Diary Friday

A mercilessly long Diary Friday, for those of you who enjoy reading ancient exploits from my life.

It’s the story of an “adventure”-packed weekend, during my time in Chicago. I thought of this entry early this morning – before I even remembered it was “Diary Friday”. I thought of it because of the movie last night: Eternal Sunshine…

I’ll talk more about that later.

I moved to Chicago in early 1992. I had broken up with a long-term boyfriend. I soon developed a MASSIVE crush on a guy whom I call Max. All names have been changed. (Well, except for Mitchell and Jackie.)

The tone is EXTREMELY melodramatic. I use words like “catastrophic” and “tragic” – and yet I am talking about a guy I have a crush on, or whatever.

If this seems silly to you, please recall that when I took that “What is your heart made of” quiz a while back – I came up with the answer “GLASS”.

July 20, 1992

Ah, Monday. 8:40 am. This has been one of the most out of control weekends I have ever had in my life. It’s gonna take me a couple days to adjust myself to weekday life. But by then, it may be Friday, and it will start all over again. Every night this weekend was some crazed hours-long event, and every morning I would wake up in a state of identity crisis. “Who am I??” But it has been a blast. I am not ready to chill out yet. I am not ready to be a sober and upstanding citizen again.

Let’s start at the very beginning. A very good place to start …

Friday night. Jackie was staying in, she’s been sick for about 3 weeks. She still isn’t strong enough to go out and worship Bacchus for 5 hours on some kind of crazed binge. I was bored with having lonely health-conscious weekends. It’s summer. My summer so far has had NO adventures. I need intrigue. Basically, I wanted to go to an improv show, and see if I could strike up a conversation with Max – or something like that.

So what did I do? I called Mitchell. Of course. He is such a POSITIVE source. He makes you feel like you can do anything.

I said, “Should I go see his show tonight? If I go, I’ll be going alone!”

Mitchell made no bones about it. “Oh, God,” he said with scorn. “Why are you even asking me? Go!”

“Really? Even though I’ll be sitting there in the audience by myself?” The thought horrified me.

“Oh, please.” (More scorn from Mitchell.) “Just go. Why not? What have you got to lose? Okay – let’s look at the worst-case scenario. You walk in. He sees you and he has an expression on his face like, ‘Oh, shit – she’s here’ – and let’s say he totally blows you off – then what do you do? Strike up a conversation with someone else and end up having a BLAST. Look at it this way – the only expectation you should have for the evening is that you have fun. Expect no more, and expect no less. Don’t go there to be with Max. Go to have fun.”

And that’s what I did. I did exactly what Mitchell told me to do, and what he prophesied came true, down to the letter.

I wore my black bowler. Like in Unbearable Lightness of Being. I am out of control. I walked to the club. It was a gorgeous night. I was nervous. I kept repeating over and over to myself: “I’m just gonna have fun. I’m just gonna HAVE FUN.” But it was nerve-wracking to be going alone. I had no buffer. I had no girlfriends to bury myself in if something catastrophic happened.

I know next to nothing about Max. I almost don’t want to know any more about him. At the moment, he is shrouded in mystery. He has a devastating charm. He is uncannily irresistible. I am shocked at how irresistible I find him. He’s got a good heart, and a good soul, he has a playful sense of humor, he’s child-like, always looking for fun – but he is also self-destructive. He’s reckless. He’s wild. Truly wild. He has a gift, for improv. It’s innate. But – he’s aimless with that gift. He takes it for granted.

I don’t know him at all, but I am sure that girls fall down for him like ninepins.

I approached the club. I came so close to just turning around and going home. I felt so rattled. What am I doing? I was like: my feelings for this guy I don’t know are out of control. But then, the thought of chickening out and going home, all dressed up in a damn bowler hat with nowhere to go, bummed me out. Why not have an adventure? Take a risk. Play ball. Run fast. Fall down. Get hurt. Remember that life is about the journey, not the destination. Get burnt. Laugh. Cry.

