opening day

I'm sitting in the courtyard outside school, basking in the warm afternoon air, celebrating the first day in I-don't-even-know-how-many-godforsaken-weeks that I've dared to leave the house without a coat. My friend Emma comes marching up and drops her bag dramatically at my feet. "Spring fever is REAL," she announces, without preamble.

"I can't get anything done," she goes on, in response to my lifted eyebrow. "I just want to make out all the time. And I'm always looking around...." She trails off as a guy in a v-neck tee shirt strolls past, nicely defined biceps on display.

I'm still sitting in the same place half an hour later when my friend Vijay walks by. He stops to chat about how nice the weather is, and it isn't more than 60 seconds before he declares happily, "It's Opening Day!"

"It's...what now?"

"Opening Day! The first really warm day of spring, when all the girls overcompensate by wearing booty shorts and...you know." Apparently he's been participating in an email chain with his buddies all morning discussing instances of this very phenomenon. I'm just as happy not knowing specifics.

But this all tallies pretty exactly with my experience last night, when I came home from a sunset run and shouted to my roommate, "Every hot guy in lower Manhattan is out jogging this evening! It is BEAUTIFUL!"

Spring's here at last. My first east coast winter was tough. But maybe it's time to get back in this game.

third wheel

“I'm a waiter, and an uninvited participant in just about every date you've ever been on.”

Includes such gems as:  "When I return to drop their check, they're making out shamelessly, in the weird but common belief that because they are sitting and I am standing, I cannot see them."

I don’t even want to think about what waiters all over Los Angeles must think of me.

kindred spirit

We were talking about John Irving, which was in itself impressive. When I said that I'd liked A Prayer for Owen Meany much better than The World According to Garp, he plucked my hand out of the air and held it to his cheek for just a second.

Then he told me about how he'd discovered Owen Meany, back in high school. Actually, he mimed it with the beer menu. "I read it like this," he said, his nose almost touching the words. "I wanted to eat the paper, that's how much I loved that book."

I would have made out with him for that sentence alone.

ambush

You know that twilight country you pass through every night, in between awake and asleep?  You have to be careful there.  That's where all those things you managed to push out of your mind during the day will sneak up and ambush you.  And it's where I am, my brain finally slipping into neutral after a long Monday, when I'm jumped by a memory.  

A different night, in Charles' bed.  I was at just the same point of awake-but-not-really.  He had asked me something, I think about whether I was warm and should he open the sliding door.  But my lips were too heavy to answer, and when he realized it, he stopped asking questions and just kissed my forehead.  One slow, contented kiss -- more for his benefit than mine, since he wasn't sure I was awake.  I drifted off to sleep reveling in that small gesture of possession.

The memory jerks me upwards, like a diver breaking the surface of the water.  I'm back in my own bed, wide awake and unhappy.

If there's anything better than being held by someone you care about -- or think you might be able to care about -- while you fall asleep, I haven't discovered it yet. So when you've gotten used to that luxury, even just a little, even just for a few weeks, it's difficult to revert.  As my subconscious is now pointedly reminding me.

I'll keep slogging, I guess.  And maybe have glass of wine before bed.

this year

"Ben's in town for the wedding.  He's staying at our place this weekend," I say.

It's a Wednesday night and I'm threading through the puckered traffic on Santa Monica Boulevard, talking to Morgan while I drive.  A few miles away, she's doing the same thing on Los Feliz Boulevard.  (Welcome to social life in Los Angeles.)

"Oh, IS HE."  Her voice is heavy with significance.

"Yes, Morgan, he is."

"Don't you take that tone with me, Clare Alexandra."

"No, no!  Really!"  I acknowledge the obvious:  "I have decided to do something novel and not hook up with him this time."

There's an unmistakable snort on the other end of the line.  "Clare, listen to me," she says.  "You are one of my best friends.  I think you are beautiful and smart and you can do anything you put your mind to.  Except that if Ben Harmon is anywhere in a five-mile radius, you are going to make out with him, no matter what you have decided."

The truth is that we've had this conversation quite a few times before.  I go ahead and deliver my line:  "Oh, shut up, I hate you."

Two years ago, I said that because she was right on the money.  This year, though, I just say it because it's what I've always said.  In fact, the weekend comes and goes as I suspected it might, without a single untoward incident.  There's some alcohol involved, but everyone sleeps in their designated beds.  There are no awkward moments in the morning -- just sleepy hugs goodbye so he can make his early flight.

Afterwards, I stand on my front porch, staring up at the little strip of sky slowly brightening between my building and the one next door.  Maybe this is what growing up feels like.  But I'm pretty nostalgic for all the years of bad decisions, and I go back to bed -- clean, unrumpled, hangover-free -- feeling strangely sad.

candor

An email I received from Charles today, in its entirety:

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The Joshua Bell article is brilliant. (Way too long but brilliant!)

How are you?

I want to make out more.

----------

Me too, frankly.

vices

"What are your vices? The things you wouldn't want to tell someone on a second date," he asks.

We're at a very nice restaurant in Brentwood, jazzy and loud on a Friday night. The table between us is small and crowded with crab cakes, steak, a really good bottle of red wine. It's unclear how much my mood has been affected by the heavily poured gin and tonic I just finished, but I'm enjoying myself.

I chew, think about it. "Inertia," I tell him.  "That's my big vice." It's an honest answer. It's why I'm still in Los Angeles at all to have this dinner with him.

But he pulls a face, dismissively. In a minute I'll understand that he was hoping for something a little edgier out of me. "What about you?" I ask.

He smokes, he says. Cigarettes, plus weed a couple of times a week. And he likes to gamble. Regularly, at the casinos. In case any of that is a dealbreaker, he wants me to know up front. Then he stares at me and waits.

The truth is that any one of those three is a dealbreaker. I tell him this. But I can't remember the last time someone was so frank with me, not on a second date, and I'm impressed. I tell him that too. There's a brief minute of awkwardness, both of us considering the wall we've hit. And then (is it just the wine?) the conversation sweeps on with a life of its own. We've written ourselves this policy of suicidal honesty. Now we can say anything we want, pick up any subject, and we do.

Later that night, we end up at a dive bar somewhere in the Valley, listening to a cover band play surprisingly great rock and roll. We drink beer and shout the lyrics to Jet's Are You Gonna Be My Girl at each other, my hand keeping rhythm on his knee. With my big black boots and long brown hair, they might be singing about me.

Later yet, still fully committed to honesty, I say, "I want you to kiss me goodnight."  He lights up like a Christmas tree.

I drive home wondering if I'll see him again. He's already told me that he likes me, wants to see me, but he's leaving the decision up to me. And right now, on this drizzly February night, all I can think about is how attractive it is when someone tells you the truth.