I'm a bad conversationalist. Yesterday, on my way back from work, I sat next to this guy on the bus. It was a public bus filled, as is usually the case, with mostly blue-collar workers. I find blue collar workers to be quite the chatty bunch. This guy was of the working class, I could tell. He had the garb down to a damn tee. He wore two jackets, a beat-up brown scull cap with matching, equally ratty, brown scarf, and black nylon pants that looked like they'd been washed non-stop since the turn of the century. It was cold but he looked strangely over dressed.
He told me he liked my hoodie, this gray old thing I bought at Sears about 2 years ago and asked where I'd got it from. I wanted to tell him the truth, I really did. I wanted to tell him it was on sale at Sears and I only got it because it was the cheapest one there; instead I found myself thinking up a lie that would end the conversation. Don't get me wrong, I'm not snobby or anything like that, I just don't enjoy small talk very much. I'm no good at it. Besides, whats it good for anyway? I can do without small talk and I can certainly do without talking about my cheap gray Sears hooded jacket simply to pass time. I'm one of those introspective people who feel perfectly fine sitting alone at the back of a bus with their thoughts. Anyway, I told him someone gave it to me. Now thats a conversation dead-ender right there. Whats he going to do, ask me who?
You probably think I'm a snob anyway but that's not true at all. Thing is, right after I lied, I felt real bad about it but I couldn't even help myself. I'm so bad at small-talk; my mind just rolls over and plays dead every time I'm about to get into one. Well, after my mind decided to play dead and after I lied to **obfuscate** my mindlessness, he began telling me how nice my jacket looked. He kept saying "Man thats a really nice hoodie man". I thanked him but he still repeated it about 3 more times. I just hate it when people repeat themselves 3 goddam times when you heard them fine the first time. It makes me want to roll my eyes and walk away but I usually don't. I just stay there and nod and smile. I make myself sick. Then he pulled out his cellphone and showed me pictures of fucking Bentleys and fancy Mercedes and some other high-faluting cars. Can you believe that? I didn't even ask to see his damn cars and here he was giving me a virtual tour of his imagined garage via cellphone pictures. He kept saying "I like to do it big too, man" . Again, he said it like 3 times. That just drove me right to the edge of wretching up lunch all over his nylon pants. I wanted to move to another seat because I really hate it when people do bigheaded things like - show me pictures of their fucking cars on their cellphones. I wanted to change seats, but I didn't. I just sat there and said "thats cool man, that's really cool". I really make myself sick sometimes.
Well, that was really the end of it. We just sat there the entire ride until he got off. He never said another word to me but I knew he wanted to; I just knew he was hoping I'd say something about the weather or some irrelevant shit like that so we could get into it and small-talk our way to small-talk nirvana, but I didn't. It wasn't as though I was bursting at the seams with small-talk ideas. I suppose he figured I was a bad conversationalist or something. Maybe he just thought I was snobby. To tell you the truth, I don't care too much if he thought I was a big snob with a fancy hoodie. He's one of those people who says things like "when I get rich, I'm gonna buy me a garage full of Bentleys and Mercedes and some other high-faluting cars and take pictures of every one of them on my cellphone and show them to strangers I meet on the fucking bus". I hate those type of people and I'd love to snob them every chance I get.
Word of the day **obfuscate** - I'm trying to roid up my vocabulary. Maybe using words like this in pretentious ways like I did will help :-)
Thursday, November 29, 2007
Tuesday, November 6, 2007
On that Thursday evening
I walked into a room thick with heat and boasting at least 50 slightly sauteed men and women and one boy. There was a kid on the stage playing something uninspired on a guitar; I think he was singing as well, I forget now. I sat on what looked to be the only seat available, way in the back, inbetween a gay man and a lesbian. My luck eh? The Lesbian introduces herself as the president of so and so lesbian club up yonder over there and I believe she threw in her name to complete a proper introduction. It matters little since I forgot it before she was done speaking. Sorry, I wasn't paying too much attention. The heat was stifling, the music, horrendous and Mr. Gay man to my left, disarmingly beautiful (i.e. a major distraction). Before I could bite my tounge, I told her this was my first time there clearly exposing the nervousness I was consciously stuggling to conceal. She smiled and invited me to their next meeting. It was an "aww, how cute" kind of smile too. I hate those.
The kid and his guitar exit the stage and the host of the event declares an "open mic" which I learn means the mic is available to anyone interested in using it. A girl who I'd noticed, sitting hand-in-hand with a young man, gets up to address us. She tells us that she's a freshman, only 18 and had just days before, been disowned by her family for being a lesbian. She thanks the club for giving her a place to "be renewed and reassured". Those words make me happy for her and I smile even though she's on the verge of tears. She points out the love of her life in the crowd who -surpise, suprise- turns out to be, not a man as I'd assumed, but one of those Ellen Degeneres-type butch lesbians. I remind myself: close cropped hair, a pair of slacks and a white long sleeved shirt does not make a person a man and any assumtions about gender within this group must be backed by emperical proof which at some point will require such uncouth statements as "Pull it out" or the subtly suggestive "Let me see it". She descends the stage into a standing ovation and I wish her all the luck she'll ever need.