Also – dammit – why be such a defeatist?? It’s not guaranteed that things are not going to turn out well. See this thing through.

So I did.

I bought a beer downstairs and then went upstairs to the theatre. Cool as a cuke? Yeah, right. Normally, I’m there with a big crowd of girlfriends, or with Jackie. I bought a ticket. Went and sat at a corner table. Did a quick scan of the crowd and didn’t see him. I felt incredibly tense. Girlfriends are the best buffers for moments like this. But I weathered the storm. I sucked down my beer. I looked up, and Max was coming straight over to me. He had a bandana on his head. He looked like Axl Rose or something. Tough. The battered jeans. The white T-shirt. The bandana. And there I sat. By myself. Wearing a bowler hat. I felt like a jackass. He’s fearless. For whatever reason, his fearlessness plus the bandana gives him a mythical status in my mind.

He said, “Did you get my message?”

“Yes. I found it very cryptic.”

“I thought it was fitting.” His maniacal smiling eyes.

“My message was equally cryptic, I suppose.”

He said, “You came alone – you didn’t bring 20 friends to fill up the house?” He asked how Jackie was doing, how she was feeling … and then he went off to do his show.

The first team that performed were very very bad. There were some awful moments when I literally wanted to go shrieking into the void rather than deal with the MESS up on that stage. Max, of course, was not on that team.

His team went. They are all guys – no women – and that night I saw one of the most brilliant pieces of improv I have ever seen. And I have seen a lot of improv. The audience didn’t even laugh half the time – it was too brilliant – we just watched this story come to fruition before our eyes. These guys are genius. They have it individually, but they have it more so as a group. They read each other’s minds. They create a full-fledged show on the spot, but it has none of that loosey-goosey feel. They have the structure of it down to a science, everyone has their roles, their strengths – there is complete trust between them all. You cannot feel that the structure inhibits them. To guys like this, the structure of the improv-game gives them complete freedom. Technique/structure/limitations – these are the things that set you free.

The subject they were given from the audience was “assassinations”, and within the first 5 minutes, Max was assassinated by one of his team members – and the whole show then became a documentary, like in the beginning of Citizen Kane – or a PBS special about what had happened world-wide because Max had been assassinated – the uproar – the grief – the youth movements – the billion-dollar efforts to “reanimate” his body – the Senate arguments, the espionage, the international intrigue, the revenge plotted by his junior high school football team, the impact of Max’s death apparently spanned the continents – and in back of every single scene, Max would stand on a higher platform or a chair, and he would always be in some kind of frozen jolly pose – he would become a poster of himself, or a statue of himself. Max throwing a football, Max frozen in a hysterically-laughing pose. During the Senate arguments, in the back of the Senate there was a portrait of Max looking scholarly and wise. Whenever there was a scene in a “car”, Max would suddenly become a hood ornament.

It was – it was just hysterical. And brilliant. They work so well together as a team. There is this unspoken communication, and understanding …

[Ed: Many years later, I was having a drink with Max in New York. We reminisced. I told him that, to this day, the most brilliant improv show I had ever seen was one his team had done. He pounced: “Which one was it?” “The one where you were assassinated in the first 5 minutes.” He nodded, immediately. “Yup. I remember that. We reached some other level that night. As a team, I mean. We broke all the rules, but it didn’t matter. I wish it had been video-taped.” It was nice to know, years later, that my perspective on the genius of that show was not just because I had such a huge crush on bandana-wearing Max at the time.]

After they took their bows, the lights came up, and suddenly I was attacked by such intense anxiety that I got up and left instantly. I had gotten one glimpse of Max talking to some girl, and I suddenly felt SO BAD – like I was sitting there waiting for him (even though I WAS sitting there waiting for him) – It felt so bad it was like I suddenly had food poisoning. I had to get OUT of there. I felt pathetic. And so I literally fled the scene.

