Diary Friday

I will ring in the new year with a Diary Friday. For some reason, this story amuses me no end. It captures the feel of a time. My years in Chicago – when I was living with my best friend Mitchell (from college and beyond). My relationship with Mitchell is pretty much pictured perfectly here. He was always a Senior Adviser to me, in all areas of my life. Queer Eye for the Straight Girl. And the man Mitchell and I are discussing obsessively was relatively new to me at the time. We had gone out a couple times. And I liked him a LOT. And my response to the strength of my feelings was to put on my “aloof cloak” and barely speak to the man. Ha ha. Anyway – it all worked out in the end. I’m still friends with the man who I call ***** in the following entry.

Enjoy – and happy 2004.

Aug. 2 1993

***** just left about the most tongue-tied message on my machine. He could barely form a sentence. Mitchell said, “He sounded borderline retarded.” It was so charming in a way. Mitchell also said, “He SO didn’t play it cool.” ***** is not a cool person. He has no protection, no walls – he was awkward with a vengeance right into my machine. Too funny. Mitchell listened to it about 4 times, sheerly because it was so entertaining. I admit that I did too. It made me laugh every time I heard it.

First of all, Mitchell is Katherine Hepburn on our outgoing message, and it is riotous. And he also never says our actual names. He says “we”. I believe that ***** did not get the Hepburn reference – he assumed he had reached a real person – it doesn’t sound an iota like Mitchell.

I called ***** this morning to invite him to Lounge Ax. I was going to say, as a joke, “This is Sheila, the girl to whom pride is not a friend” or some other such boneheaded thing. Mitchell said, “Why can’t you just say, ‘***** – this is Sheila. Why haven’t you called me?’” Which is what I ended up doing.

Nothing bothers me when it comes to *****. Nothing is ever at risk.

I said, “***** – this is Sheila – I think you should call me – my number is ….. – I’ll be here tonight, etc. etc.”

I can’t call home for messages from my phone at work. So Mitchell will call me if there is a message for me. Not more than 5 minutes after I called *****, Mitchell calls me at work.

“Hi – can you get to a pay phone?”

“Yeah. Why?” (I knew why, though.)

“I think you need to hear the message now on our machine.”

“Did he call?”

“Yup. He called.”

“Mitchell, I called him 5 minutes ago. He must have responded instantly. What did he say?”

“Well, he can’t come to Lounge Ax tonight cause he has other plans.”

“Was it a hostile message?”

“Oh, no, not at all. And I was right about him not having your number.”

“Oh, really?”

“Yeah, so now he has your number. Sheila, it is such a funny tongue-tied message. He gets all awkward and goofy and you need to hear it.”

Oh, great! Tongue-tied, awkward, goofy – my kind of man.

I had to go pay my phone bill, so I went to the Illinois Bell building, stood in line, etc. – and there are 8 pay phones in their cavernous echoing lobby, so I stood at one of them, and listened to the message 4 times. I listened to it so much that I have memorized it.

From the tone of his voice when he first started talking, he wasn’t quite sure if he had reached me – or what the hell he had reached. From the message, if you don’t make the Katherine Hepburn connection, then it sounds like you have reached the abode of a lunatic old woman whose voice shakes so badly she can hardly speak. So who knows what ***** thinks of my living situation. I have moved from a box to an old-age rubber room. Mitchell also sounds very far away, as though the lunatic old woman is tied in a chair across the room.

***** had a very serious voice to start. That’s what made me think he didn’t catch on. If he knew it was Mitchell, I knew he would have said something funny or reacted to it in some way. But he did not react at all. He was very serious and respectful. Polite. To the lunatic old woman who clearly is my roommate now.

“Sheila – this is *****.” Then he repeated it. “This is *****. Calling for Sheila.” (I’m laughing out loud.) Then he plunged right in, bumbling over the first few syllables. “I won’t be able to meet you at Lounge Ax tonight because I already made other plans, but I’m glad you left me your number this time so that I could tell you.” (His voice was full of a little dig. He was annoyed. But he also sounded kind of glad, to finally have my number.) Then comes the major tongue-twister. I think he set out to say, “I hope we get together soon…” or something like that. It was totally unintelligible. Then he tried to start again, and tried to say, “Maybe some other time” – tripped over those words, too. It finally got so bad that he actually sounded pre-verbal. He finally just had to make fun of himself (which was the sexiest quality of all.) He then made his voice into this big sloppy mess, and said totally incoherently, with no consonants, “Maybe some other time…” (He was SO GOOFY).

It was the kind of message that, I have to admit, if I left it – I would be dying a million deaths of embarrassment about it. It’s the kind of message that – the second you leave it – you wish you could go and erase it immediately. You wish you could break into the other person’s house, and erase the message.

But it did have its goofy charm. I just fell in love with him. He can’t not be himself, he can’t lie – you have to be cool to lie, and he is SO NOT COOL. I’m not into “cool”. I never have been. I like a little roughness around the edges. I like kind men – but I like kind men who are goofballs.