Another girl comes up and recites a poem in a style that was neither Tennyson (certainly NOT Tennyson) nor Angelou nor like anything I'd ever heard. She read it like she was rapping, hip-hop poetry and at the end I wanted so much to tell her what a genious way it was to read poetry like she'd just done. It had such a smooth flow and yet it had drama and passion and gentleness and ferocity all in the delivery of the poem. I mean the words were like a backdrop for the rhythm of it. At times she spoke so fast the words came at me in a riot but because of the way she said it, I got it. It was understood. The way she sped up at certain points and at others, dropped the words one after a pause after another after a pause after another... I tell you I was so enraptured by it, I felt the urge to shout alleluia in appreciation ...or was it in agreement? I appreciated the beauty of it and it agreed with my senses so maybe both. I discovered later that it wasn't such a ground breaking effort. It's a way of delivering poetry called "spoken word" and if this lady's delivery left me hungry for more, the lady that followed satisfied me enough to promise myself a copy of her CD.
So here this other lady steps up and introduces herself. Her name is Pandora Scooter. She said was Asian I think and started off with a comedy skit. I spent the whole time just taking her in. She was a lesbian and had made that clear with the first joke. She wore a bra and I know this because her top was see-through. She tied up some locks of her hair in blue and red and green ribbons that made me think of her as a tree hugger or a hippie or a woman who didn't give a fuck about what you or your friend thought of her. I liked her immediately. After getting the crowd lively with a few jokes, she dove right into her first spoken word called "Box". Fun and funny and throughly entertaining, we chanted "more! more!" after she was done to which she treated us to another she called "Chilled Hot Cocoa"; a, dare I say, better poem. Here are both performances found on youtube that'll save me an extra paragraph or two of struggling to describe each one. (These are not footage from that day)
After Ms. Scooter was done and said goodbye, the experience for me was over. I had things to study for and I was beginning to cook in all that heat. Nothing became of Mr. gay man to my left. I sort of forgot about him (thats what happens when I give my bigger head preference over my little one), oh well. Maybe next time I'll introduce myself. As for the lesbian...well...what am I to do with a lesbian? (I kid, she was nice)
Ok, I'm too tired to continue. Sleep overwhelms me now. Forgive me if I stumbled through this post, I've had this story on my mind and had to write it down before living consumes me again.
g'nite
zzzzzzzz
The kid and his guitar exit the stage and the host of the event declares an "open mic" which I learn means the mic is available to anyone interested in using it. A girl who I'd noticed, sitting hand-in-hand with a young man, gets up to address us. She tells us that she's a freshman, only 18 and had just days before, been disowned by her family for being a lesbian. She thanks the club for giving her a place to "be renewed and reassured". Those words make me happy for her and I smile even though she's on the verge of tears. She points out the love of her life in the crowd who -surpise, suprise- turns out to be, not a man as I'd assumed, but one of those Ellen Degeneres-type butch lesbians. I remind myself: close cropped hair, a pair of slacks and a white long sleeved shirt does not make a person a man and any assumtions about gender within this group must be backed by emperical proof which at some point will require such uncouth statements as "Pull it out" or the subtly suggestive "Let me see it". She descends the stage into a standing ovation and I wish her all the luck she'll ever need.
Another girl comes up and recites a poem in a style that was neither Tennyson (certainly NOT Tennyson) nor Angelou nor like anything I'd ever heard. She read it like she was rapping, hip-hop poetry and at the end I wanted so much to tell her what a genious way it was to read poetry like she'd just done. It had such a smooth flow and yet it had drama and passion and gentleness and ferocity all in the delivery of the poem. I mean the words were like a backdrop for the rhythm of it. At times she spoke so fast the words came at me in a riot but because of the way she said it, I got it. It was understood. The way she sped up at certain points and at others, dropped the words one after a pause after another after a pause after another... I tell you I was so enraptured by it, I felt the urge to shout alleluia in appreciation ...or was it in agreement? I appreciated the beauty of it and it agreed with my senses so maybe both. I discovered later that it wasn't such a ground breaking effort. It's a way of delivering poetry called "spoken word" and if this lady's delivery left me hungry for more, the lady that followed satisfied me enough to promise myself a copy of her CD.
So here this other lady steps up and introduces herself. Her name is Pandora Scooter. She said was Asian I think and started off with a comedy skit. I spent the whole time just taking her in. She was a lesbian and had made that clear with the first joke. She wore a bra and I know this because her top was see-through. She tied up some locks of her hair in blue and red and green ribbons that made me think of her as a tree hugger or a hippie or a woman who didn't give a fuck about what you or your friend thought of her. I liked her immediately. After getting the crowd lively with a few jokes, she dove right into her first spoken word called "Box". Fun and funny and throughly entertaining, we chanted "more! more!" after she was done to which she treated us to another she called "Chilled Hot Cocoa"; a, dare I say, better poem. Here are both performances found on youtube that'll save me an extra paragraph or two of struggling to describe each one. (These are not footage from that day)
After Ms. Scooter was done and said goodbye, the experience for me was over. I had things to study for and I was beginning to cook in all that heat. Nothing became of Mr. gay man to my left. I sort of forgot about him (thats what happens when I give my bigger head preference over my little one), oh well. Maybe next time I'll introduce myself. As for the lesbian...well...what am I to do with a lesbian? (I kid, she was nice)
Ok, I'm too tired to continue. Sleep overwhelms me now. Forgive me if I stumbled through this post, I've had this story on my mind and had to write it down before living consumes me again.
g'nite
zzzzzzzz
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