The goal was simply not to be in my house. Something about the lack of windows in my bedroom impacts me in the psychological sense. When I got off work last night, I thought to myself that I should just go somewhere. I swung by the house, changed my shoes, grabbed my iPod (did I mention it’s working again?), and went for a walk towards downtown. I had my man-purse with me in case I wound up somewhere that would entail me to read.
While walking from my near West Cliff Drive house to the strip we all call Pacific Avenue, I had this random experience with individuals I could not identify. At three different points of my walk to downtown, I had three different people wave and say hi to me as if we were once friends or acquaintances. I know people will do the typical friendly wave and/or smile acknowledgement, but these three moments were a bit more involved. A blonde woman on a bike was on her cell phone and consistently waved at me while I was walking down Woodrow Avenue; I was caught off guard and didn’t really wave back, I basically tilted my head in some obtuse angle. A man was walking toward me and said, “Hey! What’s up?!” I replied with a what’s up back, and he then asked me how I was doing; I said fine but that I am in a hurry. He said he would talk to me later. I had no clue who that person was. Then when I hit the downtown area, I found a spot at Café Pergelosi (a hipster coffee joint) and a woman walked by and asked, “How’s it going?” Again, these could all have been random friendly encounters, but there was something in their energy that made it seem that I had some previous experience with them; I just didn’t know what that experience was.
As I mentioned, I stopped at Café Pergelosi (I don’t know if I am spelling that correctly), and bought myself a latte and found a spot outside. I had a book and decided to read it. While sitting there outside, I couldn’t help but just people watch. I looked around the culture of the coffee shop and noticed these themes. Anyone who was sitting by himself, had a book and a notepad. These were obviously the academic type; however, I decided to grab my notepad and placed that on the table just to sort of fit in. Then there were the clusters of people and their general themes or motifs. There were the punk rockers, the Harley Davidson types, the intellectual hipsters, and high schoolers who thought they were changing the world. I eventually left when I realized there were no more individuals and I could not be placed in any of the given groups.
I continued my little odyssey down Pacific Avenue and found myself at Bookshop Santa Cruz. I grabbed a copy of Sarte’s play No Exit; a coworker was talking about it and I had read most of it when I was in college. When browsing through it, something seemed odd to me. Here I was, sitting on some random chair at a local independent bookstore, reading No Exit by Jean-Paul Sarte, still wearing my preppy work clothes; I felt that all I was missing was a cappuccino or something strongly related. After dawning my pretentious state of mind, I decided to leave the book due to its reflections of my own living situation. For those who don’t know, No Exit deals with people being stuck in a room with no windows and one door; the characters all think they’re in Hell. I found an exit.
At that point I was near the end of Pacific Avenue and decided to get one more cup of coffee. I was near Lulu’s, which is a more frequent spot for me when it comes to coffee consumption. Of course, as I approached the entrance of the joint, out comes the bar tender lady whose number I received back in July. Many of you readers were probably wondering whatever came about from that. You may recall, I called her and left a message before I left for Virginia, never heard from her, so I called her again when I got back and had a brief conversation with her. Unfortunately, I was not able to make any positive conclusion with her (in terms of going out) because she was able to control the conversation to her advantage. I believe she knew where I was going with this and she managed to end it before I could get to my destination. The next visit to the Red, she was giving me the cold shoulder, and this was verified by the friends I went with. Over the next course of time, I ran into her at different parts of town, and she wouldn’t really say hi to me, it was more of a nod and a walk away. One of my last visits to the Red, I approached the counter and she mysteriously left the bar and then reappeared once I turned my back to it. I found it strange, the whole thing. I didn’t even get to make an ass out of myself yet. A couple of friends indicated that I should just move on, that she’s not worth my time. That may be wise.
Going back to the second coffee shop visit, I saw her and she gave me the generic nod and continued walking. I felt that somewhere, there is a parallel universe and that a totally different situation took place. In that pocketed universe, I would confront her about not talking to me. She would explain that she knew that I liked her and that she just saw me as a polite bar customer.
“But you didn’t even give me a chance.”
“I was doing my best not to lead you on.”
“Well, you clearly didn’t know this, but I am a great kisser. And I can tell you don’t listen to the BBC or follow the research that comes out of NYU. Once you experienced my talent, your expectations of me will go in a complete direction.”
“Research on kissing? Out of NYU? Where would I begin to look into that?”
“Maybe their biology department, possibly the sociology department. Not quite sure.”
“Interesting.”
“Come on, we can at least try something. Why the cold shoulder? Maybe we can go and try to do something. I bet you’re great at playing Jacks!”
“I do kick ass at the Jacks.”
“Are you good at getting threesies?”
“I’ve gotten foursies once.”
“Get out!”
“It’s true.”
The conversation would then trail off somewhere and the two of us, in this parallel pocketed universe, would enjoy each other’s company and find some activity to do.
However, this never happened in our current state of reality. I bought my cup of coffee to go, walked outside and saw her with two of her friends at one of the nearby tables, but I didn’t want to waste my time. I figured this would be the moment, that if I went up to the table, then I would be making an ass out of myself and that would make me feel a tad more complete. I refrained from doing that; wasn’t in the mood.
