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.<\/p>\n
Enjoy – and happy 2004.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
***** just left about the most tongue-tied message on my machine. He could barely form a sentence. Mitchell said, \u0093He sounded borderline retarded.\u0094 It was so charming in a way. Mitchell also said, \u0093He SO didn\u0092t play it cool.\u0094 ***** is not a cool person. He has no protection, no walls \u0096 he was awkward with a vengeance right into <\/u>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.<\/p>\n
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 \u0093we\u0094. I believe that ***** did not get the Hepburn reference \u0096 he assumed he had reached a real person \u0096 it doesn\u0092t sound an iota like Mitchell.<\/p>\n
I called ***** this morning to invite him to Lounge Ax. I was going to say, as a joke, \u0093This is Sheila, the girl to whom pride is not a friend\u0094 or some other such boneheaded thing. Mitchell said, \u0093Why can\u0092t you just say, \u0091***** \u0096 this is Sheila. Why haven\u0092t you called me?\u0092\u0094 Which is what I ended up doing.<\/p>\n
Nothing bothers me when it comes to *****. Nothing is ever at risk.<\/p>\n
I said, \u0093***** \u0096 this is Sheila \u0096 I think you should call me \u0096 my number is \u0085.. \u0096 I\u0092ll be here tonight, etc. etc.\u0094<\/p>\n
I can\u0092t 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.<\/p>\n
\u0093Hi \u0096 can you get to a pay phone?\u0094<\/p>\n
\u0093Yeah. Why?\u0094 (I knew why, though.)<\/p>\n
\u0093I think you need to hear the message now on our machine.\u0094<\/p>\n
\u0093Did he call?\u0094<\/p>\n
\u0093Yup. He called.\u0094<\/p>\n
\u0093Mitchell, I called him 5 minutes ago. He must have responded instantly. What did he say?\u0094<\/p>\n
\u0093Well, he can\u0092t come to Lounge Ax tonight cause he has other plans.\u0094<\/p>\n
\u0093Was it a hostile message?\u0094<\/p>\n
\u0093Oh, no, not at all. And I was right about him not having your number.\u0094<\/p>\n
\u0093Oh, really?\u0094<\/p>\n
\u0093Yeah, 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.\u0094<\/p>\n
Oh, great! Tongue-tied, awkward, goofy \u0096 my kind of man.<\/p>\n
I had to go pay my phone bill, so I went to the Illinois Bell building, stood in line, etc. \u0096 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.<\/p>\n
From the tone of his voice when he first started talking, he wasn\u0092t quite sure if he had reached me <\/u>\u0096 or what the hell he had reached. From the message, if you don\u0092t 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.<\/p>\n
***** had a very serious voice to start. That\u0092s what made me think he didn\u0092t 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.<\/p>\n
\u0093Sheila \u0096 this is *****.\u0094 Then he repeated it. \u0093This is *****. Calling for Sheila.\u0094 (I\u0092m laughing out loud.) Then he plunged right in, bumbling over the first few syllables. \u0093I won\u0092t be able to meet you at Lounge Ax tonight because I already made other plans, but I\u0092m glad you left me your number this time so that I could tell you.\u0094 (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, \u0093I hope we get together soon\u0085\u0094 or something like that. It was totally unintelligible. Then he tried to start again, and tried to say, \u0093Maybe some other time\u0094 \u0096 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, \u0093Maybe some other time\u0085\u0094 (He was SO GOOFY<\/u>).<\/p>\n
It was the kind of message that, I have to admit, if I<\/u> left it \u0096 I would be dying a million deaths of embarrassment about it. It\u0092s the kind of message that \u0096 the second you leave it \u0096 you wish you could go and erase it immediately. You wish you could break into the other person\u0092s house, and erase the message.<\/p>\n
But it did have its goofy charm. I just fell in love with him. He can\u0092t not be himself, he can\u0092t lie \u0096 you have to be cool to lie, and he is SO NOT COOL. I\u0092m not into \u0093cool\u0094. I never have been. I like a little roughness around the edges. I like kind men \u0096 but I like kind men who are goofballs.<\/p>\n
Finally, ***** got a grip on himself, after blithering incoherently into my answering machine, and said, clearly, \u0093Talk to you later. Bye.\u0094<\/p>\n
So he and I will see each other again. It will happen again.<\/p>\n
