It’s not just that she was late for class. It’s
that she was twenty minutes late for class. It’s that when she finally made her
appearance, she had her headphones on and she kept her headphones on. It’s that she flitted into the room twenty
minutes late, headed straight up to the front of the classroom, and crashed her
things down into the seat right next to mine.
It’s all of those things but it is none of
those things, really, because it’s what she did next that is the reason I am
telling you this.
She sat. She put her booted feet up onto the
chair so that her chin rested on her knees. She pulled her hands up into the
sleeves of her sweatshirt so that only her very fingertips poked out. Then she
pushed her thumbs through a well-worn tear in each sleeve just behind the elastic
band at the wrist and she left them there.
She did this automatically. This was a habit
for her. This was her everyday manner of wearing a sweatshirt.
With her thumbs sticking out through the
tears in the shirt and her fingertips barely showing out the ends of the
sleeves, it created an impression that she was wearing fingerless gloves. But
she was not wearing fingerless gloves!
This was adorable.
She was adorable. She was adorable and I had
to put my head down on my desk in order to catch my breath.
I spent the rest of the class period like
this, with my head down, attempting to come up with my opening line to her. I
finally came up with this: “Do you want
to hear a story I’ve been working on?” I would say that, and then I would tell
her my story about the things that live in the walls. Your walls and my walls,
too. The things with tentacles that live in all of the walls and watch us
through the cracks.
It is a good story and it would probably not
have been too weird for a girl who wore her sweatshirt like this girl wore her
sweatshirt. But then class ended and something went wrong with my plan and I
wound up forgetting my line and just saying hi.
I said hi and then she said hi and I did not
get a gay vibe off of her at all.
Her name was Madison and I met her in my
Spanish class on Wednesday night and she is adorable.
Some of the best laid plans... just go south
ReplyDeleteI am experiencing the same ordeal. I spent all week building a "talk like a pirate day" post. It should of been an easy post for me. However, this post require twice as many man hours and it had two unseen errors. Too top it off, it's not generating the vast number of hits that I had invision.
http://goodstuffsworld.blogspot.com/2014/09/goodstuffs-blogging-magazine-156th-issue.html
Enough of me crying in my grog. I have to ask... Did you fantasize about Madison (the doodlebugger) removing her bra while wearing the sweatshirt, like the chick in Flashdance?
We need to keep your page views up, as I get more people linking over from you than from anywhere else by far - even more than google or my own tumblr and twitter pages!
Delete(You're way out in front, and the next two are blackmailersdontshoot.com and museshank.blogspot.com, who I think discovered my page via YOU!)
I can do the Flashdance bra thing. However, I've never been able to do the Breakfast Club lipstick thing.
Woot!
DeleteI'll take 3rd place behind those two guys and be happy!
Somehow I don't think that came out the way I intended...
DeleteWe're not going to judge you around here, MSgt. What you happily do behind those two is your business.
DeleteKaty. Two questions. First, what color was the sweatshirt? A homophobic asshole told me that his gaydar is all about shirt color. Second, how do you say "tentacle" in Espanol? I'm guessing it's all kinds of sexy-sounding, like albondegas.
ReplyDeletePlease, fuck Walmart!
Sweatshirt was dark blue, and I'm not too sure about your friend's theory. I mean, unless you're talking about a guy in a rainbow shirt. The whole gaydar thing is getting even tougher now that you have a generation of gay kids who aren't growing up with the scars of early family rejection written across their faces...
DeleteSadly perhaps, tentacle in Spanish is simply "tentáclo." I could make it sound sexy, though... maybe.
And okay, fuck Walmart., Mooner.
My wife and I thoroughly enjoy Walmart: Good products, reduced prices.
DeletePeople get very excitable over Walmart. Usually, it's over employment practices, their ability to drive Mom & Pop stores out of business in rural areas, and their ability to dominate the sales of certain industries.
DeleteHowever, I don't know that I've ever actually been inside a Walmart.
Did my last comment get swallowed? Dammit, I blame the wall monster.