Turns out, the girl he had been talking to was his brother’s damn girlfriend. I’m such an idiot. Also, Max had not noticed me fleeing, because he had gone into the back to the bathroom (this all came out the next day when he called me). So anyway, he came out from the bathroom and looked around for me, and poof, I was gone. Thinking back on all of this, I think: That is pretty damn rude, Sheila. You can’t even say “Good show”?

I guess I would rather be rude than pathetic.

So I took off and went for a walk around the block.

Lord knows why human beings occasionally behave in such a manner. Why is it such a tragedy that I find Max irresistible? Why is that a bad thing? Why wouldn’t he be flattered by my regard for him? Why is it like I am in junior-high, terrified that he will find out?

I walked around Wrigleyville, in my bowler hat, until it finally occurred to me that I was behaving like an idiot. So I headed back to the club. I just had a tiny nervous breakdown and needed to get some air.

And I charged back into the bar, like a lunatic on a mission.

Mitchell and I were HOWLING about my behavior, later, when I told him the whole story.

But all of this was a moot point anyhow, because, to my chagrin, I discovered that Max had already left. To where, I had no idea. I assumed he had taken off with the girl I had seen him talking to after the show. (Again – I’m an idiot. He had been looking for ME and I had taken off.) He and I were 2 ships passing.

I scanned the bar like an assassin. It, of course, was filled with improv comedians. But no Max. He had gone. I knew it. I was sure that if he were anywhere on the premise, my crazy antennae would pick up on it. Once I discovered he had already left, all my tension fled, because who the hell CARES anymore. So I flopped down at the bar and had a beer. I became totally relaxed.

Before I finished my beer, the bartender came down to my end of the bar and said, “The group down there at the other end of the bar wants to buy you a shot.”

“What? Really?”

I peered down the bar – the group was 3 people, 2 guys and a girl. The girl is a cocktail waitress up in the comedy club. She was beaming at me, a huge happy friendly smile – she was the one who had sent me the shot.

But here’s the weird thing: One of the guys in the group was that guy who had written me the infamous note months ago. He was on stage – performing – Let me reiterate: He was onstage. Performing. And as he ran off, after taking his bow, he dropped a note on my table that said, “Can I call you?” I was in the audience. I was an audience member. It was infamous. Of course, I never called the number he provided. It was just a funny weird thing. I didn’t remember his name, but I certainly remembered his face, because he looks like … Montgomery Clift. Or Peter Gallagher or something. Kind of bizarrely gorgeous. Black hair, white skin, black eyebrows.

He’s so good-looking you kind of want to laugh in his face.

The cocktail waitress was beckoning to me. “Come and join us!”

I walked down to join them, laughing inside to myself – because the words of Mitchell reverberated through my ears: “Strike up a conversation with someone else, and have a blast.” We all introduced ourselves. Shook hands.

I was buzzed enough to want to say right away to Mr. Montgomery Clift, “You wrote me a note months ago” but I didn’t. I pretended I had never seen the dude before in my life. I told myself that he probably didn’t remember me. He only saw me that one time. And it was months ago. February? Something like that.

His name is John. The waitress’ name is Nancy. She was so sweet – insisted on buying me drinks. She was so welcoming to me, so effervescent – Of course, now I know that she was completely operating for John. Buttering me up FOR him. She was the one who took the initiative to get me over there into their group so that he could take it from there.

Let me talk about the evening from John’s point of view.

He performs in an improv team as well, but not Max’s team. He was sitting in the audience waiting for the show to start, and in I stalked, alone, wearing a bowler hat, with a huge chip on my shoulder. (He told me all of this later.) I had a chip on my shoulder, obviously, because I was having a nervous breakdown. But John didn’t know that. He just thought that I looked kind of tough and stern. Meanwhile, I was QUAKING.

He saw me, and thought to myself, “Holy shit. That’s that girl.” He said to Nancy, his friend, “That’s that redheaded girl. I wrote her a note a couple months ago, gave her my phone number. She never called me.”

