miss adventures

Boundlessness

j. put it best, "Do I want you to read this or don't I." I sort of know who my audience is, which is what prompted the last post. But Po pointed out today that my tone lately has been one of serenity (now!), and while, hey, can't argue with positivity, this hasn't been very "juicy," and I've been a lot more vague and conceptual.

It's true. I have been reining in details and reactions, sanitized things somewhat. I don't always tell the full story anymore. And then j. put the idea in my head, that this is all awkward because it's some kind of "quasi-confessional," so there's a certain element of voyeurism here. I always defended blogging as a means of getting it all out without forcing it on anybody in particular.

And then another pointed out last night that we have all had our blogging nightmares, and, uh, God knows I have. Now, this is just a sunny place of e-prattle, where in my erstwhile stressful, often contemplative moments, I steal away and see my thoughts in pale and vibrant HTML. It's as self-promoting as wearing too-high heels and extra eye makeup (other tactics I commonly utilize).

Well, last night I finally had that Bandera dessert again that I have been trying to hunt down since Denver. It was right near Wahoo's on Wilshire, which disappointed Ramon because he wanted more car-time to tell his story. Then we had quite a pickle looking for parking, only seeing red areas that looked deceptively available.

"If I were a bull, then I would have no trouble parking," he said.
"What the hell does that mean?"
"Because bulls can only see red."

So then we launched into another inane discussion about how it is more likely a learned response to seeing gore and carnage as the possibility of a meal than any physiological ocular peculiarity. And then, the reality that if you were a bull, driving with hooves would present a far greater impediment that outweighed the advantage of red-sensitive eyes.

Eventually we were sitting there with all that top lighting, making jokes about the fortyish crowd, and how hard it was to fight ordering prime rib if ever it was on the menu. Prime rib didn't go with Oreo cookies but we were like, what the hell. We talked about insecurities and little victories. He told me something uplifting, how he noticed during the law school years I always "brought it," and I thought back fondly to the phase I had been going through. It occurred to me, that phase was over.

He told me how the truth was, he was a good-looking guy, and I sort of cocked my eyebrow at him in the usual sardonicism that marks our dynamic. He told me how I could afford to take it down a notch, because the real me was much cuter than the outer me. I told him that in recent years I have shed much of the brassiness he used to associate with me. He gave me good advice about how to fix my car alarm remote -- to go find those small parts at a watch repair shop. He told me that times were not good for him, and I told him that everything would be OK. That we both had the same amount -- at least numerically -- on the line.

He told Reyna once, he thinks of me as, "The Tragedy of 2001." The way things are these days, I remember less what made it a tragedy. I know it happened and that it was ultimately a good thing, and after that, I was never happier. That's one story I usually file under "Irony."

Anyway, he didn't like the ice cream as much as I did. I told him the Denver version was better. As we left, he smiled and was giddy because a certain somebody kept trying to reach him on his cell, and he had the right opportunity to let it go to voice-mail. It took everything in him to do that, he said.

"Oh, I know what that's like," I told him. It was nice to be on the same page again.

posted by Lucy Sloan @ 6:52 PM