Anyone Who Ever Had a Heart. . . At Midnight

No time for reading the news or moping and feeling sorry for myself this morning.  I have to get to the paint store so I can get started on the deck before the sun pounds me into the earth.  I need to be done by siesta time.  I should have done this months ago, but. . . .   

Just a quick note then.  I've been writing with the girl who almost asked me out a bit.  Again.  Yesterday she wrote that she was unmotivated and still in her pajamas as the morning faded away.  That's what Sundays are for, I said, being lazy, listening to gentle music, and perhaps drinking a mimosa.  She sent me a promo for a street fair in the dirty hipster part of town and said she was thinking of going to that.  It was just down the street from where I live.  So I said.  And I said, "I should grab a camera and go take a look."  Now if I were a different kind of man, I would have told her to come over and we could go from here, but I have never done a thing like that in my life.  I'm shy, of course, but there is more to it than that, I think.  Anyway, I didn't say come over or that I would meet her there or anything else that would have obligated me to something on a Sunday afternoon.  

I probably need to see a therapist.  It's not commitment issues, I am realizing, but obligation issues.  I simply do not like to be obligated to do anything.  My time.  Do what I want.  Even if I am lonely.  Even if I am miserable.  

But I was not miserable.  I didn't even feel lonely.  I was feeling more a sense of purpose and accomplishment.  Still. . . it would be fun to. . . but you know, it has been awhile. . . .

Eventually, I did grab my camera and head to the hipster fair.  There were cars lining the streets for miles, but I could have parked.  I decided, however, to make a drive thru first.  I went slowly so as not to run some dirty little hipster over as they were walking everywhere as if owning the streets.  And they were dirty little hipsters.  Well, not so little, and they seemed to be mostly misshapen, dressed in decade old hand-me-downs.  Tight, cut-off jeans shorts just above the knees, legs covered in tasteless tattoos, ragged old tank tops with band names from times past.  Silly hats.  There were hundreds of them, and they all seemed to know one another.  Of course they did.  They are a cult.  Now past their youth, they are out to brainwash children and lure them into their sick and twisted den.  

O.K.  That was fun.  That was my nightmare version of it.  It wasn't like that so much, really.  There were nice people and lots of booths and food trucks.  My problem was me.  I couldn't bring myself to get out of the car with a camera.  Fear got me and I was shamed by it.  If I could get my easy, confident, casual manner with a camera back, I could have made some very interesting images, I think.  But I couldn't.  There is a little voice in my head now, chirping at me from years ago.  I need an advocate.  

Or a therapist.  

So. . . no matter.  I kept driving.  I'd go to the Cafe Strange and get a mimosa.  Oooo. . . what an idea.  I felt stupid and routinized. . . but whatever.  

When I walked up to the counter, the girl taking my order looked like she was disappointed she couldn't go to the hipster faire.  That's how they spelled it.  Faire.  Now, I've given up on girls, as I have told you, knowing that none of them likes me anymore, and since I have. . . I think I have been wrong.  But that is the way of things, isn't it?  You give up and lose that manic psycho look that announces "loser" that you've been unconsciously wearing, and you relax.  

"Hey there.  What can I get you."

"I'd like a large mimosa."

"Large?"

Me, uncertainly, "Yea."

"Fuck yea.  Why not. Yea, alright."

Laughing nervously.  "Yea.  Fuck yea."

"Do you want it in a pint glass?"  She held up a pint glass for beer.  

"Uh. . . they usually give me one of those round bottom glasses. . . . "

"Do you want it in this?" she asked cocking her head.  

"Uh. . . sure.  I mean. . . fuck yea."

She took the Prosecco bottle and filled the glass more than three quarters of the way, then squeezed some oranges and poured a little in.  Then she put it on the counter and rang me up.  $7.  WTF?  A pint of mimosa for $7.  Her eyes were smiling.  I tipped her well.  

Later I got a text from the girl who almost asked me out.  She was at the Faire.  It was quite a hike from her home on the outskirts of Factory City.  

"It's hot as fuck," she said.  "I'm going home."

Well, then.  I guess I might have blown that.  Selavy.  

When I went to my mother's for dinner, I was terrified that we would be invited to play canasta across the street.  

"Oh. . . Don had to go to some event.  He's not home."

Well, thank goodness.  At least there was that. 

Back home, I poured the evening scotch.  I would go to bed early, I told myself.  I had an early day.  

But at midnight, I was watching this.  The band did many, many versions for many, many years, but the early ones when they had the accordion player and the slide guitar were by far the best.  Beyond midnight.  Jesus.  That's what losers do, I guess.