Nancy, Miss Match-maker, said, “Want to send her over a drink?”

He said No. Absolutely not. He doesn’t like to meet someone that way. (He’d apparently rather write a note to a redheaded audience member while he is performing) … So, anyway – the show ended. John saw me pay my tab, stand up, and leave immediately. (I’m a lunatic.) He told me later he was bummed about it, and he told Nancy, “She left.”

Ah well. Life goes on. John, Nancy, and another friend went downstairs to the bar and proceeded to swill alcohol down their throats at a feverish rate.

And before you know it, I reappeared. (After my refreshing walk around Wrigley Field.) John said that I totally “made an entrance” – with a tough combative “I’m back” expression on my face. HAHA. Nancy saw me re-enter, and turned to John and said gleefully, “She’s back! She’s back!” (Ah, a woman with a sense of sisterhood. Love it.) John was laying low, waiting for his chance to make his move towards me. Nancy, however, was determined to get me over to join their group.

“Let’s send her a shot!”

John freaked – “No no no—”

“Come on, John! Let me send her a shot then. It’ll be from me.”

“Nancy – no – wait – no…”

John is kind of shy and awkward, as is obvious. He doesn’t have the fearlessness of Max. Max wouldn’t send me over a drink, though. He’d just walk up to me and say, “Give me your phone number. Right now.” Which is pretty much how we met.

Nancy hailed down the bartender, despite John’s protests. I love women who are in other women’s corners. Cause I’m in their corners.

So anyway. Of course when I joined the group, I knew none of this (John’s whole side of things). All I knew was that Nancy was great, she had sent me over a shot, and that John was the guy who had slipped me that nutso note during one of his shows.

Almost right away, John and I started talking. I don’t even know what the hell we talked about. But he’s got a dry self-deprecating sense of humor – as do I – and a lot of our conversation involved self-deprecation. Much laughter. We told extremely abbreviated versions of our life stories to each other. He revealed more than I did. I’m a Sphinx.

He was a ballet dancer. Moved to New York from California.

His laugh is great. He shows true delight, throwing back his head at whatever self-deprecatory thing I said. He wasn’t like a lot of good-looking guys – who are good-looking and also aloof, remote, detached. You know the type. John was very accessible.

At some point, we realized that we both had been, at one point, in therapy. So we began throwing around the self-help lingo, and once we started, we COULD NOT STOP. He would tease me about whatever, and I would say, “I really don’t feel that you are validating me” and he would burst out laughing in my face. Once we hooked ourselves up to the self-help train, the laughter never stopped. I said the words, “I think that you are projecting your issues onto me” probably about 100 times that night. “No, no, no, that is a projection.” And every single time I said it, he would throw back his head and HOWL.

“Projecting.” “Is that a projection?” “Oh, never mind. I’m probably just projecting.” “These are MY issues that I am now projecting onto you.”

Why did we find this so comedic? I don’t know. But we did.

Eventually, after about an hour of hanging out and talking he said, “Want to come to a party with all of us?”

Mitchell was my guardian angel this weekend. I said sure.

We got to the party, a big group of us. I had some party anxiety going on, but it ended up being low-key to the point of being boring. I hung out in the corner with John. Our group was much rowdier than the rest of the party.

At one point, John dropped an entire platter of horseradish dip face-down onto the floor. The platter shattered, and the dip was SPLAT – all over the hardwood floor at this nice low-key party. The look on the man’s face. I couldn’t help it. I laughed out loud. I was the only one who laughed. But he had this kind of blank yet totally mortified stare. Then, while there was this crippling embarrassment going on, John was racing around like a madman, yelling at the hostess because she had begun to clean it up: “YOU HAVE TO LET ME CLEAN IT UP!!”

During his cleaning-up mania, he collided with some guy he didn’t know, and said to the guy, point-blank, “Oh. I’m sorry. You represent all of my father issues.”