Finally, ***** got a grip on himself, after blithering incoherently into my answering machine, and said, clearly, “Talk to you later. Bye.”

So he and I will see each other again. It will happen again.

Oh yeah, the day I came home from RI, me and Mitchell met Jackie at Java Jive for a reunion. I was very tired. But I really wanted to see Jay. Afterward, she rode her bike home, and Mitchell and I decided to walk home. It was a gorgeous cool night. We walked up Clark Street. As we got close to the Wrigleyside (I was so tired that my radar wasn’t as sharp as usual), Mitchell said, “Today’s Tuesday, right? Isn’t Tuesday night dollar-well-drinks at the Wrigleyside?” (Ed: That one sentence alone fills me with nostalgia. The days when we knew the drink-specials at the Wrigleyside.) So we decided to stop in and have a well-drink for a dollar. It was open-mike night, too.

And just as we walked in the door, ***** walked out. Apparently he teaches a class there Tuesday nights. But I was not emotionally revved up to see him at all. I was exhausted, and felt very pale and out-of-it. So Mitchell became Mr. Social. They had just been at that crazy party together, so Mitchell was prompting *****’ memory: “Yeah, you were singing a song for about 20 minutes. Some alcoholic song about having no liver.” ***** remembered none of the party. He winced a little, at Mitchell’s stories, and then shrugged helplessly, indicating remembering nothing. *****, as well, looked very tired. His skin was white. He had a cold sore on his lip. He looked sickly. Baseball cap. Folder under his arm. Shorts. Green corduroy shirt. (Something about his clothes kills me. Look at ***** in his green corduroy shirt.)

I didn’t really say a word to him, besides “Hi” so Mitchell raced in to fill up the void – cause ***** didn’t say anything either.

The two of us stood there, awkwardly, not speaking to each other, with Mitchell in between us, trying to get us to deal with each other.

The only thing ***** said on his own (he answered questions Mitchell asked about the class he had taught, Mitchell called him “Mr. *****”) – the only thing he really offered was this:

Mitchell was talking, there was a pause, and suddenly ***** looked at me and said, with that weird kind shy wince he gets in his eyes sometimes, “I thought I might see you guys here tonight.”

And I somehow knew that by “you guys” he meant me and Jackie, since it was open-mike night, and she and I sing there a lot.

Then came my only unsolicited offering: “We were just with Jackie. We sang here a couple weeks ago. It’s a pretty good open-mike, I have to say.”

***** nodded in serious agreement. He’s so serious. (When he’s not behaving in a borderline retarded way.) He said, “Yeah, it sounds pretty good in there.”

That was our only exchange.

Mitchell said later, analyzing the entire event, “But it was the coolest exchange of the whole conversation. He respects you two. He respects what you guys do. He respects that you do your own thing.”

And that’s true. We have a mutual understanding and respect for the creative work that the other one does. It shows in his serious eyes.

Finally, we parted. I didn’t feel wildly awkward, nothing as stressful as that – but I did feel blank. Weird. Mitchell and I walked into the bar. Mitchell said, since I was so quiet, “Don’t worry, Sheila. It’s only his utter lack of social skills.”

I said, “Oh, I know. I had nothing to say to him anyway.”

“I guess I sensed that. That’s why I guess I monopolized the whole conversation.”

“Oh well. It’s all right. I’m just tired.” I had on my glasses too. And a ponytail. No makeup. I felt transparent. Like my skin was so pale you could see all the way through me.

I said later, “He had a little cold sore.”

Mitchell replied, “Little! It changed the shape of his profile!”

(We are such assholes. We aren’t interested in people unless we can turn them into cartoons and dissect them.)

But then when I said to Mitchell, “Did I at least look okay? Did I look semi-cool and not just tired and pale?”

And he said, “Oh, you looked totally cool. Casual and funky with your cool glasses.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

“Was I friendly?” (I knew I hadn’t been.)

“Mitchell said, “Well, you weren’t … unfriendly.”

“Was I cool? I wasn’t hostile, was I?” Because I feel no hostility towards *****. None. It’s just – we both get shy and weird.

“Oh God, no, you weren’t hostile, but you weren’t exactly – social, either. You kind of had this air of – being over it. Like ‘I’m just not into you tonight. Tonight I don’t need you at all.’”

In its own way, my attitude is very hostile. I recognize that. Because I AM into him. I am NOT over him. So I’m just lying, when I act cool and aloof. Also – all I really felt during the conversation outside the Wrigleyside was a lack of anything to say. I was staring up at him, and I had nothing to say.

Once again, though, everything is okay. I called him today, and he called me back in less than 5 minutes, leaving the funniest most awkward message I have ever received. The whole situation is amusing and entertaining more than anything else. There is no potential for hurt. That is why it all is okay. We can’t hurt each other at all. Oh, it is so lovely! No hurt. That’s what appeals. No more hurt.