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\u0092t as sharp as usual), Mitchell said, \u0093Today\u0092s Tuesday, right? Isn\u0092t Tuesday night dollar-well-drinks at the Wrigleyside?\u0094 (Ed: That one sentence alone fills me with nostalgia. The days when we knew the drink-specials at the Wrigleyside<\/i>.) So we decided to stop in and have a well-drink for a dollar. It was open-mike night, too.<\/p>\n
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 *****\u0092 memory: \u0093Yeah, you were singing a song for about 20 minutes. Some alcoholic song about having no liver.\u0094 ***** remembered none of the party. He winced a little, at Mitchell\u0092s stories, and then shrugged helplessly, indicating remembering nothing. *****, as well, looked very tired. His skin was white<\/u>. 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.)<\/p>\n
I didn\u0092t really say a word to him, besides \u0093Hi\u0094 so Mitchell raced in to fill up the void \u0096 cause ***** didn\u0092t say anything either.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
The only thing ***** said on his own (he answered questions Mitchell asked about the class he had taught, Mitchell called him \u0093Mr. *****\u0094) \u0096 the only thing he really offered was this:<\/p>\n
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, \u0093I thought I might see you guys here tonight.\u0094<\/p>\n
And I somehow knew that by \u0093you guys\u0094 he meant me and Jackie, since it was open-mike night, and she and I sing there a lot.<\/p>\n
Then came my only unsolicited offering: \u0093We were just with Jackie. We sang here a couple weeks ago. It\u0092s a pretty good open-mike, I have to say.\u0094<\/p>\n
***** nodded in serious agreement. He\u0092s so serious. (When he\u0092s not behaving in a borderline retarded way.) He said, \u0093Yeah, it sounds pretty good in there.\u0094<\/p>\n
That was our only exchange.<\/p>\n
Mitchell said later, analyzing the entire event, \u0093But 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.\u0094<\/p>\n
And that\u0092s true. We have a mutual understanding and respect for the creative work that the other one does. It shows in his serious eyes.<\/p>\n
Finally, we parted. I didn\u0092t feel wildly awkward, nothing as stressful as that \u0096 but I did feel blank. Weird. Mitchell and I walked into the bar. Mitchell said, since I was so quiet, \u0093Don\u0092t worry, Sheila. It\u0092s only his utter lack of social skills.\u0094<\/p>\n
I said, \u0093Oh, I know. I had nothing to say to him anyway.\u0094<\/p>\n
\u0093I guess I sensed that. That\u0092s why I guess I monopolized the whole conversation.\u0094<\/p>\n
\u0093Oh well. It\u0092s all right. I\u0092m just tired.\u0094 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.<\/p>\n
I said later, \u0093He had a little cold sore.\u0094<\/p>\n
Mitchell replied, \u0093Little! It changed the shape of his profile!\u0094<\/p>\n
(We are such assholes. We aren\u0092t interested in people unless we can turn them into cartoons and dissect them.)<\/p>\n
But then when I said to Mitchell, \u0093Did I at least look okay? Did I look semi-cool and not just tired and pale?\u0094<\/p>\n
And he said, \u0093Oh, you looked totally cool. Casual and funky with your cool glasses.\u0094<\/p>\n
\u0093Really?\u0094<\/p>\n
\u0093Yes.\u0094<\/p>\n
\u0093Was I friendly?\u0094 (I knew I hadn\u0092t been.)<\/p>\n
\u0093Mitchell said, \u0093Well, you weren\u0092t \u0085 un<\/u>friendly.\u0094<\/p>\n
\u0093Was I cool? I wasn\u0092t hostile, was I?\u0094 Because I feel no hostility towards *****. None. It\u0092s just \u0096 we both get shy and weird.<\/p>\n
\u0093Oh God, no, you weren\u0092t hostile, but you weren\u0092t exactly \u0096 social, either. You kind of had this air of \u0096 being over it. Like \u0091I\u0092m just not into you tonight. Tonight I don\u0092t need you at all.\u0092\u0094<\/p>\n
In its own way, my attitude is very hostile. I recognize that. Because I AM into him. I am NOT over him. So I\u0092m just lying, when I act cool and aloof. Also \u0096 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.<\/p>\n
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\u0092t hurt each other at all. Oh, it is so lovely! No hurt. That\u0092s what appeals. No more hurt.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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 … Continue reading