This was completely for my benefit, and I LOST IT. I still laugh every time I think about John saying that – and the guy’s confused blank stare – hahahaha. Still laughing. I was crying with laughter.

Another girl showed up at the party who is a good friend of John’s. She was very pretty. Pale freckled skin, dark hair, dark eyebrows, very Irish-looking. I was introduced to her. She seemed very funky, very likable. She was obviously very much into John, but she didn’t look at me with exposed claws.

The thing about it was – I am still into Max, even though I am behaving like a paranoid insecure lunatic when it comes to it. I could feel that John was into me, I mean – there was the clue of the damn note from months ago – but John’s not really my type. However – I was having a hell of an adventure with him that night. “You represent all my father issues.” Etc.

So anyway, I didn’t know how to say to Julie, “Don’t worry. I’m not into John.” That sounds kind of obnoxious. However, it wasn’t really an issue because she and I started talking, and immediately could feel that – we had the same sense of humor. The same sensibility. We clicked.

There was this one other guy who had driven us to the party, and he was hanging out talking to John. His name was Greg. Perfectly nice human being. But so pumped up that he literally could not bring his arms down to his sides. His head looked like a pinhead on a massive neck. Obviously, I am not painting a pretty picture here. Julie and I had a whispered conversation about how we did not find overly-pumped-up guys attractive. I had in my mind Max’ casual athletic rumpled form, and I’m sure Julie was thinking about Mr. Ballerina Man cleaning up the horseradish dip in the corner.

At one point, John was obviously getting antsy. So was I. I felt like my energy was too wild for this subdued party where there were plates of hors doevres and small-talk chit-chat. There wasn’t even any music playing. And then there were the 4 of us – John, Julie, Greg, and I – huddled in the corner, having a riotous time. Greg was our Designated Driver, since he does not drink.

After the agonizing horseradish-dip faux pas, John wanted to get the hell out of there as quickly as possible.

He said to the 3 of us – “Hey – let’s go dancing. Anyone want to go dancing?”

I was so full of pent-up energy that going dancing sounded perfect. The 4 of us bagged the party and went club-hopping. I hugged the hostess goodbye. Had no idea who she was. Hugged her as though she is my long-lost sister.

On the sidewalk, began the planning. The 4 of us trying to decide where to go.

Here’s a fact: Get a group of creative actor-types together, and have them try to come to some sort of consensus about “where should we go”, and they will NOT BE ABLE TO DO IT. I have noticed this inevitable truth for many many years. We decided to hash it out in the car.

As we crossed the street to the car, suddenly I turned to John and said, “You wrote me a note a couple months ago, didn’t you?”

“Yeah. I did.”

And that was all we said.

It was kind of funny. It was suddenly like he and I had a “past”. As ridiculous as that is.

John and I sat in the back, and the 4 of us drove around aimlessly, trying to decide where to go. He and I hadn’t said anything else, since the “you wrote me a note” exchange, but then he said, breaking the silence, “I remember I said I was ‘enchanted’ with you.”

“Oh yeah. I had forgotten about that part.”

He burst out laughing. “You forgot THAT part??” (Like: what girl in her right mind would forget that some anonymous guy sent her a note and said he was “enchanted”? But all I remembered was that he gave me his phone number and said “Please call” and that I didn’t call.)

Finally, the 4 of us decided to go to Vortex – a hopping gay dance club. I’ve never been there.

We stopped by John’s apartment so he could get money. Mr. Pinhead Greg was totally paranoid about going to a gay bar. We all just had to laugh at him. We laughed in his face. He was saying things like, “People will think I’m gay.” At first I thought he was kidding, like making fun of people who WOULD say things like that, but then I realized he was serious. Julie and I were both saying to Greg, “Well, we’re just going there to dance. That’s what we want to do. Dance. That’s it.” We finally convinced Greg that all would be all right, and that nothing terrible would happen to him.

Now here is something hysterical.

