist girl in glasses' archetype. So I'm happy to be sitting there like a night-blind moth near a bright source of photons.
None-the-less, I'm still a geek with a women's culture fixation and while I'm pretty good at holding my own in conversation with strangers, providing humorous come-backs and banter, and discussing the sciences at a high-level, I'm not by nature a 'player'. I never try the uncomfortable and degrading attempt at pushing my business card her way, and around midnight she decides its time to take her friend Ally home. There is some hubbub between them over what I presume to be the emo-looking bar back that Ally apparently has a crush on, and something about Lara encouraging her to talk to him. A piece of paper is produced, a pen, and then they stand up to leave a few moments later. Earlier conversation has strayed perhaps too close to an emotional sore area for Lara: the classic sexist father who dotes on his two boys and spares no amount of disapproval for his daughter choosing an 'unconventional' career over presumably getting a husband and learning to bake, so I make sure to genuinely wish her luck in med-school as I say my goodbye.
She returns the usual parting, and then pushes a folded up note into my hand and leaves. In that moment I realize I've just been given what barflies consider treasure: a pretty young coed's phone number.
Now, I've not seen the girl again, nor do I realistically expect to. The phone number has not translated into some story that would be published in magazines along with other articles that all start "I never believe the stories I read in your magazine, but...". It has become perhaps a long-distance IM penpal after an exchange of a few dozen SMS text messages, and honestly that's in my book a very positive outcome. Still, one cannot underestimate the uplifting power of such a gesture to a male's ego.
There's many lessons in that moment I've come to take from it all with a few days reflection. First, getting the number of a girl who was in highschool when I left Austin drives home that I did in fact lose five years of my life to a black-hole of depression, too eagerly sacrificed up to feed the sorrow Kim's many betrayals and departures planted in my heart. I should have spent those five years living instead, and clearly when I go out in Austin I can find scientific single women--I met Andrea at a The Dog & Duck on a similar balmy night, Angela I met a decade earlier. Unfortunately, finding them in Seattle is much more challenging with the prevailing culture of closed tribes. Second, the element that is missing from my inner thoughts is the feeling that romance is just around the corner. The surety of it's loss is what drove me to despair in the first place, and yet even though there is no practical result of that chance encounter one could at all considered an affair or burgeoning romance, the moment did spark that sense of hope. I had a similar spark twice last year, and it reminds me yet again that I'm still alive and the power of it takes me by surprise every time it happens.
My once-every-7-to-10-days relationship with Jane has certainly provided and continues to provide sustaining affection and comfort over the past four years in a part of the country where people hibernate with close friends 9 months out of the year, but the reality of the situation keeps me at least from falling into the warm embrace of romantic love. I crave the feeling of being in love, but I don't trust myself. Part of me probably feels I don't deserve it, but that part has long since faded from my thoughts. The practical realities of co-mingled lives, scheduling, quirks of living reinforced by years of living alone without compromise, and the memories of past failures get in the way. I'm glad Jane is part of my life, but I'm also glad she has Rachael, Sean, and the kids to be the foundation of her life because for most of the past decade I've been a minefield of emotional turmoil hidden under the mask of a survivor. I'm also grateful that Rachael and Sean are supportive of our relatoinship as it has been. Still, the stirrings in my heart at those moments of interest from a newly-met woman remind me that the glories of love are not totally forgotten and out of reach, even if it remains an elusive stranger somewhere out there.
I found it amusing that Lara really digs Grey's Anatomy, which makes Seattle look a lot more glamorous than it actually is. The fact that the show is being re-run on Lifetime just goes to show that it belongs firmly in the category of a 'chick show', which is no doubt why I like it personally. In a conversation with Kirby and Meg I quipped that I really did not want to end up being the poor Dr. George who just had sex with Dr. Meredith the intern when she starts sobbing. Kirby and I realized about the same time that my goal should simply be not to be the person sobbing in this particular little scenario, which was in fact me a few years back. Sad, but true.
In more conventional news, I did manage much Tex-Mex consumption to the point that I'm actually a bit burned out on Tex-Mex. I also spent about three hours walking the UT campus and Shoal Creek Thursday afternoon to enjoy the mild weather. Texas has a few weeks between cold and too damn hot, and my trip happened to be at just the right time.