ReplyDeleteGlad you found a an adorable girl and you will get to bask in her adorability during Spanish.I was predisposed to find her quirks annoying as soon as you said she was not only late but had a flippant disregard for punctuality. Timeliness or Detention! That's on my family crest.
DeleteAlso, the prevailing dating theory is that you don't bring up tentacle talk until at least the fifth date. That's what Christian Mingle says.
I'm habitually early. For everything. I spend a lot of time in parking lots waiting for someone to unlock the door to where I'm going.
DeleteThe good part about Madison being late, though, is that it will allow me to pay attention to the professor during the first part of class.
I think I might post my tentacle story next week so y'all can decide for yourselves...
What about the Aesop's Fable you were recounting? What happened to Anthony? That's what I was waiting to find out.
ReplyDeleteYou've gotta take a long range view of these story arcs. This could be going on for years. Dana may have died of old age before the muse has me fill you in on her condition.
DeleteIt will be worth the wait, though. That much I know.
Whatever you do, Katie, don't hit her with Mooner's famous opening line for vanquishment ... "How's it hangin', Babe?" or Little Ms. Adorable will skeee-DADDLE!
ReplyDeleteum ... some have tentacles. some have claws ....
Frankly, my record isn't much worse than Mooner's... My general rule of thumb from here on out when it comes to women is to do exactly the opposite of whatever my instinct and gut tell me to do.Although if my gut tells me to do the opposite of what my gut tells me, I do get a paradoxical point...
DeleteBJ, Mooner also licks his eyebrows when he says it, which might explain his eleven marriages. Probably explains the ten divorces, too...
DeleteI think there would be a few red flags with Mooner, if I went that way. The talking dogs, bad marital history, and visits from God, for instance. Otherwise, the mental history would be fine, of course...
DeleteI love this story so much. Perfect amount of details and feeling. Absolutely loved it.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Michelle! I'm happy about this one because I just sat down and wrote it with no planning or forethought, really. That almost never happens!
DeleteI appreciate this for two reasons. 1) for the writing, and 2) for never at any point calling her "adorbs."
ReplyDeleteOh, you Beer for the Shower guys! U so cray-cray!
DeleteI don't know why, but that comment really totes mah goats.
DeleteMy bike!
DeleteThose well rehearsed lines never work on the truly beautiful, anyway. They've heard them all, and have their bullshit filters set on permanent high alert. I wish I'd thought of the earbuds/headphones thing when I was taking Spanish in high school. At least then I'd have a good excuse for spending two years in Spanish I, and two more getting through Spanish II. "Didn't hear a word of it all semester... What can you expect?"
ReplyDeleteThat's sort of why I'm taking Spanish (again). I took 11 credit hours of it in undergrad but I don't remember much. I figure if I'm going to keep working in nonprofit - or with the general public at all - in Houston, I probably ought to know Spanish...
DeleteYou should just have cards printed out with your name and blog address, and phone number on them. Anyone who spends more than five minutes surfing through your blobber posts would HAVE to make contact. They'd be drawn like moths to a flame... Not that moths fare well once they've arrived... maybe that's a lousy analogy. Metal shavings to a magnet? Lint to a navel? (Mooner's right: Fuck Walmart)
ReplyDeleteThat approach would completely eliminate my concerns about breaking new people into my weirdness slowly, wouldn't it?
DeleteOne should avoid weird, of course
ReplyDeleteYeah... shopping at Walmart is a great way to avoid weird people...
DeleteI'm not sure what it even means to be "weird" actually, but I seem to get accused of it a lot.
DeleteI don't know, I really like weird. And, although you seem a little weird to a first timer at your blog, you are adorable as well.
DeleteHi, chuck! Why is it that the people I've never met on the internet all say I'm adorable but the people I HAVE met in the real world all say I'm weird?
DeleteIt should be the other way around.
I'm adorable, damn it.
Well at least you said "Hi" to her. Some people would just sit and stare at her creepily every day in the class and never actually say anything to her.
ReplyDeleteJay
Speaking of creepy, I realized last night that Madison is closer in age to my eldest daughter than she is to me.
DeleteAlso, my "hi" is probably as creepy as most people's leering.