We were all in John’s little apartment. There were pictures of him dancing – he teaches ballet at a studio, I think. But anyway, here’s the HILARIOUS thing – he was on the national tour of Chippendales. This information came out, while we were all in his apartment, and he told us he didn’t actually strip – he was one of 4 trained dancers on the tour – and they didn’t take their clothes off – they were real dancers … John went into this enormous elaborate rambling soliloquy to me, rationalizing his time as a Chippendale, making sure it was clear that he didn’t strip. I did not say a WORD.

Finally, he stepped back, and said, deadpan, “Man. Listen to me justify.”

He was a Chippendale. I think that is one of the funniest things I have ever heard in my life.

Julie and I tried to make him show us some of his Chippendale routines, but – with wounded dignity – he refused.

We cruised to Vortex. The sidewalk outside was crowded with young gay boys in white T-shirts. There was a 7 dollar cover but in half an hour there would be no cover, so we walked down the street to a greasy tile-bound fluorescent-lit burger joint with tables outside. We bought some fries and we hung out until there was no cover.

Julie and I, meanwhile, had become lifelong friends. We were discussing our work-out routines, and laughing hysterically. John had subsided into a kind of gloomy silence. Staring at the two of us morosely. Now there was no reason for him to feel left out. He could have joined in. But he did not. He and I had been standing in line at the greasy burger place. We were surrounded by seamy nocturnal people. We ourselves were seamy nocturnal people.

And suddenly, John turned to me, out of the blue, and said, “So why were you at the show by yourself tonight?”

I lied. “My friend’s been sick. I’ve been bored. So I decided to give myself a night out.” I mean, it’s not a total lie – it’s just that he knows Max, and nothing is set with Max – we haven’t even gone out yet – so … I just lied. Lied right in his face.

John didn’t buy it at all. He said, “Come on. Why were you really at the show alone?”

I did not respond. I ignored him completely.

He said, “You were there to see a guy, weren’t you?” I still did not respond. And somehow – dammit – he guessed the entire thing, without me saying a word. He went on, “Max. Right? You were there to see Max.” I have no idea how he guessed. My face betrayed me in that moment. I blushed. DAMMIT. I blushed. John saw the blush and freaked out. “I KNEW IT. I KNEW IT. I KNEW IT.” I still had not said one cotton-picking word. John was having a conversation with himself. He raged on, “That Max.”

Okay, so that intrigued me. Why did he say Max’s name like that. “What are you talking about?”

“Oh, nothing. I’ve lost 2 girls I liked to Max.” He suddenly was in a rage, against the pattern in his life, of having girls he likes falling for Max. But I had no idea that I was fitting into some vicious circle of John’s! So I just did not say anything. He descended into bitterness.

“What is it about Max? What IS it about him??” He was demanding this of me.

Okay. Time to come clean. No need to lie to the guy. I was loving having an adventure with him, but I must not fly under false colors.

“I find Max uncannily irresistible.” I said, point-blank.

John then plummeted into some morose pit, and it made matters worse that his friend Julie and I were getting along so well.

A couple of days later, John called me to apologize for his behavior. For being so morbid and bitter. Those were his exact words. “I apologize for being morbid and bitter. You can go out with whoever you want to go out with.”

Er … thanks. I just MET you! Ha.

So bizarre.

Finally, after wolfing down our fries, we headed back to Vortex. The 4 of us took over the entire damn dance floor. We danced in a massive spastic mode for two and a half hours. We were drenched in sweat. We COULD NOT STOP.

At one point, John announced, above the music, “Oh my God. I am in a frenzy.”

We all were. Julie had on my bowler hat, and the two of us were jumping up and down and laughing and losing our minds like primates in the wild. At one point, John, Julie and I had our arms round each other, and we were all, as one, jumping up and down, and laughing like maniacs. We were disheveled. It was wonderful. I got out every bit of pent-up energy I’ve been carrying around. The music was relentless.

At one point – 2 hours into our spastic dancing – John shouted at me over the music, “Max isn’t here dancing with you, is he?”