The headphones went back on and my odyssey continued; this time, I went in the direction of my house. I placed my music on shuffle and I was curious to see what kind of soundtrack I would get from my walk home. Nothing came up that seemed fitting.
While walking from my near West Cliff Drive house to the strip we all call Pacific Avenue, I had this random experience with individuals I could not identify. At three different points of my walk to downtown, I had three different people wave and say hi to me as if we were once friends or acquaintances. I know people will do the typical friendly wave and/or smile acknowledgement, but these three moments were a bit more involved. A blonde woman on a bike was on her cell phone and consistently waved at me while I was walking down Woodrow Avenue; I was caught off guard and didn’t really wave back, I basically tilted my head in some obtuse angle. A man was walking toward me and said, “Hey! What’s up?!” I replied with a what’s up back, and he then asked me how I was doing; I said fine but that I am in a hurry. He said he would talk to me later. I had no clue who that person was. Then when I hit the downtown area, I found a spot at Café Pergelosi (a hipster coffee joint) and a woman walked by and asked, “How’s it going?” Again, these could all have been random friendly encounters, but there was something in their energy that made it seem that I had some previous experience with them; I just didn’t know what that experience was.
As I mentioned, I stopped at Café Pergelosi (I don’t know if I am spelling that correctly), and bought myself a latte and found a spot outside. I had a book and decided to read it. While sitting there outside, I couldn’t help but just people watch. I looked around the culture of the coffee shop and noticed these themes. Anyone who was sitting by himself, had a book and a notepad. These were obviously the academic type; however, I decided to grab my notepad and placed that on the table just to sort of fit in. Then there were the clusters of people and their general themes or motifs. There were the punk rockers, the Harley Davidson types, the intellectual hipsters, and high schoolers who thought they were changing the world. I eventually left when I realized there were no more individuals and I could not be placed in any of the given groups.
I continued my little odyssey down Pacific Avenue and found myself at Bookshop Santa Cruz. I grabbed a copy of Sarte’s play No Exit; a coworker was talking about it and I had read most of it when I was in college. When browsing through it, something seemed odd to me. Here I was, sitting on some random chair at a local independent bookstore, reading No Exit by Jean-Paul Sarte, still wearing my preppy work clothes; I felt that all I was missing was a cappuccino or something strongly related. After dawning my pretentious state of mind, I decided to leave the book due to its reflections of my own living situation. For those who don’t know, No Exit deals with people being stuck in a room with no windows and one door; the characters all think they’re in Hell. I found an exit.
At that point I was near the end of Pacific Avenue and decided to get one more cup of coffee. I was near Lulu’s, which is a more frequent spot for me when it comes to coffee consumption. Of course, as I approached the entrance of the joint, out comes the bar tender lady whose number I received back in July. Many of you readers were probably wondering whatever came about from that. You may recall, I called her and left a message before I left for Virginia, never heard from her, so I called her again when I got back and had a brief conversation with her. Unfortunately, I was not able to make any positive conclusion with her (in terms of going out) because she was able to control the conversation to her advantage. I believe she knew where I was going with this and she managed to end it before I could get to my destination. The next visit to the Red, she was giving me the cold shoulder, and this was verified by the friends I went with. Over the next course of time, I ran into her at different parts of town, and she wouldn’t really say hi to me, it was more of a nod and a walk away. One of my last visits to the Red, I approached the counter and she mysteriously left the bar and then reappeared once I turned my back to it. I found it strange, the whole thing. I didn’t even get to make an ass out of myself yet. A couple of friends indicated that I should just move on, that she’s not worth my time. That may be wise.
Going back to the second coffee shop visit, I saw her and she gave me the generic nod and continued walking. I felt that somewhere, there is a parallel universe and that a totally different situation took place. In that pocketed universe, I would confront her about not talking to me. She would explain that she knew that I liked her and that she just saw me as a polite bar customer.
“But you didn’t even give me a chance.”
“I was doing my best not to lead you on.”
“Well, you clearly didn’t know this, but I am a great kisser. And I can tell you don’t listen to the BBC or follow the research that comes out of NYU. Once you experienced my talent, your expectations of me will go in a complete direction.”
“Research on kissing? Out of NYU? Where would I begin to look into that?”
“Maybe their biology department, possibly the sociology department. Not quite sure.”
“Interesting.”
“Come on, we can at least try something. Why the cold shoulder? Maybe we can go and try to do something. I bet you’re great at playing Jacks!”
“I do kick ass at the Jacks.”
“Are you good at getting threesies?”
“I’ve gotten foursies once.”
“Get out!”
“It’s true.”
The conversation would then trail off somewhere and the two of us, in this parallel pocketed universe, would enjoy each other’s company and find some activity to do.
However, this never happened in our current state of reality. I bought my cup of coffee to go, walked outside and saw her with two of her friends at one of the nearby tables, but I didn’t want to waste my time. I figured this would be the moment, that if I went up to the table, then I would be making an ass out of myself and that would make me feel a tad more complete. I refrained from doing that; wasn’t in the mood.
The headphones went back on and my odyssey continued; this time, I went in the direction of my house. I placed my music on shuffle and I was curious to see what kind of soundtrack I would get from my walk home. Nothing came up that seemed fitting.
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