Pause. I gave him this tired look, as though I have known him all my life. “No, John. He isn’t.”

What the hell have I gotten myself into. But I maintain that I am innocent. I have no agenda. Nothing. And no, I wasn’t with Max in that moment, but I also didn’t feel that I was with John. However – I was grateful to John for taking me along on his adventure, and for including me in his wonderful group of friends. To a person, they were all amazing with me.

We danced until they kicked us out. We were soaked with sweat. It was 4 am. Greg dropped us off, one by one. We came to the end of my street and I said, “You guys – I just had so much fun with all of you tonight. Thank you SO MUCH.”

Julie said, “Sheila, gimme your number. We should go out sometime.”

She pulled out a lipstick and wrote my number down across some brochure. In retrospect, I just think that is so hilarious: after such an evening, who do I give my number to? The one other FEMALE. Poor John. He was muttering to himself in this morose and self-deprecating way, “God … women … look at that … female bonding …”

He has a defeatist attitude.

John got out and said, “Call me. You still have my number.” (I had told him that I still had the note somewhere. He was like: YOU DO NOT.)

The next morning – Jackie and I had planned to meet for breakfast. It was a beautiful morning. I had this kind of stunned internal reaction to the adventures of the night before … I never have adventures like that. I never meet 10 new people in a night. I am coming out of my shell, I guess. I mean – there I was – at 1 a.m. – crammed in the back seat of a random car, careening towards a dance club – and I didn’t know ANYBODY in that car before that night. Life is a grand adventure.

Jackie and I had a rapturous breakfast. We sat outside at an umbrella table. We laughed like hyenas. I had to take my glasses off and wipe my eyes. Tears of laughter. I was telling her the whole story of the adventure, and we were snorting and guffawing with laughter. The story was a panorama: parties, and horseradish dip, and dance music, and me suddenly finding myself caught in a triangle between these two new guys. I drank about 8 cups of coffee. It was good to be awake and outside, and laughing.

It was Saturday. We spent the whole day together outside. We had no time limits, nowhere to be, nothing to do but be together. We took a long walk. It was a hot sticky beautiful day. We went into stores when we felt like it, we got Italian ices, we went to a huge street fair. I had a kind of disturbing moment with a rather aggressive mime. We went to Sidewalk sales. We pawed through piles of old records. I bought some small colored glass bottles. She and I must have walked over 10 miles on Saturday.

That night, David and Maria were making dinner for all of us. We were gonna all hang out at their place, and have coffee, cheese cake, maybe play some Pictionary. Then I had plans to get together for drinks with someone from class.

Jackie and I finally parted, and I walked home. It had been a full day.

And here is how I was feeling, in terms of the men:

I basically KNEW in my heart that I would never ever talk to Max again. I would NEVER hear from him again. It was over, before it even began. It just felt that way.

And John – should I call him? How did I feel about John? Do I really want to star, in an unwitting way, in some competitive drama between these two men? NO I do not. I want no part of that.

But if the Max thing was totally over, and I was SURE that it was, then … why shouldn’t I call John? True, I do not find John “uncannily irresistible”. I just don’t. You can’t fake that kind of stuff. However, at odd moments, “You represent all of my father issues” would flash into my mind, and I would burst out laughing. He’s a riot. He’s entertaining. But – would I call him? I did not know, and I decided to just chill out. I had said to Jackie with utter seriousness, “I am gonna just try to chill out … for a day. Or so.” She had laughed in my face. I didn’t want to DO anything. Not about Max, not about John. I would just see how things fell into place.

Of course, in a matter of 24 hours, they BOTH had called me. I didn’t have to do a damn thing. They were calling me left and right.

But Max got to me first. Yay.

However, I had no idea, on Saturday, that that would occur. As far as I was concerned, I was done with the both of them. I came home. Chilled out with Sammy. Cleaned. Played music. Whatever.

Then the phone rings, and it was Max. I know it sounds stupid, based on my behavior from the night before, but I truly believed I would never hear from him again. I didn’t even consider the possibility that he would call me. I hadn’t ruled out the possibility that I might call him – but – it never once occurred to me (because I’m dense as mud) that he would call me.

The second I heard his voice, my knees gave out, and I sat down on the floor. (So much for chilling out)

“Well. Hello, Max.”

He got right to the point. “You shot out of there like a bat out of hell last night.”

“Yeah, but I came back. You had already left.”

“What?” He sounded chagrined. “I went down into the bar, had a beer, and then I left – because my brother was having a party.”

I felt like a jackass. So I lied. “Well, the show was done – so I went downstairs – talked to the bartender for a while …” (which was true. She and I had had a conversation for about 10 or 15 minutes.) So I told him the whole entire truth, except I left out the fact that I felt like I had food poisoning because of my anxiety, and I had to go out and take a 25 minute walk around the neighborhood. I left that part out.

Max picked up on it, though, like a detective. “You were gone a long time, missy.”

Missy?

“We must have just missed each other or something.” I said.

Then somehow, we started talking about his show – and I was quite blunt. “Okay, listen. I just want to say that – that show is one of the most incredible things I have ever seen you guys do. It’s actually one of the most incredible improv shows I’ve ever seen. I really have no words, actually.”

I know that he is incapable of saying a plain old “Thanks” but I could tell that my praise pleased him. I could feel it. Psychically.

Max reminds me, at times, of Tom Hanks in Big. He is 12 years old. And yet – his body is 26 years old. But – it’s not that he’s immature. No. It’s more that he is free, and wise – with the child’s wisdom. But also – he would take it into his head to jump off the top of his house to see if he could fly. Like that kind of thing. He’s reckless like a child, but also wise. He is not aloof. He does not have an aloof bone in his body. He is not “cool”. He seems to have no awareness of his irresistibility. Or if he does – it doesn’t make him aloof and detached and cocky. He’s not tricky. (Oh, how I hate tricky men.) Max is very straightforward. Like Tom Hanks in Big.

A “cool” guy would not have called me and said, “Where the hell did you disappear to last night?” Max did.

So after talking for a while, he said, in that straightforward way, “So, what are you doing tonight, missy?”

What the hell is up with the “missy” thing? Where did that come from?

I said, “Oh, I’m going over my friends house. Dinner. Stuff like that. And then I have to have a drink with another friend … And then …”

It was time for me to stop being such a damn coward, such a damn baby, and come clean. It is not bad that I find him uncannily irresistible. It is not a thing to be ashamed of. He deserved to be in on the secret.

I teetered on the precipice for one second, and then took the leap:

“And then, I want to see you.”

“Oh. So I’m gonna be the THIRD person you see tonight.” Joking scornful tone, but with a hint of seriousness.

Hm.

I said, “Actually. No. Change of plans. I’m gonna blow off the drink with the friend. So you’ll be the second person I see tonight. If that’s cool with you.”

“Good choice, missy. Good choise.”

Missy? What the hell?

So we decided that we would meet up after his show that night. I hung up, and just sat there for a second, my head swirling with thoughts.

He called me. Didn’t see THAT one coming.

Realizing something: I’m a coward. He’s more courageous than me. He’s not afraid. I need to stop being afraid too.

Anyway. We did meet up later that night, but that’s a whole other story, and my fingers are tired from all this writing.

Here’s what I realized this weekend:

I make such a big deal out of GUYS acting aloof, and remote, and detached, and playing it cool. When really, the truth of the matter is, it has been ME who has been acting aloof and remote. Like going to see Max’s show, and then walking away without saying good-bye or good show. I did this because I was afraid he would know I “liked” him. I was afraid I would look pathetic. So I ran away.

Time to stop that. Stop the aloofness. I like Max. He knows. He likes me back. He doesn’t care that I know. Get over yourself, Sheila. Come out of that shell.

Throw your homework onto the fire…
Come out and find the one that you love…